30 ROCK Recap: Jack Gets Back in the Game

Before we get into the recap of last night’s 30 ROCK, I just want to say that I’m a late comer to the show and I’m so glad I listened to all of you that were raving about it all last year.  I’m almost all caught up on last season and I think this show is hysterical, just brilliant stuff. Oh and bring Will Arnett on full time please.

Title: Jack Gets Back in the Game
Original airdate: Oct. 11, 2007
GMMR recapper: Brian
It was a night of redemption for the crew at 30 Rock, something you wouldn’t expect from the season’s second episode.

Then again, you wouldn’t expect Liz to be a steak fiend, Harvard to publish a Gay Business Review or “Me Want Food” to be the catchphrase of the year. But the truth is the truth, as sure as the alien living inside Stan Lee founded the Church of Practicology.

But before you can have redemption, you’ve got to hit bottom. And that’s where Liz Lemon resides these days. Jack always sees it, but so does Jenna this time. It’s tough to take life lessons from a single woman who uses their treadmill as a coat rack for a wedding dress. Like Liz is supposed to put it in the closet with ham fat all over it.

Liz has some growing up to do. Jenna’s done some growing herself, a good 30 pounds worth of Mystic Pizza growing. The Japanese Porn Star all-the-paper-you-can-eat diet isn’t getting it done, and Dr. Spaceman can only offer crystal meth, with its tooth retention complications, or risky surgery along with and a patient roll that includes Alf and the Unabomber.

But something funny happens when you strap on a love handle prosthetic: the funny little fat girl inside comes alive. And sure enough it was Frank, a plus-size funnyman in his own right, who provides the inspiration for Me Want Food.

Jenna’s self-realization runs counter to Liz’s save-the-world encouragement not to let America’s crazy public image problems define her as it does so many women. (James Gandolfini and Fat Albert don’t have to deal with that.) But she’s got her own t-shirt, and people are recognizing her. All Liz has to show for her great advice is a set of unassembled Blërg furniture. (Nice callback to “The Rural Juror”.)

As she scarfs down Jack’s vicarious sirloin (“A dog took it. He came out of nowhere.”), he unveils his plan to succeed Don Geiss, he of the pillowy abyss of a soft bosom (It’s a yachting metaphor, apparently.), at the helm of GE.

Enter Devon Banks, played to the hilt by Will Arnett. His lust for corporate power is topped only by his lust for Kenneth the page. He’s dating the boss’s daughter, the grey-haired unmarryable woman behind whom he hides his homosexuality. It’s a brilliant end-run around Jack’s pretense to the helm. When Kenneth unwittingly reveals Jack’s sordid cardiac history, things look grim.

All the scratchy voiced trash talk and thinly veiled homoerotic double entendre can’t hide the fact that Jack’s at a disadvantage. But at the Kennedy compound, or rather someplace that looks a whole lot like it, Jack puts his ticker to the test. I don’t know how you hide a weak heart, but Geiss is impressed. When Devon gags on a hot dog (Yikes, right?), Jack finds redemption in the Heimlich maneuver.

But then he sicks a virile young wrestler on his former nemesis. Dirty pool, old boy! Guess it’s like Don Geiss says, you’ve got to find time to be with your grandkids. And your secret family in Canada.

All the while Tracy’s marriage is slipping away. His wife is in the past, like Dracula and broadcast television. But do you know what? She’s right. ICU81MI is just plain inscrutable.

Enter Sheri Shepherd as Angie Jordan. She just can’t make her man understand that a women doesn’t want jewelry with her name spelled wrong, sexually explicit skywriting or white boys throwing up in her damn foyer.

Kenneth’s got a plan. He’s going to use his masculine wiles to do some good. “I’m a real good sex person. I do it all the different ways.” Yowza, my boy. Just plain yowza.

Tracy’s got something on his mindgrapes and it’s jealousy. Images of Kenneth seducing his wife with turkey legs and Grizz leave him unsettled. Cheating on his woman was wrong. To make things right, Kenneth’s got to pleasure her. This plan is as ill-advised as a Werewolf Bar Mitzvah video.

Just as Angie takes him back, Jack lands on Don Geiss’s short list and Liz finds herself in her apartment assembling her office furniture, using her wedding dress to prop it up just right.

You’ll find your Floyd one day, Liz Lemon. Blërg, indeed.

Brian writes for a living and watches TV for fun, though lately the lines are blurring. He’s got a wife and son who he loves very much, and a dog who tolerates him. He is still mourning the Mets, so please don’t bring it up. Check him out at Remote Access, http://remote.lohudblogs.com/author/bhoward