Liz's family is coming to New York for a holiday visit, complete with skating at 30 Rockefeller Plaza and a festive dinner, and they end up nearly adopting her boss. Jack originally doubts their goodheartedness, but is completely won over just in time for his mom's visit. Colleen Donaghy, of course, doesn't have much Christmas spirit, or milk of human kindness for that matter, and declares she'll rip off the Lemon family's loving veneer. Liz's brother Mitch, due to a freak skiing accident, believes it's still 1985, so Andy Richter gets to play an awkward teenager in a 40-year-old body, which seems to be a role he was born for.
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| "That's a filthy Christmas miracle." |
In the meantime, the TGS staff has roundly rejected their awful gift from the GE Corporation (the world's worst designed photoscanner/papershredder -- the toggle switch reads "PS -- PS"). Kenneth feels they have misunderstood the spirit of Christmas, so with his creepy pastor he kidnaps them and forces them to learn the "true meaning of Christmas."
Tracy Jordan, meanwhile, is wearing an ankle bracelet which monitors his blood-alcohol level, after a DUI incident. In 2007, this was a sneaky nod to Tracy Morgan's own bad-driving past, but this year is a horrible reminder that, walking or no, reckless driving is dangerous and not very funny. (This shot is a freeze-frame joke I noticed for the first time this week: note the other devices being tracked, including the patented 30 Rock Star Wars reference.)
In the long run, after Pastor Gary's seemingly endless religious messages ("It was sung to the tune of American Pie, but it was so much longer!"), Tracy inspires the staff, in the nonmaterialistic spirit of the holiday, to chop down the giant tree outside. And then his ankle bracelet goes off -- he's been drinking -- and he points out he should probably never, ever be listened to or followed.
And Colleen has been poking and prodding all the obvious chinks in the Lemon family armor, until she finally hits on a non-obvious one: Mitch hasn't grown out of sibling rivalry yet. So it's revealed that, on the day Liz was proudly breaking gender barriers in high-school football, her parents took Mitch out for a movie instead of attending, and in her anger Liz lets slip that, hey, it's been three decades, and the four Lemons are squabbling and fussing. Colleen is satisfied. Jack, while temporarily sad, finally shares a Christmas moment with her.
As a 30 Rock episode, I rate this 8/10: it's tightly written, full of music and heart and family togetherness (of one kind or another).
As a Christmas show, I rate this 8/10, if only because I know there are better Christmas 30 Rocks to come.
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