The TGS team is thrown into disarray when someone anonymously trash-talks Jack to the New York Post. Meanwhile, Pete gets his arm trapped in a vending machine.
This episode contains the following tropes:
- Bad Liar: Kenneth is uncomfortable with lying, and is comically bad at it.
- Bait-and-Switch: Tracy comes in asking Liz about something she said being in the paper. Liz (and everyone else) thinks he's referring to the comments about Jack, but he's actually referring to a Cathy strip. It turns out Liz did say "Chocolate, chocolate, chocolate! Ack!"
- Batman Gambit: Jack knows Liz well enough to know how to make her crack and admit to trashing him.
- Bottle Episode: This episode takes place entirely in the offices and hallways of 30 Rock.
- Clue, Evidence, and a Smoking Gun: Kenneth states to Liz that he knows who insulted Jack by noting that Toofer would never use the word "poo," that Frank was making fun of him at the time... and that he saw Liz do it.
- Distracted by the Sexy: The entire office, except for Liz, is riveted by MILF Island. Even Dick Cheney is a fan.
- Elimination Catchphrase: MILF Island has one: an appropriately blunt "get off of MILF Island".
- Extremely Short Timespan: The entire episode takes place during the airtime of the Season Finale of MILF Island — which, to be honest, considering the multiple commercial breaks, could have taken hours.
- Freudian Excuse: Jack claims to have one as a result of a childhood stutter, although it's later revealed that he made it up.
- Hope Spot: Pete makes a desperate effort to get unstuck from the vending machine by throwing items, like his shoes and wedding ring, at a nearby phone's keypad in order to call a random number. Improbably, it works...too bad that random number turned out to be Pete's own office.
- I'm Not Here to Make Friends: Both Liz and a MILF Island contestant say this line at the same time.
- Lowest Common Denominator: In-universe, Liz calls MILF Island this, and not without reason. As a couple of cutaway gags show, however, TGS is just as guilty.Tracy: (as a scientist in a TGS sketch) Someone put too many farts in this engine! It's about to explode!
- Manipulative Bastard: Jack made up a tragic backstory as a stutterer deemed a "class A moron" in order to guilt Liz into confessing.
- One-Steve Limit: Averted. The final two contestants on MILF Island are named Debra and Deborah, two variations of the same name. In this case, however, Deborah is pronounced as "duh-BOHR-uh".
- Show Within a Show: The eponymous MILF Island, a riff on Survivor that was mentioned in a previous episode, is omnipresent here. The events of the episode frequently mirror the events of the MILF Island finale.
- Something Only They Would Say: Jack knew that Liz was the anonymous source from the start due to the use of the word "poo".
- Speech Impediment: Jack claims to have had a debilitating stutter as a child, resulting in his being designated a "Class A Moron" and stuck in the special class. At the end of the episode, it's revealed that he never really had one.
- Vengeful Vending Machine: Pete gets his arm stuck in one after he tries to steal a dangling snack, which keeps him incapacitated for the rest of the episode.
