That smart-alecky Tina Fey outshines yet another lineup of 30 Rock guest stars
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- November
- 12
I’d have posted about 30 Rock sooner, but I’ve had to contend with a sick baby. Besides, I’ve barely stopped laughing since “Greenzo” ended with the earth aflame and Al Gore off to tend to a whale in pain.
Green may by universal, a point NBC Universal has been hammering on lately, but Greenzo is universally obnoxious. Sure, he composts his own waste and he decides what he wants to eat before he opens the fridge. But you can’t just insult Meredith Vieira on live television anymore than you can talk to pretty people like they’re ugly. A party, after all is for polkas, not for throwing punches. Rumors run amok can leave everyone embarrassed and poorly coiffed in the morning. The lessons to be learned? Power down your PC at night. Don’t hire your corporate mascot from Rick Lazio’s unemployment line.
And never, ever eat a pop tart off the floor.
Tina Fey is that smart-mouthed kid at the back of the class who’ll say anything to the teacher without fear of reprisal because the teacher knows she’s right or smart enough to make it seem so. That’s why Fey can hit the picket lines on day one of the writers’ strike even though half her hyphenate puts her on the business end of the camera and on the business side of management. She just as readily thumbs her nose at NBC’s green-friendly marketing machine by lampooning it through and through on the very network and via the very program intended to be the vehicle for that message. To call 30 Rock self-aware is to suggest the show’s ethos allows it awareness of anything but itself.
Jack’s going to impress G.E. big-wig Don Geiss by creating the first nonjudgmental, business-friendly environmental advocate. “The free market will solve global warming…if that even exists,” declares Greenzo, played by David Schwimmer. (His Curb Your Enthusiasm stint already had me reassessing whether he might just have been the funniest Friend.)
Meanwhile, Liz is avoiding Kenneth because he’s got party invites in hand and his party’s usually stink. Tracy’s got the cure for that: gossip. Dot Com and Grizz, starving for Josh’s approval (Huh?), feed the grapevine and convince the cast Kenneth’s bash has an A-list lineup. Eventually, Jack is convinced he must be there, especially if Geiss and Texas Instruments will be.
Meanwhile, Greenzo starts buying his own hype, for which Jack’s outdated demographic forms could be partly to blame. “When I die they’ll want to put my face on money, if there were money in the future instead of just hugs,” he proclaims. A meltdown’s on the way, and Liz might have seen it coming if not for Pete’s newly dapper demeanor distracting her.
Pete’s cheating. Liz is sure. Ultimately, though, she finds out it’s with his own wife. They’ve rediscovered their passion, only they’ve rediscovered it in Liz’s bed, with her sweater tying him down. And just what in the heck do they do with the Pop Tarts? Eeeewwwww!
Now I’m not complaining, but for reasons I can’t explain, Liz shows up two-thirds of the way through the episode in a skimpy sweater/skirt outfit you’d more expect Cerie to wear.
The episode could’ve wrapped right there and gone down as memorably funny. But the smart-ass kid in the back of the room had two more tricks up her sleeve.
The first was Kenneth’s party. Beyond the bacchanalia of brawls, drunken rendezvous and intake of parakeet medication, we see little. Jack’s hair tells it all, though. No A-listers showed, but everyone managed to embarrass themselves and trash Kenneth’s joint. Liz made Grizz cry. Pete needs to pick up his wife. And I’m pretty sure Cerie beat up Toofer and Josh. It was surreal, the best party we never saw much of.
Lastly, Al Gore put down his Internet-inventing machine and made a comfortable cameo. No longer the guy who couldn’t beat Bush, he’s the Nobel-toting, Oscar-winning Vice President Greenzo himself. Lured by G.E.’s garbage car, he won’t stoop to green tights, but he will allow a few pokes at himself. And his idea to go Greenzo one better with a network-sponsored environmental campaing? Nah, who’d go for it?.
This entry was posted
on Monday, November 12th, 2007 at 5:33 pm by Brian Howard.
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“Yeah, you’re saying ‘gig’ a lot.”