30 Rock Hogcock, Last Lunch (Series Finale)
After seven years, 30 Rock gives us a goofy send off that reminds everyone why we loved the show all this time.
30 Rock A Goon’s Deed in a Weary World
"A Goon's Deed in a Weary World" is a mile a minute homage to the crazy that is the TGS studio as we speed towards next week's series finale.
Black Light Attack!
In the second episode of 30 Rock for tonight, we find that Danny has been having a secret romance with a staffer, Jenna gets casts as mother for Gossip Girl, and Tracy adopts one of the lady writers for his entourage.
As I watched this episode of 30 Rock, I had hoped for a bit of a pick me up from the previous episode Klaus and Gretta. Unfortunately, this episode was even more devoid of humor than the last one. As a continuation of the previous, we find Tracy has now taken in Sue from the writing department as an attempt to be more in touch with women and their needs. It's a pretty contrived idea and the writers don't really take it very far outside of a few simple verbal gags.
Oh the other side, we have Jack and Danny quickly becoming good friends until Jack realizes that Danny's secret office romance is none other than Liz Lemmon. His open faced issue with the matter is the fact that Danny actually works for her show, and it's not like she can replace him or transfer him when she's done. Deep down though, it's becoming apparent that Liz has quite the spell on Danny, and Jack is losing the one real man he's been able to find in the office. This of course leads to a small war between Liz and Jack, a war that Jack can't possibly win on his own. Funny enough though, Liz ends the war for him when she degenerates to her old habits of being a complete slob.
Overall, even with the silly Jenna storyline, the episode itself just feels like it's a meandering collection of story arcs and ideas that the writers have been cooking up for a while, but couldn't flush out into a full episode. It used to be one of the more quotable shows, but lately 30 Rock hasn't had the steam it used to.
Interesting Observations
- Kenneth has wooden teeth.
- There is a funny callback to how Kenneth seems to live forever, or is at least over 40.
- Danny is still playing robot type characters, though now he's on national TV.
- The sheer look of uncomfortable laughing in the room and the horror on Jenna's face during the audition was pretty funny.
- How does Jack know Liz never takes off her shoes and wears "spanks" underwear?
- "Why are you so happy? Have we been canceled?" - Pete
- "Women are allowed to get angrier than about about double standards" - Liz
- Liz's secret friend is Tom Selleck, her mustache
Klaus and Gretta
In the first of a double 30 Rock night, we have the TGS cast coming back after winter break. Jack and Liz both had pretty wild New Year's parties and their transgressions are about to come back to them. On the other side, we have a strange plot involving James Franco hiring Jenna to be his fake girlfriend to cover his fetish for Japanese body pillows with anime girls printed on them.
Overall, this episode was a pretty lifeless start to the second half of the season. It merely picks up on some left open story lines from last season involving Nancy Donovan, Jack's high school sweetheart, and Tracy's desire to have a daughter. It was a pretty humorless episode I thought, with only a few gags thrown in. The scenes in Nancy's home with Kenneth taking random pictures by merely touching her computer was slightly funny, but it wasn't the usual laugh out loud comedy 30 Rock has been known for.
The James Franco plot line was a humorous jab at Jenna's love of the spotlight, but in the end we find she actually has some craving for a real love. Overall though, I thought the whole plot was a little awkwardly written and without much substance.
It wasn't a terrible start to the back half of the season, but it sure wasn't a great start either.
Interesting Observations
- Cerie wears some...interesting things to work
- "Beach sex is the third best sex, behind elevator and warehouse" - Jack
- Liz durnk texts Cerie a lot.
- Tonights new phrase, which I'm sure many have thought about the last 4 seasons, is "Lemmoning" something.
- We had a little bit of shameless Jamba Juice promotion.
- "The paparazzi are calling us James. That's Jenna and James put together!" - Jenna
- The feud between Brandon and Kenneth grows more as Jack continues to pick Kenneth.
- Jenna apparently sleeps inside something to make her younger?
- Kenneth recognizes himself in the mirror as an albino monk, and he knows all the airport codes in the country.
- "Sir, i dont mean to swear, but i am irritated right now." - Kenneth
- "Kenneth, your haircut is disrespectful to lesbians" - Tracy