Liz has to juggle renegotiating Josh's contract alongside Jack while putting out the fire caused by Jenna's disastrous Maxim interview. Meanwhile, Kenneth joins Tracy's entourage and exposes some uncomfortable truths.
This episode contains the following tropes:
- 419 Scam: Subverted. The "Nigerian Prince" that Tracy dealt with over email was apparently genuine, and sent the check as promised.
- Big Damn Heroes: Dotcom and Grizz return at the end of the episode in order to clear a path through a crowd of protesters for Tracy.
- Brutal Honesty: Kenneth's policy, although his bluntness comes from naivete rather than rudeness. It gets him into trouble when he joins Tracy's entourage.
- The Cameo: Both Chris Matthews and Tucker Carlson show up when Jenna goes on Hard Ball.
- Digging Yourself Deeper: Everything Jenna does to try and make up for a Maxim interview that misquoted her as saying she hates the troops makes things worse. She mixes up Barack Obama and Osama bin Laden on Hard Ball, and her attempt at staging an American-themed musical number fails because the pinwheels behind her malfunctions and looks like swastikas.
- Double-Meaning Title: "Hard Ball" refers to both the political talk show Jenna goes on to fix a PR crisis, as well as Jack's hard ball negotiation tactics.
- The Fundamentalist: Martha Blanch, the hyper-conservative activist who leads the campaign against Jenna.
- Too Kinky to Torture: Liz tries to humiliate Josh's agent by forcing him to act like a crab in Jack's office, only for the agent to get turned on by the degradation.
- Yes-Man: Dotcom and Grizz are this to Tracy, laughing at all his tired jokes and letting him win at video games. When he finds out, he's none too pleased, and (temporarily) fires them.
