In this issue of Molecular Cell, Nilson et al. (2015) took advantage of THZ1, a recently described covalent inhibitor of the TFIIH kinase CDK7, to further characterize the role of this enzyme in the early stages of transcription and postprocessing events. They unveiled an unexpected function of CDK7 in RNA polymerase II pausing and mRNA capping. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.