Hey, it’s Liz Lemon. This message for the co-op board, I guess. This is the number you gave me. I hope it’s not fake. ‘Cause you accepted my bid and I haven’t heard from you.
Jack: The script is due on Monday.
I’m gonna go talk to some food about this.
Well, I can’t get on board the hate train, especially after last week’s tour-de-force episode, in which Liz morphed from a crazy old subway lady (every New Yorker’s dream: she gets her way at every turn) into Heath Ledger’s Joker. Someone needs to speak up for the Lemon, and for the Fey. Because from the beginning Liz Lemon was pathetic. That was what was enthralling, and even revolutionary, about the character. Unlike some other adorkable or slutty-fabulous characters I could name, Liz only superficially resembled the protagonist of a romantic comedy, ready to remove her glasses and be loved. She was something way more interesting: a strange, specific, workaholic, NPR-worshipping, white-guilt-infected, sardonic, curmudgeonly, hyper-nerdy New Yorker. In the first episode, Jack nails her on sight as “a New York third-wave feminist, college-educated, single-and-pretending-to-be-happy-about-it, over-scheduled, undersexed, you buy any magazine that says ‘healthy body image’ on the cover and every two years you take up knitting for … a week.” Even Liz had to admit he scored a point.
“As for her career, while Liz was once a people-pleasing, prickly, masochistic workaholic, she’s gotten awfully laissez-faire. This is not a bad thing. She’s in her forties now and she’s stopped obsessing about whether she’ll have a baby or whether her job is ideal. She took a fun hobby that Jack would never approve of, shaking her butt as a middle-aged cheerleader for the Liberty. She used Jack’s negotiating tricks against him, getting him so exasperated that he negotiated against himself on her behalf. She’s now paid well (while Liz used to be bad with money, she’s now outright rich) and she’s more chill and she’s getting laid with a handsome, nice guy. I’m not seeing what’s so pathetic. In fact, the show seems to recognize how good her life has become, because they brought in the excellent Kristen Schaal as a female intern who is so impressed by Liz she wishes she could wear her lips as a mask. In “30 Rock” terms, that’s a huge compliment.”
