"I don't drink coffee, sir. I don't drink hot liquids of any kind. That's the devil's temperature."

Praise the Lord, 30 Rock was back with its first new episode in five weeks! I have to check, but I think that may it until the strike ends (damn you, AMPTP!) Of course, it was another brilliantly created piece of comic joy.

There were three basic plots: Kenneth discovers the joys and pitfalls of coffee addiction (Don, how are you not watching this?), Liz falls madly in love with a swanky New York apartment and must impress Rory Gilmore's grandfather, and Jack and C.C. decide to throw it all away in the name of love. Oh--and actual German is spoken. Can any of this end well?

Rather than being laugh-out-loud funny from start to finish, this one was more of a slow build. Liz's trying to impress a co-op board culminated in a white-wine fueled drunk dialing session that topped the humiliation of Jon Favreau in Swingers. ("I've moved on. I've bought a whole bunch of other apartments. I bought a black apartment.") And in the process, we found out Jenna owns several pieces of real estate, which shocked me.

Jack and C.C. discovered that the exact mid-point between NYC and D.C. is a small town in the coal-mining country of Pennsylvania. Did you know that they have a park there that looks exactly like Central Park? Amazing! In the end though, when Liz accidentally sold NBC to a German TV station instead of buying the station for NBC, Jack realized he couldn't throw everything away to live in a small town where everyone called him "Pap". C.C. also missed an important vote--the Lott-Specter bill legalizing recreational whale torture passed by one stinkin' vote! So, he and C.C. decided they'd have to be together in another life, because for them it's all or nothing.

C.C: "We only know one speed, Jack. The drive, the ambition, our belief that sex is a competition."

Kenneth was seduced to the dark side of the life, and coffee had a profound effect on our little country bumpkin. Basically, he turned into a crackwhore. ("I love how it makes me feel. It's like my heart is trying to hug my brain!") Ashamed, he changed into his overalls and planned to hop on the Midnight Train to Georgia, for real. The guys did their best to dissauade him:

Kenneth: "I'm going back to Georgia."
Tracy: "What? No you can't leave, Ken. Who's going to help me tell white people apart?"
Dotcom: "What about our tickets to Spamalot?"
Grizz: "And who's going to be my wing man at speed dating?"

This resulted in one big, twisted, beautiful musical number that defies written description. And we got a cameo from Ms. Gladys Knight herself. Plus, did you know they change the Pips every five years, like Menudo? It's totally true!