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Caitlan Smith - Caitlan Smith is a senior recruiter for Atlantic Media Company, having previously worked for The Atlantic as an editorial assistant and researcher. She is a graduate of the University of Virginia.

'30 Rock': 4 Best Scenes From the 'Tracy Is Back!' Episode

By Caitlan Smith
Apr 15 2011, 8:00 AM ET Comment

Praise be: Tracy is back, and the show can go on. While this episode of 30 Rock was still stuck in an alternate reality in which everyone is either working on other projects or trying to track down Tracy, we had a few great instances in which our reliable characters do some out-of-character things.

Here are the ways that our expectations were exceeded this week:

1. Jenna's continual ability to adapt her skills to her situation in unlikely ways

Stuck on a project that's been circulating around the NBC world for some time, Jenna, with the help of Jack, takes on the challenge of rewriting her doomed torture porn movie, Take Her Hand. Though the end result isn't pretty, Jenna made sure more money wasn't lost in pursuing this hopeless venture.


2. Pete's amazing arm-wrestling strength, gained as a result of fending off children

Who knew? Best line from this story, from Grizz upon being beaten: "This would have bothered me in my 20s."


3. The nice pizza man

As a well-trained 30 Rock audience, we expect a certain amount of surliness in the show's New York City food service employees. So when Liz and Kenneth come upon the nice pizza man at Frederici's in Queens, where Tracy has been buying his Pac-Man pies during his absence, everyone's thrown for a loop.


4. Liz and her amazing ability to not see what's in front of her nose

While I imagined all sorts of scenarios for where exactly they were going to find Tracy, I didn't guess that he'd be in Liz's own apartment. Liz Lemon out-Lemoned herself with this one, down to not realizing who wrote down all those different kinds of mustard on her grocery shopping list.

Best random quote that has nothing to do with the show's plot:
Liz: "I will no longer allow you to use my office for your history club."
Dot Com: "That's ironic, because next week's topic is fascism."

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