The "TGS" gang returning from hiatus, only to be shocked by Jack's awful fall programming lineup. Meanwhile, bridezilla Jenna taps Liz to be her maid of honor, and Tracy is invited to a dinner party by Kenneth and Hazel.
Season finale setup delivers 82 jokes in 45 minutes—absurdist escalation dominates.
Directed by Don Scardino · Written by Jack Burditt
WAR
77.9
Wins Above Replacement
“The Beginning Of The End” ranks #108 of 138 30 Rock episodes on the Humor Index, scoring 81.4 — Elite. The episode packs 82 scored jokes at 3.2 per minute, averaging 7.0 on craft and 6.9 on impact, with Jack landing the most laughs. Every joke is ranked below with its individual craft and impact scores.
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Top Jokes
Liz · Jenna: Wait, if that was a drill, did you kill those doves? No, I bought them at the dead-dove store. Grow up, Liz.
Liz Jenna Absurdist Deadpan/Understatement ★ Rewatch Jenna: Because you're not famous! You think I want someone up there with me that other people are looking at? I wanted you because you're nothing!
Jenna Character Comedy Cringe/Discomfort ★ Rewatch Jack: thanks to a round of golf with Archbishop Dolan, I was never married
Jack Absurdist Character Comedy ★ Rewatch Liz · Crew member: Who do you think you are? God? We're ready for you.
Tracy: Oh, my God. I'm the most stable adult here.
Tracy Irony/Sarcasm Character Comedy ★ Rewatch All Jokes — 82 analyzed
Show all ↓ Hide ↑ Liz: Hey! One-percent d-bag! Can't park here. You don't own the sidewalk.
Jack: despite our tiny, un-American sodas
Jack Observational Character Comedy ★ Rewatch Jack: That's idiotic. So, how was your hiatus? Start with what puzzles you did.
Jack Character Comedy Misdirection Liz: Venice. Solar system. Unicorn. The cast of 'L.A. Law'. That one took me awhile. So much white.
Liz Escalation Dark/Subversive ★ Rewatch Jack · Liz: Oh, really, Lemon? You can't even say 'trying'? What positions are you using? The one. There's only one.
Jack Liz Cringe/Discomfort Character Comedy Jack: thanks to a round of golf with Archbishop Dolan, I was never married
Jack Absurdist Character Comedy ★ Rewatch Jack: Liddy won a bronze in Horsey-Jumpy at the Baby Olympics
Jack Absurdist Wordplay/Pun Jack: If you're tired of sexy vampires, then you'll love 'Hunchbacks', starring Jonathan Silverman as Dr. Fantastico
Jack Absurdist Setup/Punchline Jack: do you like the information channel you get when you stay in a hotel? Well, Thursdays is just that now
Jack Observational Setup/Punchline Jack: Yes, little big man discovered the grass isn't always greener on the other side and came crawling back
Jack Character Comedy Irony/Sarcasm Jonathan · Jack: My grandmother was seriously ill. I went to Salinas to feed and bathe her. - I'm sorry. - I still don't like you.
Jack: 'God Cop.' Crime just got a new worst friend.
Jack Wordplay/Pun Absurdist Jack: It's all explained in the end by the wise black man played by Karl Malone
Jack Absurdist Meta/Self-Referential ★ Rewatch Jack: But it's not a yacht for corporate parties and hooker disposal. It's a two-man fishing boat.
Jack Dark/Subversive Escalation ★ Rewatch Liz · Jack: I believe that is called a skiff. I will not have you telling me boat names in my own office!
Jack: 'Oh, Brother'. A comedy about two jive-talking con men hiding out in a monastery.
Jack Setup/Punchline Absurdist Jenna: The doves I ordered for the wedding came, and they're all dead! One of them touched my tongue!
Jenna Cringe/Discomfort Escalation Jenna: Oh, I'm fine, Liz. The doves were just a drill. Everyone needs to be on their toes for my wedding year.
Jenna Misdirection Character Comedy ★ Rewatch Liz · Jenna: Wait, if that was a drill, did you kill those doves? No, I bought them at the dead-dove store. Grow up, Liz.
Liz Jenna Absurdist Deadpan/Understatement ★ Rewatch Jenna: I prefer soul-sucking monster.
Jenna Deadpan/Understatement Character Comedy Jenna: Beyoncé, J. Lo, Natalie Portman, whose real last name is Hershlag, by the way. Okay, that's not relevant. I just think people should know.
Jenna: Paz de la Huerta, the former Mrs. Jon Cryer, Honey Boo Boo's mom.
Jenna Escalation Character Comedy Jenna: But you're my oldest friend. And, also, I've known you for a long time.
Liz: Oh, God, my hands! Please! I'll do it! I'd love to do it! You're my best friend!
Liz Physical/Slapstick Cringe/Discomfort Jenna: Make sure you have a stripper there from every race. Stan looking for Indian now. It's a tough booking.
Jenna Cringe/Discomfort Character Comedy Tracy · Kenneth: You mean a threesome with Robinson Cano? No! I mean sharing a yogurt
Kenneth: Hazel says she's saving herself for a Grade-A pork machine. And those are expensive.
Kenneth Misdirection Character Comedy ★ Rewatch Tracy: You're in the kitchen naked, cooking chili. You feed it to her out of your hands. Make her act like a bird.
Tracy: That's half as long as it felt like 'Arliss' was on TV.
Tracy Observational Meta/Self-Referential ★ Rewatch Tracy: If she wants to have a dinner party, you go fry up some dolphin.
Tracy Dark/Subversive Character Comedy Tracy: Speaking of which, Angie's been in the hospital for a week. Could you go find out why?
Tracy Deadpan/Understatement Character Comedy ★ Rewatch Frank · Jack: Can I have a hot wife? If you gain 50 pounds. Yeah.
Frank: It's about a boy who befriends a talking panda, and they're allowed to sleep in the same bed.
Frank Dark/Subversive Cringe/Discomfort Jack: I wish. Then I could just solve it with the Schwartzfeld Tesseract.
Jack Absurdist Character Comedy Jack · Liz: Xerox, Alcoa, PAAS. The Easter egg company? They own their market. When was the last time you bought a non-PAAS egg-dyeing kit?
Jack Liz Escalation Observational ★ Rewatch Jack: Their wire egg-dipper is tops in the industry with the thinnest egg-loop to reduce dye lines.
Jack Escalation Character Comedy ★ Rewatch Game show contestants · Host: Like when two people run into each other. Sorry, it's the other one. Your next word is 'stare.' Okay, the things you climb to get -- No, it's the other one. It's always the other one!
Jack · Liz: So, you don't peacock them. I don't... think so.
Jack Liz Wordplay/Pun Character Comedy Hazel: Yes, and I thought we'd have a little féte chez nous ce soir.
Tracy: Oh, how nice to meet a woman who speaks the language of the Nazis' most enthusiastic collaborators.
Tracy Dark/Subversive Character Comedy Tracy: I do enjoy seeing the homes of poor whites.
Tracy Character Comedy Dark/Subversive Hazel: Yes, I'm sort of the black Tyler Perry.
Hazel Absurdist Character Comedy Hazel: whose most recent credits include running onstage during 'Sister Act'
Hazel Cringe/Discomfort Character Comedy Tracy: You know, I wasn't scripted to be in that episode. I just wandered onto set because Reginald Vel Johnson owed me $40.
Tracy Absurdist Character Comedy ★ Rewatch Tracy: Oh, my God. I'm the most stable adult here.
Tracy Irony/Sarcasm Character Comedy ★ Rewatch Liz: She wants her something borrowed to be Jessica Biel's youth.
Liz Absurdist Character Comedy ★ Rewatch Liz: Thank you for saying that in dated urban slang so that I'll understand you.
Liz Meta/Self-Referential Character Comedy Tracy · Liz: Because you're terrified of her, the way most white ladies are with their best friends? That is racist and only pan true.
Jack: Tonight on NBC, Joe Rogan is 'Mandela'. And, if it's Wednesday, it must be 'Cricket Night in America'. Then, on 'Jay', a full hour of Gary Sinise's band.
Jack Absurdist Escalation ★ Rewatch Liz · Jack: Hang on. Did you cast yourself in this show? What can I say? We saw hundreds of actors for God. Finally the network executive said I should just play him. You're the network executive.
Jack: I have an investor lined up who will buy the network and keep me in charge. I can't tell you who it is, but his word is as good as the color consistency on one of his Easter eggs.
Jack Callback Character Comedy ★ Rewatch Callback Liz Wordplay/Pun Dark/Subversive Jack: I cannot go to another business-school reunion and sit at the non-CEO table with the... women and nice men.
Jack Character Comedy Dark/Subversive Liz: Before this, I ran an all-women's theater company. Everyone was vice president.
Liz Observational Character Comedy Jack: Look at Sherman's march to the sea. Or what my good friend Bane tried to do to Gotham.
Jack Escalation Absurdist ★ Rewatch Liz · Crew member: Who do you think you are? God? We're ready for you.
Jack: If there is one thing I have realized from being God, it's that the more you know, the more you realize you do not... know.
Liz: Why is he learning anything? He's supposed to be God.
Liz Observational Setup/Punchline Hazel: Well, it's not technically a home, because no one's supposed to be living here, but welcome to our condemned site of the Candyman murders.
Hazel Escalation Dark/Subversive Hazel: If you put this in the oven at about 200 degrees, my snake should be very comfortable while she gives birth.
Hazel Absurdist Cringe/Discomfort Tracy: Thank you. Your home is terrible.
Tracy Deadpan/Understatement Character Comedy Tracy · Hazel: Oh, I always have one white person in all my movies. We have to have a villain. Oh, and who's worse than us whites, right? I mean, look at slavery. That was bananas!
Hazel: That sturgeon just will not die. Excuse me a moment. Oh, I also do accents. Oh, me a Cockney person.
Hazel Escalation Character Comedy Jenna · Liz: Zoltan is an 18-year-old German shepherd who cannot walk. So, you're gonna be in charge of him. No, Jenna, I'm allergic to dogs. Oh, don't worry. He's hairless because of his insanity medication.
Jenna · Liz: The cake is a tasteless foam. There's no cake?
Jack: 'Tank It,' the reality event of the year, where we make grandpas put on tank tops and then laugh at them.
Jack Wordplay/Pun Dark/Subversive Liz: And there's nothing worse than a surprise Lemon party.
Tracy: My foot? No, that's shoe stuffing. It helps keep the shape of my shoes. Why was you rubbing my foot, anyway?
Tracy Misdirection Character Comedy Jenna: Ooh, I smell Italian guys.
Jenna Character Comedy Cringe/Discomfort Liz: Bethany from work is here and a bunch of my neighbors. A clown. And there's a 'God Cop' marathon on NBC.
Liz Escalation Character Comedy ★ Rewatch Callback Police officer: Listen up, ladies. You're all in a lot of trouble if you don't protect yourselves against identity theft. Please take a pamphlet. Pass them along.
Hazel: So am I. And if he ever wakes up from that coma, I'm dead! That's why I live for today.
Hazel Dark/Subversive Escalation Jenna: Because you're not famous! You think I want someone up there with me that other people are looking at? I wanted you because you're nothing!
Jenna Character Comedy Cringe/Discomfort ★ Rewatch Liz · Jenna: I get it. You didn't want to get Pippa Middleton-ed. Why would you even mention her?!
Jenna: And what if she came in in a wheelchair and then stood up and everyone applauded and cried?
Jenna Cringe/Discomfort Character Comedy Liz · Jack: You just called me 'Liz'! We can fix that in the cutting room.
Liz Jack Meta/Self-Referential Character Comedy ★ Rewatch Hazel: Not! What I said was I would never sleep with Tracy for a pan in a movie.
Hazel Wordplay/Pun Character Comedy Tracy: Come on, Kenmore washers and dryers, who are you gonna believe here?
Tracy Character Comedy Absurdist ★ Rewatch Tracy: It's a blessing and a purse.
Tracy Wordplay/Pun Character Comedy Kenneth: And both sides being right is like kissing your sister. A wonderful treat!
Kenneth Dark/Subversive Character Comedy ★ Rewatch Liz: I forgot my sports bra, so, ironically --
Game show host: No! You forgot it could also be an exclamation about a fruit, as in, 'Oh, pear!'
