Jenna annoys Liz with her wedding envy, Jack devises a plan to avoid disappointing his visiting mother and Tracy attempts to cheer up Kenneth.
Season 7's densest hour: 76 jokes in 24 minutes of controlled absurdist chaos.
Directed by Linda Mendoza · Written by Jack Burditt
WAR
148.8
Wins Above Replacement
“My Whole Life Is Thunder” ranks #38 of 138 30 Rock episodes on the Humor Index, scoring 99.2 — Elite. The episode packs 86 scored jokes at 3.5 per minute, averaging 7.8 on craft and 7.6 on impact, with Jenna landing the most laughs. Every joke is ranked below with its individual craft and impact scores.
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Top Jokes
Jenna: 'My whole life is thunder!'
Jenna Character Comedy Absurdist ★ Rewatch Jack Donaghy: Jack: 'The man who in 1984 wore a tuxedo so well, he broke up the Go-Go's.'
Paul: Paul's wedding vow: 'I promise to always pour antibiotics all over your penis before you staple it to anything.'
Paul Dark/Subversive Character Comedy ★ Rewatch Colleen: 'I'm going out of this world exactly the way I came into it. Wearing a hat!'
Colleen Setup/Punchline Character Comedy ★ Rewatch Jenna · Liz Lemon: Watching you struggle at work, dating losers, wearing boys' husky jeans -- / They have reinforced crotches.
All Jokes — 86 analyzed
Show all ↓ Hide ↑ Liz Lemon: Liz Lemon sings an improvised wedding song to announce her marriage: '# Married # # Liz Lemon got married # # And made up this song, doo-doo-doo doo-doo-doo doo-doo #'
Frank: 'What the H-E-double-vibrator is that thing on your left hand?'
Frank Wordplay/Pun Setup/Punchline ★ Rewatch Jenna · Paul: Jenna reveals she had a surprise wedding planned: 'You just ruined my surprise wedding!' — complete with Paul waiting upstairs and Reverend Gimp
Paul: 'I guess I ate all that asparagus for nothing.'
Paul Deadpan/Understatement Character Comedy Reverend Gimp: 'Where can I get the C train?' — Reverend Gimp asks after the wedding is called off
Jenna: 'A-listers always have surprise weddings now, Liz. Timberbiel, Beyon-Z, Anne Hatha-nobody.'
Jenna Wordplay/Pun Character Comedy ★ Rewatch Jenna: 'technically, I am an A-lister now because I was on a list to date Tom Cruise, but I bailed before I got sucked in too deep, praise Xenu!'
Jenna Dark/Subversive Character Comedy Cerie · Liz Lemon: Cerie tells Liz 'It's inspiring to see that a woman in her 30s can still find true love.' Liz corrects her: 'I'm 42, Cerie.' Cerie responds: 'I don't know what that is.'
Cerie · Liz Lemon: The award description: 'Congratulations on being named one of the 80 Under 80, honoring women in entertainment who aren't Betty White!'
Cerie: The ceremony will be broadcast on 'Lifetime... oh, dot com, backslash garbagefile'
Cerie Deadpan/Understatement Setup/Punchline Liz Lemon: Liz does an excited dance/scat: 'Doo-ba-doo-ba-dow! Ba-doo-pomp-boo-pomp-boo-ba-da!'
Liz Lemon Character Comedy Physical/Slapstick ★ Rewatch Liz Lemon · Jack Donaghy: Liz attempts 'classic Girl Friday banter' with Jack: 'Now, you listen here, Jack. This story's not gonna write itself, see? / Oh, stop! You brute! I love you! Operator!'
Jack Donaghy: Jack's mother insists on traveling on Pearl Harbor Day 'to show the Emperor we're not afraid'
Jack Donaghy: 'That's only 14 in demon years, Lemon. The woman's constant disapproval of me will keep her alive forever!'
Jack Donaghy: Jack's phone ring is described as 'shriller' for his mother, implying he has a specific ringtone for her shrill quality
Jack's assistant · Colleen: Jack's assistant on the phone tells Colleen that Liz is with Jack: 'Well, she's wearing it pulled back, but it's not working. Exactly, because of her ears.'
Kenneth · Tracy Jordan: Kenneth explains why he's mopping the floor angrily: 'First Miss Lemon fired my girlfriend, and now Hazel broke up with me.' — the same person
Tracy Jordan: Tracy: 'Because despite cell phones, iPads, and computers, it's still the most effective portal for poltergeists?'
Kenneth: 'The people you care about never leave. And the bad guy always gets what she deserves.'
Kenneth Irony/Sarcasm Character Comedy Unknown: Someone comments 'Someone's looking lovely today!' then adds: 'What a burn! I could have meant someone else. Although I didn't. She's radiant.'
Unknown Irony/Sarcasm Deadpan/Understatement Jenna: Jenna, having found out her surprise wedding is ruined: 'Since I'm not getting married today, I might as well stuff my face.'
Jenna Character Comedy Deadpan/Understatement Jenna: 'My whole life is thunder!'
Jenna Character Comedy Absurdist ★ Rewatch Jenna: 'Next you'll tell me Mickey Rourke catapulted you into the Hollywood sign!'
Jenna Absurdist Character Comedy Liz Lemon: 'did you know that Chuck Scarborough is anatomically a woman? So I am a lesbian.'
Jenna · Liz Lemon: Liz's flashback/fantasy of first meeting Jenna: Jenna in period costume ('What brings a mummer to Lightsman's Row?') speaking to a young boy — revealed to be Liz
Jenna: 'Oh, Liz, you had me at "Hayden Panettiere is dead"!'
Jenna Dark/Subversive Misdirection ★ Rewatch Unknown woman · Jack Donaghy: A woman approaches Jack: 'I'm a nymphomaniac virgin widow, and I just completed my year of mourning. And I've got a hotel room and a latex allergy, and I was just wondering what you were doing for the next 12 to 14 hours.'
Jack Donaghy · Colleen: Colleen appears just as Jack is about to leave with the woman: 'Nice try, Mother.' — implying Colleen staged the entire encounter
Colleen: Colleen: 'The Grim Reaper, who is black, I assume, what, with the hoodies he wears.'
Colleen Character Comedy Dark/Subversive Jack Donaghy: Jack recites Colleen's 'dying speech' from memory: 'How could you do this to me? You're such a huge disappointment. If only Dragnet hadn't been preempted because of Sputnik, you never would have been conceived!'
Colleen: Re: the scout master: 'I didn't trust that scout master. He was always wearing shorts.'
Colleen Character Comedy Deadpan/Understatement Tracy Jordan: Tracy reveals he had the mice spell out 'Come see me' in crumbs on the floor
Florence Henderson · Tracy Jordan · Kenneth: Florence Henderson appears as 'special guest star' — Tracy says 'None of that Brady stuff' and she immediately asks: 'Are you the perverts who want to go to town on each other while I make a pie?'
Bonny Badamath: Awards MC Bonny Badamath: 'I can't shake hands because I have carpal tunnel syndrome from zipping up my own dress now that Gary's gone.'
Bonny Badamath: Bonny: 'Well, I'm just glad you found the place, what, with my directions. Because Gary was the navigator.'
Liz Lemon: Liz sees her photo in the program: 'Why does the other Liz Lemon always come up first?' — implying there's a more famous Liz Lemon whose Google results crowd her out
Liz Lemon: Liz discovers Jenna is setting up her own wedding in the ceremony venue to ruin Liz's award moment
Unnamed woman (implied Oprah): A woman at the ceremony empathizes with Liz's best friend problems: 'You know what my best friend did for my 50th birthday? She gives everybody a car. And then she was all, "Thank you for coming to Gayle's birthday!"'
Unnamed woman (Gayle King): Gayle King explains her best friend grievance: 'When I got bangs, my best friend didn't even acknowledge them... after reading an article in my best friend's magazine, I realized my feelings are valid.'
Liz Lemon: When I got bangs, my best friend didn't even acknowledge them. So I was gonna grow them out. Then, after reading an article in my best friend's magazine, I realized my feelings are valid. So I had to say to her, 'My bangs, they're not about you. It's about me trying to cover my forehead.'
Liz Lemon Character Comedy Irony/Sarcasm ★ Rewatch Callback Liz Lemon · Gayle King: 'We're talking about Oprah, right? / No, of course not. She can hear us!'
Colleen · Jack Donaghy: Colleen's dying preparations: 'These are the clothes that I want to be buried in. And make sure I'm holding this. Glue the pin to the inside of the coffin lid.' / 'For grave robbers.'
Colleen: 'I went down to a pack a day for you!' — Colleen justifying her sacrifices as a mother
Colleen Character Comedy Irony/Sarcasm Colleen: Colleen's stroke symptoms: 'I was watching TV, and they started interviewing an Asian Santa Claus, and my arm went numb!'
Colleen Character Comedy Dark/Subversive Colleen: 'My father did not kill dozens of Germans so that his daughter could die in a van!'
Jack Donaghy: 'But he wasn't even in the war!' — Jack's deflation of the heroic narrative
Colleen: Colleen: 'Just leave the door open, and let the elements take me.' — her preferred method of death
Colleen Character Comedy Deadpan/Understatement Colleen · Jack Donaghy: Colleen: 'I'll take a horse-drawn carriage.' Jack: 'Those carriages are rolling torture wagons for nature's most dignified creature! The horse is one of only three appropriate subjects for a painting, along with ships with sails and men holding up swords while staring off into the distance.'
Colleen: 'I'm going out of this world exactly the way I came into it. Wearing a hat!'
Colleen Setup/Punchline Character Comedy ★ Rewatch Tracy Jordan: Tracy asks Kenneth if the sun-bleached janitor is 'the same guy as before, or does that sun-bleached turd have a twin brother?'
Tracy Jordan: Tracy's elevator plan backfires: 'This was a bad idea! Is this alcohol-based? Why are you doing this to me, Jacob?!'
Bonny Badamath: Awards MC: 'I am told she got married just today. Just like Gary and that bitch who was selling us our dream house.'
Bonny Badamath · Various: The DVD/disc fails to play at the ceremony: 'Hang on. This is being weird. / Blow on the disc. / Is it on the right component? / Try unplugging it and plugging it back in! / Just open the disc part and blow on it!'
Jenna: Jenna emerges holding the disc: 'Looking for this?' — villain reveal
Jenna Character Comedy Misdirection Callback Jenna Maroney · Liz Lemon: Jenna: 'Without me, you'd still be behind that light board in Chicago turning bags of Sour Patch Kids inside out to lick them clean.' Liz: 'I got my money's worth!'
Jenna · Liz Lemon: 'And without me, you'd still be doing local commercials for store-brand douches. / Well, joke's on you because that wasn't a commercial. I don't know what it was!'
Liz Lemon · Jenna: 'I swear to God, you are the most selfish human being on the planet. / Thank you. Visit my website for extras and ringtones.'
Liz Lemon · Jenna: I swear to God, you are the most selfish human being on the planet. Thank you. Visit my website for extras and ringtones.
Jenna · Lighting tech: Jenna bribes the lighting tech to light the stage 'like a grocery store milk aisle'
Colleen · Jack Donaghy: Jenna: 'Also, you need to tell your Aunt Mary, when she was two, there was an accident with a hot comb. And, well, she used to be a boy.'
Jack Donaghy · Colleen: Jack challenges Colleen's apparent change of heart: 'Since when did you ever care about happiness?' / 'Don't talk to me like that, Jack! I breastfed you for nine years!'
Paul: Paul, inside the steamer trunk for hours: 'It's all right! The lack of oxygen is making me orgasm!'
Paul Dark/Subversive Character Comedy Judy · Jenna: Judy (a random audience member) defends Jenna: 'We shouldn't be defining ourselves by our men.' / Jenna: 'Oh, so in order to be independent, we have to be asexual? / You would know, Judy!'
Bonny Badamath: Bonny: 'God, I miss Gary so much! I put his sweater on a body pillow... I took it for a canoe ride!'
Liz Lemon: Liz: 'Fire up the Lekos! And the Klieg!' — deploying theatrical lighting knowledge as a weapon against Jenna's sabotage
Liz Lemon Character Comedy Escalation ★ Rewatch Callback Liz Lemon: Liz deflates Colleen's apparent last words: 'Really? 'Cause that doesn't sound like her, but I guess people do say strange things at the end. My grandmother said, "Liz, stop playing with the flesh around my elbow."'
Liz Lemon Character Comedy Deadpan/Understatement Jack Donaghy: Jack reframes Colleen's 'I just want you to be happy' as the most devastating insult: 'You say it to someone who has disappointed you.'
Jack Donaghy: 'No. It's perfect. She's a genius. One last twist of the knife.'
Jack Donaghy: Jack: 'Colleen wanted to be buried before the rest of the family found out and sold her body to a haunted house.'
Jack Donaghy: Jack: 'One more chance to disappoint her as she looks up at me from her throne in Hell.'
Jenna · Liz Lemon: Jenna's rare emotional honesty: 'All these years, I've always been able to look at you and feel better about myself.' / Liz: 'Sure.' / 'Don't interrupt.'
Jenna: 'The pill that lets me feel emotion is gonna wear off soon.'
Jenna Character Comedy Absurdist ★ Rewatch Jenna: Jenna's emotional confessional spirals into: 'you're married to a guy that I think about during sex.'
Jenna Character Comedy Cringe/Discomfort Jenna · Liz Lemon: Watching you struggle at work, dating losers, wearing boys' husky jeans -- / They have reinforced crotches.
Jenna: The pill wears off: 'Pill wearing off. You have mom arms.'
Jenna Character Comedy Setup/Punchline ★ Rewatch Callback Tracy Jordan · Kenneth: Tracy presents 'Hazel' but it's a different actress: 'I recast her! She tested through the roof! / At the STD clinic.'
Tracy Jordan: Tracy's speech: 'Where else but real life would a millionaire movie star care so much about a hillbilly janitor that he would spend two days trying to cheer him up? You can't do that on television because if you did, no one would watch.'
Quon Lee · Tracy Jordan: 'I sure picked the right week to come back. / You weren't supposed to have any lines, Quon Lee. Now I have to pay you!'
Jack Donaghy: Jack: 'The man who in 1984 wore a tuxedo so well, he broke up the Go-Go's.'
Jack Donaghy: The eulogy begins: 'Dublin. 1852. A ship bobs in the lee tide of the icy Irish Sea. Her name? Ariel.'
Jack Donaghy: Eulogizing montage: 'Today we are all Irish! / And the plumber says, "I don't-a know, but that's a pretty big-a pizza!" / Life is for the living!'
Unknown mourner: 'Thank you, Kermit, for explaining the afterlife to us.' — apparently Kermit the Frog has been part of the eulogy
Jack Donaghy: Sir Paul McCartney and the Harlem Boys Choir perform at the funeral
Jenna: Jenna's wedding vow: 'I promise not to make fun of you when you ask where your glasses are and they're on your head.'
Jenna Character Comedy Irony/Sarcasm Paul: Paul's wedding vow: 'I promise to always pour antibiotics all over your penis before you staple it to anything.'
Paul Dark/Subversive Character Comedy ★ Rewatch Officiant: 'Ladies and gentlemen, presenting Mrs. and Mr. Jenna Maroneys!'
Officiant Character Comedy Setup/Punchline ★ Rewatch Callback