Episode 19 - Corporate Crush
25 March 2012
Synopsis: Don Geiss takes the microwaves division away from Jack after his fireworks special failed so badly. Jack begins hanging out at Christie’s Auction house because he is depressed. Liz brings Floyd to meet Jack and the two of them get on too well for her liking. She asks Jack to leave them alone and he proposes to Phoebe, who works at Christie’s. Meanwhile Don Geiss turns down Tracy’s idea for a movie about Thomas Jefferson. So Tracy uses the TGS set to film his own trailer which still fails to impress Geiss.
The Good: This is more interesting stuff building on the stories that will lead us out of season one.
Liz and Floyd are a genuinely fun couple to watch. Their bonding scenes here are fun to watch and make Liz seem likeable which is always good.
Jack’s soul searching leads him to first seek out Floyd for validation and then propose to Phoebe well before he even knows her. We can see that their relationship will fail soon enough when he overcomes his current malaise. But it could be interesting to see how they get there. Phoebe and her “hollow bones” are potentially pretty funny. She plays the part very well.
Tracy is the star of the show as his Jefferson project hits a few roadblocks. His unstinting enthusiasm for his doomed movie is obvious comic fodder. Seeing a naïve character getting wrapped up in something is usually fun. Having Tracy get into character telling Lutz “I like you young man, you shall run my university!” amongst other things (see Comic Highlight) is pretty amusing. His “Jefferson” trailer is of course filled with silliness including a jogger in Central Park running past and Dot Com wearing his blue tooth head set. The two best lines for me were Tracy described by the voice over as “Academy Award watcher” and then “Jefferson’s” response to “Sally Hemming’s” request that he marry her – “I’m a have to get back to you on that.” Tracy’s attempts to bankroll his own movie could be hilarious as evidenced by lines such as “First order of business: Get that dead horse out of my car” and Grizz’ deadpan claim that “It’s like a rollercoaster ride of emotion in here.”
The Bad: It feels too soon to introduce Jack as a third wheel; we haven’t even had time to get used to Liz and Floyd as a two wheeled entity. They are already being “domestic” together, which is fun to see but it feels like we have skipped a chapter.
Comic Highlight: Liz walks into her own office first thing in the morning to be greeted by Tracy feeding a horse. “Hey Liz Lemon, could you go away for a while? I gotta get rid of Freddie’s erection.”
The Bottom Line: The new continuous storylines have helped 30 Rock feel more real and consequential. With Tracy carrying the humour this is a fun episode.
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