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| By PJ Hruschak |
30 Rock's "Game Over" Shows the Show is not Over 'Til it's Over
After a month break and a lot of entertainment news about the show's cancellation, salaries, blah blah blah, 30 Rock begins the last half of its seventh and final season with a rapid-fire guest appearance-a-palooza episode oddly, but realistically, titled "Game Over." (In fact, series filming has wrapped for good). It does well keeping up with two main plots (Liz and Jack) and a silly, lesser side story (Tracy).
This episode takes place well outside of the usual studio faire and characters for most of the episode, beginning in a hospital with Dr. Spaceman (Chris Parnell) who makes a quick diagnosis and prescription for Pitocin for Liz Lemon (Tina Fey) and is pulled away to work for the government. Yes, it pays to remain insane.
The Jack Donaghy (Alec Baldwin) story line involves the down-home hick KableTown owner, Hank Hooper (Ken Howard), making Jack an Assistant CEO to his granddaughter, Kaylie Hooper (Chloe Grace Moretz). It's the perfect nonexistent title offering the most demeaning realization of Jack's fears.
The tertiary story is Tracy Jordan (Tracy Morgan) as a film director, making a movie about Harriet only to have the main actress, celeb Octavia Spencer, pull a Jordan and go completely crazicles. Realizing what's happening, Tracy decides to go Liz Lemon which, as you can imagine, means spouting phrases that seem like things Liz would say and wearing an identical outfit.
Other guest appearances include a quick take on the mock TV series "Celebrity Homonym" featuring tennis pro and sports commentator John McEnroe dealing with the work "racket." Hilarity ensues.
Back to Liz, her drugs turn her hyper sensitive and hormonal which manifests itself in rapid-fire acting that only Fey can execute. That scene comes with a pair of nice touches including Jack's emotional reaction business card that reads, "There, there." and his yelling at the floor to his dead mother.
"Octavia. Excellent, You're Black"
Back to Jordan's movie, Octavia goes entirely loopy, pulling in lines from the earliest episodes of the series ("Sounds like a 'X' problem"). She'll eventually give her own rendition of, "I'm a Jedi," Jordan's staple crazy move.
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