“I’m either very happy right now, or having a pretty bad Donkey Spell.” – Kenneth
Isn’t it just a pleasure to see Tina Fey helm 30 Rock week after week? With all the hoopla and antics and over the top performances that the show brings, it should not be lost how great Fey is just being Fey, or Liz Lemmon, or whomever.
There have been some episodes during this fourth season that have not met 30 Rock‘s normally crazy high standards, but this is not one of them. That is to say, “Future Husband” does meet the crazy high standard. Kenneth experiencing something called Donkey Spells alone is enough to keep watching, as far as I’m concerned.
It’s nice too to see Liz Lemmon searching for love again. Will the fuddy duddy British dude from the dentist office fulfill the bill as “future husband”? I don’t know, but I’m guessing it’ll be fun.
More thoughts on “Future Husband”:
- “Your dentist gets drunk with you too?” – Jenna (Jane Krakowski) to Liz. I wasn’t a huge fan of Jenna’s for a good spell. But she has been on fire this season, and seems to keep getting better. I think maybe her character has drawled under my skin to the point where it just totally works, or something.
- “I’m going for the T in my EGOT.” – Tracey Morgan (Tracey Jordan), with reference to the Tony in Emmy-Grammy-Oscar-Tony. Love that they’re bringing this plotline back, and hilarious alone to see Tracey wearing his EGOT necklace.
- “Maybe it’s We Are Legend. Maybe you’re Will Smith, and I’m the dog!” – Jonathan (Maulik Pancholy)
- “When I can start eating hard cheeses again, Doctor?” – Liz Lemmon to her dentist
- “It wasn’t too bad. Late at night these two little twin girls told me they wanted to play with me forever.” – Kenneth the Page (Jack McBrayer) in reference to sleeping under his desk (and The Shining)
- “You’re going Irish!” – Kenneth with reference to Liz’s playing a Jamaican receptionist with accent going off the rails
- Kenneth referencing Screech (Dustin Diamond) from Saved By The Bell using deception as a tool in the search for love… nice.
- Nice to see the real Jack Welch, former head of GE, comfort Jack Donaghy (Alec Baldwin) in his grief about the loss of Don Geiss. And simply hilarious that Welch refers to “weakness tissues.”
- “I’m either very happy right now, or having a pretty bad Donkey Spell.” – Kenneth
From Around the Web: 30 Rock, “Future Husband”:
- A.V. Club: Unfortunately, the rest of the show is more or less a dud. There’s too few laughs, too much padding, a subplot with Kenneth losing his wallet and doing donkey impressions that’s so broad that it’s downright stupid, and what’s with all the reaction shots of Kenneth smiling broadly while Jenna and Tracy act wacky?
- Show Tracker: Most meta moment: In an episode that was about as meta as it gets (hello, Jack Welch), there was still one particular moment that stood out. And that would be when Liz asked, “Where’s Frank? He still hasn’t written this Olympic skit about Lindsay Vonn winning the gold medal for skiing.” Only the “Lindsey Vonn” and “gold medal for skiing” parts were delivered via voice-over, as Liz opened and closed her mouth lifelessly. Get it? Maybe you had to be there? Point being, it wasn’t just the usual NBC-Sheinhardt-Universal joke, but one about the process of writing a TV show filled with topical jokes about being a show on NBC. So very meta.
- TV Squad: Holy crap, Don Geiss is dead? And he’s been dead for weeks? Well, at least his death pushes the plot along, as we find out that NBC is being bought by Kabletown (*cough* Comcast *cough*).
Some stats and info about 30 Rock, “Future Husband”
TV SHOW – 30 Rock
SEASON/EPISODE – Season 4, Episode 14
AIRED ON – December 11th, 2011
NETWORK/STREAMING SERVICE – NBC/Peacock
GENRE – Comedy, Office Culture
CREATED BY – Tina Fey
CAST – Tina Fey, Alec Baldwin, Tracy Morgan, Jack McBrayer, Jane Krakowski, Scott Adsit, Chris Parnell
This review originally appeared on TV Geek Army.