photo: nbc
Reaganing
Original Air Date: Oct 21, 2010
Laura Kelley – Associate Staff Writer
laurakelley@thetwocentscorp.com
Jack Donaghy is having a streak of brilliance, since he’s done everything perfectly for 24 hours. This is a feat he calls Reaganing, and it’s only been done by three others: Lee Iacocca, Jack Welch, and Saddam Hussein. And John Casey, who Reagans even in his sleep, but that’s a different show.
Refusing to back down from a challenge, no matter how daunting, Jack drives Liz to Newark Airport so she can meet Carol.
Tracy faces a challenge of his own, in the form of a commercial for the Boys and Girls Club that he has to be in or else “the judge will make him join the Coast Guard.” He has one line, but his love of attention, shirtlessness, and skateboard-related arousal pose major problems. While Tracy’s commercial creates a massive traffic jam, Jenna and Kenneth start conning Carvel by using Jenna’s free ice cream for life card to get cakes and return them for cash. If there’s one thing you can learn from the Lohans that doesn’t involve prison, it’s don’t mess with Carvel.
Jack and Liz get stuck in traffic, and Liz says she’s breaking up with Carol because she had a performance problem, meaning her junk “closed up like Fort Knox.” That might be the grossest thing that has ever come out of Liz’s mouth, and I don’t even want to think about it. Liz reveals the reason she has so many sexual hang-ups: once when she had to pee and was rollerskating, a Tom Jones poster fell on her and her mother thought it was on purpose. I know that sentence makes the same amount of sense it would if I had written it drunk or with little to no command of the English language, but 1) my faculties are intact, and 2) that scene is really hard to describe. I tried. Anyway, while Jack tried to get that image out of his head, Kenneth and Jenna get Kelsey Grammer to join their Best Friends Gang and pull a long con so Kenneth can send money home. In case you didn’t catch it, on the envelope Kenneth sent, it said his farm is in an independent nation. Kenneth soon becomes disillusioned with being a con man, which is not “building a friendship castle till it reaches the sky.”
Jack saves Tracy’s commercial by feeding him jellybeans to make it look like he’s talking, and he figures out that Liz’s issues occur whenever there’s something nearby that reminds her of Tom Jones. Carvel finally catches on to the con and an employee is fired, which makes Kenneth feel terrible, so he leaves the Best Friends Gang. Jenna tells Kenneth he “has a good heart, and I hope you get in a car crash one day so I can have it.” Liz realizes she went to the wrong airport and doesn’t see Carol after all.
This episode was awesome, and Kelsey Grammer was hilarious. I really hope he comes back, because he’s easily my second-favorite guest star after Michael Sheen, who takes first place for calling his bike a velocipede. What did you guys think? Leave your two cents in the comments, and if any of you manage to listen to Tom Jones for more than ten seconds without an immediate upwelling of disgust, you’re my new hero.
TheTwoCents 
Thankfully, when I hear Tom Jones, the first think that pops into my head is Alfonso Ribeiro doing the Carlton dance. That remains to be the fact. The Carvel stuff was hilarious, I’m glad I’m not the only one that made the Lohan connection. 🙂
I was disappointed in 30 Rock Thursday. Odd references to body parts and childhood sexual misadventures are really not funny. Tina Fey is so clever, I couldn’t believe she created this episode. I didn’t find much to laugh about – and I waited patiently through the whole show! Sorry, this favorite may have to be dropped from my “must see” list.