30 Rock 7x12: Hogcock! & 7x13: Last Lunch

Let me preface this all by saying that I've now seen a total of about four episodes of 30 Rock. The show just never appealed to me, so I never bothered to watch it. That being the case, I'm liable to screw up a few names, and I'll probably miss out on any running gags that the series has had. However, I thought it might be good to take a look at the finale to see if there was anything in it that would appeal to people who hadn't really watched it before, which are exactly the kind of people a low-rated show like 30 Rock needed to attract. But, so I wouldn't be going in completely blind, I took the time to read the synopses of the last few episodes on Wikipedia. Now, without further ado:

With TGS cancelled, Liz is now a stay-at-home mom, and it's not working for her. After she sends her kids off to school, she logs on to a local parenting forum, but finds it just as welcoming as one would expect. With nothing else to do, she visits Jack at his office to see how he's coping with his new life. Kabletown is on track to become an unstoppable force in the entertainment world, and yet, Jack's still not happy.

But you know who is happy? NBC's new President, Kenneth.

At least he's more qualified than Jeff Zucker.

Liz goes in to pitch an idea for a new show, but Kenneth's not interested. Shows about writers in New York are a bit overdone, and he just wants to do simple shows. Despondent, Liz returns home and gets back on the forum. One of the other posters calls her out for whining about being a stay-at-home mom, and the two of them agree to meet at the park for a rumble. When she gets there, she finds that the angry poster was Criss. He hates working and wishes he could spend more time at home, while she hates spending time at home and wishes she could work.

At the same time, Jack is using six sigma techniques to conquer his emotional life. He learns karate, spends time with his daughter, helps out a homeless guy, finds religion, and talks his girlfriend into a threesome with an imprisoned character played by Salma Hayek.

Conjugal visits are the best kind of visits.

He has everything he could ever want; even the Democrats hate him, but he's still not happy. Liz comes to see him to ask for a job, but he's resigned as CEO of Kabletown because for the first time in his life, he doesn't know what he wants. She's wormed her way into his brain and given him feelings and a need for something more than work, and he's turned her into a corporate shark who defines herself by her job. They've ruined each other. They were nothing more than a boss and an employee, and now they're nothing at all.

Meanwhile, no one's interested in anything Jenna has to say. The show's cancelled, so no one has to pay attention to her, and she's not sure what to do with her life, either. She tries out TV, but can only get work as a corpse on Law&Order. Then she heads to LA to find work in the movies, but all the women there are younger, prettier, and blonder than her, so she decides to head back to New York and try her luck on Broadway.

I'd give my regards to these broads.

Finally, Tracy tries to get a meeting with Kenneth. As President of the network, he doesn't have time to deal with Tracy's shenanigans, so Tracy wants to release him from his promise to always be there for him. Kenneth keeps avoiding the meeting, though, because Tracy's contract has a $30 million buyout clause that comes into effect if TGS ends before producing 150 episodes. They only made it to 149, so in order to avoid the buyout, they're going to need to make one more episode.

Airing one more episode means writing one more episode, so the writers gather one last time to enjoy their studio-provided free lunch. Unfortunately, it's Lutz's turn to pick the restaurant they order from, and to get back at everyone for years of abuse, he chooses Blimpie (he says "Blimpie's", though, which may be to prevent a lawsuit). The writing staff tries everything they can to choose a different restaurant, including locking Lutz in a room and ordering from Nobu, but he escapes into the ceiling and crashes down on the table, destroying their last meal and forcing them to eat Blimpie's.

Well, technically his stunt double crashes through the ceiling.

Since failing to produce the episode will get him a fat wad of cash, Tracy does what he can to stop it. He talks slowly to waste Liz's time, blackmails Al Roker into giving a false weather report so the crew will go home, and even takes off to a strip club.

A strip club's a good place to ride out Snowicane Dorva

That last move would put him in breach of his contract and prevent him from getting the buyout, so Liz tracks him down to see what's up. Tracy's never been good at saying goodbye, and even though he and Liz haven't always gotten along, he doesn't want to end their relationship. She tells him the truth: They're probably not going to hang out after the show ends, but she loves him and she's going to miss him. He agrees to return after The Skank Train finishes on stage.

While that's happening, Jack tries to mend things with Liz. He apologizes for how he acted earlier, but she won't accept it. He goes to Jenna for advice, but all she can tell him is that Liz holds grudges. He breaks down and cries manly tears, then walks out into the studio to say goodbye to everyone and gives away all his stuff. Pete thinks he may be suicidal and, although she doesn't buy it at first, when Jack doesn't show up to watch the final episode, Liz thinks he might be, too. She heads up to his old office to find him, and instead finds a video suicide note. She magically tracks his phone and gets to him just as he's jumping off a bridge.

It's pretty dark, though, so it could be his brother Billy.

But, Jack Donaghy is not a man who would kill himself. He just wanted her to realize that she would miss him so she wouldn't hold a grudge. In reality, he's taking a boat trip so he can find his bliss. He struggles to express his feelings for her, so Liz just tells him she loves him, too, and watches as he sails away. But, Jack Donaghy is not a man who needs months on a boat to find his bliss. Ten seconds after he leaves, he comes up with the idea for clear dishwashers, then turns right back around.

In a nod to a running gag that I'm not aware of, Kenneth tries to get Jenna to show some real emotion because she's been so self-centred over the years. Eventually she realizes that she really will miss the show, and she puts that emotion into song as she ends the final episode of TGS by singing the title song from her musical 'Rural Juror' with enough enunciation to actually make some of the lyrics intelligible.

One year later, Liz has a new job as a writer on Grizz & Herz, Tracy's father returns, and Jack's working at GE with a sexy female second assistant. In the distant future, Liz Lemon's great-granddaughter pitches a show to the immortal President of NBC based on stories Liz told her about her time at 30 Rockefeller Plaza. He loves it.

There can be only one.

What I Liked
-The machine that hugs old people.

It's history's greatest invention.

-"Most of tan penis island was destroyed in Sting's house fire." That's the only line in this show that actually made me laugh out loud.
-Liz is the least-molested person in the strip club. That's funny, but also kinda sad.
-The Skank Train. Never ride it without a condom.

What I Hated
-The time line in the first half is pretty messed up. For some reason, it takes the writers several weeks to clean out their office.
-Really awful green screen work when Conan showed up. They made a CGI elevator. Are there no real elevators where Conan works or something?

It looks like they did it with the same software they used to stick live actors in video games back in the 1990s.

Final Thoughts
It's a little unfair of me to judge this episode(I'm counting it as one because the end credits encompassed both episodes) since it's the finale and therefore it's not really designed with the same purpose as a regular episode. But life isn't fair, so judge it I shall.

It worked fairly well as a finale. The characters got some closure, and everyone in the cast got to have a moment. However, since I wasn't a regular viewer, I had no attachment to any of the characters, and I didn't feel anything when Liz and Jack finally said they loved each other in a totally platonic way. Nor did it make me in any way want to go back and watch the rest of the series. There were a few bits that were somewhat interesting, but not enough to get me to buy the DVDs.

Beyond that, I really didn't find the episode to be particularly funny. The first half was nearly devoid of laughs, while the second ranked about as highly as a poor episode of How I Met Your Mother. The jokes weren't pandering or offensive, though. They just weren't for me, I suppose.

Overall, it wasn't a bad episode. Much like the show itself, it was just sort of there.

I didn't watch 30 Rock, so I shall not miss it. But it was a show that tried to do something a little bit different, and managed to survive to do it for six and a half seasons, and it should at least be applauded for that.