Jenny Rex vs. The Five-Dimensional Ninjas

Jenny Rex vs. The Five-Dimensional Ninjas: A Recaplet

Worst episode of Jenny Rex ever? I know there's been, like, four hundred episodes (379, to be precise.--Ed.), but still, this is definitely a contender. Despite the new haircut/hat combo (bright red femme mohawk/plaid Burberry derby), Regina Ryan is finally starting to show her age as our plucky heroine; I mean, Jenny's signature commando-ballerina style has gone all the way around the cycle, from trendy to so-last-year to retro to just old to trendy again. And ninjas? Granted, they're five-dimensional ninjas, but are the Jenny writers so bereft of ideas they have to bring in the ninjas? What's next? Monkeys? Robots? Pirates? Robot pirate monkeys? With throwing stars?

So anyway, the ep starts with Jenny surrounded by like a hundred ninjas, and, yes, she's no longer 18 (or 28), but Jenny still looks pretty fierce and fabulous, and I'm sure that any ninjas whose asses she can't kick will be disarmed by her charm, except--EXCEPT--these are five-dimensional ninjas, which I'm not really sure what that means, and I don't think the writers do either, but some of them are moving backwards, like their own personal life-video is being rewinded, and others are disappearing and reappearing elsewhere. So right away we know that these five-dimensional ninjas are BAD NEWS. But then, just when they all charge Jenny, in a refreshing departure from the usual ninja M.O. of "attack the hero one at a time," she disappears. Wha?

Credits. (Attn: producers--after sixteen years, the theme song's getting pretty tired.) Then we're back at the big ninja hootenanny, and so is Jenny, except it's not our Jenny--she's much younger, and also clearly not Regina Ryan. (I checked the credits, and the actress playing Young Jenny is not listed. Weird.) And so Young Jenny is obviously a bit surprised to find herself surrounded by five-dimensional ninjas. Five-dimensional ninjas who are screaming and charging right at her with swords and throwing stars and stuff and also some of them are rewinding and whatnot. But Jenny just takes out a gun and starts firing, dropping five-dimensional ninjas left and right. What? I've seen all 400 (379.--Ed.) episodes of Jenny Rex, and not once has Jenny ever fired or even carried a gun. In fact, at least one episode a year is devoted to a boring-ass morality play about how Guns Are Wrong, and Jenny will never use one because her dear departed Auntie Whatever was killed in a drive-by blah blah blah...But the point is: Shooting ninjas? Out of character much?

So after she's wasted the entire posse of ninjas (What's the correct collective noun for a group of five-dimensional ninjas? A "rad?"), Young Jenny storms into Jenny Rex HQ for the obligatory post-battle musical number. But no musical number is forthcoming! Instead, Young Jenny marches up to a nonplussed Agent Danvers and demands to know where she is, who he is, what happened to something called "The Everett Precinct" and some people named "Prince" and "Queen," and if Danvers is working for a "Kage" or a "tall man." Now, Johnny Webster is a fine actor, but even he falters in the face of this obviously unscripted rant. Whoever's playing Young Jenny, she is definitely off her meds. I'm surprised the network even let this fiasco on the air.

Once Danvers and/or Webster figures out that Young Jenny is cuckoo, he fights back, asking her what happened to good old Jenny/Regina, who the hell she (Young Jenny) is, and where he can find some of whatever she's smoking. After seven minutes and thirteen seconds of this pointless screaming match, network security, hastily disguised as JRHQ agents, arrive to drag Young Jenny away. Unfortunately, Young Jenny shoots both of them too. Then she takes everybody at JRHQ hostage. With everybody on the floor, cowering in what I assume is all-too-real fear, Young Jenny turns to the camera and addresses this "tall man" again; she says she knows "these people" are all his "agents," and that she'll "kill every last one of them" if the "tall man" doesn't give her back her "spinners." To prove her point, I guess, she shoots Danvers. The last half-hour of the show is devoted to Young Jenny brandishing her gun around the room full of terrified actors and crew members.

Next episode: Who the fuck knows? Has Jenny Rex gone to visit Uncle Stevie, or is something horrible going down at J. Rex Productions? Does anybody actually know?