The 25 best episodes of '30 Rock', ranked

Rare is the show that will do an “Amadeus” parody related to a sexually-explicit video game. It’s also really fun to see Liz in executive mode as Jack names her as his successor. Then, everything falls apart, and all the day drinking and face slaps in the world can’t save things.

Fittingly enough, “Season Four” is the first episode of…season four. Much like with a TV show in the real world, Jack is worried that “TGS with Tracy Jordan” is getting staid, and tries to spruce things up, including by asking Jenna to go country. There’s also a page strike fueled by Kenneth which brings plenty of laughs as a secondary story.

Twice “30 Rock” decided to break format by airing episodes of “Queen of Jordan,” a show within the reality of “30 Rock” that is a reality program focused on Tracy Jordan’s wife Angie. The second time they did it the episode kind of fell flat, but it’s easy to see why they tried. The first “Queen of Jordan” was quite a bit of fun and an interesting pivot for the show.

“My whole life is thunder” is a line uttered by Jenna Maroney in this episode, which is as apt a Jenna line as any she ever delivered. However, as funny as Jenna can be, this episode also delivers a punch when Jack’s mother Colleen dies. The two had a tumultuous relationship often explored on the show, and it culminates with Jack decided to deliver the greatest funeral of all time, though he, in turn, has his thunder stolen by Jenna, naturally.

Remember when NBC would do their “Green Week” episodes and ask all their shows to work in environmental messages? Leave it to “30 Rock” to subvert that. Jack Donaghy does something similar in the world of his NBC, creating Greenzo, an environmental mascot. Of course, his mascot speaks positively about the way big industries are affecting the environment. Then Greenzo gets too big of an ego and goes rogue. Oh, and he’s played by David Schwimmer.

There was an ongoing storyline in the show about Jenna working on an unlicensed Janis Joplin biopic which becomes a movie about Jackie Jormp-Jomp that can use no real Joplin music. Jack tries to get some good publicity at the Kids’ Choice Awards, which leads to Jenna inadvertently being declared dead. Jenna bathes in the glory of everybody mourning her until a tribute uses her real age. Meanwhile, Liz is suspended from work and becomes friends with a bunch of other women who are no longer working. Naturally, they have a fight club in order to feel alive.

We mentioned Jack’s relationship with his mother Colleen and how fraught it is. That plays a huge part in “Christmas Attack Zone,” a Christmas episode built around Jack and his mom trying to destroy each other emotionally. There’s also a storyline that allows Tracy a rare moment of positive impact on the world in a storyline that mirrors both Eddie Murphy’s experience with “Norbit” coming out after “Dreamgirls” and also the film “Sullivan’s Travels.”

It’s pretty surprising we are this far on the list before we get to an episode that focuses on Liz and one of her handful of love interests on the show. However, Wesley Snipes – played by Michael Sheen and not Wesley Snipes – is probably the bleakest of the love interests save Dennis. In fact, they aren’t even really truly love interests. Liz and Wesley meet in a dentist’s office while they are both high on drugs, and when sober Liz realizes she doesn’t really like Wesley at all.

Liz and Jack’s relationship is at the center of “30 Rock,” to the extent a show this joke heavy has an emotional core. While they had their antagonistic moments, in “Murphy Brown Lied to Us” Jack sort of pulls a fast one on Liz, but only to get her to reflect on whether or not she still wants to have a kid. While this story is a little sweet, there’s also Jenna faking a breakdown in order to get her boyfriend Paul back, which is just typical “30 Rock” insanity.

Yes, this episode is a riff on the plot of the movie “Mamma Mia!” Much like in that film, Jack Donaghy is looking to find out who his dad is, and three men are brought in as potential fathers. In the end, it turns out his dad is Milton Greene, an intellectual, touchy-feely liberal, which is basically the exact opposite of Jack’s own personality. Alan Alda was a fine choice to portray Milton.

“30 Rock” actually managed to make Ryan Lochte funny, which is a starting point. In truth, though, the best thing about this episode is a bit of obscure humor only for comedy fanatics. Jack realizes the woman he is seeing is “Pokemoning,” which is to say dating a varied group of men in order to get everything she is looking for in a romantic foil. One of them is named Ken Tremendous, and he happens to be the one who has amazing hair. Ken Tremendous is the former internet pseudonym of Michael Schur, the comedy writer who co-created “Parks and Recreation” and created “The Good Place.”

Jack and Liz have very different experiences at Liz’s high school reunion. Feeling weird about his life, Jack is enthused to be confused for one of Liz’s classmates, going all-in with the persona. Meanwhile, Liz’s story is a nice twist on the usual reunion tropes. In her memory, she was mistreated by her classmates and was looking forward to rubbing her success in their faces. However, she realizes that in actuality her mean-spirited asides to herself were actually being heard by everybody, and she was actually considered a cutting, vicious teen who her classmates feared getting on the wrong side of. Then Liz shoves her success in their faces anyway.

While this episode has a silly name, it has a ton of action going on. Both Liz and Jack are dealing with different relationship issues. Liz even agrees to marry Wesley so he can get citizenship because she’s feeling defeated by dating. Jack can’t decide between Avery and Nancy. However, the real highlight of this episode is Tracy having a freakout on the set of “Garfield 3: Feline Groovy” and yelling about awful things from his childhood to the child actor playing Nermal.

This is the third-to-last episode of the show, and the final two episodes are also on this list. Yes, “30 Rock” really struck the landing. There’s a very silly riff on “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” which ends with Jack decided Kenneth should be his successor as the President of NBC. Also, Liz finally adopts two children, and they happen to basically be the kid versions of Jenna and Tracy, making Liz realize she is ready for this.

“30 Rock” did two live episodes. Well, technically four, because both times they went live they did an episode for the East Coast and the West Coast. The first time they basically just did a normal episode but live. In “Live From Studio 6H,” though, they basically do a sketch comedy show, which is much easier to do live. That made it a fun experiment, and a really funny episode to boot.

“30 Rock” was early in weaponizes Jon Hamm’s capacity to be funny. Hamm had a run on the show as Drew, Liz’s neighbor and eventual boyfriend who is very dumb, but has coasted through life because of how handsome so many people think he is. Drew has been living in a bubble, and Liz helps him comes to terms with that in this episode. We knew Tina Fey could be hilarious, but it turns out Hamm can be as well.

This is the earliest episode on the list, as it’s the fifth episode the show aired. Jack was still pretty much just the antagonist to Liz at this point, but Alec Baldwin was already doing great things with the character. In “Jack-tor,” he shows his first bit of vulnerability, as he has to do a cameo on the show and simply can’t figure out how to act.

“Kidney Now!” is effectively the follow-up to “Mamma Mia.” Jack doesn’t just meet his dad Milton; he also finds out Milton needs a kidney. Not wanting to give one of his own, Jack does the next best thing and stages a celebrity-fueled plea to get him a kidney, replete with a massive song in the vein of “We are the World.”

This is the first appearance from Drew, but in this episode, Liz is trying to meet her handsome new neighbor. In doing so, she realizes that she’s possibly acting like a soap opera villain. A villain like, say, the Generallismo from a telenovela that Jack’s girlfriend’s grandmother watches. She hates the Generallismo, who happens to look just like Jack. Maybe because the actor within the show is just Alec Baldwin with a mustache? It’s insane, but it’s hilarious.

The final two episodes of “30 Rock” aired back-to-back as something of an hour-long episode, but they are decided different stories, and the episodes work as separate entities. Plus, they have different names. First up is “Hogcock!,” the penultimate episode. “TGS” has ended, and Liz is adapting to life away from work. Then she finds out that she needs to make one more episode of “TGS” to void a stipulation in Tracy’s contract. We’re getting the band back together!

We go right from the second-to-last episode to the final episode. “Last Lunch” had a lot of bows to tie up, and they did it with aplomb. OK, so maybe the very last scene is a bit much, presupposing that Kenneth is still alive and running NBC decades in the future like an ageless being, but until that moment it’s a hilarious, occasionally touching, episode that is a fitting series finale to an all-time great sitcom.

Some episodes of “30 Rock” would take a big swing, especially as the show went on. “The Tuxedo Begins” is definitely that. Liz basically becomes the Joker. Yes, like the Batman villain. It’s so bizarre, but it works so well within the world of the show. It’s maybe the most amusing that Liz is during the entire run of the show.

We miss the late, great Carrie Fisher. She really knocked it out of the park as a guest star in “Rosemary’s Baby,” where she plays a former comedy writer that Liz admires. Then Liz finds out Rosemary has gone off the deep end over the years, leading to Jack’s iconic line, “Never follow a hippie to a second location.”

This is the first great “30 Rock” episode, a high-octane farce of an episode that features a lot of madness occurring. It features Liz losing it due to low blood sugar, Tracy going nuts on Conan O’Brien, and a weird, little blue creature. Oh, also the first appearance of the iconic Dr. Spaceman.

“30 Rock” did not seem like a show that would build to a big wedding. Then, “Mazel Tov, Dummies!” happened. The final season episode features Liz actually getting married, having decided to settle down with Criss Chros, her boyfriend played by James Marsden. We get to see all sorts of characters pop up like Dennis and Dr. Spaceman. “30 Rock” did a wedding episode, but they did it their way. In doing so, they produced the best episode the show ever did.