30 Rock: Do not leave a brotha hanging.

Lately I’ve been finding myself wanting to quote season 3 of 30 Rock a lot. But it’s hard to come up with ways to work “The boat I was educated on sank” or “I would feel better with some Saltines” into conversation. Heck, I couldn’t even work those lines into my reviews of those episodes.  And after this week I feel an intense need to use the phrase “It smells like dude in here” at least once in the next month.

Anyway, this week’s episode revolves around two crises – a major downturn in the Asian financial market, and the fact that Jack and Salma haven’t had sex yet.

You see, Salma wants Jack to make a commitment first. She’s getting ready to take her annual trip back to Puerto Rico, but Jack persuades her not to go by professing his love. That’s enough for Salma, and next we see them, they’re at Jack’s apartment, both clad in awesome satin lingerie.

But the markets will stabilize for no man, not even Jack Donaghy. The Asian downturn happens to coincide with Tracy’s spot on Larry King Live, where Tracy shares his financial expertise by telling everyone to panic, announcing, “New York as they know it will not exist tomorrow.” People will get mean, Tracy says, and the movies will only cost $3. Everyone needs to take a deep breath, calm down, and start preparing their bodies for the Thunderdome, because that is the new law.

The next thing we know, there’s panic on the streets, and cabbies are charging $500 to take people to JFK. The CEO of GE, Geiss, has gone AWOL during this meltdown, so all the executives are now looking to Jack for guidance. He storms back to the office, and Salma promptly breaks up with him. For a second it looks like Jack might still have a chance – he proposes, and she says yes, provided he gives her a big enough ring to cause back problems – but the next morning, she changes her mind and leaves for Puerto Rico, promising to call. Looks like this is the end of Jalisa. Oh well, Edie Falco was more interesting anyway.

Meanwhile, Liz, wearing the shirt of a man, leaves her phone in a cab, and spends the episode trying to get it back. Aasif, a cab driver who is new to this country, has threatened to send out an indiscreet photo he found on her phone to her entire address book if she doesn’t meet him at the cab depot in Queens and give him $2,000. Kenneth agrees to come with her, even though he can’t handle the truth and NBC insurance doesn’t cover him leaving Manhattan, because pages are accustomed to danger. (And by the way, I don’t care what the pundits say, Kenneth is way funnier than Bobby Jindal.) They make their way through the scary cab depot neighborhood, but not without Kenneth getting tagged by a graffiti artist and Liz getting her retainer stolen by some ragamuffins.

Throughout all this, Tracy is still offering up non sequiturs on Larry King. At one point, he mentions that he doesn’t keep his money in a bank – instead, he hides it all around his house, his church, and his workplace. So Pete and the rest of the 30 Rock bit players (minus Jenna, who I don’t think we saw at all this ep (do you think the creators of this show ever dreamed that Kenneth would wind up being a more important character than Jenna?)) raid Tracy’s dressing room, looking for this mystery cash. This sequence includes a jump cut to the sudden appearance of a tarantula on someone’s head. Man, between this and the previous night’s Colbert Report (which at least had the decency to warn us about the upcoming tarantulas so we could close our eyes), I am going to be unable to sleep for the next week.

Pete et al can’t find the cash, despite impersonating guitar icon Peter Frampton and begging Tracy for more clues. But that’s because Tracy hid his cash on Kenneth. Luckily enough, Kenneth discovers this just as he and Liz meet up with Aasif, and Kenneth’s able to give him his $2,000 and protect Liz’s dignity.

Other things we learned this week:

• Larry King is funny when Tina Fey and crew are writing for him.
• Jonathan keeps a VCR so he can watch Jack’s old football tapes.
• Liz is still dating Jon Hamm, although he doesn’t appear this week.
• Tracy was supposed to be in Rush Hour, but two weeks into shooting he was replaced by Jackie Chan.
• Jack can dunk a basketball, but only on a regulation hoop.
• In 2009, Liz has had sex two more times than Jack. (I love that they share their tallies with each other. I wonder if they use Google Docs. Or maybe they just text each other immediately after each bout of nookie like high school guys.)

And finally, this is unrelated but I just have to say something, because – Hosea? Seriously? Hosea? You know, if Jack Donaghy really did run NBC-Universal he would never have allowed such a travesty. Hmph.

Season 3, Episode 12: Larry King (originally aired February 26, 2009)

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Thursdays at 9:30/8:30C on NBC

Photographs courtesy of NBC Universal and Jessica Miglio