Buck is over an hour late to work, and he stinks of booze. He tells Richard that his friends took him out last night for his 21st birthday, and he drank a lot of kamikazes, cosmopolitans or cosmokazes — he can’t remember. And apparently he hooked up with an older blonde French woman … who looks a lot like Amy from Super Value Mart. Knowing Leslie would feel betrayed, Richard and Buck have to keep this a secret.
Leslie thinks Buck has a drinking problem, and he wants to mobilize the crew into helping Buck out. Yolanda has to get a strand of Buck’s hair for a DNA sample. Todd has to get the urine sample.
The crew holds an intervention (or “intermission” according to Carl). Leslie wants to send Buck to a camp for alcoholics. He also wants to send Richard to a camp for codependence, which just turns out to be a musical theater camp. Ingrid reveals a dark secret that she once had an obsession problem … with Milli Vanilli. When they lost their Grammy, she could not blame it on the rain. She blamed herself. Buck explains what really happened — he went out with friends, got drunk and picked up Amy Anderson at the Fantabulous Bang Bang Monkey Bar.
Leslie’s taking the news hard. He’s drinking beer and listening to monster ballads on a boom box out on the loading dock. Buck comes over to apologize, and Leslie explains that he’s feeling old, his life sucks and he has nose hair that could pull a trailer. So Leslie gets the idea to invite himself out to go clubbin’ with Buck and his twentysomething friends.
But Leslie will have to learn how to dance first. While stacking jars of California grape leaves (in addition to wrapping foods such as rice, meat, and vegetables, grape leaves can be used in salads or as a garnish for appetizer plates), Carl reveals that he “pops it” every once in a while and would be happy to teach Leslie some moves. Carl busts moves that are equal parts breakin’ and krumpin’, but completely bad. Leslie joins in, and a dance party breaks out in the aisle, freaking out some elderly customers.
At the Monkey Bar, Leslie is dancing “fierce” with Buck’s friend Jasmine, who probably didn’t know what she was getting into. Leslie is dressed like a character from Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo, and the image isn’t helped by the fruity drink he ordered. Amy shows up, and things start getting uncomfortable. Buck says that he lost her phone number, and that their hook-up was only a one-night thing.
Amy goes into the ladies’ room to cry in one of the stalls. Leslie follows her in the ladies room to console her. Turns out Amy’s been suffering from the same thing as Leslie — she feels old, too. Leslie explains that Buck had a shot at the Super Bowl, but he chose to go back to the minor leagues, which is a bad metaphor because football doesn’t have minor leagues. They have this whole fixed thing … Amy pulls Leslie into the stall and they have a one-night thing of their own. Probably not how Leslie imagined it. But he’ll take it.
The next morning, Leslie shows up at Greens & Grains reeking of booze. He smells like a guy who knows how to crank it up! He’s young again!
Best Moments: Leslie explaining that pigs fly occasionally, when dropped from airplanes. In prehistoric times, pigs had wings that eventually atrophied and were lost. Leslie also gives a good reason for why the microwave popcorn should be in the produce section next to corn. Orville Redenbacher reminds Leslie of his dad. Orville deserves to be with his father, and his father is what we call maize.
Employee Of The Week: Carl. He busts some kind moves.
Product Placements: Orville Redenbacher’s Smart Pop Gourmet Popping Corn (with no diacetyl added!). In one of the more brilliant product placements in the series, we find Yolanda bending over as she stacks boxes of Orville’s popcorn. So now whenever we ogle Yolanda, we’ll think of Orville. Sexy!
Unintended Product Placement: When I went to find out exactly what grape leaves were used for, I discovered that they used jars of Orlando California grape leaves in the show and just covered up the Orlando label with a different one. From now on, I’m only eating food that’s wrapped in or garnished with grape leaves.
