My Whole Life Is Thunder

Jenna is incensed that Liz's unexpected wedding the day before has upstaged her plans for a surprise wedding to fiancé Paul L'astnamé. As a peace offering, Liz invites Jenna to accompany her to her receipt of an award honoring the "80 Under 80" from an organization called Women in Media. Jenna plans to get her revenge by disrupting the ceremony with a surprise wedding, but Liz is able to thwart her plan with unflattering stage lighting. Jenna eventually admits that she is having trouble adjusting the new power balance in their relationship as Liz has more success in her life. The award ceremony features cameos from Pat Battle, Judy Gold, Gayle King, Sue Simmons, and Wendy Williams.[2]

Jack's mother (Elaine Stritch) comes to visit and continually warns she will not live much longer, much to his annoyance. When she does in fact pass away during the visit, Jack deals with his grief by resolving to perform the greatest eulogy of all time. He is successful through the means of emotional stories, comedic anecdotes, a flute solo of Danny Boy, an unseen performance from Sir Paul McCartney and the Harlem Boys Choir, and a lesson on the afterlife from Kermit the Frog. Despite his success the end of the service is interrupted by Jenna and Paul's surprise wedding which Jack allows as his mother would have hated it.

Kenneth tells Tracy he is upset that girlfriend Hazel lost her job at TGS and then dumped him. Tracy tries to cheer him up by making life more like TV, where people never leave, including by bringing in old TV star Florence Henderson. When Tracy "recasts" the "role" of Hazel with a new woman, Kenneth realizes how much his friend cares for him.

"My Whole Life Is Thunder" was Elaine Stritch's eighth and final appearance on the show, marking her inclusion in all seven seasons.

"My Whole Life Is Thunder" was watched by 3.22 million viewers and earned a 1.1 rating/3 share in the 18–49 demographic.[1] This means that it was seen by 1.1 percent of all 18- to 49-year-olds, and 3 percent of all 18- to 49-year-olds watching television at the time of the broadcast. This was a decrease from the previous episode "Mazel Tov, Dummies!" (3.61 million).[3]

"My Whole Life Is Thunder" received a highly positive response from critics. Pilot Viruet of The A.V. Club gave the episode an "A-" praising Jane Krakowski's performance as "flawless throughout the entire episode", and described the two other subplots involving Kenneth and Colleen as "funny yet poignant stories."[4] Roth Cornet of IGN also gave the episode a positive review, stating "the irreverent, free-association humor continues to sing" and "there is a surreal tone to the series that helps it to stand out in a sea of generic and formulaic offerings."[5] Amy Amatangelo of Paste magazine gave the episode an 8.9 out of 10, describing it as "the perfect Jenna venue" and highly praised the final appearance of Elaine Stritch as Colleen Donaghy, commenting "Stritch has been a wonderful recurring character on the show, and Colleen deserved this bittersweet final goodbye."[6]

• "My Whole Life Is Thunder" at IMDb
• "My Whole Life Is Thunder" at TV.com