photo: nbc
30 Rock
Sun Tea
Original Air Date: Nov 19, 2009
Laura Kelley – Associate Staff Writer
laurakelley@thetwocentscorp.com
While sleeping to a workout video like the all-star she is, Liz is rudely awakened at the start of this week’s episode by a realtor who barges into her apartment and tells her the building is being converted into condos. My first thought was why Liz didn’t shoot her, and then I realized that since Liz lives in the North, that kind of thing is frowned upon. Trouble is brewing elsewhere, since Don Geiss’s son is suing Kathy Geiss for control of their father’s estate, and did I mention it’s green week on NBC?
Jack is worried about the Geiss estate, because as we all know, Don Geiss was a brilliant man who invented a great many things, like the “abrupt conversational segway.” Where, oh where would Jack be without that? Later, Liz catches Frank peeing in a jar, which is both unsurprising and not the most disgusting thing Frank has probably ever done. He lied and always said it was sun tea. His office-mate Topher allows it as long as they can use a Yale sweatshirt as a fart dampener. God, is there anyone else who got the sudden urge to marry him because of that line? Just me? Okay, moving on.
The funniest moment of the episode was seeing that Kathy Geiss is using a Teddy Ruxpin doll as her lawyer, but the funniest plot line went to Liz, who moved in with her upstairs neighbor and tried to get his apartment by scaring him off. Why does she want this apartment? Because it smells like Burger King during the day and Cinnabon at night. Jenna has a stroke (I am almost hesitant to add ‘of genius’ as a modifier because it’s Jenna we’re talking about) of sheer brilliance and remembers how she used to scare off people by being dramatic and crazy. It’s still working, Jenna. Like a charm. But Liz’s roomie likes the drama because he’s gay so it backfires since drama is “gay man Gatorade.” And he isn’t even scared off by black people! We learn this because Grizz pretends to be Liz’s fake boyfriend, astronaut Mike Dexter. Having known someone with a fake boyfriend, let me tell you, it’s not fun unless it’s you. It’s just scary.
Jack and Tracy both decide to get vasectomies because they don’t want kids and can’t tell stories about hobbits and strippers/were lied to by the Cosby Show, respectively. While Kenneth tries to make TGS greener, Jack and Tracy both decide they don’t want vasectomies. Tracy wants a baby girl and Jack wants…well, we still don’t know, but it’s not sterility. Liz gets the food-court-scented apartment of her dreams by peeing in a jar, inspired by Frank’s sun tea garden. Then Al Gore makes a cameo and then goes off to save yet another whale, which is still hilarious and is also the plot of Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. I really liked this episode. Liz got to keep her mini-fridge, Frank wore a hat that said “Shark Cop,” Tracy regretted giving his DeLorean to Mr. T, and we all learned an important lesson: green week is disgusting. What did you all think? Leave your two cents in the comments below!
TheTwoCents 
Finally, this season of 30 Rock starts to get its groove back. The initial episodes of this season had threatened to have the characters becoming too self-satisfied and smug. (Why is Jeff Adsit in this show at all?) Now hopefully Kenneth will tone it down a little and stop over-acting his part. By the way, was that a mini-orgasm Liz had when her neighbor described the Burger King and Cinnabon fireplace problem?
This show is funny every week. I loved it when Lemon made reference to the green peacock and Kenneth looked at the corner of the screen where it was actually displayed on our television screen.
Lemon’s attempts at securing the upstairs apartment were hilarious too.
Tracy Jr. is always funny when he makes an appearance and I loved how they recreated the set of The Cosby show for Tracy’s halucination.
Great episode. Thanks for the review!
I was happy to see Dr. Spaceman again, though it wasn’t one of his better episodes.
My favorite part of the episode was realizing that Kenneth does air quotes with three fingers instead of two. For some reason that just killed me.
30 Rock hit perfection with this episode, the Manhatten Real Estate storyline was pure genius, with many jokes geared at how pathetic Liz’s life is: “Yeah, who wants kids… or a husband… Astronaut Mike Dexter…”
The Vasectomy storyline was a bit of a bore for me though, as it took too much time from Liz. However, the masterful writing of 30 Rock is once again displayed as all three story lines integrate to a perfect finish!
5/5 from me 🙂