30 Rock: A Recapping Extravaganza

You know, the last time I was behind on my recaps, I swore to myself that it would never happen again.

And then the holiday season began, and I was too busy eating my way through Thanksgiving, and drinking gallons of egg nog in the service of Christmas that my fingers got too fat for me to type. My fingers could hardly bend to type on my iBook keyboard. May I should get a keyboard with oversized keys should such an emergency happen again?

And now... recaps of the last four episodes of "30 Rock".

• Jack-Tor: Jack is pushing product integration to Liz and the writing staff, who come up with a product integration sketch starring Jack as a GE executive. Not much of a stretch, you realize, and Jack has even had some on-camera experience with a training video, but he still needs a 3:00 am pep talk from Liz to steel his nerves for the live broadcast. Jenna gets it into her head -- okay, Frank and Toofer actually put it there -- that Jack is looking to fire an actor. Fearing for her job, she butters up an mysterious older gentleman at the studio. Is it Jack's boss? Yes, but only in the product integration sketch. You, Jenna, have just schtupped an elderly extra for naught. Again, Tracy probably gets the best plot, pretending to be illiterate so he can do what he wants on the show. Playing on Liz's guilt as deftly as only he can, he goes so far as to okay a promotional poster advertising his small penis until he breaks down and admits that he can, in fact, read. Also, Jenna closes the show by performing her smash hit (Israel & Belgium, only) "Muffin Top" with special musical guest Ghostface Killah. Of course.
• Jack Meets Dennis: Liz reunites with old boyfriend Dennis, the last beeper salesman in Manhattan and is just as classy as that job description would imply. Jack doesn't seem so sure about Dennis as a boyfriend, though he doesn't say as much. The vaguely baleful looks in the elevator are enough. However, Jack ends up buying a beeper from Dennis. Aw. Tracy is displeased at the tabloids depicting him as a normal person, so he gets a facial tattoo to prove what a thug he is. That, combined with Jenna's botched attempt to appear the youthful 29 years she claims is her age and a pair of black eyes for Josh (care of Liz Taylor, of course -- !), makes for a big makeup & wardrobe nightmare for the show. However, the tattoo's fake, and a power outage on the block downs the show for the week, saving America the site of Tracy's dragon face and Jenn's cartoonishly large lips and chemically burned complexion.
• Tracy On Conan: Best. Episode. Ever. Words cannot even describe how awesome this episode, featuring a drugged Tracy struggling with visions of little blue men and non-working shoe-phones. Pete finds, at Jack's behest, that wigs aren't such a bad look for him. And Liz works the Tracy problem while trying to keep Jenna from quitting and trying not to pass out from having donated blood at the beginning of the day. Liz passes out eventually, but not before she gets Tracy his correct meds, with little thanks to his sketchy doctor/dentist, played by former SNL castmember Chris Parnell. Tracy manages to make his date with "Late Night with Conan O' Brien" without turning into the stabbing robot that ruined his previous visit to the show. But maybe the next time Tracy appears, he won't fall asleep as soon as he gets into the guest chair? Oh Tracy...
• The Break-Up: Finally! Liz breaks up with Dennis after he digs a number of holes in her wall (to be fair, he was looking for studs so he could mount her television on the wall like they do in hospitals), brings his cousin Teddy's Great Dane into the apartment (Liz is allergic), and puts up cousin Teddy in her bed. After dumping him, Liz hits the bar scene with Jenna where she finds that she's not such a big hit after drunkenly insulting the parade of single, attractive men who dare to buy her drinks. Meanwhile, Jack finds that dating an unnamed African-American White House official is not without its difficulties -- she travels a lot, and has endless photo ops with handsy world leaders. Though Jack and his girlfriend, whose name rhymes with "Bondi Mice", end up parting ways, Liz and Dennis almost get back together. Bonding over food, which seems to be at the center of their relationship, Liz flips on (in a nice bit of synergy) "To Catch A Predator" only to see Dennis himself getting caught by Chris Hansen. Tracy and Toofer resolve a misunderstanding over the N-word to write a sketch from an African-American male perspectivce, only to have the sketch replaced on air by Tracy playing Star Jones vomiting through "The Star Jones Gastric Bypass Cooking Show". Which was actually pretty funny for a sketch on the show within the show. You hear that, "Studio 60"? Yeah, I thought so.

A final note: Alec Baldwin bagged a much-deserved Golden Globe nomination for his work on "30 Rock". Yay!