30 Rock Recap: Cleveland

Title: “Cleveland”
Original airdate: April 19, 2007
GMMR Recapper: Brian

We open with Liz and Floyd checking out a posh uptown apartment with a killer view. We also get introduced to a killer exclamation when Liz sees the rent: By the hammer of Thor! If Floyd gets his big promotion he’ll be making “get away with murdering my first wife” kind of dough.

These two are getting serious. Floyd envisions her moving her humidifiers into the place. Of course that goes out the window when an Arab gentleman takes the apartment so his son has a place to keep his motorcycles.

In Jack’s office, Phoebe reintroduces herself to Liz for the umpteenth time. It’s endearingly annoying. Or vice versa. She and Jack just returned from Paris. While she’s off to Christie’s to sort through Chinese erotica up for auction, Jack tells Liz he’d like her to get to know his new fiancé.

Liz: Have you guys set a date?
Jack: May 18. That’s Bianca’s (his ex-wife’s) wedding date. It was my idea.
Liz: That’s fast.
Jack: There are no rules in love, Lemon. My Princeton roommate did it the right way and dated his college girlfriend for 13 years, and the marriage didn’t last eight months. And now he’s a post-op trans-gender.

Jack gives Liz his gold card (made of real gold) to take Phoebe and Jenna for lunch and shopping.
Meanwhile, Tracey’s loan application to finance his Jefferson biopic was rejected by the bank. They didn’t want to pay for all the Claymation sex scenes, apparently. It’s alright, though. The movie is only a small part of “The Tracy Jordan Comeback,” he says, which includes a comedy tour and Michael McDonald cover album. Liz is skeptical, but Tracy assures her he’s on his grind (whatever that means). He’s going to be so rich his grandkids will play lacrosse (again, whatever that means).

Jack stops by to put in a good word for Floyd on his promotion interview. The other candidate’s name is Alan Garkle, and you’ll never lose a  job to a guy named Garkle, Jack says. Just then, Garkle rolls past in a wheelchair. No, Jack tells Floyd, you’re not going to beat that.

At lunch, Liz is breaking down Caddyshack for a stone-faced Phoebe when her phone rings. The Wagnerian theme is also Elmer Fuddian, a reference also lost on Phoebe. Liz’s prodding prompts Phoebe to concede that her motives with Jack might appear suspect. (Jenna, by the way would not only marry Jack but would be intimate with two Jacks, whatever that means.)

Phoebe: Let’s face it, at our age we can’t afford to waste any time.
Jenna: Mmmhmm.
Liz: Floyd and I have been dating for a month. Do you think that I should be mad that I don’t have a ring?
Jenna & Phoebe nod.
Jenna: Wow, how Sex and the City are we right now? I’m Samantha, (to Phoebe) you’re Charlotte, and (to Liz) and you’re the lady at home who watches it.

On set, Frank brings Tracy a magazine clip in which Bill Cosby rips Tracy as an embarrassment to African Americans Tracy can’t believe it. (Cut to scenes of Tracy inexplicably stealing a television following a Jets loss.) Enter Kenneth with news that Temple University canceled Tracy’s stand-up act and Michael McDonald is withholding the rights to his music. Kenneth’s Michael McDonald impression? Awesome. Tracy sees a pattern. Cosby is sending a message: The Black Crusaders are out to destroy him.

Shopping is a hit with Phoebe, but Liz’s pop-culture quips still aren’t.

Phoebe: Your Floyd would love this one.
Liz: Yikes. If I was going to spend $600 to have my boobs pinched I would have gone to that fundraiser at the Clinton’s house. Come on, that was solid.

Phoebe begins revealing her concerns about her and Jack’s sexual compatibility, and this naturally freaks Liz out. It seems Jack fell asleep during a critical intimate moment. But Phoebe just wants to make him happy, so she runs up the gold card with new clothes.

Floyd lost the job to Garkle, and now he’s tired of New York. In fact, the whole rat race has got him down. It’s worth noting he’s referring to the actual rat races his landlord stages in the hallway outside his apartment. He’s thinking of going back home to Cleveland.

While cops with assault rifles search Liz’s bag, Floyd waxes nostalgic about his hometown. Liz doesn’t want to end up like the hardened old woman crossing the street nearby but rather like the vibrant lady across the way singing New York’s praises – until she gets cross-checked into a pile of trash. Liz starts singing herself, until a bum spits in her mouth, to which I say, “eeewwwwww!”

In his dressing room, Tracy explains The Black Crusaders to Liz. They’re a secret group of powerful black Americans – Cosby, Oprah Winfrey, Jesse Jackson, Colon Powell and Gordon from Sesame Street – who meet quarterly in the skull of the Statue of Liberty.

Liz: Ah, well it must be true if it’s on the interweb.
Tracy: Make fun of me all you want, Liz Lemon. Do you know they ruin anybody who they think are making black people look bad? They tanked 50 Cent’s movie, they blew out Terrell Owens’s ankle, and they canceled Eddie Murphy’s Oscar because he ran out on Scary Spice. And now they’re after Tracy Jordan.

Up in his office, Jack is showing off Phoebe’s gift of Gerald Ford’s old golf clubs. Liz hints at the “bonkers underwear” she also got him. Since Jack hasn’t been above 72nd Street in 10 years, he’s skipping Phoebe’s speaking engagement at Columbia that night. Besides he’s zonked from all their romps in the hay. When Jack nods off, his assistant Jonathan tips off Liz that Phoebe’s really got plans downtown that night.

So Liz pops into a restaurant and finds Phoebe having dinner with an older gentleman, a sight that elicits another “By the hammer of Thor!” Everyone’s going to be saying that soon, you watch. Phoebe busts Liz busting her.

Before Liz can tell Jack, he sidetracks her with the Tracy situation. He set fire to a cardboard cutout of Al Roker and locked himself in his dressing room, fearing The Black Crusaders want to make him disappear like Coolio. In the midst of this, Floyd shows up to take Liz to Cleveland for the weekend.

I’ve never been to Cleveland, but if it’s half the sweet paradise portrayed in the ensuing musical medley, well I’m still never going there. But it does seem to be a city of friendly cops and lunches with Little Richard. It’s also Tracy’s hiding spot of choice.

Over dinner, Floyd tells Liz he’s been offered a job with the top law firm in town and she wants her to move with him.

At this point, I’ve got a little lump in my throat. I love these crazy kids together, but I also know Sudeikis isn’t a full-time cast member. Geez, first Sam and Diane, then Jim and Pam. What’s to become of Fliz?

Sorry, I lost my dude compass. I’m back.

In New York, Liz is walking on air until she finds out Tracy’s missing. She reveals her possible plans to leave for Cleveland, though Jack warns her the last time he let vacation elation get the better of him he ended up with a timeshare in Port Arthur, Texas. But Liz is a model in Cleveland. As Jack suggests she’s burned out, the characters in Frank’s “Hot Babies” sketch walk by, the result of Liz not being around for a couple of days.

Backstage, Liz runs into Phoebe, who claims she was only letting old flame down easy and didn’t tell Jack because she didn’t want to upset him.

Phoebe: You know how John Lennon was better than the rest of The Beatles until he met Yoko Ono? Well I’m Jack’s Yoko.
Liz: You want to be Yoko?
Phoebe: This is none of your business anyway. I’m marrying Jack. He’s everything I’ve ever wanted.
Liz: Oh, I bet he is.
Phoebe: You don’t know anything about me so back off.
Liz: What happened to your accent?
Phoebe: (pausing) I don’t know what you’re on about, you daft wanker.

Tracy calls Liz from Cleveland but can’t say that. He’s quitting to start a new life. When Jack finds out it’s because of The Black Crusaders he takes off to deal with the situation. I don’t think that was Toofer (Keith Powell) trailing Tracy at the end of the scene, but it looked like him and would have been funnier if it was.

Liz pops into Floyd’s office and tells him she can’t go to Cleveland.  Her life is in New York, and she’s only known Floyd a month. He agrees it was a crazy idea. You can’t just move to your favorite vacation spot or the whole world would live Hawaii, Italy and Cleveland. Liz is glad to hear it until he makes it clear he’s going without her.

Now why do shows do this? The progression of Fey’s character all season has been amazing, from lonely to hapless to finally happy. Now they’re sending her back to hapless or lonely, probably in a vain search for the laughs that scored back in November. If this keeps up, 30 Rock is in danger of really becoming The Office.

I really started to cringe when Liz next showed up in Jack’s office. These two go together like salmon and caramel. Asked what she thinks of Phoebe, Liz starts out being complimentary and ends up ranting about everything that’s wrong with her. Phoebe was right, Jack tells her. She’s infatuated with him. This prompts Liz to reveal that she knows he fell asleep on top of Phoebe in Paris. (Wouldn’t that kill a sufferer of Avian Bone Syndrome?)

The scene and the episode end awkwardly with Liz brushing past Phoebe on her way out the door.

Blerg indeed, Liz Lemon. Blerg indeed.

Brian is currently a stay-at-home dad and a writer who obsesses on The Office and the New York Mets. Check out http://remote.lohudblogs.com/author/bhoward/ to catch his daily musings on his favorite sit-coms.