30 Rock: Twist!

First, we must celebrate, because Jonathan is back! With no explanation, and only one scene, but I’m not complaining, because Jonathan is back! I promise to never take you for granted again, sweetie.

Meanwhile, we’re back in three-discrete-plots mode on 30 Rock this week. Our main focus is on Jack, whose mother Elaine Stritch is back in town for no apparent reason except to up her repeat-Emmy odds. Jack, though, thinks she’s there because she’s sad about it being the anniversary of his father leaving them. Jack is still very angry about that whole thing, especially because his father has since made a habit of taking up with other women, including more than one Unitarian. So when Jack discovers that his mother has brought a “companion” (he can drive at night!) along with her to New York, he assumes this is a coping mechanism and hires Steve Buscemi to check out the new guy via cameo. (By this point I’d think there was no one too good to guest star on 30 Rock at any time, except for that Gossip Girl thing.) Turns out Elaine’s paramour, Paul, is married – which, of course, she knew (it’s Florida, it’s like it never stopped being the 70s down there). But she doesn’t acknowledge that until Jack has already given Paul the speech he’s been rehearsing for his dad for the past 40 years. But then she inadvertently reveals a secret of her own – the man Jack has always thought was his father was, in fact, not his father. Twist!

Plot Number Two follows Liz’s attempt to bully Tracy into being professional – showing up for rehearsals, learning his lines, etc. Tracy hires a gibbon to stand in for him and offers Liz a pre-printed Race Card, along with a letter:

Dear Racist Liz Lemon,

This is how you treat me. Like a white-whiskered gibbon put on this earth to do nothing but dance around for your amusement and reduce the insect population of Malaysia.

So Tracy and Liz make a deal: Now that we have a black president and live in post-racist America, Liz will no longer give Tracy preferential treatment for being a black comedy superstar, and no one else will give Liz preferential treatment for being a woman. Soon, she’s stuck changing water cooler tanks and going to strip clubs while he has to stay up late reading scripts and interacting with NBC’s housekeeping staff. Dogs and cats, living together! Tracy and Liz eagerly agree to go back to their usual arrangement.

And finally, in our out-there C plot, Jenna adopts Tracy’s stand-in gibbon and treats it as a child, naming it Little Jenna and moving it into her dressing room. This storyline is I guess a reference to the chimpanzee who attacked that woman in Connecticut, and it’s almost as disturbing. Despite Kenneth’s warnings that nothing good will come of this, Jenna dresses Little Jenna in costumes, and buys herself coordinated outfits as well. Then, Little Jenna gives birth to a plastic baby doll, despite being male, and attacks Big Jenna after the latter pulls off the doll’s head. Okay, sure.

Other things we learned this week:

• Liz and Grizz hooked up once. Also, he calls her “Beth.”
• Tracy gets to ride to work in a Duck Tour boat every day. Cool!
• Simon Cowell is the present-day version of Nikita Khruschev.
• Jack once made love to Kathy Hilton. 
• It would’ve been so much more fun to write comedy in 1959. You could get away with crazy plot twists because audiences were so much less sophisticated.

Lines I resolve to use ASAP:

• Oprah says you teach people how to treat you.
• What is this, the Italian Parliament?
• Are we through listening and sharing? Because I have something I want you to look at.
• Don’t patronize me with your Celtic slang.

Season 3, Episode 20: The Natural Order (originally aired April 30, 2009)

For more on 30 Rock, click here.

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

Photographs courtesy of NBC Universal