’30 Rock’ season 7, episode 8 review: Moving right along
The final seasons of shows are all about trying to find a way to wrap up stories in an appropriate manner, but who would have thought at “30 Rock” would work so hard as to have two weddings and a funeral within the span of two weeks? As crazy as that may seem, it is precisely what happened courtesy of Thursday night’s new episode.
Perhaps one of the strangest aspects of the half-hour was seeing that the show actually is making so much progress in tying up loose ends so quickly. We already say Liz and Criss tie the knot in a crazy ceremony, but somehow Jenna and Paul managed to find a way to raise the stakes to a whole new level. Her ceremony was beyond wacky in that she really just wanted to have it happen at a time that would surprise everyone and also agitate Liz further as a way of getting revenge on her for stealing her wedding thunder.
First, she tried to get married while Liz was accepting an award for being a notable woman under the age of 80 (which led to a great Betty White joke). We didn’t at first really get the humor so much in making all of the women there give in to stereotypes (mostly because this show has featured strong female characters in various forms ever since the very beginning), but it eventually became clear that Tina Fey was really just creating a satire of what people probably think these events are like rather than their actual reality (which is probably far more boring).
Jenna did ultimately decide on the perfect venue to say “I do,” which was the funeral for Jack’s mother. We’re not surprised to have seen her come back one final time, and it was also not a shock for the show to kill her off. After all, she has been a driving force in Jack’s life in one way or another since the very beginning, and maybe the man will find a little more peace for himself with the guilt gone.
There were a few belly laughs mixed in here, but the problem with Thursday night’s episode was simple: it felt as though the show is scrambling to tie together every loose end, and with that the show is really lacking cohesion or a long-term story at the moment.
What did you think about the episode? If you want to see when the series finale is actually airing, you can do so here.
Photo: NBC