Friday, October 26, 2012

The Funny Stuff:NBC Thursday(10/25)



Stupid stupid football game forced me to watch these on Friday night, but the OMG in one of the shows more than made up for it.

In case you’ve been living under a rock, there will be massive spoilers following, especially for Parks and Rec, which I urge you to watch before reading this!

30 Rock

This was kind of a meh episode.  There weren’t a whole lot of laughs, and the plot was really just filler, but the end cap was pretty great.

Jack invites Liz to his Republican luncheon as long as she promises not to be obnoxious with her liberalism.  She fails after the shrimp does, and busts out with this huge long spiel that only gets the Republicans there to donate more money to Jack’s super PAC.

Jack uses the money raised to buy ad time for a terrible commercial, and is angry when it doesn’t work.  He goes to his super Pac committee, and they look through the electoral map to try to figure out who they need to pitch to, which ends up being the stoners in Florida’s pan handle…

Which is precisely the group Tracy has just described to Liz, after she vented her frustration to him.  He, though, explained how he knew people’s voting patterns based on stand up gigs throughout the country.   Luckily for all involved, this leads right to Jenna’s subplot…

She had another hit song, “Catching Crabs,” and has amassed a massive following who call themselves the Crab Catchers.   Of course, as a twist in the end, these are the same group of people that will swing the election either way, so we end on Jack and Liz both racing to Jenna to try and get her to pimp one candidate over the other.  “To be continued…” says Kenneth to a spider as the very end, so we’ll find out next week who Jenna will go for, unless they are just doing some sort of meta commentary, and do something completely different.  I guess we’ll see.

Anyway, the very best part of the episode was the explaining how the country will go, and explaining Florida hilariously.  There were other funny things, though!

Jenna, singing her newest hit: “I caught crabs in paradise, and yes, I mean both kinds of crabs.”
Jack and Liz, after Liz’s outburst at the luncheon: “You are my chum...the bait I throw in the water to attract the big fish.”  “Dammit, second meaning!”
 
Up All Night

This episode was completely and utterly forgettable. 

Chris videos too much stuff, and doesn’t see the world except through a screen.  Reagan gets called ma’am, and freaks out about getting old.  Ava’s neighbors hate her, so she makes a completely inappropriate haunted house for the neighborhood kids.

And the plots all end predictably: Chris makes a video to show Reagan how beautiful he thinks she is, and Ava’s creepy old guy neighbor is impressed with her effort, the end.  No funny lines either, which is unfortunate.

The Office

Another blah episode, though we did get just a smidgen of plot movement.

Pam is still mad at Jim, but is allowing him to go through with the sport marketing business idea.  He blunders at the lunch business meeting, and invests more money than he needed to, pissing Pam off some more.

Dwight finds a pill on the ground, and learns it is an anxiety medication, so he goes on a witch hunt to figure out whose it is.  Turns out it’s Nellie’s, and when she finally fesses up, they talk about how it is helpful in managing daily life and whatnot, blah blah blah boring PSA fishcakes.

Andy has Cornell’s current a capella group, the one he was a part of, come in to serenade everyone at the party, and he is a complete spaz, as normal.  Steven Colbert makes a guest appearance via a skype like program as Broccoli Rob, Andy’s college rival, and there is much rivaling going on.  It was honestly kind of lame, and the songs were not done terribly well, mostly do to poor sound mixing, I think.

Oh, and the Senator comes to the party, and makes googley eyes at Oscar the whole time, and at the last second, they are caught on film making out.  Yeah, I’m sure that’s going to end well.  Stupid sub-plot.

No funny lines here either, so on to…

Parks and Rec!!!

Oh, my goodness, such a good episode.

So the campaign Ben and April have been working on is basically done, they are up huge, and the other guy isn’t even campaigning, so Ben’s boss asks if he would like to move on to bigger and better things, like a governor’s campaign, to be run out of Florida.  He spends nearly the entire episode figuring out what to do, and leaves Leslie wondering about their future.

She had just put a lease deposit down on a new house, since Ben didn’t want to live in her hoarder’s nest, apparently, and when Ben tells her about the new job in Florida, she begins freaking out. 

After unintentionally scaring Jerry enough to *channels Chris* literally give him a heart attack, she and Ann set up a fundraiser for him, with a  garage sale and auction.  Leslie, in full freak out mode, tries to auction a date with Ann off, which goes about as well as you would expect.

Oh, and in the middle of Leslie freaking out, Tom actually has a good business idea, renting out formal attire for ‘teens, tweens’ and in-betweens,’ starting with a coat he was going to sell at the fundraiser.

Anyway, after Leslie fully freaks out, she goes back to the house she was going to rent to take back her offer, since Ben is clearly going to take the great job in Florida, so they won’t be able to move in together.

But!

The landlady walks out of the living room, and who should walk in, but Ben!  He drops to one knee, and they are engaged.  If you thought the Jim and Pam engagement was the squee heard round the world, it was nothing compared to this, I’m sure.

Oh, and Ron is dating Diane, and they get ina fight, but April gets them to make up, whatever. 

BESLIE FORVER!

Quotables:

Diane and Andy, on Diane’s princess costume to match her daughters: “All princesses, all the time.”  “Sounds fun!”  “It’s a nightmare.”
Leslie and Ben, when Ben tells her about the Florida Job offer: “They have sharks in florida, and swamps…and swamp sharks!”  “Do you mean alligators?” “Maybe”
Ben and Leslie, you know when: “Leslie Knope, will you…” “Yes!” *kiss kiss kiss*” …marry me?”  “What? Oh yes, of course!”

No comments:

Post a Comment