30 ROCK: Jackie Jormp-Jomp

“I’m back, nerds!” And not a moment too soon. While I enjoy seeing all the, um, “colors” of Liz Lemon’s home life, I really do prefer it when they keep her locked up in the office with the usual bunch of bananas.

Of course she would fall in with a band of bored, privileged divorcees and end up drinking, shopping, and Botoxing her way through her two-week S-E-X probation (sweet montage, btw). And turning a group of seemingly harmless boozehounds into an Upper West Side fight club (“the pain proves we’re alive”) made perfect sense to those of us who actually inhabit the Upper West Side. But something about the pacing tends to feel off when Liz is interacting with an entirely different group of people, and this episode was the most laugh-free of the season for me. Right up till the end, that is, as she chastises Jenna and Tracy in a standard speech of exasperation, only with her patented anger replaced by a big ol’ grin that nicely offsets her big ol’ black eye, and knowing it’s the grin that terrifies them.

The Jack/Jenna pairing was a welcome twist, though, mostly because Alec Baldwin’s performance manages to both ground and heighten Jenna’s deeply ingrained lunacy, since Jack is just as crazy as she is but in a more straightforward, businesslike way. (My favorite bit was his wordless reaction to Dora the Explorer’s backpack bumping Jenna from the red carpet.) I also like that it’s the (true) revelation of her age that leads Jenna to sabotage the chances for her own increasingly horrible-sounding film, as well as the paparazzi mistaking her for Dina Lohan at the Kids’ Choice Awards. But not involving Liz in Jack’s Tupac-ing scheme made the whole storyline feel too trivial, although having his fix fail in a way that Liz’s likely wouldn’t have (debatable, I guess) is what leads to her triumphant return in the end.

Likewise, Kenneth’s unrequited love for Daphne came out of nowhere and was the rare nonstarter of a plot than even Tracy Jordan couldn’t save—not even with a new troop of very ugly and possibly transsexual backup dancers whose only dance move is a singular and profound lack of dance moves. Oh well! Better luck next week.

A FEW FAVORITE THINGS

Liz telling Jeffrey Wienerslave, her sexual harassment trainer, to “drop those Dockers and give me a piece of that sweet ass” in order to buy herself six additional weeks of lazy time.

Jack to Jenna: “You can’t give up now. Did Jackie Jormp-Jomp give up when those vampires attacked Woodstocks?”

The Indigo Girls album “Vagabonds, Martyrs and Quilts.”

Tracy: “Heavy is the head that eats the crayons.”

Helen Mirren getting slimed at the Kids’ Choice Awards.

Liz’s “No Longer a Workplace Sex Criminal” certificate, which she displays proudly.

Kari is a 30 ROCK fanatic and will be taking it out on you, her new imaginary friends.