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Young Rock Recap - “Know Your Role” - S3 E 11
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Dwayne & Randall are departing and Dwayne is feeling down about going home without a trade deal. Randall says he did his best without having a background in diplomatic negotiations. Dwayne says it reminds him of when he first started trying to break into acting.
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The Rock is meeting with Vince McMahon. Vince congratulates him on having “Smackdown” named after his catchphrase. Vince tells him he wants to get the superstars into more mainstream productions and tells The Rock he’s starting with him. That they have a project and he’ll basically play himself. The Rock is excited.
The Rock shows up at home where Dany, Lia, Ata & Rocky are preparing for lunch. He tells them about the acting gig for a show based off the Sandra Bullock film “The Net”. Rocky has to interject about how he auditioned for “Predator” (we see his awful audition tape). Dany says “you auditioned for Jesse Ventura’s role”. Rocky explains he turned it down because there wasn’t enough dialogue. Lia tells Dwayne to get Bullock’s autograph.
The Rock gets on the set and meets the director who tells him his role and what is expected. He’s supposed to have a cage fight to the death with another character.
At home we see the family watching the episode. Rock only has one line and then there is a cage fight. Lia is upset there is no Sandra Bullock. Dwayne isn’t pleased with how it turned out. IMDB says Johnson played a character named “Brody”.
Dwayne returns to Titan Towers to talk to Vince about his performance. He apologizes but Vince says it was great. Vince says people want to see The Rock and his performance or the quality of the show isn’t a big deal. The crossover is great for him and WWF. Vince tells Rock that’s he’s booked on an episode of “Star Trek” and he confuses it was “Mork & Mindy” saying Nanoo Nanoo.
Dwayne talks on the phone with Dany is excited about being on Star Trek. He’s ready a history book on Star Trek. He answers the door and the room service guy sees his book and does the Vulcan hand gesture and says “Live Long & Prosper”. Dwayne thinks it’s a very thoughtful thing to say. He does back to reading and feels dumb he didn’t know it was from Star Trek.
Back on the road The Rock is rehearsing his part with Bruno prior to a WWF show. He wants to nail his performance.
Paramount Studios, Los Angeles, CA....
We see Dwayne in his makeup getting ready for his part. He’s a bit excited and brings ideas to the director but she says they don’t really improv on Star Trek. He’s the “alien of the week”. For those younger readers this was an episode of Star Trek Voyager which was on a network called UPN that also aired Smackdown. It was a pretty big crossover at the time.
We see rehearsal of The Rock’s scene with an actress playing Jeri Ryan. The director lets him know he can flub his lines but not to stop just to start over and they’ll fix it in post. He sees Ryan get scolded for changing a word. She thanks him for being prepared and that most guest stars don’t give much effort.
Back at home Dwayne, Dang & Ata are watching “The Predator” and we see Jesse Ventura’s famous line “I ain’t got time to bleed”. Lia loves Arnold. Rocky is bitter he didn’t get the role and says to tell him when it’s over. Dwayne tells Ata he wants to play something other than a different version of a wrestler. She encourages him to keep acting of it’s something he’s passionate about exploring.
Vince tells Dwayne how great he was on Star Trek and says he’s booking him onto a comedy. “Nothing is funnier than someone stepping in dog crap. If I made a show it would be nothing but that”. They make a series of bad poop jokes…
Vince tells Dwayne he’s booked on That 70’s Show and he’ll be playing Rocky Johnson.
Dwayne gives a voice over about how proud he was to play his dad.
Rocky is on the set giving Dwayne pointers on how to play him. The entire family is there to watch the taping. (This episode also featured The Hardy Boyz).
They watch the episode at home and the family is proud of him. Iron Sheik calls him and tells Dwayne he wrote a script he wants Dwayne to do. Another call comes in and it’s Lorin Michaels. Michaels says he talked to Vince and he’s invited to host Saturday Night Live.
Randall says he’s got skits prepared for when he will eventually be invited to host. Dwayne tells Lorin he’s excited to host but he doesn’t want to play a wrestler in any sketches. Michaels agrees. The Rock says it was as exciting as having his first WWE match.
Dwayne feels inspired and tells the travel crew to turn around, he’s not giving up on trade negotiations.
“Young Rock” airs Friday on NBC or On Demand.
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