30 Rock: Best 30 Episodes, Ranked

When Tina Fey and Robert Carlock first came up with “30 Rock,” Fey writes in her memoir “Bossypants,” they “weren’t trying to make a low-rated critical darling.” They just botched their version of “a hit show” like “Home Improvement.” Looking back at the series, their failure to recreate sitcom normalcy is absolutely for the better.

While it began as a loose take on Fey’s experience running the writers’ room of “Saturday Night Live,” “30 Rock” became a gloriously strange beast all its own throughout its 2006-2013 run, using the loose framework of a television show within a television show to create an unforgettable, unhinged version of a workplace comedy. It had a strong core pairing in Fey’s Liz Lemon and Alec Baldwin as her boss Jack
Donaghy; their relationship evolved over the years into a unique blend of mentor/mentee, brother/sister, and above all, fierce and honest friends. (“30 Rock,” thankfully, never gave in to the idea that Jack and Liz might have a romantic connection, which other shows might have been tempted to try at some point for the hell of it.) It had brilliant supporting players in Tracy Morgan as uninhibited star Tracy Jordan, Jane Krakowski as the eternally jealous Jenna and Jack McBrayer as earnest hard worker Kenneth. It featured dozens of guest stars turning in their some of their wildest performances, ranging from Salma Hayek as a stubborn nurse, to David Schwimmer as a humorless sustainable living advocate, to Paul Reubens as an inbred Austrian heir. It had so many jokes that re-watching the series is often an exercise in realizing you missed half of them the first time around.

But if you don’t have time to watch all 138 episodes, here are the top 30 of “30 Rock” — ranked.

“Operation Righteous Cowboy Lightning”
(Season 5, Episode 12)
This episode is “30 Rock” at its purest level of workplace comedy, putting Liz (Fey) and Jack (Alec Baldwin) in competing plots. On the one side, Liz is trying to outwit Tracy (Tracy Morgan), who’s both on his best behavior in front of his wife’s reality show cameras and constantly finding loopholes that let him act out while rendering the footage useless. On the other, Jack is pre-recording NBC specials for every possible natural disaster he can think of, only for the move to blow up spectacularly in his face. But really, “Operation Righteous Cowboy Lightning” deserves a spot on this list for Liz and Tracy’s furious fight to the tune of “Uptown Girl” alone.
"Floyd"
(Season 4, Episode 16)
As Floyd, Jason Sudeikis’ job was to be the perfect boyfriend who got away, Liz’s forever “what if?” In this episode, though, he gets to let loose when Liz finds out he’s engaged and accidentally gets him drunk off a salmon dish’s particularly potent bourbon sauce. His resulting relapse includes him crashing the set of Hoda Kotb and Kathie Lee Gifford’s fourth hour of “The Today Show” and being the drunkest one there, which is an unusual feat. It’s both startling to see Floyd acting like a true idiot, and kind of a relief to watch Sudeikis get to do something on this show besides be adorable.
“The Tuxedo Begins”
(Season 6, Episode 8)
Every so often, “30 Rock” would dive headlong into New York City mythology to uniquely ridiculous effect. Such is the case with “The Tuxedo Begins,” a deranged homage to the “Batman” movies that sees an ill Liz spiraling into hermitdom while Jack despairs at the city’s hostility towards the wealthy. This one lets Fey unleash Liz at her least ashamed, culminating in a dramatic standoff between her and Jack in which she goes full Joker while coughing up a lung and a half. Joaquin Phoenix, frankly, wishes.
“Mamma Mia”
(Season 3, Episode 21)
Jack deciding to find out who his father is could have been a storyline that didn’t deliver on the years of buildup. But in casting Alan Alda as Jack’s hippie professor dad Milton Greene, “30 Rock” ensured the arc’s success. This episode also features Liz taking over a photoshoot with Jenna because of her willingness to be “the funny one,” which ends up both degrading (the cover ends up being Liz in Groucho Marx glasses holding a rubber chicken while squatting over a toilet) and extremely pointed towards how media outlets tend to cast “funny women.”
“Christmas Special”
(Season 3, Episode 6)
“30 Rock” Christmas specials are all worth watching, especially because Christmas is usually when Jack’s ornery mother Colleen (the incomparable Elaine Stritch) comes to town. At this point in the series, the friction between them is still so fraught that, when Jack accidentally backs his car into her, he waits a full eight minutes before calling an ambulance and spends the rest of the episode trying to justify it by remembering all the ways she failed him. Eventually, Liz helps him see through his own misplaced childhood angst, and an uncharacteristically sweet mother and son moment ensues with singing “The Christmas Song.” Baldwin and Stritch’s chemistry made them one of the show’s best pairings because of episodes like this one.
“Dance Like Nobody’s Watching”
(Season 6, Episode 1)
One of the core tenets of “30 Rock” is that Liz is a perpetually miserable singleton with eyerolls to spare. This episode, however, opens with an alarmingly chipper Liz quite literally dancing her way through life to Jack’s total bafflement — until he spots her with a new boyfriend (James Marsden), who will eventually become her loving husband. That’s enough to recommend this episode, but the cherry on top is Jenna finding her perfect job as the meanest judge on “America’s Kids Got Singing,” a kids version of “American Idol” that treats us to a tiny girl warbling a weirdly moving version of “Camptown Races” while Kenneth (Jack McBrayer) awaits the Rapture, because why not?
"I Do Do"
(Season 4, Episode 22)
“I Do Do” has Liz serving as a bridesmaid at three different weddings as Jack struggles to reconcile the love triangle between himself, his childhood crush Nancy (Julianne Moore) and hard as flint cable news anchor girlfriend, Avery (Elizabeth Banks). It’s a lot to put on a single episode to reconcile, and yet “I Do Do” pulls it off, and throws in a game Matt Damon as Liz’s new love interest, Carol, for good measure.
“A Goon’s Deed in a Weary World”
(Season 7, Episode 11)
In wrapping up the show’s storylines, “30 Rock” did especially right by Kenneth, the page who happily cleaned up everyone’s messes simply because of his two greatest loves in life: “everybody, and television.” In “A Goon’s Deed,” his dream of becoming the head of NBC comes to fruition after Jack realizes the best candidate for the job has been under his nose the whole time. It says a lot about McBrayer’s performance and contributions to the show that this episode also features Liz finally getting to adopt two children, but it’s Kenneth’s arc that sings the most.
“Retreat to Move Forward”
(Season 3, Episode 9)
A perpetually underrated episode (directed by erstwhile guest star Steve Buscemi, no less), “Retreat to Move Forward” sees Liz navigating Jack’s corporate world to predictably wild ends while Jack’s usually rock solid self-esteem takes a hit. If you need convincing that “30 Rock”’s material on the ways of blowhard executives is some of its most timeless overall, take the “Six Sigmas,” aka six powerful men who each embody a core corporate America value: teamwork, insight, brutality, male enhancement, “handshake-fulness” and “play-hard.”
“Up All Night”
(Season 1, Episode 13)
Lovelorn Jack is one of the best Jacks, and he gets a serious showcase in “Up All Night.” When his formidable wife Bianca (none other than Isabella Rossellini) serves him divorce papers on Valentine’s Day, Jack’s simultaneous joy and anguish confuses him straight into a messy bender throughout the city. “Up All Night” gets bonus points for being the first episode to introduce both Sudeikis’ Floyd and Sherri Shepherd as Angie, Tracy’s headstrong, hilarious and devoted wife.
"Last Lunch"
(Season 7, Episode 12)
The only thing harder than starting a series is ending it. Seven seasons later, “30 Rock” had a hard job ahead of it as it wound down, but it struck the right balance with “Last Lunch.” Having resolved most of the major narrative threads, the series finale is free to focus on Jack and Liz. In their last moments sparring and encouraging each other to be their best selves, Fey and Baldwin prove exactly why the relationship between their characters ended up defining the series.
"Sun Tea"
(Season 4, Episode 6)
One of the most insightful aspects of Liz Lemon’s character is that she’s one of TV’s most exemplary oblivious white ladies who thinks — or maybe just hopes — she’s “one of the good ones.” In “Sun Tea,” Liz’s determination to be decent is sorely tested when the apartment next door becomes available and she has the chance to snatch it up and combine it with her own, if only she can scare the current tenant (Nate Cordrry). Liz sinking into her most debased self to achieve this goal, with the encouragement of the office’s resident scumbag Frank (Judah Friedlander), culminates in one of the series’ most enduring (and disturbing) visual gags.
“Gavin Volure”
(Season 3, Episode 4)
What could have been a weird one-off of an episode became a classic thanks to Steve Martin’s Gavin Volure, who quickly reveals that he’s not at all the eccentric agoraphobe he made himself out to be, much to Liz’s frustration. (All she wanted was a boyfriend who just wanted to sit around the house and watch TV all day, and once again, she was thwarted.) A proven master at playing a charming conman, Martin’s a natural fit for “30 Rock”’s bonkers world. This episode also features Tracy thinking his kids are trying to kill him, which is, in its own way, just as excellent.
“Christmas Attack Zone”
(Season 5, Episode 10)
It’s deeply unfortunate that this episode contains the unnecessary joke of Jenna and her drag queen boyfriend (Will Forte) dressing up as “two Black Swans,” with Jenna in blackface as football player Lynn Swann (which is why you’ll not find this episode streaming anywhere as of a few weeks ago). In a plot completely unrelated to it, “Christmas Attack Zone” features Jack’s mother Colleen at the peak of her powers, simultaneously melodramatic and tender when Jack least expects it. Though she pits Jack against his father and then-wife Avery, complete with staging a faux heart attack, Jack realizes that the bickering makes the holiday feel like a true family affair, for one of the first times in his life. Stritch only made a handful of appearances on the show, but was nevertheless an inextricable part of it because of perfectly played moments like this.
“Apollo, Apollo”
(Season 3, Episode 16)
The subplots of “Apollo, Apollo” are solid B+ material: the crew of “TGS” trick Tracy into thinking he’s going to the moon while Liz tries to pretend that Jenna sleeping with her ex Dennis (Dean Winters) isn’t a problem when it clearly is, to the point that she lets Jenna take a serious fall on set. What takes this episode from good to great is Jack’s struggle to find something that brings him visceral joy after realizing he’s achieved basically everything he ever wanted. The moment when he does comes when Liz, atoning for Jenna’s supposed injuries, lets the crew watch an old commercial she made for a particularly bleak phone sex line. Jack’s utter delight overwhelms him so much he throws up, just like he used to when he was a kid with delight to spare.
“Dealbreakers Talk Show #0001”
(Season 4, Episode 7)
Liz getting a break in her misfortunate is almost always short-lived, but the way in which her potential talk show implodes is a disaster for the ages. Unused to being on camera and more nervous than she’d care to admit, Liz quickly slides from excited to dispense judgey advice to a needy nation to throwing a tantrum in her dressing room, just like the actors she’s coddled for so many years. Fey is in rare form here; rarely has the show so starkly laid out Liz’s conflicting needs to be loudly appreciated for her work and quietly ignored while scarfing a pizza.
“Tracy Does Conan”
(Season 1, Episode 7)
The earliest episodes of “30 Rock” are more fascinating for what they’re not than good on their own; the rhythm is entirely different, slower and more deliberate with a harder edge. But in “Tracy Does Conan,” the show becomes more recognizably itself. Liz’s frantic attempts to get Tracy to behave for a decent appearance on Conan O’Brien’s show — complete with a turn from a perfectly beleaguered O’Brien as himself — feature the first appearance of Chris Parnell’s unreliable Dr. Spaceman and some of Morgan’s best physical comedy, solidifying the “30 Rock” version of Tracy as an oblivious eccentric.
“Jackie Jormp-Jomp”
(Season 3, Episode 18)
Unlike Fey and Baldwin, Krakowski’s committed turn as Jenna, the pathologically narcissistic co-star of Liz’s perpetually failing show, never got much awards attention. That she deserved more is clear in episodes like “Jackie Jormp-Jormp,” which sees Jenna trying (and failing) to milk the good publicity she gets from being accidentally memorialized at the Kid’s Choice Awards for the good of her off-brand Janis Joplin biopic. (This episode also features Liz bonding with women of leisure in her building before accidentally joining a Fight Club, one of the show’s best eleventh hour turns.)
“Anna Howard Shaw Day”
(Season 4, Episode 13)
Liz’s singleton status was, for many years and to her own chagrin, her most defining characteristic. In this episode, she tries to embrace it by skipping out on Valentine’s Day entirely (and rebranding it as “Anna Howard Shaw Day” in honor of the suffragette’s birthday). When her scheduled oral surgery distraction still requires that someone pick her up afterwards, though, she’s back to square one. “Anna Howard Shaw Day” is a perfect encapsulation of who Liz is, and who Jack is to her (because yes, of course he’s
the one to eventually retrieve her). This episode also introduces Elizabeth Banks’ Avery Jessup, a steel-jawed journalist who proves perfect for Jack from the moment they start sparring on her mile-a-minute cable news show.
“My Whole Life is Thunder”
(Season 7, Episode 8)
The final season did its best to resolve as many threads as possible, but no seventh season episode did so better than “My Whole Life is Thunder.” In one corner there was Jenna attempting to throw a surprise wedding, the better to grab all the attention, only to end up in one last rivalry with Liz. In the other there’s Colleen, who comes to visit Jack before passing away alongside him, prompting him to give the greatest, most star-studded eulogy he can muster. In giving both Krakowski and Stritch some meaty material to chew on before exiting stage left, “My Whole Life is Thunder” paid fitting homage to two of
the series’ most attention-grabbing women.
“The Head and the Hair”
(Season 1, Episode 11)
One of the first “30 Rock” episodes to fire on all cylinders, “The Head and the Hair” has a little something for everyone. Jack and Kenneth switch places, introducing Jack to Kenneth’s idea for a game show (“Gold Case”) and the horror that is Brian Williams’ dressing room. Tracy realizes he has a memoir due the next day and enlists the writers to help him get down every last bizarre thing he’s ever done. Liz, meanwhile, grapples with her confusion over a handsome guy (who she and Jenna call “The Hair”) asking her out, when she’s always thought of herself as someone would end up with a “Head” (as they call his nerdier friend). Peter Hermann only lasts an episode as Liz’s love interest due to an unfortunate twist, but he and Fey have enough chemistry to make a lasting impression.
“Subway Hero”
(Season 2, Episode 12)
None of Liz’s boyfriends quite encapsulates her latent dirtbag tendencies than Dennis Duffy, a sophomoric loudmouth whose greatest term of affection is calling Liz “dummy.” And yet, thanks to Winters’ performance, he rarely comes off as truly cruel so much as intensely self-absorbed. That comes into play in a big way with “Subway Hero,” when he briefly becomes a New York City icon for saving someone from an oncoming subway, only to confirm that he’s still the same Dennis at the end of the day. “Subway Hero” gets an extra boost in the rankings from its sharp (and unfortunately prescient) subplot in which Jack tries to get Tracy to shill for the Republican party by convincing Black people not to vote at all.
“Black Tie”
(Season 1, Episode 12)
This episode has “30 Rock” leaning all the way into its own bizarro instincts and stop acting like it could approximate a regular network sitcom. (As per Fey in her memoir “Bossypants,” this marked the moment the show “found its voice, and it was the voice of a crazy person.”) In “Black Tie,” Liz, Jenna and Jack go to a fancy party for Gerhardt Messerschmidt Rammstein Von Hap (Paul Reubens), a chronically inbred Austrian heir who falls for Jenna and then, after a deliberate sip of champagne that overwhelms his delicate system, falls dead onto his own plate. Reubens is wildly funny in the part, as is the episode’s other guest star Isabella Rossellini in the role of Jack’s vindictive ex-wife, Bianca. “30 Rock” wouldn’t have become “30 Rock” without “Black Tie,” and as such, it is a top 10 episode for sure.
“The Bubble”
(Season 3, Episode 15)
By now, we’re more used to the concept of conventionally handsome man Jon Hamm making fun of his own conventional handsomeness. But when he guest starred as Dr. Drew Baird on “30 Rock,” that was still a relatively new concept, and he nailed it. Drew’s best appearance, somewhat ironically, is his last as Liz’s boyfriend, when she realizes that his good looks have him living in a “bubble” of softened expectations and attempts to burst it. Drew’s petty tantrums at the indignity of getting any ounce of
pushback is as hilarious as it is pointed. By the time he tries to take off on a cool motorcycle, only to putter out halfway down the street and get crushed under its weight, “The Bubble” cements its status as a cut above most episodes.
“Rosemary’s Baby”
(Season 2, Episode 4)
As Jack astutely points out early on, Liz’s insistence on speaking truth to power is far more hypothetical than real. But when she meets her firebrand writing idol Rosemary (Carrie Fisher) shortly after getting a corporate “Followship Award,” Liz attempts to take a real stand — which, of course, falls apart within the hour. It’s a solid episode overall, with some classic lines (“never go with a hippie to a second location”) and an unbeatably funny performance from Fisher. Her scoffing, “come on, Liz, it’s the ‘90s!” while brandishing a Thermos of wine and trying to cajole Liz back into her good graces with an indulgent “Star Wars” reference (“you’re my only hope!”) is one of the best “30 Rock” scenes, period.
“Don Geiss, America and Hope”
(Season 4, Episode 15)
One of the best “30 Rock” runs began as Jack’s legendary boss Don Geiss (Rip Torn) begins his decline, sending Jack into furious self-preservation mode. In a mirror of the real life instance of Comcast buying NBC Universal, Jack has to contend in the show with NBC getting absorbed into “Kabletown,” a largely benign corporation that discourages innovation when settling for mediocre still yields profits. “30 Rock” was always sharp in its corporate critiques, which holds way up in this episode. “Don Geiss, America and Hope” also sees Tracy dealing with the fallout of an explosive tell-all about how boring he and his monogamous married life actually is, while Liz keeps running into a foppish British man (a perfectly prudish Michael Sheen) who urges her to settle for him, despite neither of them liking the other at all. Not only do all three storylines prove integral to the show overall, but the jokes come so fast and furious in the meantime that re-watching this episode proves how particularly rich it is.
“Reunion”
(Season 3, Episode 5)
A stone cold classic, “Reunion” directly challenges the idea of Liz Lemon as being some put-upon nerd with no power of her own when she goes to her reunion and learns that she was actually one of her high school’s biggest bullies. This realization, unfortunately for her and fortunately for the audience, comes as Jack’s reeling from Don Geiss waking up from his coma to affirm that he’s not ceding power yet, thus keeping Jack in corporate limbo. Since Fey was particularly good when Liz was indignant for no legitimate reason, and Baldwin was particularly good when Jack was spinning out into existential dread, the combination of both in this episode makes it an unmissable “30 Rock” staple.
“Queen of Jordan”
(Season 5, Episode 17)
“Queen of Jordan” is a huge swing for a show that rarely stepped outside the bounds of its own format. But this episode turns “30 Rock” into “The Real Housewives” so completely, from its turns of phrase to its onscreen graphics to its joke cadence, that it’s successful from the custom opening credits. It gives Sherri Shepherd’s Angie Jordan the spotlight that both so richly deserve, and cements Tituss Burgess’ unique place in the Fey-Carlock universe before his eventual casting on “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt.” Smart and fiercely funny, with the total commitment of everyone involved, “Queen of Jordan” is a risk that pays off big time.
“Sandwich Day”
(Season 2, Episode 14)
There are certainly splashier episodes of “30 Rock,” but “Sandwich Day” represents the best of what it could do on a weekly basis. Liz’s determination to make her ex-boyfriend Floyd feel bad begins well as she stages the perfect scenario in which to stoke his regret, complete with flattering wind machine. But it soon curdles into a series of aborted arguments about why he left, before she eventually comes around to acceptance. Underlying that plot is one in which her underlings (plus a bored Jenna) try to get her another sandwich from a legendary deli by having a drinking competition with a group of “teamsters” (led by Brian Dennehy). Everything comes to a head when Liz has to face the prospect of ditching that hard-won sandwich at airport security while chasing Floyd to his gate; the subsequent image of her stuffing it into her mouth while practically crying, “I can have it all!” is perhaps the most definitive of “30 Rock” overall.
“MILF Island”
(Season 2, Episode 11)
If this seems like a curveball for the first place spot, please go watch “MILF Island” again. The episode — which takes cues from a “Survivor”-esque fake show about, yes, MILFs competing for a title on a desert island — is packed with jokes and perfectly constructed. Taking place mostly over one night along the “MILF Island” finale as Jack tries to smoke out who told the “New York Post” that he could “eat [their] poo,” this episode represents a slightly unusual twist on the usual “30 Rock” formula. And yet, everything from Jack’s brilliant long con, to Liz’s wild-eyed desperation not to get found out (because of course she was the one to blab), to hangdog producer Pete (Scott Adsit) getting his arm stuck in a vending machine, comes together to make it one of a kind. As “MILF Island” itself puts it: this episode didn’t come here to make friends, it came here to be number one.

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Update: 2024-03-10