Concluding tonight is the first season of the Golden Globe- and Emmy award-winning sitcom set behind the scenes of a late-night comedy sketch show. Tonight, Tracy goes into hiding with Kenneth’s cousin, Jesse. Jack’s mother shows up ahead of his wedding to Phoebe; and Liz struggles to sustain a long-distance relationship with Floyd.

The cast and crew of TGS face the prospect of having to do their final show of the season without their star, as Tracy has mysteriously disappeared. Believing that a group of influential black celebrities called the ‘Black Crusaders’ are trying to ruin his career (see last week’s episode, ‘Cleveland’), the paranoid movie star has gone into hiding. He fetches up in a small town in Pennsylvania, where he is taken in by Kenneth’s hillbilly cousin Jesse (Sean Hayes, ‘Will & Grace’).

With an assumed name and a thick pair of glasses, Tracy struggles to adjust to life in Jesse’s remote cabin. “You need to forget about New York,” Jesse drawls. “You live in Needlemore, Pennsylvania, where we don’t go out at night ’cos of the wolves.” It is not long before Tracy reconsiders his position and calls Kenneth to pick him up. “I’d rather die famous than live for 100 years like this,” he says. Unfortunately, Jesse is rather keen to keep hold of his movie-star friend, so he knocks him out and ties him up. When
Kenneth arrives to collect Tracy, Jesse tells him he has already gone. Will Kenneth see through his cousin’s lie, or is Tracy doomed to a life of captivity at the hands of the deranged Jesse?

Back in New York, Tracy’s disappearance is doing little to help Jack’s blood pressure. He is due to marry brittle auctioneer Phoebe (Emily Mortimer) in just a few days’ time, and his anxiety only mounts when his mother Colleen (stage actress Elaine Stritch in an Emmy Award-winning role) turns up unannounced. Colleen takes an instant dislike to Phoebe, but is rather taken with Liz – so much so that Jack invites her to dinner with the three of them in the hope that she can change his mother’s mind. “Try to get her to like Phoebe, just a little,” Jack tells Liz.

Colleen fails to be impressed, however, and Jack’s stress soon gets the better of him. He is in bed with Phoebe when he is seized by pain and clutches at his chest. “Here it comes – the big one! Ride it, Donaghy – ride it straight to hell!” he cries, before toppling off the bed. Jack is rushed to hospital suffering from a “pretty serious cardiac episode”, as his somewhat unreliable doctor puts it. Liz is summoned to his bedside, and Jack tells her that he saw his life flash before his eyes, leading him to realise his only regret: “I should have worked more.”

Confined to bed, Jack is visited by Phoebe and Colleen, who quickly realises that his EKG monitor speeds up every time he is forced to lie. Not one to miss an opportunity, Colleen decides to interrogate her son. “Did you take $20 out of my pocket book in the summer of 1970?” she asks. “No I did not,” Jack replies, his pulse racing. “Do you love me?” Colleen counters, and is pleased to receive a positive response. However, when Phoebe asks Jack the same question, she is disappointed to see his pulse shoot off the scale. Will their wedding still go ahead, now that Phoebe knows the truth?

Also this week, Liz finds it hard to maintain a long-distance relationship with her boyfriend Floyd, who has moved to Cleveland. After several excruciating phone conversations and webcam chats, she starts avoiding his calls, and throws herself into her work. Can she salvage the show’s season finale without Jack and Tracy by her side?

Thursday 14 February / 11:45pm