30 Rock Recap: “The Baby Show”

Title: The Baby Show
Original Air Date: Jan. 4, 2007

TV is back!!! I’m referring, at least, to the TV that I watch, and it was great to have my Thursday night NBC lineup back. The continuing saga of Jim and Pam is someone else’s recapping duty (lucky stiff!), but I’m really psyched about getting my weekly dose of Tina Fey again.

Can there be a classic scene in a show that’s only aired 10 episodes? If so, the cold open was a classic “diss Jenna” scene. It’s Jenna’s (Jane Krakowski) birthday, but her efforts to regale her co-workers with a little Whitney Houston keep getting interrupted, first by Cerie’s engagement announcement and second by an antique car show outside. Only Kenneth (Jack McBrayer) stays glued to her every note.

While Liz (Fay) waits to meet with Jack (Alec Baldwin), loyal (and creepy) assistant Jonathan (Maulik Pancholy) realizes area code 407 has gotten through on Jack’s line. Needless to say, pandemonium ensues. Jack is in rare, mean form. In his stressed state – which isn’t explained right away – he has no patience for Liz’s trivial problems. He tells her to handle them on her own.

Josh (Lonny Ross) and Tracey (Tracey Morgan) enter with Tracey’s entourage, joking about a fun night out. Josh is doing spot-on impressions of Tracey, and Tracey’s laughing along.

Josh: Tracey, thank you for the funnest night of my life. I love you man.
Tracey: I love you too J-bird. (turning to Liz after Josh leaves) Yo, I don’t like that dude. It’s disrespectful when he imitates me. I want him fired.
Liz: Oh come on. It’s a goof.
Tracey: How would you like it if I did an impression of you Liz Lemon. (in a squealy voice) Hi. I’m Liz Lemon. I like to wear man-shirts. Watch me skateboard.
Liz: I don’t skateboard.
Tracey: Hurts, doesn’t it?

This is a fire that Liz is going to have to put out on her own. Tracey threatens to go over Liz’s head to Jack about Josh, but Liz can’t have that, not after the area code 407 blow-up that morning. She promises to take care of it.

Meanwhile, Cerie is in make up. She’s like a Barbie, says the makeup girl. (She IS like a Barbie!) Cerie will have been with her new fiancé for two months in three weeks. She admits to Liz they’re moving fast, but they both really want kids. She’s already got girl’s names picked out (Bookcase, Sandstorm and Hat, though that’s more of a boy’s name.)

Liz urges her to consider waiting.

Cerie: You can have a career at any time. You only have a short period to be a young, hot mom. If you wait too long, you’ll be like 50 at your kid’s graduation.
Liz: 50’s not that old, Cerie.
Cerie: Oh, I’m sorry. Are you 50 now?

We cut to a heart-to-heart dinner talk between Liz and Jenna about motherhood. For a split second I thought Jenna was Amy Poehler, which made me realize how much cooler she would have been for the role. I mean, if you’re going to screw over Rachel Dratch for a cute blonde, why not a funny cute blonde? Sorry, I’m still bitter. I really am warming up to Jane Krakowski, slowly.

Anyway, Liz is in full ticking-biological-clock mode, but Jenna promises to help her find a baby-daddy.

At the studio, Jack snaps at Kenneth, who responds cheerily. How does he do it, he asks. Kenneth’s mom taught him well. Turns out area code 407 is Jack’s mom in Florida threatening to move in with him. This is the woman who tried to send Jack to Vietnam to make a mom out of him – at age 12. Kenneth, meanwhile, tells his mom when she gets down that she carried him for nine months so let him carry her a little. Jack’s inspired.

Next, we get a dose of Dr. Spaceman again! (It’s pronounced Spa-che-min.) Chris Parnell’s recurring character is listed as a fertility expert (and under meth addiction and child psychiatry) in Liz’s doctor listings. But, he cautions, he can’t personally help her with conception. That’s OK, Liz’s writers would be glad to oblige.

Toofer (Keith Powell): OK, before you say no, our child would have a leg up getting into Harvard.
Liz: Oh really? Did you go to Harvard? Because you haven’t mentioned it in like three hours.
Frank (Judah Friedlander): Our kid would have strong, flat feet.
J.D. (John Lutz): And if you choose me, I agree not to take my shirt off. But I do like to get yelled at during sex.
Liz: You’re disgusting.
J.D.: Yeah, that’s a good start.

Even Pete (Scott Asdit) is willing to help. It turns out his vasectomy is a fake, as are his “performances” with his wife. Dratch makes her cameo here in an over-the-top creepy spot that defies description. I love her.

Before Liz can yell at Jenna for putting out a casting call for a sperm donor, she spots Josh doing Tracey impressions for the whole crew. And before she can stop him, Tracey walks in. “This is untoward,” he protests. “This is not toward!” So Liz tells Josh he has to fix things. Then she needlessly announces to the crew that she doesn’t want to have sex with any of them. Just a great moment by Fay.

This is the part where I nearly died laughing. Jack calls Tracey about Josh, only it’s really Josh doing a hilarious Jack impression. He’d fire Josh, he says, but Josh’s dad is a Russian mob assassin known as El Matador. Jack/Josh thanks Tracey for his understanding, promises to send him an invisible motorcycle and excuses himself because he has to see his doctor about his pooping during sex.

I wish I could write for this show.

At that moment, Liz is with the real Jack, who has heard about her motherly desires. Liz assures him her brain will control her body’s desires. And here Baldwin steals the show.

Jack: If you insist on going all Murphy Brown on me, let me give you a tip. Don’t smother your child with affection to compensate for not having a man in your life. Don’t say you’re the only man they’ll ever love. Even babies know that’s creepy.
Liz: Of course.
Jack: Don’t put little notes in their lunchbag that say “Mommy’s watching you.” People find those things.
Liz: I bet you behaved yourself, though.
Jack: If your child is a terrific hockey player and a gifted flautist, don’t make them play the national anthem on the flue in front of their teammates.

Jack questions why she’d want to be a mother, and she counsels him to just be nice to his. He can’t. He tries, but he can’t.

Downstairs, Cerie shows Liz her wedding dress. Guys, you’ll want to watch for this quick scene. Liz finds Tracey and pleads with him not to bother Jack about Josh, but Tracey says it’s too late. He and Jack just spoke. That’s impossible, though, since Liz was just with Jack. So she goes to Josh and makes him call Jack as Tracey. Jack buys it, even though Josh is a moron – albeit a moron who does a good Christopher Walken.

Later, the makeup girl pawns off her baby on a hesitant Liz, who proceeds to steal away with the child in a fit of baby craziness. Jack and Tracey realize what Josh has been up to and exact revenge. Every day for the rest of his life, or hers, Josh must call Jack’s mom as Jack and sweet talk her in the way that Jack just couldn’t.

Things wrap up as Pete helps Liz return baby Isabel, who Liz has renamed Nancy by the way, and Jack helps Liz talk through her maternal crisis.

The capper scene is a creepy conversation between Kenneth and his mother, who I was relieved to say was on the speaker phone. The skeleton in mom’s clothing freaked me out for a minute.

Yup, Thursdays are back!

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.