TV Review: 30 Rock 7.4, "Unwindulax"
rating: 4
(WARNING: Significant spoilers follow) Good ole Liz Lemmon (Tina Fey). Shes a nerd, shes creative, shes a liberal. Shes everything that Jack (Alec Baldwin) cant stand. So the idea that hed use her as a cautionary tale at a Republican fundraiser makes such perfect sense. But before we got to that bit of fun, we have Jenna (Jane Krakowski) trying to reinvent herself with a more calm, relaxed personality, inspired by a song she wrote called Catching Crabs in Paradise. The song proved popular with the north Florida crowd, and soon large numbers of them are gathering outside the building, doing their Jimmy Buffett vibe thingy. This annoys Pete (Scott Adsit) to no end. I rather liked this little subplot more than Id expected to, especially once the Pranksmen (Lutz, Toofer and Frank, who describe themselves as three nerdy white guys), decide theyre going to prank her to no end in order to get her to break her calm and lose her new fame. Jennas self-absorbed insanity can make for some great storylines (though its often hit-and-miss), and I was pleased that it worked well here, especially when shes issuing threats to the Pranksters, like how they need to be good to her or theyll never be allowed into Florida again. I do, however, have to admit that I liked the Jack and Liz story much better. Him referring to her as his chum and then using her as bait was hilarious. Watching Liz try to defend herself by saying things like, How can you believe in the death penalty and still hunt animals? and explaining that there are gay dolphins who make love to each others blowholes (this is, actually really true, something which may haunt your nightmares). The other political commentary that follows, where Jack and Liz do their best to undermine each others political choices while boosting their own, is less entertaining, though Jack getting offended by someone saying there are problems money cant fix (like helping the Republicans poll at better than 0% support for Romney. Again, this is something thats actually really true), was fun, and I did love Don Cheadle trying his best to record an ad supporting Romney. Overall I liked this episode. It wasnt anything really special, but it was good, solid fun. It also ended on a fun cliffhanger that has me really looking forward to the next episode!