Episode 7 - Senor Macho Solo
29 March 2012
Synopsis: Liz’ obsession with babies leads her to ruffle the head of little person Stuart LaGrange. To get over the embarrassment she dates him and starts to like him until he realises how she really sees him. Jack hires a care worker (Salma Hayek) for his mother and ends up falling in love with her after detecting a growth in his testicle. Jenna wants to star in a new movie about Janis Joplin but a rival production starring Julia Roberts prevents her.
The Good: I can’t escape the feeling that this is the quintessential 30 Rock experience. Liz is inappropriate, tries to make things right but fails and fails to learn any lessons which might make her life better. Jack has his beliefs questioned but emerges from the experience better off and fires off some political and cultural one-liners along the way. Tracy delivers some easy humour while being obliviously happy. Jenna fails to get what she wants in between being hopelessly self absorbed and ignorant. There is a big celebrity guest star and all the minor characters are ignored. Like it or hate it, this is 30 Rock. I’m still surprised Tina Fey scripts her female characters to be so useless and constantly fail to do anything good or learn any lessons.
Within the show it is the men who shine. I don’t find many of Jack’s lines as witty as others do but he does bring a convincing smoothness to his role. He also manages the interesting feat of being likeable despite being an elitist. Perhaps that’s because of his admiration for those who are good at what they do. We have seen him praise Kenneth for his dedication even if Jack would never stick with the same job (see 302 for example). So here he admires Elisa’s professional and skilful behaviour and falls for her. It’s a similar “crossing boundaries” love story to last season’s affair with a democratic congresswoman (206) but his positivity is enjoyable to watch.
Tracy is the source of the most obvious sit-com humour and for that I think he plays a very valuable role in the show (see Comic Highlight). He too is positive and vibrant in the role, always delivering his lines with a zest which makes his whacky character more plausible. The cut from Jack saying “your spending has gotten out of control” to a confused looking Tracy in a shirt made out of dollar bills is the kind of old style comedy that pleases me. Along with the blaxploitation joke about a remake of An Affair to Remember which he starred in: A Blaffair to Rememblack. His deep love for his wife is an enjoyable part of his character too.
The hastily rewritten Janis Joplin lyrics are suitably silly and sung well by Jenna.
The Bad: On the other side of the fence we have Jenna and Liz.
Like Tracy, Jenna is a stereotype there to provide more broad humour. But unlike Tracy we don’t know why she is who she is. Tracy’s back-story is that poor education, drug addiction and such ludicrous success that he wasn’t able to keep his feet on the ground. It’s enough cover to make his character something you can suspend your disbelief over. Jenna on the other hand is unsuccessful, relatively speaking and so her vanity makes her instantly unlikeable. And seeing someone unlikeable try to succeed and fail is a weird spectator sport. When she is vain the humour is more obvious but the writing often gives her strange things to say like being “turned on by car accidents.” It’s a crazy idea but why is that funny for her character to say. Yes it may be funny on its own for some, but if it flowed from her character’s behaviour it would make more sense and be more funny. Similarly her foolish attempt to stay in character as Janis Joplin makes her look like an idiot on Tracy’s level, yet it hasn’t been established that she is dumb in the way he is. She also agrees to marry Jack at the mere hint of the possibility. Is that just because it would help her career or because she is desperate and alone? It’s not clear who she is meant to be at the core.
Meanwhile Liz’ story seems to be missing an ultimate point. She dates a little person to avoid the embarrassment of admitting she thought he was a child. But then she says she really does like him once she gets to know him. So when he discovers her initial mistake he gets angry. But shouldn’t a man of the world like him get past something like that. It can’t be the first time someone has stuck their foot in their mouth over his size? Clearly he decides to give her a second chance but again she makes the same mistake, so he leaves. So what’s the point of the story? It feels more like he is being sensitive than she is being stupid. And that’s not the whole story. Within it she starts treating him like a child, protecting him from cars and fire. So is the point that she wants a child so badly that she treats him like one? Or that she sees him as a child and is thus offending him by treating him like a child? It’s confused writing and once more Liz doesn’t seem to learn anything from it which might give us a reason to care about her character. Liz’ bag of baby shoes make her a thief as well.
The humour of the show is such a mixed bag that as usual they undermine the sense of reality which enables you to care at all about these characters. A live news report actually says “and written by the best screen writer in the world, whoever that is.” And then shows a picture of Jenna “on a windy day.” By having a news report, something outside of the crazy world of Rockefeller Centre be so unbelievable, it takes you out of the story and reminds you that this is a silly television show.
Comic Highlight: Tracy and his wife are in Jack’s office because he recommends that they sign a post-nup to protect Tracy’s money. She agrees to sign because she loves him and he is so moved that he rips the papers away. They lock eyes and begin making love. Tracy yells “This is happening Jack, you can stay or you can leave but it’s gonna take a while.” It’s suitably ridiculous and of course everyone leaves them to it. In the next scene they start all over again, this time at the front desk complete with a horrified look from Kenneth. Because Tracy and his wife are such forceful, shameless people who have all that they could need, I can buy into the amusing situation.
The Bottom Line: Classic 30 Rock. Half good, half bad, not as funny as it should be but enjoyable nonetheless.
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