Monsters of Television

“The sun is up! God can see us now!”

With all the dirty pool going on in late-night recently, 30 Rock is in a prime position to put all this into perspective for us. As an outpost of reflexive network satire, and probably on “Team Conan,” the show is going to have a field day with all that’s been going down. But let’s get through the episodes they already have in the can, shall we?

“No. Seriously. We’re good.”

Winter hiatus is over (because this show is nothing if not meta) and Liz finds Jack in the lobby, spins him around and asks him about his holiday. The beauty of Jack is not that he’s necessarily more elite than everyone, just that he finds snobbier ways to do the awful things everyone else in the cast does without pretense. For instance, Jack spent his New Year’s Eve hwarfing in the bushes. One of the writers for TGS might have that same scenario after a bender of cough medicine and Gentleman’s Jack (like you do) but Mr Donaghy engages in communal purge only after sniffing the horrible scent of recently uncorked BCE wine. Somehow classier. Liz, meanwhile, drunkenly outed her gay cousin and Jenna met with James Franco’s agent to “hammer out” the details of a contractual romance with Mr Franco. All of these are accompanied by 30 Rock‘s trademark flashbacks (like Family Guy but, you know, relevant) until Tracey announces he thinks he might have conceived the daughter he’s wanted for the past couple of weeks. The other three stop Tracey before he gets to describe it, the swish-pan coded as an actual quick camera movement instead of transition to a flashback. See? Meta. And, within the scope of the teaser, we have all our stories in a nice, neat package.

Well, almost all of them. Jack realizes after the credits that he must have drunk-dialed Nancy (his married childhood crush that he reconnected with before the hiatus). After some detective work by Cerie on YouFace, Jack realizes that, in order to save face (and there is little that more important to Jack than face), he must delete the message he probably left her while she was on vacation. Kenneth gets to play sidekick.

Meanwhile, the poor young man Liz outed over the holiday, Randy, is in New York since his parents don’t want to see him and she lives in East Coast Gay Mecca. Liz wants to take care of him as he starts this new life journey but her I-will-cramp-your-style journey (including a “let’s see who can fall asleep the fastest” contest) competes with his desire for the “live the life of the stereotypical gay party boy” journey.

Also: Jenna and James Franco enter into a contract that would keep her dating him to hide his love for a Japanese body pillow, who he at first denies an attraction for but lets slip that he has named her Komiko. Komiko looks less like an actual dakimakura [strangely NSFW] and more like the bottom of a Hook-Ups skateboard but whatever. The veracity of the body pillow is not at stake; its lack of authentication does not take away from the story. Although I really would’ve liked a scene where Lutz outs himself to being a dakimakura connoisseur and tries to steal it.

Moving on.

Jack looks like 80% of every picture ever taken of me.

Jack and Kenneth sneak into Nancy’s house and do a little more detective work. Jack finally comes to the realization that Nancy and her husband are on the outs but hiding it. Kenneth finally convinces Jack that, no matter what is happening in that house, he can’t meddle. They listen to the “drunk dial” message and, of course, it’s eloquent, soft, even romantic, better than most of us could do stone cold sober and listening to “In Your Eyes” by Peter Gabriel. He admits his crush has been alive since they took German class in school, where his German name was “Klaus” and hers “Greta” (titular alert!). Kenneth erases the message.

Randy comes home covered in body glitter and with the world “slut” written across his forehead. Liz tries to convince him that he should take it slow. Randy tricks her and locks her in the closet so he can go out again, thereby creating a joke setup: Liz asks if that’s irony. Randy correctly points out that it is not.

Jenna goes on a few dates with James but, despite her seemingly endless trips to the superficial well, she realizes that she can’t continue the fake relationship. Jenna’s storylines are really boring.

Tracey, while hitting on a woman (does TGS have fly girls?) with the same name as the one he wants to dub his daughter, realizes that (1) every girl he’s ever slept with is someone else’s daughter (a “duh” moment I know but, even when you understand it it’s creepy to think about) and (2) that he needs to start treating women with more respect.

After seeing Randy on The Today Show telling Matt Lauer he’s running off to get married, Liz brings him home and tells him he needs to get out of town. Randy tells Liz she needs to start doing things that make her happy in life. Did I mention there was this running motif of using the phrase “lemoning” in order to describe people that aren’t happy in their lives? No? Because it’s not as cool as “lizzing” or “blergh” or “what the what?” Yeah. Probably. Anyway, Gay Randy is going to take Liz out on the town.

Also of note: Kenneth figures out that there is a sign that Nancy has thought about Jack all these years: the password to get into her voicemail is alphanumeric for “Klaus.” Jack uses the opportunity to leave a classy voicemail. Maybe some more Julianne Moore in our future?

“Let’s do this.”

And finally: while Randy and Liz are dancing, she runs into James. And Komiko. With one “let’s do this,” the two are off to an elliptically-edited “threesome.” The next morning, Liz covered in smear makeup, James in one of Liz’s shirt, and stoic Komiko scare Randy out of New York. Interesting that Liz, who is typically grossed out by casual encounters like this (and has been noted as being “sexless” by some periodicals), is quickly, and without any convincing necessary, ready to hop into bed with a dude and his pillow.

Of note:

• NBC has some of the funniest newspeople in the business. Matt Lauer does a great deadpan, mocking his The Today Show and super-obvious/useless travel tips.
• James Franco plays something between Daniel (from Freaks and Geeks) and Saul (from Pineapple Express). I’m starting to think that’s how he really talks.
• Finding that link for the dakimakura led me on a strange journey through the internet.
• Does Tracey’s brain trust (Kenneth, Grizz, and Dot Com) remind anyone of Janitor’s brain trust (Ted, Todd, Doug/Lloyd -or- Randall, Troy, Margo) on Scrubs?