30 Rock: Senor Macho Solo

Posted by: Jeff Anseeuw  •  January 10, 2009 @ 11:22pm

Filed under: Recaps & Reviews

As the 30 Rock gang returns from the holidays, we see that Liz is becoming increasingly baby-crazy and impatient about the lack of progress in her adoption process. Jenna is thrilled about an upcoming Janis Joplin biography that Jack is producing and she is determined to get the lead role. Tracy gets called into Jack's office because Jack, Grizz and Dot-com are concerned about his outrageous spending habits (Tracy attends this meeting wearing solid gold sneakers and a shirt that appears to be made up primarily of money). Tracy tells them that he feels that he has no choice but to spend his money because he fears his wife will leave him if she thinks he has enough money for her to live comfortably on half. Jack convinces him to try and get his wife to sign a "post-nup" agreement that would limit her to $8500 in the event of a divorce, but instead Tracy rips up the agreement before she can sign it because he becomes convinced that she will never really leave him.

Liz walks down 6th Avenue smiling and waving at any human under the age of 8. She meets Stewart LaGrange (guest star Peter Dinklage) when she touches his head at a crosswalk thinking he is a small child, but instead discovers that he is an adult who works at the UN ("High Commission on Water Temperature and Food Taint"). She finds that she likes him but is concerned that he will find out that the real reason she originally talked to him was that she thought he was a little boy in need of some mothering.

On their second "date", however, Liz tries to pick him up when he gets too close to an open flame, so he realizes the truth and decides to end things with her. She calls him later to apologize and suggests that they take a break but meet up on the Brooklyn bridge in a few days if they decide they still want to see each other. They both show up, but the romantic vibe is again destroyed when Liz sneaks up behind a young boy and whispers in his ear, mistaking him for Stewart, while the actual Stewart looks on.

Jack hires a private nurse, Elisa (guest star Salma Hayek), to look after his mother. She does an excellent job of taming Jack's feisty mother and as Jack talks to her more and more he starts to warm up to her family-loving way of life and belief that people are not meant to be alone. This, combined with Jack discovering a lump on one of his testicles (and the ensuing fears of his own mortality) while on a date with the latest of his vacuous bimbos, leads him to fall in love with Elisa presumably in hopes of having at least ONE meaningful relationship before he dies.

Jenna's hopes of starring in the Joplin biopic are dealt a major blow when a competing project starring Julia Roberts gets the go-ahead first, and even more so when a distracted Jack fails to secure the rights to use either Joplin's name or music. This does not, however, prevent Jenna from performing a smashing rendition of "Chunk of My Lung" (an altered lyrics version of "Piece of My Heart" penned by Jack moments before air-time) as Ms. "Janet Joffler" to open up that night's TGS.

Tags: 30 Rock, Peter Dinklage, Salma Hayek, Alec Baldwin, Tina Fey

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