Claire: Oh thank god I smell coffee. This morning has gotten off to a bit of a rocky Horror Picture Show – what did you do to your face?

Claire wanted to say “off to a rocky start,” which is an idiom tha means a difficult start that isn’t going so well. Then she turned that into “Rocky Horror Picture Show” when she saw her husband with makeup – the Rocky Horror Picture Show is a famous movie that has become a cult classic (meaning a small portion of society really really really likes it). It involves cross-dressing (people wearing clothes and makeup of the opposite gender), which is why Claire said it when she saw Phil in makeup.

Jay: You’re probably right to nip that speech problem in the bud. Mitchell had a lisp we let slide, now I’ve got a lifetime of ‘what if.’

“To nip something in the bud” means to stop it while it is a small problem, before it gets larger and more difficult to manage.

A lisp is a type of speech impediment.

Manny: I finished the video for my Juilliard application. I think they’re going to be blown away.

“To blow someone away” means to surprise and amaze them.

Juilliard is perhaps the most famous art school in the US.

Manny: How does an artsy, well-read child of divorce,

a Colombian, dropped in the middle of a forgotten plot, in suburbia.

With confidence, and…

Jay: You copied that, from that play Hamilton. Right?

Manny: I’m not sure copied is the right word. It’s more of an homage.

Jay: Well I homaged it about two weeks ago on Jay Talking. You saw that episode. Right?

Gloria: Ok.

Jay: I rhymed ‘rice pudding’ with ‘Cuba Gooding.’ Both delicious, by the way.

Manny’s song is a homage to the musical Hamilton. Right now it is the most popular musical in the US, and tickets are extremely hard to get. Here’s the cast of Hamilton performing for US president Barack Obama:



Jay: When everybody else zigs, you gotta zoink.

Manny: Isn’t it zag?

Jay: Exactly.

The expression is “when everyone else zigs, you zag.” It means that you should do the opposite of what everyone else is doing – good advice sometimes. Jay takes this one further, and says “zoink” (a made-up word) instead of the typical “zag.”

Luke: I have like 3 D’s.

Alex: That’s better than any report card you’ve brought home.

In the US, the grading system goes:

A

B

C

D

F

A is the best, and F is the worst, meaning fail.

Alex is saying that he usually gets F’s in school.

Luke: I need a T, an L, and a W.

Claire: T, L… Hopefully she’s too sleepy to notice that she’s got 3 W’s on her board.

Luke: Also, can I take a P.

Claire: Yeah, coming right up.

“P” is a letter, and “pee” means to urinate. Both have the same pronunciation.

Rainer: You’re not one of those storm chasers, are you?

Phil: Not since that movie Twister exposed how cut-throat it is.

Phil is referencing the movie Twister, which is about people who travel around looking for tornadoes to see them up close.

Cut-throat means that their is a lot of competition, and people care a lot about winning (moreso than helping other people.)