Episode 16 - Apollo, Apollo
30 July 2009
Synopsis: Jack is turning 50 and his mother sends him some home movies. In one of them the 10 year old Jack vomits from excitement about a present he receives. Despite his success Jack wants to feel that excitement again. Meanwhile Dennis returns claiming to be a sex addict and needing to apologise to Liz. She then discovers that he slept with Jenna but she is determined that it won’t affect their friendship. But it does and she lets Jenna fall and hurts her leg. To make it up to her she allows Jenna to tell the writers about a sex line commercial she did. The ensuing footage is so embarrassing that Jack throws up out of sheer happiness.
The Good: This episode has the undeniable strength of building to a logical punch line. Jack’s search for happiness focuses on his one piece of happy vomiting footage. And in the end Liz’ plot feeds directly into that with her embarrassing commercial fulfilling Jack’s wish.
It’s certainly a fitting conclusion to another entertaining Jack story. He really is the heartbeat of the show because only he faces emotional crises, deals with them in a vaguely sane way and grows from them. He is therefore a likeable character with room for improvement, the type of character audiences can bond with and sympathise with. And there is the key to building a loyal television audience.
It helps that Jack is kind and friendly to his employees. He envies Kenneth and Tracy’s naïve happiness instead of looking down on them. He helps Tracy realise his childhood dream because he can relate to it and he thanks Liz, for providing him with happiness, even if it was through her humiliation. Perhaps there is also another level to Jack’s likeability. His stories are often about how his wealth and power don’t bring him happiness. He is often questioning his career choices (203, 305) or whether love is more important to him than work (206, 312). Here he is searching for that elusive happiness and it’s something we can all relate to.
There are also some fun jokes which flow from his search. Adam West makes a brief cameo to get no reaction from Jack’s friends and mispronounce his name. Jack’s search for happiness drags in three people into his office all perplexed by his strange request to find out what his tenth birthday present was. It culminates in a lip reader complaining “Oh my God you puked! Why wouldn’t you warn me? I was staring at your mouth!”
30 Rock even stretches their comedy style to include Kenneth seeing everyone as muppets, Tracy seeing everyone as himself and Jack viewing objects by their money value. I wasn’t sure about that joke until we saw the world through Jack’s eyes. That made it clearer that the joke was more an analogy for how each character thinks. Rather than a literal interpretation which would have bothered me because of its lack of logic.
Tracy Jordan is in fine form as ever with his desire to go into space (see Comic Highlight). Again it flows so logically from his established character traits that he can remain funny with most of what he does.
Perhaps the best comedy character of all on the show is Dennis Duffy. He is their most consistent laugh creator because his character is the most believable on the show. He’s a selfish, self confident, loud mouth ass hole. But that makes sense, his ridiculous self confidence helps blind him to his lack of skill or success in other areas of life. That confident ignorance makes all of his lines sound plausible and funny. His opening remarks are amusing as he lives up to his loser reputation (he used to sell beepers, long after they had been replaced by phones) as he claims the problem with coffee is there is nowhere to buy it. And of course his dubious morality leads to this zinger “My sponsor said you were going to try and pick a fight to lure me into hate sex. It’s not gonna work Elizabeth. My support group – it’s lousy with nymphos.” Everything he does reinforces his sleazy ignorant confidence. He assumes Liz and Jenna have come to see him to get graded on how good they were in bed. “Apples and oranges ladies” he says reassuringly. And he was emotional during Hurrican Katrina because of “what those people were doing to the Superdome.”
The Bad: It gives me no joy to once again criticise Liz’ character. She takes the high road but then proves that she hasn’t grown and she is petty and unprofessional (as she allows Jenna to fall dangerously).
There are just such mixed messages sent by Liz’ behaviour and I don’t think that mix is conducive to good comedy. Dennis is obviously being annoying and Liz is clearly the wounded party as Jenna betrayed their friendship by sleeping with him. But by rushing off to prove that he doesn’t matter to her she does the opposite. And by hurting Jenna she makes herself look really petty.
The conclusion to her story is that she is such a loser that she was once in a really bad commercial. Everyone laughs at her including Jack. Why do they laugh at her? Because she looks like a geek? So what? It’s an old advert and it wasn’t like she directed it. This is not an isolated punch line. The tone of 30 Rock is very much that Liz is a failed person. Jack, who is a success and sticks to his moral principles, laughs at the very idea that she will be dedicated enough to start running. All her subordinates cannot wait to jump all over her and mock her for her past appearance. And she is so pathetic that she bows down to Jenna, who is such a useless human being that Liz should really be stronger than her.
Even though Jack’s stories are the best thing about the show, he is still not the main character. Nor should he be. As likeable as he is, he is still the rich corporate executive. Most viewers are going to relate more to Liz Lemon trying to hold the chaos together. But she just isn’t sympathetic nor is she reprehensible. If you are going to humiliate someone then the emotional response of the audience will be either to laugh at that person or sympathise with them. But Liz provokes neither reaction, she just provokes confusion. You want to like her but there’s not always much to like.
Jenna shouldn’t be suggesting that they stab someone. That crosses a line of realism. Or at least it does if you don’t react by sending her to therapy.
The writers all react to Jack puking in a thoroughly ridiculous manner. They react like his heart just exploded or he flashed them or something. They are already a collection of poorly fleshed out characters and this doesn’t help add realism.
Comic Highlight: As soon as Tracy announces he wanted to go into space I was smiling. It fits his crazy rich thoughtless character to a tee. Even wearing his reading glasses amuses me because it seems so counter to his “unpredictable” public persona. Then he gives his pitch asking if anyone is looking for “a hilarious astronaut with an irregular heart beat and thirty million dollars.” Already I was hooked on seeing how this story played out before Tracy delivered the punch line “I am prepared to leave as soon as tomorrow…I wrote that yesterday.”
The Bottom Line: I really want to like 30 Rock but they make it so hard on me. They are close here to a really fun episode and there is still a lot to enjoy. But ultimately Liz’ unlikeable personality drags this down by muddying the moral centre of the show. I need a reason to laugh at her but I feel more like pity and that’s not conducive for humour.
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