The Promotion

***The Promotion*** is the second episode of *Tuca and Bertie.* It aired along with the rest of Season 1 on Netflix on May 3rd, 2019.

## Synopsis

Bertie wants to climb the ladder at Conde Nest but encounters sexual harassment. Enter Tuca to help her BFF get what she wants.

## Episode Plot

One morning Bertie reveals to Tuca and Speckle she wants a promotion at work, as a position for senior operations analyst just opened up. However she’s doesn’t want to ask, as asking for what she wants isn’t her style, so she came up with a different plan - dress to impress, make small talk with her boss, and demonstrate her leadership skills by speaking up in a meeting.

Bertie’s plan however starts to fall through because of her jerk coworker Dirk. She tries to make small talk with Holland, but Dirk interrupts her and talks about the beach, which Bertie says she doesn’t like the beach because she’s scared about crabs pinching her butt, and she awkwardly excuses herself from the conversation. During the meeting he also speaks over her and steals her talking points from her notes.

This frustrates her, but the final straw is when at the coffee table, after she backs out of going into Holland’s office to ask for the promotion, telling herself he looks busy when he’s goofing off at his desk, Dirk begins to sexually harass her, saying she must have worn a tight sweater so Holland will give her what she wants. Bertie's left boob can’t take it after everything that’s happened that day and she leaves to go get a drink.

Bertie tries to report Dirk to the HR Lady, but she is apathetic and useless, thinking Dirk is cute and saying he probably meant it as a compliment, and she doesn’t want to have an “awkward conversation” about his inappropriate behavior and it could make their company look bad. She gives Bertie a pamphlet for women on how to take compliments at work and land a man that way.

Meanwhile, after being declined to help Bertie get her promotion, Tuca decides to do some gigs on her ChoreGoose app. She helps her upstairs neighbor Dapper Dog take dictation for a letter to the Bird Town Gazette about potholes, but she ends up ignoring his robust language and paraphrases with "Potholes suck. Go jerk off in a lake." She trims someone’s bushes but makes one look like herself. She builds an old lady a dresser but fills it with lunch meat and cheese. Tuca is disappointed with her customer’s negative reactions, saying Bertie loves her crazy ideas.

Bertie returns home and when questioned about her boob hole by Tuca and Speckle, she doesn’t want to talk about it, and she lies that she asked for the promotion and "they’re working on it.”

The next morning, Bertie's left boob returns home, and she vents to Tuca, who stayed over and was up all night watching car crash videos, about Bertie's awful day.

Tuca decides to help Bertie by becoming the office temp at her job and fix the problems plaguing her. Including the woman in the bathroom who stays in all day on her phone (and she doesn’t even work there). At Bertie's meeting she prevent Dirk from copying Bertie’s notes and lets Bertie speak, her notes impressing everyone. Tuca gets Holland's attention

However she gets upset at how good Tuca is at her job and how popular she is with everyone, including Holland, who even offers Tuca the promotion Bertie wanted.

Tuca finds Bertie in the bathroom teary-eyed, thinking she hasn’t gotten the promotion because she sucks. Tuca assures her she’s great at her job, but she doesn’t take credit and lets people walk over her. She reveals to Bertie she told Holland she’d think about taking the promotion to buy her time, and she’s pretty sure Dirk is the other person he’s eyeing for the position. Not wanting Dirk to get it, Bertie says they need a plan.

Tuca and Bertie invite the office workers to a sexual harassment seminar. It’s initially led by the HR lady and everyone including Dirk isn’t paying attention. Bertie snaps and tells Dirk off for his inappropriate comments toward her the other day. He tries to claim it was just a joke, but other women in the office reveal he’s groped them/acted inappropriate around them. Holland tells Dirk he needs to leave the office for the day.

As Tuca congratulates Bertie, she tells Bertie to ask Holland for her promotion. As Holland thanks Bertie for speaking up, she blurts out she wants the promotion, and he happily gives it to her.

Bertie movies into her new office, satisfied she got what she wanted. However, as she begins to head home, Holland reminds her she has a lot more work to do now. She goes back to work, discouraged at being stuck in her office after hours.

## Post Credit Scenes

Dapper Dog sees Tuca's dictation from earlier has been published in the Bird Town Gazette under his name. Outraged, he howls.

## Cast

* Tiffany Haddish as Tuca
* Ali Wong as Bertie
* Steven Yeun as Speckle
* Nicole Byer as Chicken Lady
* Richard E. Grant as Holland
* John Early as Dirk
* Lisa Hanawalt
* Awkwafina as Bertie's Left Boob

## Trivia

* It’s been one week since the events of The Sugar Bowl.
* Tuca has a habit of watching car crash videos online for hours.
	+ It could be likely due to the trauma of her mother dying in a car crash when she was a kid.
* Bertie's left boob once popped out at a water park.
* A running gag in the episode is a character saying a one-liner and a laugh track playing, with a logo of their name and a time slot showing up, as if they have their own tv show.
* Bertie loves spicy chips, even if they make her gassy.
* Bertie is scared of the ocean because she worries about a crab coming up to pinch her butt.
* At one point during the sexual harassment seminar, the HR Goose lady says she was going to demonstrate how to put a condom on, and she hold up one along with a corkscrew, as the latter is how goose penises are shaped.
* Bertie shouts "Cloaca!" in the restroom out of frustration, which is the singular owning for a bird's digestive/reproductive/urinary tract - essentially Bertie was calling Dirk an "asshole".
* Whenever Tuca's templates appear after she calls the,, an unseen heavenly choir is heard singing "Templates!", similar to the SpongeBob SquarePants episode "Arrgh!”, where something similar would happen randomly after certain lines were spoken.
* Tuca kissed Bertie, which it showed how much Tuca loves and respects Bertie.