“30 Rock”: Relying on eccentricity is never good | Bethany’s Cultural Critique

By Bethany Larson

There are three types of “30 Rock” episodes: the hilarious, the funny, and the eccentric.

The most recent episode, “Verna,” happens to be eccentric — which is my nice way of saying that it wasn’t very funny.

Although the introduction of Verna, Jenna’s white trash, money-grubbing mother, (played by Jan Hooks) was fun due to Hooks’ delivery of the flimsy character, Verna is not a role I hoped is reprised.

She has no depth and despite her attempt to make Jenna think that she had changed and become a woman who wanted to atone for being a horrible, abusive, exploitative mother, we all knew that that wasn’t true.

So it came as no surprise when Verna propositioned Jack for a reality television show about her relationship with Jenna. And though it seemed that Jack’s refusal for the (awful) show was going to segue into his telling her off, it didn’t.

Instead, Jack offered to pay Verna to be a good mother, which was probably the saddest moment that “30 Rock” has ever had. However, the attack on the feather earring trend via Verna was amusing and it was nice to see a Jenna-centric episode even though it was a bit of a downer in the end.

The other plot  concerned Liz, Pete, & Frank giving up their stress relieving habits–junk food, alone time, and smoking, respectively. Both Liz and Frank decided to give up their habits voluntarily, while Pete’s was stolen from him when Kenneth decided that Pete’s morning alone time should be the Kenneth & Pete morning alone time.

For this episode, Frank ended up living with Liz because his Sith Lord cloak started a fire in his mother’s home due to it’s close proximity to her shrine to Italian cheeses (can someone explain how that happened in comments? I’m still confused). So, Frank & Liz use each other as accountabili-buddies, which was doomed to fail.

It went awry when Liz tried to catch Frank in the act of smoking by setting up a video camera to record throughout the night. What ended up happening is that Liz exposed herself sleep-eating  (and wearing something called “night spanks”) in front of her writing team.

However, Frank exposed his penchant for role playing and rotund older women, which is a bit more disturbing than night spanks.

Overall this episode was bland. I’m looking forward to the return of Jon Hamm (click here for a sneak peak) next week and until then will pray that the episodes improve.

Favorite Lines (even bland episodes have good lines…)

Kenneth to Pete: “You just enjoy your coffee sir, while I tell you a little story about my friend’s cat. His name is Mr. Wiggles and his cat’s name is Benson.”

Jack to Verna: “Blowin’ town tonight, huh?”
Verna: “I knew it was [Jenna's] birthday. I’m throwin’ her a surprise party and it’s at a fancy restaurant, so wear somethin’ nice. Like a pair of white jeans and a Dan Marino jersey or somethin’.”

Verna: “Nice office Jack. I feel like I’m in the Martha Stewart section of K-Mart.”

As Jenna & Verna sing “Do It To Me One More Time”
Liz to Jack: “How are you not moved by this?”
Jack: “Because I’m listening to the words.”

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