30 Rock: Secrets & Lies (Episode 208)

Trading Places: Do we call them "Foofer" and "Blank"?C.C. is back! She and Jack enjoy some alone time (read: foreplay) in Jack's office, Jonathan having been dispatched to a non-existent Queens bakery for some sfogliatelle. Though she's still on the Sheinhardt Wig suit, C.C. can't resist Jack's urging her to take off her pantsuit. Just as they're getting down to business, Liz interrupts, uncharcteristically early for a creative type. Jack and C.C. make up a story about getting down to "it", "it" meaning business, but the look on Liz's face as she strolls away totally says "Busted!"

Frank enters the writers' room wearing a Harvard sweatshirt. Having done stand-up on campus over the weekend (and gotten a squeezer from an Indian girl in a bunk bed!), he feels that he's had the total Harvard experience. While the other writers laughingly agree, Toofer sputters that Frank has no right to wear a Harvard sweatshirt when he hasn't actually graduated from the school. But whatever chance Toofer had at getting the room's support is lost when he sputters about making a Harvard man angry.

This corporation has a very strict 'bros before hos' policy.

Liz finds Jack in her office, where he reveals that his lover is actually not Lakeesha Gutierrez Arafat but C.C. Cunningham, who Liz now recognizes as the congresswoman in the midst of suing the company. Jack is torn between his new love and the company's strict dating policy. Even so, he can't deny his feelings and so wants to introduce C.C. to his friends. He extends a dinner invitation to Liz, which she accepts, before leaving her office while exclaiming loudly about Liz's alopecia. I guess that dinner invite must be kept on the DL.

Jenna arrives at rehearsal with great news -- she's won an NY City Critics Award for "Best Actress in a Movie Based on a Musical Based on a Movie" for her work in the film version of "Mystic Pizza: The Musical". I can only guess that somewhere John Travolta is crying that he didn't win for "Hairspray". Naturally, Tracy gets jealous and stomps off to his dressing room to sulk. As Pete was the last person to talk to Tracy (about changing his name to Wise Greasy Bastard, natch), Liz has to be the one to make nice with her star. Tracy is sore -- he never wins awards. Not for the animated movie he made with Shaquille O' Neal, and his kids even got him a mug that says "World's #4 Dad". Should he give up and try crystal meth? Desperate to save him from a future of exploding trailers (and a possible guest stint on "nip/tuck" -- have you seen Matt and Kimber's storyline this season?), Liz says that Tracy's won a Pacific Rim Emmy for Lifetime Achievement. Tracy is elated and, most importantly, willing to go back to work. Liz has Pete start the work to make up a fake trophy while convincing Jenna that she's the sane one. Yeah, that's going to go well.

In the writers' room, Frank isn't finished being a Harvard man. Sporting a Signet Society pin on his crotch, he offends Frank. Again. So is Frank going to man up?

Back in the corridor, Tracy insists upon accepting the award live via satellite, which Liz grudgingly agrees to set up for 4:00 AM local time. Unfortunately, Jenna and Josh have to be around to be supportive. Jenna is peeved, not at Tracy but at Liz for pandering to Tracy when Jenna can't even get a real exterminator to get the squirrel out of her dressing room.

Liz arrives at Jack's for dinner, where a staffer takes her coat (and gives her a coat check ticket!) before she finds Jack, C.C., Kenneth, and nobody else. It seems that for the sake of discretion the happy couple had to cut down their list to anyone with no influence or connection. Which left them with Liz, who got Kenneth added so she'd have somebody to talk to. Oh well -- at least your dress is cute, Liz!

Liz's post-dinner entertainment is not dessert or dancing but overseeing Tracy's fake satellite acceptance at the studio. Fortunately, Tracy is on fire, thanking his wife, family, the crew, Shelley Long, and the "Pacific Rimmers" before sharking Jenna -- yanking down the top of her strapless dress to expose her breasts. In her dressing room, Jenna is humiliated -- not because of the sharking but because Tracy didn't thank her. Though Jenna's tits looked good, she won't be satisfied until she gets the kind of attention that Tracy warrants -- by acting just like him.

The morning after, C.C. visits Liz in her office. She cares for Jack, but enough to give up her career for him? Liz doesn't think C.C. should take advice from her -- her bra is held up with tape! -- but reminds C.C. that Jack is a great guy, and really seems to love her. C.C. takes off to talk to Jack, which is a shame, as she misses Toofer coming in dressed as Frank -- cap (which reads: "Mom Expert"), t-shirt, baggy jeans, glasses, and stringy hair. It's so perfect that Frank slams himself into his office to sulk.

I like seeing a woman with ambition. It's like seeing a dog wearing clothes.

Up in Jack's office, C.C. has great news: the Sheinhardt plaintiffs have settled for $5 million each ("That's NBA sexual assault money!") so they can finally go public. But Jack says no: he's up for a promotion, and his colleagues still hate her. C.C. is offended -- she was ready to go public with the case, and gave up a big political win for him. Jack calls her on being ambitious, perhaps unduly so. C.C. leaves, sneaking out on the freight elevator, muttering that she never should have listened to a woman who uses tape to keep her bra together.

Liz tries to reason with Jenna who, after terrorizing NBC tour guests and a nervous caterer, has acquired an entourage. Jenna says it's too late for Liz to make it up for her, and leaves to get her eyeballs whitened. Patrice, one of the entourage, burns Liz: "Oh, Melissa! Your face is on the phone! Soccer practice is over, and you need to pick it up!" Liz gets more heat from Jack in the hallway, but not for long when he decides to pick the brain of guest-of-the-week James Carville for advice. Carville tells Jack to get the story out on his own terms, or "Cajun style". It looks like Jack can work with this, so he lets Carville go. The Ragin' Cajun isn't done yet, though, as he tells Toofer and Frank, who want to end their feud without looking like wimps, to find their "Swift Boat", get people to focus on something else (like, say, Josh's new hairdo) so they forget about the fight. His work not done, Carville shows an NBC employee how to steal candy from a vending machine. Awesome.

When Liz is interrupted by the Andrei, Jenna's new writer/masseur, she's had it. She tells Jenna the truth: Jenna is as much of a pain, if not more, than Tracy. The on-line fan club? Just her and her alone. Her award is a cookie (Patrice: "Oh, ca-runch!") and between the two of them and their insanity, Liz's quality of life is ruined. Duly complimented, Jenna squeals and makes up with Liz on the spot.

In other squabbling couple news, Frank and Toofer successfully end their feud -- and get the writes to mock Josh's new frohawk. To the sound of the writers chanting Josh's new nickname, "Dr. Haircut", Frank sends Carville a grateful text message.

Jack gets C.C. to the studio so he can have lunch with her at the executive lunchroom. Introducing her as his liberal love, he inspires a number of execs to make their own confessions: one gave money to NPR, while another sends her kids to public school. A third executive comes out as gay, while another comes out as black (!). C.C. is moved by Jack's confession, and admits to voting for Reagan in 1984. The room breaks into applause, applause cut short when the last exec admits to killing his wife. Oops! I wonder what James Carville would tell him to do about that...