"TGS" is forced into hiatus, spurring the show's staffers to seek backup jobs. Meanwhile, Jack tries to rescue a cable network by forging an unlikely alliance with his archenemy, Devin Banks.
Absurdist comedy carries a 87-point episode with nearly 3 jokes per minute across 75 gags.
WAR
181.3
Wins Above Replacement
“Plan B” ranks #17 of 138 30 Rock episodes on the Humor Index, scoring 100.0 — Elite. The episode packs 98 scored jokes at 3.9 per minute, averaging 7.9 on craft and 7.8 on impact, with Jack landing the most laughs. Every joke is ranked below with its individual craft and impact scores.
Get weekly comedy rankings
Join comedy fans getting new analyses, score drops, and the funniest moments each week. Free, no spam.
Top Jokes
Devon Banks · Jack: Down came the rain and washed the spider out! — No! You are the spider. I am the sun! I dry up all the rain! — Yes! Freeing me, the spider, to climb up the spout again! — You bastard!
Unknown: Bird internet. [Final scene: the idea journal callback]
Unknown Callback Absurdist ★ Rewatch Callback Hank Hooper: I don't know if my tone is conveying the fury I feel about this, but I am, pardon my French... bonjour.
Hank Hooper: The VC was everywhere. Yes, they were! Yes, they were!
Aaron Sorkin · Liz: I'm Aaron Sorkin. 'The West Wing,' 'A Few Good Men,' 'The Social Network.' — 'Studio 60.' — Shut up.
All Jokes — 98 analyzed
Show all ↓ Hide ↑ Jack · Liz: I know. I broke it. I needed to speak with you, and I knew that was the fastest way to get you up here.
Jack Liz Character Comedy Setup/Punchline ★ Rewatch Liz: You bastard! I trusted you!
Liz Reaction Beat Character Comedy Tracy: I'm doing God's work here in Africa. Why, just yesterday, I kicked two naked people out of a garden!
Tracy Absurdist Dark/Subversive ★ Rewatch Tracy: Simba, Rafiki! Click, click, click! Yeah, that's right, I just put you in your place in African.
Tracy Absurdist Character Comedy ★ Rewatch Jack: 'TGS with Tracy Jordan' without Tracy Jordan is an oxymoron, like 'liberal government' or 'female scientist.'
Jack Irony/Sarcasm Character Comedy Princeton Person: Or 'Princeton football.' We were four and three in Ivy League play last year! Our quarterback, Henry Chang...
Jack: Power wagging, and I'm doing what I can, but I spent a lot of political capital buying a new network for KableTown.
Jack Wordplay/Pun Character Comedy Liz: Is it TNT? Are Rizzoli and Isles friends in real life?
Liz Observational Character Comedy Jack: TWINKS is an acronym designed to project a positive gay image. 'TWINKS... Television With Individuals... Naive, Kinky, Shaved.'
Jack Wordplay/Pun Absurdist ★ Rewatch Jack: Ugh, no. Next. [Reacting to bad TWINKS programming on screen]
Jack Reaction Beat Visual Gag ★ Rewatch Liz: When I was with D'Fwan on 'Queen of Jordan,' he spent $4,000 on chihuahua outfits for himself.
Liz Character Comedy Absurdist ★ Rewatch Jack: 'I'm Afraid My Hands Are Tied'... is the only show anyone's watching on TWINKS.
Jack Setup/Punchline Wordplay/Pun ★ Rewatch Frank: Sidney, it's Frank. 'TGS' is dead. Start booking me stand-up gigs. How many black women's colleges are there in the country?
Frank Character Comedy Dark/Subversive Pete: Last time I taught, I was like Robin Williams in 'Dead Poets Society,' by which I mean I got fired.
Pete Setup/Punchline Misdirection Jenna: No, I meant my JennaBabies and I will get through this. I've been selling these on QVC for years. It's my Plan B.
Jenna Character Comedy Visual Gag Jenna: This is Asian JennaBaby. Excuse me, G.I., do you miss your girlfriend? I'm good at math. So it's not offensive.
Jenna Dark/Subversive Character Comedy ★ Rewatch James (background writer): I'm going back to the job I had in Holland... police psychic. A Dutch TV show is based on me.
Toofer: With my degree, I can always go into architecture or medical nanotechnology... I'm sorry, I don't understand. Oh. I see. At Harvard, we call them 'concentrations'...
Toofer Character Comedy Irony/Sarcasm Liz: Let me just take out my idea journal. Hmm. This just says 'Bird Internet.'
Liz Character Comedy Absurdist ★ Rewatch Liz · Simon: Simon, you're my agent. You're not supposed to panic. You're supposed to help me. Like how Fredward helps iCarly.
Liz · Simon: Liz's agent Simon panics immediately when he hears 'forced hiatus.'
Simon: Would you be willing to come in for an Alpo commercial? If you can get through the audition without pooping, it's yours.
Simon Setup/Punchline Dark/Subversive Jack: Baby? Ah, yes, BAB Y... Black-Asian Bisexual Youths. Those are viewers we want, and TWINKS is gonna bring them in.
Jack Wordplay/Pun Character Comedy Jack: My night nurse swears she calls me 'koskel,' which, in Trinidadian Creole, means 'stranger.'
Jack Dark/Subversive Character Comedy Hank Hooper: Jack, there's lots of things I like... fishing, marches by John Philip Sousa, telephones that look like footballs. But there's one thing I don't like... losing money!
Hank Hooper: I don't know if my tone is conveying the fury I feel about this, but I am, pardon my French... bonjour.
Hank Hooper: Now, that's a joke, but I am really, really mad!
Hank Hooper Meta/Self-Referential Character Comedy Callback Jack: I'm remaking 'Knight Rider' with the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile.
Jack Absurdist Character Comedy Hank Hooper: You made a bad decision and bought something you didn't understand, like when I bought tickets for 'Black Swan.' Remember when a movie was just a fella with a hat running away from a fella with no hair?
Hank Hooper: ...unless there's a gay Jack Donaghy locked up somewhere who understands all this stuff, let's just chalk this one up to never again.
Jack: His name is Devon Banks. [Beat] I sense something, a presence I've not felt since...
Jack Meta/Self-Referential Reaction Beat Liz: Banks? But he's your nemesis. That would be like me hiring that mouse that keeps pooping in my slippers!
Liz Setup/Punchline Character Comedy Jack: He's a gay shark, like the actor who played Jaws.
Jack Setup/Punchline Wordplay/Pun Jack: Banks put all of his eggs in the Obama basket. When the administration started to falter because of our conspiracy... I mean, Obama's ineptitude...
Jack Irony/Sarcasm Meta/Self-Referential ★ Rewatch Jack: Then he tried to rejoin us capitalists. Showed up at John Paulson's Sweet Sixteen Billion party. Nobody would talk to him, not even Ira. And he was all, 'Oh, I'll just look at these books,' then pretended to get a text and left. And we were all like, 'Whatever. We'll go to IHOP and not tell him!'
Jack Character Comedy Absurdist ★ Rewatch Jack: He's on LinkedIn, Lemon. He might as well be dead!
Jack Irony/Sarcasm Deadpan/Understatement Jack · Liz: ...crab, I guess. What else crawls, Lemon? Babies, Jack. You have one.
Jack Liz Setup/Punchline Character Comedy Liz: Speaking of TV ideas, would you buy a show about a girl television writer trying to have it all in the city and also she's a vampire, I guess?
Liz Meta/Self-Referential Character Comedy Jack: I like the end part.
Jack Deadpan/Understatement Irony/Sarcasm Callback Jack: I thought we understood each other! I thought we understood that you are never to think that I understand anything!
Jack Character Comedy Escalation Liz: Well, there have been a lot of 'Amazing Races' on since then, and I had to watch them and go online and comment on them!
Liz Character Comedy Observational Liz · Jack: Olive just turns into Barham? Justice for Rodney King! How do I get to 10? It's the 10! Rodney King!
Liz: What about opportunities for storytellers? Beginning with the cave paintings of Lascaux, mankind...
Liz Character Comedy Escalation Aaron Sorkin · Liz: I'm Aaron Sorkin. 'The West Wing,' 'A Few Good Men,' 'The Social Network.' — 'Studio 60.' — Shut up.
Aaron Sorkin: Our craft is dying while people are playing Angry Birds and poking each other on Facebook! What is poking anyway? Why won't anybody do it to me? I'm cool!
Liz: Speaking of Angry Birds, do you know how to beat 11-4? It's just a red guy and a green guy. The key is do not use the green guy as a boomerang.
Liz Character Comedy Misdirection Aaron Sorkin: Listen, lady... a gender I write extremely well if the story calls for it...
Aaron Sorkin · Liz: We make horse buggies, and the first Model T just rolled into town. We're dinosaurs. — We don't need two metaphors. That's bad writing, not that it matters.
Aaron Sorkin: Mr. Lachey, huge fan, huge fan! I've have all your albums!
Kenneth: Oh, you'll be proud of me, Miss Lemon. It is not easy coming up with ideas to save the show, but this morning, I held up this sign in the 'Today Show' window!
Kenneth: They sent light bulbs to save 'Friday Night Lights,' hot sauce to save 'Roswell,' and douche bags to save 'Entourage.'
Kenneth Setup/Punchline Dark/Subversive ★ Rewatch Kenneth Callback Absurdist ★ Rewatch Callback Devon Banks: These aren't babies. They're organ farms!
Devon Banks: I'm a househusband now. Happy? I married a shiny black dancer named Cashmere. We mixed our sperm together so no one would know whose baby is whose.
Devon Banks: You thought that I would lick your boots, but you need me. So now I'm gonna make you let me lick your boots!
Jack · Devon Banks: I'll keep you on a very tight leash. — Fantastic. Continue. — You will be under me, and if there's one slipup, your ass is mine!
Devon · Jack: Devon: 'I'll keep you on a very tight leash.' / Jack: 'Fantastic. Continue.'
Devon Banks · Jack: Down came the rain and washed the spider out! — No! You are the spider. I am the sun! I dry up all the rain! — Yes! Freeing me, the spider, to climb up the spout again! — You bastard!
Devon Banks: Now, who wants some num-nums?
Simon · Liz: [Simon breaks up with Liz as an agent using the same speech he'd use to drop a dog client, including the silent beat]
Simon Liz Visual Gag Reaction Beat ★ Rewatch Jack: The only explanation I can think of is that he keeps stopping to perform good deeds.
Jack Irony/Sarcasm Deadpan/Understatement Hank Hooper: Well, I'm a straight shooter, Jack, except at the urinal. But that's just a little shrapnel side effect from Vietnam.
Devon Banks: I tried to call, but somebody spilled milky all over Daddy's phony. Didn't you, little Mykonos?
Devon Banks: of course, I didn't want to miss this fabulous opportunity. I'm always just trying to balance work and family. It's kind of what I'm all about.
Hank Hooper: The VC was everywhere. Yes, they were! Yes, they were!
Devon Banks: I brought the sexiest one, too. His cheekbones are like granite.
Devon Banks: This isn't even baby vomit on my jacket! It's mine! All mine!
Hank Hooper: 'Whoosh!' went the flamethrower. 'Medic! Medic!' cried the little boy!
Hank Hooper Character Comedy Dark/Subversive ★ Rewatch Callback Pete: Just like 'Lean on Me,' in that a guy who looks like Morgan Freeman swung a bat at me.
Pete Setup/Punchline Misdirection Kenneth: I've already sent about 100 of these, even though licking an envelope is a sin... unless you're married to it. So I had to marry each envelope and then divorce it, which brings me to my ninth point...
Liz: Kenneth, do you know what anthrax looks like?
Liz Setup/Punchline Dark/Subversive ★ Rewatch Callback Kenneth: I'm not with him! God bless America! My thorax!
Kenneth Physical/Slapstick Reaction Beat Callback Dutch Police Psychic Writer: Thank you, Mentaalist. It is a gift and a curse. In the TV show, you bang me in a tulip field under credits.
Unknown Child · Unknown Parent: Mommy, what's that? — It's a toilet or a woman. It's whatever you need it to be.
Liz: People of the sidewalk, we can't give up on the written word! We need stories. Because I don't have a Plan B! I have a degree in Theater Tech with a minor in Movement! Why did my parents let me do that?
Liz Character Comedy Escalation Liz · Various Obsolete Professions: Who's there? Show yourselves! — You're one of us now. — Better to ask who we used to be. — Once, I was called Travel Agent. — I was an American Auto Worker. — And I played dynamite saxophone solos in rock-'n'-roll songs.
Obsolete Professions: Come. We live under the subways with the CEO of Friendster.
Devon Banks · Jack: Morning, Jack! Empty coffee pot, same cheap $300 tie as yesterday, nose hair all askew. You've been here all night trying to figure out how to fight back, haven't you?
Devon Banks: Oh, it was amazing. Yes, really superlative tummy time. Oh, I almost forgot. Hank — Uncle Hank — wants to expand overseas, and he's chosen me to be the face of the company in Europe. That's right, I've been promoted.
Jack · Devon Banks: But Europe is my purview! I was supposed to go there next week. I was going to take a picture where it looked like I was holding up the Leaning Tower of Pisa! Now I'll be taking that picture!
Devon Banks: I was trapped in a world of wet wipes and rectal thermometers. Then the babies came, and life changed.
Devon Banks: Three pairs of grubby little hands smearing food all over your brand-new chihuahua outfits.
Devon Banks: Three perfect little mouths that smile every time I walk through the door... Three tummies that just want their num-nums and zerberts. Oh, God, I just love my gaybies too much! I can't leave!
Devon Banks · Man in Background: I'm sorry, Jack. But I had stuff planned! I was going to 'Trading Places' you! — Hey, I was bailed out of prison and told to come up here?
Jack: That was weak, Banks.
Jack Deadpan/Understatement Character Comedy Devon Banks · Jack: And yet you still managed to be here all night trying to figure out how to bring me down? Damn, Jack. You are strong. You're like Dora's friend. — Benny the Bull. — Benny the Bull.
Liz: Okay, here's an idea. We keep 'TGS' going as a magazine.
Liz Character Comedy Deadpan/Understatement Liz: Here, I'm actually not that hungry.
Liz Character Comedy Reaction Beat Kenneth: This is the same place Mr. Jordan gets pizza from in Africa.
Kenneth Setup/Punchline Misdirection ★ Rewatch Tracy: Africa's great! We got juju monsters... gum-gum trees, and horsicorns, which is a unicorn with a horse's head.
Tracy Absurdist Character Comedy ★ Rewatch Liz: Kenneth, you beautiful goon! He's not in Africa! He's somewhere in the delivery zone of Federici's Pizza! We can find him and bring him back here!
Liz Character Comedy Setup/Punchline Callback Liz: And I won't have to be the world's worst hooker! You want to party? It's $500 for kissing, $10,000 for snuggling, end of list.
Liz Character Comedy Dark/Subversive ★ Rewatch Liz: No! / I'm hungry again!
Liz Character Comedy Callback ★ Rewatch Callback Liz/Kenneth · Tracy: Have you made friends in Africa? — Oh, sure. Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Paul Simon, 'Invictus.'
Liz/Kenneth · Tracy: So, what's the weather like? — Crazy. It's the snowiest winter we had in years in New York... in Africa.
Tracy: Uh-oh, it's nighttime. Got to go to bed or I'll anger the gods. They must be crazy! Africa!
Tracy Character Comedy Escalation Liz: I probably should have realized he was in New York sooner.
Liz Deadpan/Understatement Character Comedy Unknown: Bird internet. [Final scene: the idea journal callback]
Unknown Callback Absurdist ★ Rewatch Callback 