30 Rock: "The Baby Show," "The Rural Juror," and "The Head and the Hair"

Seriously, you guys, this isn't a recap so much as a flashback, a flashback to the heady days of the very beginning of 2007. I mean, doesn't the winner of the Golden Globe and the SAG Award for his work on "30 Rock", Alec Baldwin, deserve better? Sure he does, and so do you. So here are my recaps for the last three episodes. Just the thing to prep you for this week's episode, "Black Tie".

• "The Baby Show": Cerie interrupts Jenna's on-set birthday party, announcing her engagement to a wealthy Greek shipping heir. This gets Liz thinking about her own rather dim prospects for marriage and motherhood. After confiding her desire for a child to Jenna over birthday cake and wine, Jenna tells everybody that Liz is looking for a sperm donor. The writers, as well as mannish though biologically female animal wrangler, volunteer but they are rebuffed. Liz has got her hands full keeping Tracy, who wants to stop Josh from doing impressions of him in the studio, from taking his beef up to Jack. Jack would rather not be bothered, as he's got mother issues (who doesn't?) and is in hiding with whatever snack foods his assistant can get him. Things come to a head after Liz accidentally kidnaps Anna the makeup artist's baby. Liz realizes she needs to take some time off and have a personal life if she's going to have any real chance at a family, starting with that afternoon. Pete delivers the baby back to Isobel, and Jack manages to keep it together long enough to tell his mother in Florida that no, she won't be living with him. Or rather, it was Josh, pretending to be Jack, making the first of many calls to Mrs. Donaghy ensuring some sanity for Jack and some job security for himself. PS: Kenneth wears his NBC page uniform at home. Kinky, no?
  
  
• "The Rural Juror": Say "rural juror" five times really fast. Sounded like "rurrrrr juuuurrrrr", didn't it? Or maybe "rowwwrrr jooooooooohhhhr"? I know, a terrible title, but a funny episode which has Jenna anticipating the release of her feature film, "The Rural Juror". Nobody can pronounce the film's name, though, including Liz -- is she jealous of Jenna's career in front of the camera, her good looks? Well, kinda. Jenna's success reminded Liz of her own early ambitions to be a star, and though she enjoys writing, she still has a tiny bit insider her that craves stardom just a bit. They make up eventually-- hugs for everybody! When he isn't on the phone with his secret high profile girlfriend who may or may not be Condoleezza Rice, Jack develops "Tracy Jordan" the man into "Tracy Jordan" the brand. It's Tracy's responsibility to identify the product, so with Kenneth's help he dreams up the Tracy Jordan Meat Machine. "Meat is the new bread!" With Jack's help, the Meat Machine will be manufactured by a small, obscure, possibly Korean cog in the giant conglomerate that is GE, it will get an endorsement by Dr. Spaceman (who I believe went to the same medical school as Dr. Nick Riviera) and the money will come rolling in. Too bad the Meat Machine has a wacky little habit of squirting burning jets of grease at you when you open it to check your meat. Tracy won't put endorse a product that could hurt consumers, so his loss is Whoopi Goldberg's (and the Ukraine's) gain.
  
  
• "The Head and the Hair": Liz and Jenna are crushing out on two MSNBC employees, "The Head" (balding, nerdy, super interested in his pie watch) and "The Hair" (6' 5", cute, full head of hair, hence the nickname) -- while Jenna is convinced that "The Hair" is the perfect guy to help Liz get back in the dataing game, Liz isn't so sure. But she agrees to give it a go. Meanwhile, Jack is going to be a page reporting to Kenneth as part of the company's "Bottom's Up" program. As Kenneth's bottom, Jack asks Kenneth to ride him hard. And I can't believe Standards and Practices let that morsel of dialogue through. And in primetime!

  Kenneth and Jack's first assignment? While Toofer and Frank help him write the autobiography that is due the following day, Tracy needs somebody to go down to his car and rub his pet snake's belly until he poops.

  Liz goes looking for the Head, but ends up flirting up a storm with the Hair, whose real name is Gray, has been calling Liz "Glasses", and would like to take her to a friend's restaurant opening as his date. Um, girl rules totally state that when your friend calls a crush, you do not date the crush ever. Ladies, am I right?

  While Liz ponders the invitation, Tracy begins work on the story of his life with the writers. Toofer was able to get five pages out of Tracy's mother's naked pictures of herself, but Frank seeks help in Tracy's entry in Wikipedia to get the story a bit further.

  Liz confesses to Jenna that she said yes to the Hair's invitation, though she isn't completely sure why the Hair would have asked out a Head-plus like herself in the first place. Is Jenna the Head in their relationship? Maybe she should date the Head to make sure. They wonder if maybe there is something strange going on, at which point Jack appears, still working as a page, and politely asks what their coffee orders are.

  Kenneth and Jack are cleaning Brian Williams' wreck of a dressing room when Jack starts grilling Kenneth about his ambitions. Kenneth takes offense at the line of questioning, and fires Jack.

  Liz and Gray's date ends early when Liz freaks out and runs away. Gray follows her to a nearby store, where her attempt to buy a single bottle of water with a hundred dollar bill unites them against the grumpy store clerk. The morning after Liz, in the spirit of trying new things, calls in sick to accompany Gray to the movies. A Head would never do something so frivolous, so is Liz really a Hair?

  Jack, back in a suit, smoothes things over with Kenneth. Kenneth explains that his devotion to the art form of television is such that his dream is fulfilled by cleaning graffiti. That's all well and good until Jack gets him to sell his game show idea, Gold Case, to the network in exchange for 5 pts off the back end, 20% gross of merchandising, and creator credit on all editions. Just a quick tip, Ken: a briefcase full of gold? Kinda heavy.

  Liz goes over to Gray's place, where she trys another new thing -- sitting on Gray's lap. Thogh she is in the lap of a gorgeous man, where no Head has probably ever gone before, waiting for something to go wrong. Is he gay? No. Married? No. Serial Killer? He is, however, her third cousin, so off she goes. At least she can say she is a Hair. After all, it would seem to run in the family.