30 Rock: A little taste of the Lemon

It’s an unusually integrated 30 Rock script this week, as Sheinhardt Wigs is posting its first losses since the Civil War and cutbacks are necessary companywide. Liz has to reduce the TGS budget by 25 percent, Jack has to fire a bunch of people, including Jonathan (noooo!!!!!!), and Kenneth is stuck working two jobs on one salary. The only unaffected parties are, predictably, Tracy and Jenna, but don’t worry, they get their comeuppance.

Pete is ready to help Liz with the cutting process, but she doesn’t want to fire anyone, and she certainly isn’t about to reduce the food budget. So she outfits herself in the dress Jenna wears in her hooker sketches, the boots Tracy wears when he plays Michelle Obama, and triple Spanx. She even commandeers the show’s sluttier makeup artist, resulting in this fab look. Then, she seduces the hatchet man Sheinhardt brought in to oversee the cuts. (The hatcheteer in question is played by Roger Bart, whom I immediately recognized, apparently from the Stepford Wives remake. I’m not proud – but at least it wasn’t from Lady and the Tramp II: Scamp’s Adventure.) But it’s all for naught – the hatchet guy didn’t know Liz was only engaging in sexual espionage. He thought it was true love! Now his dead wife will never forgive him! So Roger’s too stressed out to keep working there, and Liz is slapped with a suspension for sexual harassment. In the end, though, it turns out hooking up with the hatchet man does pay off – Jack himself will be overseeing her cuts to TGS from now on. Score!

Meanwhile, poor Kenneth is expected to fill in as Jack’s assistant, while still performing his page duties. His attempt is, as one would expect, nowhere near the bar set by our dear departed Jonathan, especially since Kenneth keeps inadvertently alerting everyone sitting in Jack’s waiting room that they’re about to be fired. But he’s so busy he doesn’t even have time to go home and feed the bird he’s had for more than 60 years, Sonny Crocket. So Tracy does it for him – and winds up convinced that Kenneth is storing dead nurses in his bedroom. Tracy convinces Jenna of the same, and they head off to investigate, Julia and Denzel-style. Their certainty that Kenneth is a serial killer is only heightened when Jack orders Kenneth to think before he speaks, which results in an awesome scene in which Jack McBrayer is playing Kenneth playing Norman Bates. But then Tracy and Jenna go back to the apartment and realize that, in fact, Kenneth merely has a bug bomb in his bedroom. Seconds later, Tracy and Jenna have fled, and Sonny Crocket is dead. Kenneth is aghast – so, now that he’s been downgraded from suspect to person of interest, Tracy and Jenna plan a surprise for him. When Kenneth gets home that evening, his apartment is filled with birds. Looks like he’s got some naming to do!

So this was fine for a one-off. But they’d better bring back Jonathan next week, is all I’m saying. Jalisa was never really meant to be, but Jackonathan will always live on. In my heart, if nowhere else.

Other things we learned this week:

• All mass murderers display cruelty to animals, bedwetting, and an inability to read facial cues.
• Jack’s three Ds: discretion, docility, and don’t use his bathroom.
• TGS is the number one late-night show among men 9-13 and the morbidly obese.

Lines I resolve to use ASAP:

• I got some Trix up my sleeve.
• I thought you’d like to know that there’s a spider on the printer.
• We’re not behind the times, we’re groovy!
• Marissa, update my schedj.

Season 3, Episode 17: Cutbacks (originally aired April 9, 2009)

For more on 30 Rock, click here.

Thursdays at 9:30/8:30C on NBC

Photographs courtesy of NBC Universal and Jessica Miglio