Despite the 50th episode of TGS airing, everyone is preoccupied with news of budget cuts. Jack has to dole out cutbacks while Kenneth has to take on extra duties. Meanwhile, Liz tries to save her staff and crew and Jenna and Tracy try to uncover Kenneth's secret.
Cutbacks forces 54 jokes into 23 minutes, sustaining absurdist chaos despite modest impact scores.
Directed by Gail Mancuso · Written by Matt Hubbard
WAR
100.1
Wins Above Replacement
“Cutbacks” ranks #115 of 138 30 Rock episodes on the Humor Index, scoring 93.9 — Elite. The episode packs 69 scored jokes at 3.0 per minute, averaging 7.5 on craft and 7.4 on impact, with Liz Lemon landing the most laughs. Every joke is ranked below with its individual craft and impact scores.
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Top Jokes
Jack Donaghy: Jack: 'Top front? Good lord, Lemon, that's your worst quadrant.'
Liz Lemon · Brad Halster: The 'date' between Liz and Brad — she negotiates sexual favors like a business deal: '20 minutes. Open mouth. I will work your ears.'
Liz Lemon: 'Does it help if I tell you I thought we were doing sexual espionage?'
Jenna Maroney · Tracy Jordan: The three serial killer characteristics applied to Kenneth: cruelty to animals ('He grew up killing pigs!'), bedwetting ('No wonder he's fascinated when I do that!'), inability to read facial cues ('I admonished him for that earlier!')
Liz Lemon · Jack Donaghy · Kenneth Parcell: Liz: 'Why is everyone talking about that movie?' Jack: 'It's playing on Showtime.' Kenneth (bursting in): 'Kenneth, get me Showtime.' Kenneth: 'What? Why now?'
All Jokes — 69 analyzed
Show all ↓ Hide ↑ Liz Lemon: One unsolved crew death
Liz Lemon Dark/Subversive Deadpan/Understatement ★ Rewatch Jack Donaghy: Enjoy your decorative air holders. You deserve them.
Jonathan · Jack Donaghy: Jonathan singing 'Can't Leave If Living Is Without You' after being fired, with a final dramatic 'I can't live!'
Liz Lemon · Jack Donaghy: Well, if by 'coke' you mean 'sodas'... I do. It's really bad.
Liz Lemon: Handle a presentation? Jack, I put on a live show every week — unless there's wrestling.
Liz Lemon Character Comedy Deadpan/Understatement Liz Lemon: No, trix, the cereal. Some fell in my sleeve. It's sticking to the fibers.
Kenneth Parcell: Kenneth describing the assistants meeting at 'Finnegan's, the bar we all go to after work... in my dreams.'
Jack Donaghy: Jack's Three D's for being his assistant: Discretion, Docility, and Don't Use My Bathroom.
Kenneth Parcell · Jack Donaghy: Kenneth telling the caller 'He's not in right now' while Jack is visibly present in the room and has just said he doesn't want to talk.
Kenneth Parcell: 'I feel like I'm the Pelican Brief! Do I already know too much?'
Liz Lemon · Brad Halster: Liz's 'outside the box' presentation that turns out to be rebranding the same show three ways, then revealing it's all TGS.
Liz Lemon: TGS is the number one late night show among men 9-13 and the morbidly obese.
Liz Lemon Deadpan/Understatement Dark/Subversive Liz Lemon: TGS is in 'final negotiations to create exclusive content for America's jails.'
Liz Lemon Deadpan/Understatement Dark/Subversive Tracy Jordan: The TGS clip reel: 'Someone put too many farts in this engine! It's about to explode!'
TGS cast: My name is Suri Cruise. Put your hands in the air. I came out of the womb with a full head of hair.
Brad Halster: After the catastrophic TGS reel, Brad flatly asks: 'So where's that conference room?'
Tracy Jordan · Kenneth Parcell: Tracy says 'I'm sorry about that' in response to Kenneth's overwork, then immediately retracts: 'No. I was just saying that.'
Tracy Jordan: 'Why can't you read human facial queues?'
Kenneth Parcell: Kenneth's bird is named 'Sonny Crockett' — after the Miami Vice character.
Tracy Jordan: Tracy: 'Birds are like little dinosaurs. So what I'll be doing is actually pretty cool and brave.'
Liz Lemon · Sid: Sid, the announcer who was struck by lightning and now can't really talk anymore, demonstrating with his garbled announcement.
Liz Lemon: 'I'm not firing any of my people... Or in Sid's case, their much younger wife with whom they have an open relationship.'
Liz Lemon Character Comedy Dark/Subversive Deadpan/Understatement Liz Lemon · Writer: The straws debate: '$1,200 a year on straws' proposed as a cut; Liz agrees; then immediately multiple people desperately need straws.
Matthew: 'We're not behind the times, we're groovy!'
Matthew Character Comedy Irony/Sarcasm Kenneth Parcell · Jack Donaghy: Kenneth interrupts Jack's firing meeting to relay a Showtime offer from Time Warner that requires acting 'now.'
Jack Donaghy · Kenneth Parcell: Jack sits in pained silence while Kenneth lingered after being dismissed — 'Take your time.'
Tracy Jordan: Tracy in Kenneth's apartment, repeatedly telling himself 'Don't go in the bedroom' — then getting startled and saying 'I wasn't going to!'
Kenneth Parcell · Liz Lemon: Kenneth plays two versions of himself — 'Kenneth the page' and 'Kenneth the Mr. Donaghy's assistant' — greeting Liz separately and formally.
Kenneth Parcell · Jack Donaghy: Kenneth interrupts Jack's meeting to announce the TGS budget situation, Jack says 'Kenneth!' — Kenneth: 'I've worked here 20 years.' Jack: 'I was wrong. That was not important enough.'
Kenneth Parcell: Kenneth calls himself by his new dual identity: 'It's me, Kenneth the page, this job is hard.'
Cheryl · Liz Lemon: Cheryl's plan to sleep with Jack to avoid her department's budget cuts: 'I'm gonna have to go in there and boink my way out of this.'
Cheryl · Liz Lemon: Cheryl suggests she and Liz 'team up, go in there together, lez out, give him a show.'
Liz Lemon: Liz wants to keep making free, long-distance prank calls to 'Seattle's Richard Sacmuncher.'
Liz Lemon Character Comedy Dark/Subversive Wordplay/Pun Liz Lemon · Jack Donaghy · Kenneth Parcell: Liz: 'Why is everyone talking about that movie?' Jack: 'It's playing on Showtime.' Kenneth (bursting in): 'Kenneth, get me Showtime.' Kenneth: 'What? Why now?'
Jack Donaghy: Jack's list of historical sexual barterers: 'Salome. Mata Hari. Deborah Norville.'
Liz Lemon: Liz: 'Don't cut the straw budget because I've already cut the exterminators.'
Liz Lemon Callback Dark/Subversive Running Gag ★ Rewatch Callback Jenna Maroney: Jenna's serial killer profiling credentials: her role as 'criminal profiler Jill St. Ferrari in the Lifetime original miniseries Hushed Rapings.'
Jenna Maroney · Tracy Jordan: The three serial killer characteristics applied to Kenneth: cruelty to animals ('He grew up killing pigs!'), bedwetting ('No wonder he's fascinated when I do that!'), inability to read facial cues ('I admonished him for that earlier!')
Tracy Jordan · Liz Lemon: Liz: 'Our food is gone. They took it.' Tracy: 'Do you have a cookie? Mommy's baby needs his yum-yums.'
Sid · Liz Lemon: Sid appears in the hallway having been fired: 'Good-bye, Lerz.' / Liz: 'Oh my god, Sid, did you get fired?'
Sid Liz Lemon Character Comedy Dark/Subversive Reaction Beat Callback Writer: Writer: 'I can't go back to teaching high school math. Those girls pretend they're not women yet, but they are.'
Writer Dark/Subversive Cringe/Discomfort Brad Halster: Brad Halster flirting with 'Marissa': 'Halster, you look hot in those trousers. How about we grab drinks tonight? Marissa, update my sched.'
Tracy Jordan · Jenna Maroney · Kenneth Parcell: Tracy and Jenna trying to report Kenneth as a suspected serial killer, not realizing they're reporting him to himself.
Kenneth Parcell · Tracy Jordan · Jenna Maroney: Kenneth reveals he's about to fire Steven Lee from Microwaves — the unit they were talking about.
Jenna Maroney: Jenna: 'I've got chills. He's evil. If I had any doubts about this before, and I don't think I did, they're gone now.'
Jenna Maroney · Tracy Jordan: 'We gotta go to his apartment and save who we can. We're definitely gonna be heroes. Yeah, like Julia and Denzel in the Pelican Brief!'
Liz Lemon: Liz assembling a seduction outfit: Jenna's hooker dress, Tracy's Michelle Obama heels, triple spanx, 'the sluttier makeup artist.'
Liz Lemon Character Comedy Visual Gag Escalation ★ Rewatch Liz Lemon: 'They may take my dignity, but they will never take our straws!'
Liz Lemon Callback Character Comedy Running Gag ★ Rewatch Callback Tracy Jordan · Jenna Maroney: Tracy warning Jenna: 'I'm gonna throw up all over your face' if they find human remains.
Tracy Jordan · Jenna Maroney: The rolled-up towel against the bedroom door that Tracy and Jenna interpret as sinister turns out to be a bug bomb.
Liz Lemon · Brad Halster: The 'date' between Liz and Brad — she negotiates sexual favors like a business deal: '20 minutes. Open mouth. I will work your ears.'
Liz Lemon: Liz tells Jack: 'I had to give him a little taste of the Lemon. And it was not sour, my friend. Not sour.'
Liz Lemon: 'I had to give him a little taste of the Lemon. And it was not sour, my friend. Not sour.'
Jack Donaghy: Jack: 'Your writers' room is now the headquarters for Telemundo's coverage of World Cup soccer qualifying. Ecuador tiene que ganar o atar contra Peru para avanzar en los finales.'
Jack Donaghy: Jack: 'Top front? Good lord, Lemon, that's your worst quadrant.'
Brad Halster · Liz Lemon: Brad's actual reason he needed 'it to be worth it': 'Being with a woman for the first time since my wife died.'
Kenneth: I may just be a non-Special, but what you two did is inexcusable.
Kenneth Character Comedy Irony/Sarcasm Liz Lemon · Brad Halster: Brad says 'business is business' after their date. Liz: 'Last night I gave you the business.' / 'We had an agreement. Top front and some light ear work!'
Brad Halster: Brad praying to his dead wife: 'Sharon! Angel! I swore to you the next one would be worthy. But she's not! She's a monster!'
Brad Halster Character Comedy Escalation Cringe/Discomfort ★ Rewatch Callback Liz Lemon: 'Does it help if I tell you I thought we were doing sexual espionage?'
Brad Halster: 'Marissa, add Dr. Walters to my sched.' (Brad's immediate response to the emotional breakdown)
HR Representative: HR describes Liz's behavior as: 'In the human resources world, we refer to that as being a filthy prostitute.'
HR Representative: HR concludes that Liz's 'sexual outburst was brought on by menopause.'
Liz Lemon: Liz: 'Okay. That's fair.' — agreeing to the menopause diagnosis.
Liz Lemon Character Comedy Deadpan/Understatement HR Representative: HR: 'I hope you've learned your lesson, Miss Lemon. When you harass sexually in the workplace, things do not somehow just work out in the end.'
Kenneth Parcell · Jack Donaghy: Kenneth interrupts Jack's meeting to announce there's a spider on the printer.
Jack Donaghy · Kenneth Parcell: Jack: 'It is now.' — turning the meeting into a Kenneth firing after Kenneth wanders in during an HR meeting.
Jenna Maroney: Jenna: 'Not to name names, but it's so sad that a certain black individual found it necessary to trick someone so pretty into believing you were a murderer.'
Kenneth Parcell: Kenneth receiving a cage full of replacement birds and immediately beginning to name them: 'Pat. Balthazar. Donna. Lorne. Michael.'
