Tuned In

30 Rock Watch: Brooklyn in the House! (of Representatives)

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Spoilers for last night’s 30 Rock coming up:

Disclosure here: I am bound to be favorably disposed to an episode as devoted to my borough as “Brooklyn Without Limits,” and last night’s episode included a spoof of Brooklyn artisanal-hipster culture as specific as anything this side of Bored to Death. But provincialism aside, this is also a good time to take a look at 30 Rock in what has been so far, thankfully, a strong fifth season.

Besides the main storyline about the figure-flattering miracles of Liz Lemon’s new, evil jeans, the episode also had the show returning to more-direct political satire for the first time in a while. (A week and a half after the actual midterms, but who’s counting?) John Slattery was hilarious in a change-up role as a heavily-accented nutcase candidate for Congress in Rhode Island; for a comedian from Pennsylvania, Tina Fey sure loves her some New England accents.

I actually thought the more topical elements of the story were hit-and-miss; the episode sort of seemed to want to directly satirize the Tea Party movement (having no government “worked in Antarctica,” let’s go back to using rum as an anesthetic, &c.), but also edged away from that by making Steve Austin a sort of generic, over-the-top wacko. (As opposed to, say, a politically specific wacko—though, I suppose, the intended point may have been to show a “populist” candidate as a front for corporate interests.) But as is often the case on 30 Rock, what brought the story together was how it connected the satire to personal issues: here, Liz and Jack both being forced to confront the extent to which they’d sell out to advance their interests, be it getting a merger approved, or having a fine, fine ass.(Credit where due to Fey’s credited butt double, Nea McLin.)

Beyond that, though, it was just a funny, funny episode, from the glimpses of Tracy Jordan’s Hard to Watch to “Lesbian Mario Brothers!” to “Hand made in Usa.” I’ve criticized 30 Rock over the years (e.g., for being focused on jokes, jokes, jokes over character development), but fair’s fair: I also admire that, in its fifth season, the show seems to have accepted that its audience is what it is, and that it doesn’t try to change itself to broaden its appeal.

If you’re not going to laugh at gentrification jokes about “white Harlem” and “the Van Beardswick section of Brooklyn” or messenger bags made from surplus waterboarding hoods, then this is just not the show for you. 30 Rock has found its comfortable outfit and stuck with it, and this Thursday night, its butt looked just fine in those jeans.