[Ed. note: In celebration of the series finale of one of our all-time favorite TV comedies on Thursday night, we're going to be celebrating 30 Rock all week long on Flavorwire. Look for a new feature each day, and be sure to check out all of our previous coverage of the show here.] In the pilot of 30 Rock, Liz Lemon is sent by her new boss Jack Donaghy to find Tracy Jordan and convince him to join their NBC sketch comedy, The Girlie Show. While chasing the manic Tracy from diner to strip club, Liz learns that Jack has fired her primary writing partner – an alarming realization that sends her back to the office. “I want to tell Donaghy to his face that I quit,” she tells Tracy outside a strip joint, “and I want to do it in front of the whole crew so that they know he didn’t fired me.” Tracy Jordan’s response: “I wanna see that.” And so did I. … Read More

[Ed. note: In celebration of the series finale of one of our all-time favorite TV comedies on Thursday night, we're going to be celebrating 30 Rock all week long on Flavorwire. Look for a new feature each day, and be sure to check out all of our previous coverage of the show here.] Liz Lemon isn’t just a character — she’s an archetype, just as Mary Tyler Moore and Roseanne Conner were. And like those predecessors, her personality, career, relationships, and development over seven seasons provides a complex (if narrow and incomplete) portrait of what it’s like to be a woman in the 21st-century workplace, her struggles often embodying the successes, failures, and complications of contemporary feminism. Seemingly more than any other TV protagonist of her time, women relate to her, in ways both positive and negative. … Read More