Stone Mountain (30 Rock)

Plot

Jack Donaghy asked Liz Lemon how the search for a new TGS cast member was going. Liz suggested someone from San Francisco or Canada, but Jack rejected both. He decided to take Liz to Stone Mountain, Georgia, the hometown of NBC page Kenneth Parcell, to find a comedian from "real America." Liz argued that no part of America is more real than any other, but Jack disagreed. After they arrived, Liz ate some local food and felt sick, so she stayed in the hotel room while Jack went to a comedy club alone.

He loved the act of ventriloquist Rick Wayne and his dummy Pumpkin and insisted on hiring them, ignoring Liz's objections. When Liz went to see Wayne, Pumpkin insulted her repeatedly, so Jack destroyed the dummy. Meanwhile, Tracy Jordan learned that two celebrities had died: the obese man who inspired Pac-Man and a famous clog dancer. Writer Frank Rossitano warned Tracy that celebrity deaths come in threes and he might be next.

Tracy did not believe it, but after a stage light fell and crushed the chair he had just left, he became scared for his life. He called Betty White and screamed into the phone, trying to scare her to death, but it did not work. He was nearly killed by Jimmy Fallon, but felt relieved when he heard that Pumpkin had "died." At the same time, Jenna Maroney worried that a new actor would reduce her role on the show.

She tried to befriend the TGS writers Frank, Toofer, and Lutz to ensure they wrote good parts for her. They were annoyed by her, especially after Jenna's gay friend Sasha insulted Frank. But Cerie told Frank that women get wild and drunk at gay Halloween parties, so the three pretended to be Jenna's friends to get into one. Jenna found out about their plan but let them come anyway, on the condition that they would not forget her when a new cast member was hired.

Production

The fourth season's third episode of 30 Rock, "Stone Mountain," was written by John Riggi, his eighth script for the series, and directed by Don Scardino, his twenty-third episode in that role. Filming took place on October 15, 16, and 20, 2009. Betty White appeared as herself after being chosen by the cast in a vote, as Alec Baldwin revealed following his second Emmy win for playing Jack Donaghy. Jimmy Fallon also played himself.

Ventriloquist Jeff Dunham portrayed the character Rick Wayne. Blaine Horton returned as Sasha, Jenna's gay friend, who first appeared in the season two episode "Secrets and Lies." In a 2009 interview, executive producer Robert Carlock said the TGS writers would appear more in the upcoming season, calling Frank, Toofer, and Lutz "always a fun foil" against Jenna. He added that it is "fun" when the writers and Jenna "are scheming off each other," as they do in this episode.

Cultural references

When Tracy calls Betty White, she is reading the fictional biography From Peanut to President about U.S. President Jimmy Carter, written by the character Milton Greene. Jenna says she once met director J. J. Abrams and that he said "the island was just Hurley's dream," a reference to Abrams' co-creation of the show Lost. Kenneth mentions a celebrity blogger who died "doing what he loved most: blogging on The Huffington Post," a news and aggregated blog website to which Alec Baldwin has contributed since 2005. In a flashback Halloween party, Toofer is dressed as Kid from the hip-hop and comedy duo Kid 'n Play.

Reception

According to Nielsen Media Research, the episode was watched by 6.011 million households during its original U.S. broadcast, a 9 percent drop from the previous week's episode "Into the Crevasse" which had 6.684 million viewers. It received a 3.0 rating/7 share among viewers aged 18 to 49. Critical reception was generally mixed.

Alan Sepinwall of The Star-Ledger called it a "mediocre" episode despite enjoying Tracy's subplot. Leonard Pierce of The A.V. Club gave it a C grade, noting it was not "terrible" but that the show should deliver more than "wasn't a terrible episode." James Poniewozik of Time felt the "middle America" theme would have played stronger if not so blatantly vocalized and if it had not already been the theme of an earlier episode. Meredith Blake of the Los Angeles Times found Jeff Dunham's appearance a major problem and called the episode "disappointing" and a "letdown." Lane Brown of New York magazine also found it unfavorable, calling it a "sorta disappointing episode" and suggesting that if the in-show quest to boost TGS viewership was a meta ploy for 30 Rock's ratings, it did not work.