Hi, best friends! Excuse me, I mean, hello secondary friends. (Television is my best friend.) I think that a lot of you watch these shows on Hulu over the weekend and cannot participate in my recap conversations. Um, what do you do on Thursday nights? I don’t get it.

Whatever, I’m blogging this shit anyways.

30 Rock

Taking cues from real life, this episode handled the aftermath of a Tracy Jordan anti-gay comment, echoing an identical situation created by Tracy Morgan last summer. Liz is characteristically annoyed about having to clean up after Tracy, pointing out that the gays are the wrong group to piss off because they are highly organized: “the gays make the Japanese look like the Greeks.” After Liz publicly calls Tracy an idiot, Tracy organizes a protest of the network by idiots, with celebrity spokeswoman Denise Richards. I don’t know if Denise Richards is the biggest celebrity idiot I can think of, and her showing up to mock herself is decidedly unidiotic, so way to fuck things up, Denise.

More idiot stuff below this jump.

The gay staff is protesting TGS so Jenna has nobody to perfectly light her face; she and Kenneth dig around for lights, making a huge, poisonous mess in a storage room. This B story is cool but mostly I want to say this: Jane Krakowski’s Jenna has some of the best lines and delivery on this show. She doesn't get enough cred. I get the sense that her comedy chops are overlooked for the flashier Tracy Morgan, girl nerd hero Tina Fey, and the nicely-coiffed twitterer Alec Baldwin. What the hell? Jenna’s bits about extremely weird sex stuff and plots to poison Jenny McCarthy are gold. She needs more love, so Jane Krakowski: I hereby give you (weird or not weird, not going to clarify) internet love.

Also, Jack is forcing his way into Liz's head about her new dude, Criss, including challenging the silent/omitted letters in his name. He points out that she’d only hidden her romance because the guy is an unemployed “entrepreneur” with a ukulele and credit card for the Sunglass Hut. Will Jack’s check to Criss be enough to get him out of Liz’s apartment? Will he actually be the awesome guy Liz deserves (but we kind of hope she doesn’t find because it’s funny this way)? THEORIES, PLEASE.

Oh, and anybody else notice Jack’s non-Jonathan assistant in the background? That actor ditched 30 Rock for fucking Whitney. What a chump.

Parks and Recreation

As I mentioned last week, I am totally loving that the show’s focus has returned to the rag-tag team of city government employees rather than romances. Everybody got tons of awesome lines last night! I am definitely going to follow Ron’s example of answering annoying people’s “How are you?” with “Present.”

Leslie is down 70 points in her city council campaign as we meet her opponent, Sweetums heir Bobby Newport, played by none other than our collective dream guy, Paul Rudd. My deep, audible sigh when he came onto the screen lasted so long that my husband had time to glare at me, roll his eyes, wait a couple seconds, then go “come on, stop.” I am sure mine was not the only squee, amirite ladies? AND dudes? (Don't lie.)

Bobby Newport’s advertising is all over town, and while he has no discernible message aside from liking dogs and his dad is friends with John Cougar Mellencamp, he is poised to win. He doesn’t even know he has a candidate when he meets Leslie. Ben, as campaign manager, pushes Leslie to go negative in her ads, but she refuses. They settle on running an ad online showing the video a 10-year-old Leslie had made. When Bobby sees it and realizes Leslie might be a contender, he meets with her and whines for her to stop for no real reason other than he wants to win, which of course, does not fly.

I love that Rudd guest-starred here and hope he’s around for a few more episodes. I also hope his character gets a bit more meat. Fingers crossed it will be awesome. I bet it will be. I mean, come on:

During all that, Ron is gleefully helping Chris fire people, and April and Andy are using their insurance to get a bunch of medical care for a variety of ailments.One thing I don’t get about April around Andy — isn’t she supposed to be smart? She gets confused by basic living tasks and that seems inconsistent with her schtick. Or am I just assuming she’s smart because she has brown hair?

The only funny note I took from that episode was Ron saying “present.” What awesome lines did I miss? And what do you guys think is going to happen with Bobby Newport?

The Office
Jim pranked Dwight. There was a pool party. Shit got weird.

Up All Night
Megan Mullaley is showing up on every sitcom I watch, and I like it.