30 Rock: This business is so hard!

It’s an NBC Universal crossover event this week, as special guest star Padma Lakshmi shows up just long enough to share a scene with Alec Baldwin, deliver some well-written lines, star in a rare NBC commercial for a Bravo show, and distract us from the standard-fare plot of the episode for a bit. Mmm, scrumptious!

In a storyline that I’m quite liking this season, Liz’s book is officially a bestseller (she’s even being ripped off by the Chinese, who call her “Lesbian Yellowsourfruit”), and Jack wants her to host a “Dealbreaker” talk show. She’s blowing up like a balloon with a grenade in it! Tracy and Jenna convince Liz to shop around and see if she can get a better deal than what Jack’s offering, and she goes with it, against her instincts. She gets a fabulous agent, who is now, with the addition of Liz to his roster, representing humans and monkeys in addition to dogs, and snags a meeting with the producer of “Sports Shouting.” Meanwhile, Jack considers offering the hosting spot to Ms. Lakshmi (men always tell her she’s very funny, and entrepreneurial – she invented a clear plastic bag to hold sandwiches that’s a new thing that she invented). After Liz sets fire to her sleeve and Jack proves impressively immune to Padma’s charms, they realize what fans of the show have been eagerly anticipating for four seasons now: deep down, Liz and Jack are destined to do business together.

In the B-plot, that new cast member has finally shown up, seemingly for good. Last week, Jack hired the robot, and this week he appears on set, out of his robot costume, and turns out to be a somewhat conventionally handsome Canadian named Jack (the original Jack promptly renames him Danny). We never find out whether Danny is a talented comedian, but given what we know of TGS, that’s unlikely to matter much. We do find out that he seems to be a nice guy – he’s kind to Kenneth, which just freaks everyone out, no one more so than Problem Solvers Tracy and Jenna, who realize for the first time that someday Kenneth could get them back for being jerks to him for their entire lives. Kenneth, naturally, hates it when everyone stops asking him for things, so he taunts Danny into mocking Kenneth’s Don Knotts face, Hitler Youth haircut and premature baby chin. Then Kenneth produces a pizza box full of waffles and all is right for the world. You know, I kind of want some waffles right now, actually.

Other things we learned this week:

• There’s a little-known NBC reality show called “I’m a Celebrity Dog, Get Me Out Arf Here!”
• All the changes to Jenna’s face have happened naturally.
• Business Jack does not play gentle.
• Never do business with a friend. Never be friends with a woman. And lose the leather bracelet.

Lines that I would really like to use in my day-to-day life, if I lived in a parallel universe where I had Tina Fey’s wit:

• Spittake! Are you serious?
• Raise your hand if you’re cool with what’s happening.
• All white people look the same to me, Pete.
• You’re the one being a lower-case wang.
• That was aboot the coolest thing I’ve ever seen.
• We’re gonna make this a Boxing Day the Prime Minister will never forget!

Season 4, Episode 5: The Problem Solvers (originally aired November 12, 2009)

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

Photographs courtesy of NBC Universal, Ali Goldstein