I’m getting too old for this ship

30 Rock is back this week with guest stars in tow. Jack is desperately trying to ingratiate himself with his girlfriend Elisa’s grandmother. The grandmother will have none of it however as Jack looks exactly like the principle villain (the Generalissimo) from her Spanish language soap operas. Alec Baldwin is playing both jack and the Generalissimo in this episode. Every time I saw Alec with a tan and a pencil thin mustache overacting in Spanish I howled with laughter.

Liz has been getting her neighbors mail and encouraged by Jenna, she opens it While returning it she discovers that her neighbor (played by the uber-handsome Jon Hamm of Mad Men) may in fact be the man of her dreams. He’s handsome, a doctor and loves to bake. Liz nearly melts in the hallway.

Back at the studio, Jack has hired a bunch of laid-off young financial industry workers as interns. The interns love Tracey and ask him to go out and party with them. Tracey is overwhelmed by their stamina, but can’t keep let anyone know that these wall street frat boys can out party him. Watching Tracey come nearly to tears while drinking a flaming shot of liquor might be the high point for him.

Jack decides to have NBC buy the Spanish soap opera in order to kill off the evil Generalissimo. The General isn’t going easily though, refusing to allow his character to be killed off. The Generalissimo offers a better solution. He believes he can change. By being the ideal man for an elderly puerto rican woman, the grandmother changes her mind about the Generalissimo. Finally grandma accepts Jack.

Inspired by the Generalissimo, Liz plots to trick her new crush into a love affair. Pretending she lost a dog and inviting the neighbor to a non existent party (accidentally drugging him) only leads her to the realization that she has become a low rent soap opera villain. After the full reveal of her duplicity, Liz catches a break and her neighbor-crush decides to give her another chance. As someone who loves Liz, it was nice to see Lemon get another shot. Surely it’ll all go wrong soon enough.