I am not one to ever use hyperbole because I hate it more than cancer and/or J. Lo, so I mean it when I say that last night’s television was the best ever.
30 Rock
I loved everything about last night’s episode. The kids on America’s Kids Got Singing get drunk on-air, which causes a bunch of mayhem at TGS. Kenneth gets promoted to dealing with late-night NBC and he institutes some strict morality rules. Liz tries to fight him on it, and he brilliantly engages:
- “And I am matching your tone to make my own point.” PS, 2001-era Justin Timberlake loves the suit.
Liz suggests to Tracy that he go off on live TV to beat the censors. Kenneth is sad to have fought with Liz and feels like he doesn’t get enough respect. Liz catches him crying in the bathroom and pretends to be a supportive listener named Kenneth Toilethole. The head of Kabletown (who is puritanically bizarre, like Kenneth, but without the ancient alien overtones) shows up to gently complain; his granddaughter, Jack’s nemesis Kaylie, also reappears. And with America’s Kids Got Singing canceled, Jenna tries to find new ways to get attention by tracking down the eggs she’d donated years ago and working on a reality show with her mini-Jennas, excluding the brown-haired chubby one, Judy. (I like the plain brown-haired girls. Ahem.)
Extend this entry for more of this plus Parks and Rec!
Chloe “The Ocean Is For Tools” Moretz as Kaylie is the best villain against Jack, even better than Devon Banks. She’s the only character that is truly as equally emotionally manipulative and self-interested. She got in the best line of the episode: “I just had fruit roll-ups for dinner…at a strip club.” But then when she was trying to make up a new lie on the spot and fumbled for a name — “Jackie…Office-Couch” — were they trying to suggest she was some sort of young Liz? That would be weird because young Liz was so uncool. But why do it? Color my head scratched. Anyways, the episode was classic 30 Rock with clear, fast-paced hilarity, and nothing that can be turned into a HuffPo editorial.
Parks and Recreation
This fucking show. Can it get more awesome? It’s off for few weeks so Community can come back (simultaneous peeing/splooging), and P&R paused on a very high note. Ben had set up Leslie with a big TV interview that gets canceled at the last minute. Ben is too much of a stressball to take the night off, but Leslie uses her nervous energy to go drinking with Tom and Ann, who are 30 hours back into their relationship without breaking up. Guys: I love drunk Leslie! Drunk Leslie is tied for first place with sugar-high Leslie as my favorite kind of Leslie. She rambles about how Ben has become like a boring, strict mother who she still wants to bang.
But, uh oh, the interview gets put back on! Leslie goes out there wasted, responding to her introduction to the evil interviewer (Sean Hayes) with “fblup blup blup” and “thank you for being on my show.” When the interviewer pushes Leslie about her formerly scandalous relationship with Ben, Leslie gets mad, admits she’s drunk, then storms off. Ben, Tom, Ann and Leslie spend the rest of the night in the hot tub limo trying to figure out how to stop the tape from being aired.
Meanwhile, Andy has just passed his first college course, and Ron takes him, April, and the sexy professor out to steaks to celebrate. Ron denies that he is a feminist, but how he has been shaped by strong women:
While out, April sees Chris eating alone and being all sad, and as is her new weird habit, she tries to hook him up with the prof. But she shoots him down so she can go home with Ron. Because he’s Ron Fucking Swanson. He orders food by simply saying “Porterhouse. Rare. Quickly.”
During all of this, Jerry and Donna are stuffing envelopes for Leslie’s campaign. It is basically Jerry’s calling. Donna cancels a bath with a guy so she can watch him. This is noteworthy because Donna had a bath date.
The next morning, Ron feels pretty good about life but feels guilty, and confesses to Chris about taking home the teacher.
Everybody got to be awesome in this episode in their own special way. Well, April was being weird with more of that matchmaking stuff, but everybody else was 100% ON POINT. You may have noticed that all of my episode images are of Ron? That’s because he was the real star last night. Nick Offerman wrote that episode — his first one yet — and if you would like to fall in love with him some more, you can now follow him on twitter, where so far he just posts pictures of his woodshop and makes the rest of the internet appear weak.
I skipped The Office and Up All Night to rewatch all Community teasers and webisodes I could find in anticipation of next week’s show. Prepare your nerdy squeals of delight, friends, and see you back here next week.
Ms. Colin reports: Offerman and Mullally are this week’s WTF guests, and they are good.
Didn’t see anything but P&R, and as usual: excellent. The interviewer guy from Indianapolis wasn’t a great character, but everything else about the episode was. It was pretty obvious to me that the tape was going to get “lost” by the airport guys. It was pretty obvious that Professor Sexy was going to go home with Ron when she otherwise might have seemed like a Chris lady. I love that the interviewer guy would fly to Pawnee from Indianapolis. I love the hot tub limo. I loved 15% of the Tom/Ann content (very beginning and very end). Very good Andy, Ron, Leslie & Jerry show, in that order.
Ms. Colin almost fell off the couch when Jerry says “it makes sense to me.”
I think I left a few L’s out of Mullllalllllyl
I’m still trying to understand the appeal of 30 Rock. I like many of the actors involved, but overall I can’t get past a few minutes before I have to turn it off.
@ 3, Since Season 4 (some will say 3), 30 Rock has basically just become a joke vehicle, which you’re either going to like or not.
Sometimes I do, sometimes I don’t these days. I find that while I basically skipped all of Season 5, and hated what little I saw as it aired, I actually enjoyed watching a few in a row on netflix once in a while. I think like I said, it’s because it was just a series of jokes, and I had stopped expecting to have a decent story mixed in.
My favorite scene was when Andy Ron Swanson’d Ron Fucking Swanson.