I’ll be honest. Before last night I’d about had it with 30 Rock’s guest stars.

I never thought I’d say it, because the show had always been so brilliant about weaving them in, but by last fall I felt like Tina Fey and Co. had hit a wall with the stuntcasting and it was time to get back to basics.

That said, Salma Hayek and Peter Dinklage brought a lot to the table in last night’s episode, “Señor Macho Solo.”

Jack found love—again. Liz found that little someone who could take her mind off babies, or so she thought. Tracy found that he didn’t need gold shoes and money shirts to keep his love by his side. And Jenna found that you don’t need the rights to a star’s name, music or likeness to launch a convincing biopic.

You just need a chunk of my love.

Here’s what I liked. Every scene with Hayek was a pleasure to watch. She’s as funny as she is pretty with her McDonald’s references and authoritative, rapid Spanish. Tracy Morgan continues to carry the show, as he has all season. (I totally have to catch his movie A Blaffair to Rememblack.) And Jane Krakowski continues to amaze with the kind of comic fearlessness that is almost extinct on TV. And she is sleepy!

I laughed hard at this one, and that’s all I ever expect from this show. When it delivers a little emotion and relatability to boot, that’s great. It hasn’t for a while now, and Tina Fey ought to be looking hard at why that might be. But funny’s enough for now, even if future guest stars do come up short. (That was not a Dinklage joke, I swear!)

Watch the full episode after the jump, followed by a detailed recap.

There were an unbelievable four story lines unfolding in this one, with Tracy and Jenna each carrying a C story. But leading things was Liz’s baby-inspired pursuit of the little guy from U.N. High Commission on Water Temperature and Food Taint.

It had me going from Liz’s distracted opening exchange with Jenna.

Jenna: Liz, did you hear?

Liz: Yeah, is your brother going to be OK?

Jenna: Oh no, not that. A new movie about Janis Joplin is going into production.

Liz’s baby-craze is creeping out the moms, but at least she isn’t turned on by car accidents like Jenna.

Enter the diminutive Mr. Dinklage. He’s a very serious guy. Instead of making his height the joke, they bounce Liz’s crazy off him. And it works. Good thing he likes aggressive women with a nerdy vibe.

He works for the UN, which it turns out is a lot like the Galactic Senate from Star Wars. They really hit it off, which seems unlikely given Liz’s generally obvious but unacknowledged shallowness. (Remember “The Hair.” And she only wanted to be with Dennis because it was easy, not out of low self-esteem.)

Jenna thinks the attraction is based on her mommy craze, but Liz really doesn’t want to blow it.

Liz: What if I say something stupid like order a tall coffee or talk about my Nintendo Wii?

Jenna: Liz, you like this guy. You’re a grown woman. Take a lesson from Janis Joplin and show some self-control.

Liz: How far into that biography are you?

Jenna: Not very. Why, what happens?

I thought I might die laughing at one nonstop stream of jokes starting with Jack hearing Liz is going out to dinner and asking where her book is. Then Kenneth asks Stuart what it’s like living under a bridge (the first of two jokes The Office already used). By the time Stuart revealed his job title, I had soda coming out my nose.

On their date Liz shields Stuart from the flames of a push cart vendor, and it’s over between them. After all, Kofi told him she was too good to be true. And his buddy with the sound effect for a name told him to wait three days before calling her. She may be weirder than him, but he’s weird how?

Liz: That came out wrong.

Stuart: You came out wrong.

She tries calling him at work to apologize, but digs the hole deeper with a Sex and the City-type invite to meet on the Brooklyn Bridge. I did love his robotic “Please hold” as he transfers her to the Italian consulate “to make-a da pranka phone calla.”

In the end, they meet on the bridge, and Liz paws a child’s head, ending any hope for them ever.

Next up is Jack. Congresswoman C.C. is gone, and he’s prepared to die alone until he meets Hayek’s Elisa, his mom’s nurse. She’s too glamorous to play a geriatric nurse, but I rolled with it.

Elisa: You should have seen my grandmother in her later years. Do you know what kind of clothes old Puerto Rican ladies wear around the house?

Jack: No.

Elisa: Me neither because she never wore any.

Right off the bat she’s better than Jennifer Aniston, who wasn’t bad but added little with her recent guest spot.

Elisa got Jack’s mom to sleep by 7 with rapid, authoritative Spanish, which she finds lulls white people. Her nephew joined the marines to pay for college, but the gold shoes Tracy gave Jack are fun too.

As they talk, Jack reveals his cynical side about love. His life exit plan involves a McFlurry machine and a videotape of risque foreign commercials. In Puerto Rico it’s called a Señor Flurry, by the way.

The next morning, she finds Jack troubled and slickly begins examining him. He’s embarrassed, but it’s no worse than all those Michael Buble CDs he owns. With a little authoritative, rapid Spanish, she’s giving him a very personal physical exam and still manages to work in a well-timed mention her niece’s quinceañera, or debutante ball. She also tosses out an admonition that he see a doctor.

Jack: I’m fine.

Elisa: Oh please. Don’t try to be a Señor Macho Solo, which is actually what we call a McRib sandwich.

I still don’t get the joke, but it made me laugh.

At the party, Jack shows up with a ‘65 Moet and pizza-blasted Pringles. She’s wearing a top that might be illegal in three of New York’s five boroughs, by the way. She invites him to stay, which gets him a baby and a plate of hors d’oeuvres as she introduces him in Spanish.

Elisa: Be nice to him because he has a growth in his crotch and he’s very sensitive about it. But he bought booze!

Why was the macarena playing? Isn’t that illegal in all five boroughs?

The result is that Jack finds himself uncynically in love and encourages Liz to not be alone. Even with a testicular growth, he’s happy. A phone call from the doctor, taken by Tracy, reveals it’s positive. You know, positive, like good. The test results were negative. Yeah, I heard a version of that one before too, on the “Michael’s Birthday” episode of The Office.

She’ll be back in future episodes, but for now Jack is unsure about his feelings for Elisa. Are they real? Dude, it’s Salma Hayek. Who cares?

I hate that they relegated the best jokes to the secondary storylines, but Jack’s efforts to help Tracy get his spending under control led to the most laughs.

A three-hour prime time salute to Benny Hill, a shirt made of money, those gold shoes and Grizz and Dot Com are all examples of Tracy’s wasteful spending in an effort to keep his wife from leaving him and taking half his money. Question: Can a man in gold shoes be too proud to help?

Jack comes up with a post-nuptial agreement for Tracy and Angie. (Sheri Sheppard is a great recurring guest star, by the way.) She gets $8,500 if she leaves. But her dedication to Tracy, swearing she’ll watch him die, makes him throw out the post-nup and take her right there on Jack’s desk…with everyone watching, or more accurately, scurrying away.

When Tracy’s on his death bed french kissing his wife, he’ll think of Jack. At least when he takes her in the hallway, Frank gets to watch. Poor Kenneth.

By the way, Tracy was in a remake of An Affair to Remember called A Blaffair to Rememblack.

Also out-funnying the main plots is Jenna’s attempted star turn as the late rock goddess. She isn’t an entirely unconvincing Joplin, right down to the drug-addled stagger and identity confusion, but I don’t think they were part of the act. Jack, at least, likes the synergy.

That’s why Sheinhard Universal includes a Heroes DVD with every missile guidance system it sells. So he orders Liz to let Jenna open the next episode with a song.

Jack: You can’t fight synergy, Lemon. It’s bigger than all of us.

Too bad there’s a competing Janis Joplin biopic starring Julia Roberts, directed by Scorcese and written by the best writer in the world, whoever that is, the awesomely assembled Access Hollywood parody informs us. It’s quite a blow to Jenna’s project with Stephen Spielberger. Oh, and here she is on a windy day. Nice.

Jenna’s nevertheless obsessed with the movie, but Jack wants relationship advice. That’s a bad move because you could end up engaged to her easily that way. Turns out they don’t even have the rights to the Joplin music yet. And yes, he’s talking.

On the show that night, which we never, ever get to see, the regular warm-up comic, who OD’d in a gay man’s apartment that morning, has been replaced by Kenneth doing his rendition of the rap song “Top That” from the movie Teen Witch. Watch the original here, then wash your eyes with soap.

In the end, Jenna’s left to play Janet Jopler? No rights, huh? Her performance is something else. “Break another little chunk of my love now, Mister.”

It’s her best work since Muffin Top, which will never be topped.