What I’m Watching: 30 Rock

30 Rock: Season 5, Episode 3 “Let’s Stay Together” (B+)

This is one of those wildly ridiculous episodes where you can really see the writers’ wheels spinning. The amount of careful construction necessary to make it so that Queen Latifah’s Regina Bookman was touring the studio and saw Lutz and Tracy shouting derogatory names at each other and the bathrooms accidentally labeled “colored” and “white” might not seem so substantive, but it really did take some effort, and I was impressed with the ludicrous result. The somewhat strange and random guest appearance of Rob Reiner as one of the people on the committee gave way to a far more entertaining spot from Queen Latifah, whose speech-giving Bookman isn’t really all that different from Jack Donaghy, who often spews mindless garbage as if he’s reading from the Constitution. The instant promotion of Twofer came as quite a shock, mostly because he’s barely a featured character on the show. When it comes down to it, however, Liz really is the star of the show, and therefore it makes sense that she would be furious and try to steal the spotlight when Twofer was getting undue recognition for all the hard work she had been doing for years. Jack may have been speaking for audiences when he said that he really didn’t care if Kenneth found fulfillment in his page reapplication process, and perhaps it would have been best if Jack had just pulled some strings and got him his job back right away. Jenna’s mother issues are interesting to a point, but she can be better used (though she hasn’t in quite some time). It’s still hard to believe that there’s as wacky a character on television as Tracy, but he continues to entertain, mystifyingly.