Saturday. We open on Murray driving the boys to a disco club. Why? Nobody’s saying. But we are all loving it. Except for Jemaine, who’d rather go watch a video, and Bret, who would prefer “a sleep,” and thus they are both crouching down in the backseat and looking horrified when Murray pulls up to the curb and drops them off with Dave. Dave isn’t so wild about it, either, especially when the Conchords crowd him on the dance floor. To wit: “You guys are dorkin’ up my vibe with all the dicks. We need to spread the dicks out a little bit, create some lady space.” Maybe the two best lines ever written, and we haven’t even wrapped up the credits yet.
Insert: Too Many Dicks on the Dance Floor
Too many dicks on the dance floor.
Too many dicks on the dance floor.
Too many dicks.
Too many dicks on the dance floor.
Too many dicks.
Too many dicks on the dance floor.
Too many dicks.
Going to the party, sippin’ on Bacardi,
Want to meet a hottie but there’s Adam, Steve, and Marty.
There’s Billy, Todd, and Tommy, they’re on leave from the Army.
The only boobs I see tonight will be made of origami.
Tell the fellas, make it understood,
It ain’t no good if there’s too much wood.
Make sure you know before you go, the dance floor bro-ho-ratio.
Five to one is a brodeo, tell Steve and Mark it’s time to go.
Wait outside all night to find 20 dudes in a conga line.
Too many dicks on the dance floor.
Easy to fix.
Too many dicks on the dance floor.
Spread out the dicks.
Too many dudes with too many dicks
Too close to my shit, too hard to meet chicks.
I need better odds, more broads, less rods.
I came to do battle, skedaddle with the cattle prods.
Too many men, too many boys, too many misters, not enough sisters.
Too much time on too many hands, not enough ladies, too many mans.
Too many dicks, too many dongs,
Too many schlongs as I sing this song.
Cut to Jemaine putting the sex moves on a blonde sequined lady.
Sunday. Jemaine wakes beneath the majestic red rocks and amber waving grains of some very large wall art in an alarmingly awful apartment that also features a red bra dangling from a floor lamp, a Men at Work poster and a koala bear poster, as well as an Australian flag blanket that covers the bed he is currently occupying with another body. Uh oh: I smell Australia.
And it’s true: after managing a stealthy escape from the bed (wearing a pair of jeans that are unbuttoned just so we can see the top of his magic purple undies, for which my forever gratitude to you, HBO), Jemaine finds himself locked inside with no possible exit. He places a quick camera/phone call to Bret, who’s lying in bed reading Native Animals of New Zealand, which looks like it might be a paint-by-numbers kind of deal and is in fact a real thing. Bret’s first question is “Did you run away?” but he’s not actually alarmed until Jemaine tells him that he’s trapped in the apartment of a potential Australian. Bret’s helpful advice? Jump out the window and “do one of those dive rolls when you land.” And Jemaine is all ready to dive and roll when Australia Girl strolls into the kitchen and hits him with a “G’day.” Ew, definitely Australian. She follows that up by licking the inside of her own mouth and saying, “Jesus, I got a tongue like a badger’s asshole.” And then she calls him Big J! And just like that, I am officially not so hot on Australians myself. The fact that her name is “Keitha” helps nothing.
Next up is a trip to the local health clinic, where Jemaine sits alone as Bret rushes in wearing his awesome hair helmet. He’s all, Jemaine, WTF? and “Does she look Australiany?” Not really, says Jemaine, but her accent sounds “kind of like an evil version of our accent.” Did he use protection? “Yes, but only on my penis.” And how cute is that? She might have given the rest of him bedbugs or scurvy or something. Bret points at a suspicious red mark on Jemaine’s upper lip and immediately diagnoses “It’s crabs!” while Jemaine says it’s lipstick, and the dude sitting in the chair next to him slowly inches away.
Monday. Band meeting! The biscuits they ordered from the New Zealand government have finally arrived, some three weeks later. Or at least Bret’s have: Jemaine’s request was rejected, as he marked down “N/A” as his purpose for application, I suppose because “Bret bought a new cup” wouldn’t have made much sense. But with a little fatherly prod from Murray, Bret is willing to let Jemaine have one of his, and hands it over while slipping his own into the chest pocket of his nifty striped polo. Yum: stale ginger nuts for later.
All hell breaks loose, though, when Murray asks for a report on the nightclubbing experience. Jemaine hangs his head in shame while Bret spills on the whole Australian business. Which Murray takes just as badly as you might expect: very, very badly. He tells Jemaine not to listen while he and Bret confab, so Jemaine turns in his chair to stare at the wall.
“Maybe we should banish him,” Murray tells Bret. “Cast him off, you know? Never speak of him again. Just for a couple of days.” That’s kind of a sad plan, actually, which they abandon almost immediately in order to focus on their biggest concern, which is whether or not she might have mocked Jemaine’s accent. Consensus: she might have! “They’re tricky,” Murray says. Then he goes on to confuse Australians with Australian mermaids, who used to lure sailors to their watery graves and are, I believe, more accurately known as “Sirens” and not necessarily Australian, but whatever. Jemaine doesn’t take it very well when Murray asks if he’s got his wallet, and his voices rises into serious girl territory when he says, “Yes, I’ve got my wallet!”
Except Keitha has his wallet. And of course he goes around knocking on her door, and of course she’s got his wallet right there in her back pocket, and of course he’ll go in for a cup of tea, because tea is his albatross. He’s also still hoping that somehow she’s not actually Australian, so he quizzes her on the ol’ family tree, only to learn that not only are all of her relatives deeply Australian, but in fact mostly criminals, including a great-great-grandfather who met her great-great grandmother (a prostitute) when he raped her. Finally she gets bored enough to proposition him with this romantic come-on: “You’ve got two options: A) sit around here asking me stupid questions, or B) get in that bedroom and root me again.” Wow! Talk to your mother with that mouth? I’m guessing yeah. And it sounds like her mother probably likes it. As does Jemaine, apparently, because he chooses Option B.
Nighttime. Jemaine is lying alone in his own bed, trying to write a new song for his new girl: “Do Australians feel love? Are they capable of love? Do they even know what they’re speaking of?” He calls out to Bret five or six times, which finally wakes Bret. “Can I ask you a question?” Jemaine asks. Bret asks if it can wait till morning, and Jemaine says sure, and then he freezes there in approximately the same position until morning, when he calls Bret’s name out five or six more times and finally wakes him up. Which is another one of those weird, meaningless little details that reward nerds like me, who live in the details.
Question: “What would you think if I did go out with that Australian?” Bret can’t believe he’s even considering it, and reminds Jemaine that “When we met, you tried to have me deported from New Zealand ‘cause you thought I was an Australian.” Misunderstanding! says Jemaine: “You were wearing a vest top.” Which Bret’s mother told him made him look like Bruce Willis. Jemaine claims that Keitha would never be his girlfriend anyway, except then suddenly it’s…
…Tuesday, and Bret and Murray are sitting at a Chinese restaurant when Jemaine arrives to introduce them to Keitha. HIS GIRLFRIEND. Who has dressed him up just like the late Steve Irwin, and I can’t even complain because he has really nice legs. First thing Murray says to Jemaine is “That’s a man’s name,” (re: Keitha) and then he turns to Keitha to say, “Got quite the accent, don’t you, Kevina?” And let’s pause here while I laugh for a couple more minutes, and give Rhys Darby every single comedic acting award that it’s possible to give, and maybe throw in a Nobel Peace Prize while we’re at it. The guy is amazing. Especially when Keitha tells him that her mother thinks she talks like Marilyn Monroe now, and he says, “Yeah, I suppose, if you squint your ears.” So we’ll probably have to throw in one of them Pulitzers, too.
When she leaves to use the restroom (after calling Murray “Muzza” and Jemaine “Sweetcocks”), Murray tells Jemaine it’s gotta stop: what about the children? “They’ll become aberrations, won’t they?” Meaning “Aborigines.” Jemaine’s not backing down, although he does sit up straight when Murray tells him to stop slouching. Murray and Bret want to escape before Keitha returns, out of fear that she’ll ridicule them, and so we get this sweet farewell:
Bret: “See you later, Big J.”
Murray: “Let’s go, Little B.”
Bret: “Okay, Little M.”
Murray: “Medium M.”
Wednesday. Bret and Jemaine are sitting in the living room when Bret asks if Jemaine has listened to the “answer phone message.” Jemaine has, but he also knows it’s actually Bret talking like a girl and pretending to be Keitha in order to break up with him. And when he plays the message, that is indeed just what it sounds like. Jemaine is a mite bit peeved, and after they scuffle over Bret’s new hand gloves, he takes off running.
He ends up, of course, at Keitha’s awful apartment, where a strange Australian girl answers the door and tells him Keitha has moved. Thank god. Only it’s a big fat lie, because there’s Keitha, wandering around right behind her! Turns out Keitha’s roommates aren’t so wild about Jemaine, either, and not just because he’s from New Zealand: “Nah, mostly it’s ‘cause they think you’re a dick. You know, with your dickish glasses and that.” Still, Keitha admits she kinda likes him, and sadly, he feels the same.
Insert: Carol Brown – maybe the best song and the best video and the best Bret dancing ever
Loretta broke my heart in a letter,
She told me she was leaving and our lives would be better.
Joan broke it off over the phone;
After the tone, she left me alone.
Jen said she’d never ever see me again,
When I saw her again, she said it again.
Jan met another man,
Liza got amnesia, just forgot who I am.
Felicity said there was no electricity,
Emily, no chemistry.
Fran ran, she turned out to be a man.
Flo had to go, I couldn’t go with the flow.
Carol Brown just took a bus out of town,
But I’m hoping that you’ll stick around.
He doesn’t cook or clean, he’s not good boyfriend material.
Ooh-ee, and he eats cereal.
He’ll lose interest fast, his relationships never last.
Shut up, girlfriends from the past.
She says he’ll do one thing and then he goes and he does another thing.
Oh, who organized all of my ex-girlfriends into a choir and got them to sing?
Who? Who? Mmm, shut up!
Shut up, girlfriends from the past.
May, May will no longer see me.
Britney, Britney hit me.
Paula, Persephone, Stella and Stephanie,
There must be fifty ways that lovers have left me.
Carol Brown just took a bus out of town.
Love is a delicate thing, it could just float away on a breeze—
He said the same thing to me.
How can we ever know we found the right person in this world?
He means he looks at other girls.
Love is a mystery, it does not follow a rule.
This guys is a fool, he’ll always be a boy.
He’s a man who never grew up—
I thought I told you to shut up.
Lola, you told me you were in a coma.
Tiffany, you said that you had an epiphany.
Mmm, would you like a little cereal?
Who organized this choir of ex-girlfriends?
Was it you, Carol Brown, was it you, Carol Brown?
Carol Brown just took a bus out of town,
But I’m hoping that you’ll stick around.
Stick around…
Murray and Bret go looking for Jemaine at Dave’s pawn shop, where they stumble into some initial confusion over exactly which Conchord Jemaine actually is, since Dave isn’t so sure. But Jemaine is lost, and Dave hasn’t seen him, so Murray and Bret take off right before Jemaine and Keitha pop out of a back room. Intrigue! Dave tells them he thinks it’s cool that they’re in love, “Even if you’re from Austria, and you’re from some place no one’s even fuckin’ heard of.” Plus it shouldn’t matter where you’re from, as long as you’re in love: “It’s like that movie, Interracial Hole Stretchers II. She was white, and they were black. But it didn’t matter in the end, did it? ‘Cause they were in love.” And so am I, with Dave.
Keitha leaves to pack, since she and Jemaine are running off together. To New Jersey. To elope! (Where’s Mel, by the way?) For some reason Dave thinks this is another awesome idea: “I’d love to go there,” he tells Jemaine sadly. “But I’ve got a lotta shit going on in the States right now.” Then he tells Jemaine not to drink the water in Jersey, which is a pretty sweet parting gift.
Cut to: Jemaine standing at some end of Central Park, waiting with a suitcase and his bass. Hours pass, and it grows dark. He waits. Sad. Rejected. Finally he picks up his crap and approaches a horse-drawn carriage, asking the driver if he’s seen an Australian girl. Nope. Jemaine thinks for a moment, then says, mostly to himself: “She said she’d done it before.” Which doesn’t sound like great news, does it? He jumps aboard the carriage and tells the driver to take him straight to Chinatown: “And do not delay, sir!” Except the horse can’t leave Central Park, the driver tells him. Which is exactly what Jemaine deserves for being so bossy just then. So he takes off running instead.
Chinatown: Jemaine opens the door to his dark apartment, stepping inside to see that it’s totally empty. Wiped clean. Bereft. He’s been Australianed! He turns on the light and the door swings shut to reveal poor Bret, who is strapped to the back of it in a sort of mummy suit of duct tape. “Bret!” says Jemaine. “Have you seen Keitha?” Bret says she robbed them: “Her and her friends jumped me, then taped me to the door!” And didn’t say a single thing about Jemaine. “I’m not sure about her and me,” Jemaine says, shaking his head. Bret asks if he can have his sandwich, which Jemaine picks up off the floor and sticks in one of his hands. “Can I get a hug?” Jemaine asks. Bret says no, but Jemaine hugs him anyway. “I’m not participating in this hug,” Bret tells him, until Jemaine starts to cry, at which point Bret pats him on the head with his freakin’ fabulous sandwich. Damn it, I love this show.