30 Rock Recap: “The Breakup”

Title: The Breakup
Original airdate: Dec. 14, 2006

I hope no one has gotten too attached to Dennis (Dean Winters) in recent weeks, because he seems to spend the entire time this week stumbling his way out of Liz’s (Tina Fey) life. Like the last few weeks, I wasn’t blown away by this episode, but it was solidly entertaining. I’m really starting to care about these goofballs. A little.

We pick up where we left off, in Liz’s apartment and, of course, Dennis is still there, puncturing holes in her wall in an inept attempt to mount her TV on the wall. So thoughtful of him. Next, a big dog/small horse wanders in and hops on the couch, and there’s a fat guy in a cast lying on her bed.

Liz: Get out. I want you out of here.
Dennis: You can’t kick me out. I love you.
Liz: No. No. Get your stuff and get out. I’m not doing this anymore.
Dennis: You can’t kick me out. I’ve got squatter’s rights.
Liz: Which is it, you love me or you’ve got squatter’s rights?
Dennis: I don’t see how they’re mutually exclusive.

Liz turns to Jenna (Jane Krakowski) for consolation, realizing in the process all her best moments with Dennis were food-related. And we realize she gave him a week to find a new place. So Jenna vows to take Liz out to meet guys.

At the office Jack (Alec Baldwin) is on the phone with his new girlfriend, who he fails to conceal is Condoleezza Rice. At the site of her wiping her eyes, because of allergies, Jack asks Liz, “Why are you crying? Liberty lose again last night?” Awesome line. Then he asks her to help him choose a gift for Secretary Rice: attaché versus unmentionables.

Meanwhile, Toofer (Keith Powell) watches disapprovingly as Tracey (Tracey Morgan) slip into a pink dress for a skit. It’s demeaning for a black comedian to do a drag number, he argues, just another way for the white man to make him appear less threatening. Frank, who’s white, doesn’t get it, and neither does Tracey, who made $96 million off “Honky Grandma Be Tripping” (which I’d rent in a heartbeat if I could).

Never a show to shy away from a tangent for a good joke, we get a glimpse of “Black Frasier,” a 15-minute comedy on BET. They’d never stoop to drag on “Black Frasier,” Toofer says. Keep in mind, they call him Toofer, as Jack once noted, because with him you get a black guy and a Harvard guy.

Non-sequitir moment: Josh’s parents raised him as a girl for 10 years. Okaaaaaayyyy.

Down on the set of TGS, Liz and Jenna’s plans for a girls night out are a go, and Jack is having problems with Conde, who can’t seem to find time for him between cabinet meetings and State Department business. Meanwhile, Josh is a hit in the drag skit Tracey agreed to give up, and now Tracey is fuming (and dressed like an alien).

Plenty of black comics dress like women for laughs, he says, including Whoopi Goldberg. Toofer has to fix this, Liz says, and the only way is for them to write together. They try, but they are coming from very different places culturally and intellectually.

Jack spots Vladimir Putin making an ass-grab at Conde on CNN, so he turns to Liz for help. Watch out for the Polonium 210, Jack.

Toofer and Tracey begin to really melt down, and Frank is holding up the phone so his racist grandfather can listen in. Tracey looks down on Toofer for not being black enough; Toofer looks down on Tracey for thinking that being educated and mindful of stereotypes makes him any less black. Then Tracey affectionately drops the “N” word (muted by a vacuum cleaner) on Toofer.

Out at the club, Liz isn’t having any fun. She’s cynical and angry and too dense to pick up on a pick-up line. She drops the narrative from Fahrenheit 911 on one guy, insults two others for being old and gross and starts digging on another who turns out to be gay. Karaokeing to Janis Ian’s painfully woeful “At Seventeen,” Liz reaches bottom and Jenna drags her out.

Cut to a conference in Jack’s office with Human Resources. Toofer has filed a harassment complaint against Tracey for calling him the “N” word. Liz and Jack don’t get the problem. Neither does Tracey.

Tracey: Brothers talk to other brothers like that. I was being friendly.
Jack: Yes Toofer, you see in the last decade or so the African American community has reappropriated that word as a way of depriving it of its meaning. Just don’t try to tell my girlfriend that.
Liz: Yeah Toofer, I don’t think Tracey was trying to offend you.

The message gets through, and Toofer says he appreciates Tracey’s efforts. He wants him to be his “N” word (cue the vacuum). Of course when he says it, everyone flips. Liz says he sounds hateful, and Tracey files a complaint himself. To be honest, I was as confused by the scene as Toofer looked. Still am.

Dennis walks into the writer’s room to say his final piece to Liz. You almost think the poor lunkhead is going to redeem himself. His soliloquy is lacking though. He calls her boobs small, accuses her of going out to get nailed by a bunch of guys, makes a homophobic remark, demeans gender equality and equates their breakup to an abortion.

Liz figures the deal is sealed. Everyone has seen what an oaf he is. So naturally they all call her heartless for not going after him, even Jenna. Then again, Jenna has seen Liz’s recent stab at the singles scene and knows it wasn’t pretty.

But Jack and Dennis meet up in the men’s room, and Dennis actually coaches Jack through the difficulties he’s having accepting with his Cabinet-level sweetie-pie.

Jack: Well, she works all the time. She’s always traveling. It’s a headache. Who needs that? That’s why I’m always dating 20 year olds.
Dennis: Let me tell you about 20 year olds my friend. Half of them are 16.

Then he mixes some inspiring advice with an analogy between relationships and licking dog’s feet that Jack eats up.

I just want to point out that with the exception of Kenneth (Jack McBrayer, who must be on vacation or something) we get generous doses in this episode of all the characters I’m usually complaining get too little screen time. Case in point is Rachel Dratch, who doesn’t really have a character of her own. This week she’s a sensitivity trainer. Sure enough, Toofer and Tracey melt down again in her seminar. But this time, they reach a breakthrough and decide to write a sketch on race relations based on their conflict. For that Dratch gets a sloppy kiss from Tracey that must have taken a dozen takes.

Liz comes home to find her TV mounted on the wall, flowers on the coffee table and a meatball wedge in the fridge. Her pro/con list gets longer.

Back on the set, Tracey is doing a Star Jones bulimia sketch that his and Toofer’s race relation skit was cut for. Toofer’s OK with it, though. It’s funnier.

Jack, back from a jaunt to Kandahar in the corporate jet to hook up with his neo-con inamorata, tells Liz they broke up. “I’m all for fantasy role-play, but Abu Graib?” He tells her to thank Dennis for showing him the way. My notes from watching this episode the first time read, “Liz has cleavage!” Do with that what you will. The fact that Jack likes Dennis goes on both the pro and con side of Liz’s list. She’s torn.

Dennis knocks on her apartment door bearing a gift: an attaché like the one jack bought Conde. She breaks down and invites him in. Could she really be taking him back? And is that really such a bad thing after all?

While he goes to the kitchen, she sits in front of her newly mounted TV and watches Dateline. It’s that recurring special investigation “To Catch a Predator” in which pedophiles are lured into Internet stings. Guess who walks in, with balloons.

NBC’s Chris Hansen: Can I ask you what you’re doing here sir?
Dennis: I’m here to boff some chick named Mary
Hansen: Boff some chick named Mary? And do you know how old Mary is?
Dennis: 22, I think. (Running into the room to turn off the TV): Crap. That girl told me she was 16 but I swear to god I could tell she was 22.
Liz: Get out of my apartment!
Dennis: This happened while we were broken up!

He slams the door, the TV and shelves come crashing down, and the pro/con list is complete.

Only The Office is a funnier 22 minutes on TV. And like The Office, no new episodes of 30 Rock until 2007, unfortunately. See you then!

Brian is a soon-to-be dad who writes for a living and spends his free time obsessing on the New York Mets and The Office, watching 30 Rock and Heroes and walking his oversized mutt Riley.