30 Rock: “Cougars”

I’m extremely open to the idea of Cougars. I’m a broke 26-year-old guy in semi-decent shape, with a full head of a hair and libido to burn; hence I’d like to think I’m prime pickens for the growing population of Cougars out there who could shower me with gifts and treat me to expensive dinners.Unfortunately, the only attention I’ve received from older women has come from outside the acceptable age range. It happened a lot more when I was waiting tables in San Diego and you’d have 40+ year old ladies sitting together–probably their first time out of Iowa–with the bold one of the group trying to flirt with me and me trying to crawl out of my skin.

So despite my desire to have a cougar pounce on me, I haven’t been lucky enough to have the right one do so. But for Jaime, the guy who delivers coffee to Liz and the writers, he certainly found his luck in the latest 30 Rock episode “Cougars.” Lemon catches the eye of the young, cherubic coffee delivery boy (Jaime’s apparently so attractive he turned Frank the writer gay) who asks out the hermitlike Lemon .

Liz, who usually eschews any sort of fun in favor of sitting home alone with a meatball sub while watching Top Chef, reluctantly accepts after she lies about her age. Soon after accepting Liz feels guilty about letting Jaime think she’s 29, but Jenna assures her that older women dating younger men is now culturally acknowledged and accepted. Hell, even Vanity Fair had an article about cougars in their article about genocide in Sudan.

While Liz is preparing for her date, Jack is busy taking over Tracy Jordan’s little league baseball team in an effort to make them respectable. The team’s storyline is a continuation of 30 Rock’s foray into political commentary as Jack’s involvement serves as an allegory for the Iraq war. Although the metaphor is a bit overt and forced at times, it still delivered hilarity.

Tracy became the coach of this ragamuffin team as part of his community service sentence handed down for hitting a police horse with his motorcycle. The club consists of kids from the worst neighborhood in NYC, Knucklebeach. It’s a group with pretty low aspirations including one young man who desires only, “to be a talkative doorman with an alcohol problem.” Jack sees the kids and thinks they need a push that only he can deliver. Despite Tracy’s warnings that he knew nothing about their culture, Jack moves forward, undeterred and bearing gifts for his new brigade of baseballers.

Although Tracy leaves the team in protest of Jack’s changes, things look good at first for Jack and his tactics: the kids have new uniforms, they tear down a statue of Jefferson Davis outside in the park and the cleaned up field features a “Fun Times Accomplished” banner. Once the cosmetic improvements are realized, Jack moves on and leaves Kenneth in charge and that’s when everything falls apart. Despite Donaghy’s assistance the kids still lose badly, they misplace their new unis, don’t follow Jack’s instructions, break all of their new things, then turn on Kenneth and Donaghy.

Hat in hand, Jack and Kenneth return to Tracy to get him to return to the team. They admit their mistakes and miscalculations, but Tracy barely budges. Then Kenneth produces letters from each of the team members asking Mr. Jordan to return to the squad. To this Tracy remarks, “if I return to the team…will you not make me read these.” With Tracy back in the fold, they lead a “surge” on the little league, utilizing Dominican birth certificates to get Griz and Dot.com in the lineup. One could say it’s a “surge” with results that are less than genuine, why does that sound familiar?

Liz and Jaime find themselves at an art show with Lemon awkwardly trying to bridge the generation gap with inane chatter, until she finally breaks down and admits she’s 37. Jaime in turn admits he’s only 20 and Lemon hopes for the sweet release of death. Highlighting the generational divide, Lemon likens their relationship to “Mary Kay LeTourneau and Billy Flau,” and Jaime wonders if those are friends of Liz’s.

Just when Lemon looks to end it, in pops Jack to play his usual roll of convincing Lemon to go against her instincts and do what she doesn’t feel comfortable with. Jack after all is completely in favor of May-December romances if you just follow the simple rules, “if they’re hot poor and eager to please, shower them with gifts, never give them your home phone number and set a curfew and stick to it.” With this sage-like advice Lemon decides to give Jaime a try.

In response, Jenna feels the need to keep up with Liz by getting her own young guy to pal around with. So she starts dating someone who must have been 15 and coasts around on “heelies.” Lemon grows to embrace her relationship with Jaime until she meets his mom, who looks just like Liz and as Jack says of all May-December romances, ended in embarrassment.

This may not have been the best episode of the season for my favorite television show, with the anti-Iraq angle being not as sly and insidious with the issues as 30 Rock usually is. However, the show continues to be the greatest repository of slick, witty, hilarious one-liners in all of television. And Liz’s foray into cougardom gives hope to all aspiring cougar-prey out there who hope for Liz Lemons of the world to hit on them instead of old Midwest soccermoms like has been my experience.