Game Over (30 Rock)

Plot

Hank Hooper (Ken Howard) informs Jack that he will be retiring as CEO on his upcoming seventieth birthday, and that his granddaughter Kaylie (Chloë Grace Moretz) will take over when she graduates from college. Desperate, Jack meets with Lenny Wosniak (Steve Buscemi), who informs him that Kaylie has been hanging around with his old nemesis Devon Banks (Will Arnett). Jack meets with Devon and proposes that the pair work together to bring her down, promising to give him a role within the corporation. Devon agrees and reveals that he has discovered Kaylie to not be a blood Hooper, rather the daughter of a pool boy. Jack sets out to prove this, by inviting Kaylie to his office for a drink and taking the DNA from her glass.

Meanwhile, Liz calls her adoption referee, Bev (Megan Mullally) to find out whether her marriage to Criss has increased her chances at adopting a baby. To her dismay, Bev tells her that there is a four-year waiting list for a newborn, but that she can adopt a six-year-old straight away. Elsewhere, Tracy is shooting his new Harriet Tubman movie and has cast Octavia Spencer in the role of Tubman, but she proves to be extremely difficult to work with, exhibiting many of the traits that Tracy himself does when working on TGS. After Grizz and Dot Com make him see that he is playing the Liz Lemon role, he decides to up the ante and begins dressing and acting like Liz, but this just further exaggerates her Tracy-esque behavior.

Jack discovers from Kaylie's sample that she is indeed not a Hooper, giving Devon the results to send to Hank. However, Kaylie turns the tables on him, revealing that Devon was a double agent and that the glass was switched with another, in order to fool Jack into believing that she was not a Hooper. Jack first reacts in horror but then reveals his true plan, to spend the entire week distracting Kaylie so that she would forget to give Hank anything for his birthday. He'd also fooled Devon, who had not mailed Hank the test results, but rather a birthday card from Jack. Kaylie is horrified as she realizes that Jack has beaten her, and now stands in better favor with Hank than she does.

Finally, Tracy realizes that the trouble that Octavia is giving him parallels the trouble he has spent seven years giving Liz, and he applauds her ability to handle it so effectively. Liz then realizes that if she can spend seven years handling Tracy Jordan, she can handle an older child, and decides to proceed with the adoption.

Reception

"Game Over" was watched by 3.79 million viewers and earned a 1.5 rating/4 share in the 18–49 demographic. This means that it was seen by 1.5 percent of all 18- to 49-year-olds, and 4 percent of all 18- to 49-year-olds watching television at the time of the broadcast. This was a significant increase from the previous episode "My Whole Life Is Thunder" (3.22 million), and a season high in both the demographic and overall viewers.

"Game Over" received a very positive response from critics. Nathan Rabin of The A.V. Club gave the episode an "A-" and commented that "Watching 'Game Over' I found myself constantly freezing my DVR because the jokes were flying so fast and so furious that it was impossible to catch them all on the first viewing." In conclusion, he said that "this season feels like a send-off worthy to one of the best, most original comedies of the past twenty years." Roth Cornet of IGN particularly praised Tracy, opining "[he] has become a favorite of mine, and really seems to be ending the series with the most significant character arc. It is both satisfying and believable that he was able to come to at least some degree of self-recognition, though he will likely continue to be a lovable narcissist for the most part."