Uncommon Jay: Unleash the Jazz Hands

The big focus of this week’s episode is the drama flyin’ around between Kristin’s employees, drama we know Jay wants no part of. While a bit of a sasser, Jay Cutler lives a drama-free life that he protects at all costs, most notably by ensconcing himself in the creature comforts of home (two homes, in fact, but we’ll get to that) and not spending one iota of his day in a way he doesn’t want. No jobs, no masters, no drama. What’s big in Jay’s world this week is whether or not he’s gotten the palatial goat palace he’s been after.

1st Down

We open and it’s instantly jazz-hands Jay at the kitchen island. This guy is stoked. Kristin is making chicken salad lettuce cups and does he want any? Sure, yes, sure, Jay won’t ever turn down food but his calculating mind is not on lettuce cups, not now. But Kristin is about these cups, “You want the Buffalo or the avocado one?”

As the permanent Mayor of Easy Street, Jay responds, “What are you having?”

“Buffalo.”

Jay makes a noise like “sure” and “yes” combined but it is neither word, specifically, and instead a kind of higher, intuitive language all together. With the cups out of the way ’til he is eating them, he turns his laptop screen toward Kristin and asks without preamble, “What do you think about this one?”

Tractors. He’s looking at tractors.

“I don’t care about a tractor.” Kristin says, popping open the hydroponic butter lettuce, “Why are you getting a tractor?”

“Well we need a tractor.” Here is where Jay’s excitement begins to burst him in two.

“Why?” Kristin asks.

The camera doesn’t pan away from Jay through this exchange and although you get the feeling the producers told him to hold out for a few requisite seconds before sharing this next bit, the flourish he adds is all his own.

His voice pitches up an octave as he announces, “We’re moviiiiiiiiiiing.” His voice doesn’t get any louder, it actually sounds like someone getting farther away or falling off a cliff. But he’s doing twinkle fingers. He’s pumped.

Unswayed by Jay’s theatrics, Kristin smiles, “They accepted the offer? Wow! That’s exciting!” She says, genuinely excited.

“Yup.” Jay is spent.

2nd Down

This is a long scene which unfortunately leads me to believe we aren’t getting a high Cutler quota in this ep. I’m splitting it in two because I want you to properly savor it.

“Chickens and goats!” Kristin exclaims in a victory shout, and also what is becoming the unofficial mantra of the new house. “Do you even know how to take care of chickens?”

“Yeah,” Jay has never been so sure about anything, “Feed ‘em, water ‘em, give ‘em some water”—hydrated birds over here—“I mean it’s gotta be easier than raising kids.”

The couple begin to dig into a thing of brownies (what time is it?) and Kristin points her fork behind Jay, “Fish tank is not coming.”

“Fish tank is,” he throws his head back like he’s howling at the moon, “ONE. HUNDRED. per cent coming.”

“There’s one fish alive in that massive fish tank.”

“Yeah, he’s a sur-vi-vor. Look at him over there,” Jay turns to look, following his own advice, “I don’t think anyone feeds him and he’s still livin’.”

In the immortal words of (a guy I imagine is good friends with Jay) Matthew McConaughey, just keep livin’, L-I-V-I-N.

3rd Down

Kristin is conducting interviews for retail staff at Uncommon James and mid-interview, in walks Uncommon Jay. It is wild to me there isn’t some kind of space-time rift that opens as a result.

It is unclear why he is there, yet there he remains, leaning on a doorframe and kind of squinting over to where the interviews are taking place, then eventually beginning to pace back and fourth behind the interviewees.

“Hi, what are you doing?” Kristin asks politely.

Jay is now seated in one of the white leather interview chairs, “I’m just wasting time before I pick up the boys,” he brings his watch up in a vaudevillian flourish, “do you want me to sit in on your next interview?”

“Not really, what time is it?”

Despite just looking at his watch, Jay looks at his watch again, “1:20” (honestly, I have no concept of time in this show).

“You have a solid forty minutes,” Kristin says, as Jay picks up some decorative rocks from the coffee table. There are more people to interview.

“Do you want me to send one in?” Jay asks. Kristin does. “Nah, I’m not going to do that actually.”

One of Kristin’s current staff asks him if he got a haircut, “Yeah,” he turns his head to her, “last week.” And Jay is out.

4th Down

After a long day of interviews Kristin joins Jay at home on the couch, where his outfit change suggests he has not been there since we last saw him. He seems, not himself?

Kristin speculates over a date their mutual friend is on with, as he is known on the show, “the Canadian” and Jay, arms crossed, a little forlorn, goes, “I dunno, we’ll see how it goes.”

There’s a good pause on his face here and he is for sure pouting.

“So, are you ready for my day?”

“No.”

Kristin begins to unpack the drama that went down after Jay’s candid, completely unprompted appearance at the store earlier. Jay examines his cuticles at first but eventually, he’s in. Jay loves to gossip! “She didn’t say that,” he winces at one point, “did she really say that?” He throws his hands up and shakes his damn head. “Maybe just fire someone, and get everyone’s attention.”

Enjoying herself, but reeling it in, Kristin says, “This is probably why you don’t own your own business.”

“Just cut somebody’s head off.”

Kristin shifts back to the subject of how it’s not just anyone that can land a job at Uncommon James, Jay interjects, “Hell, I can’t even get a job there, and I own half of it.”

“The lines have been, muted?”

“Blurred.” Jay offers. “Just tell everyone to be an adult, this is getting ridiculous.” As Jay says this, we get a pan out, and we see he is wearing some pony hair slippers or in-the-house fancy shoes. Jay takes a big sip of Kristin’s wine as she begins to group text her staff, “Do you want me to do it?” He asks.

She does. We never get to see the message, maybe they’re saving it for the Blu Ray bonus features.