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
