’30 Rock’ Recap: ‘St. Patrick’s Day’

Every non-alcoholic hates St. Patrick’s Day—remember, the Irish are one of those rare breeds of white people, that even other white people were racist against—but could Germanophile Liz be the most Irish of all?

When the Irish-Catholic Jack finds out Liz hates the most misunderstood, reappropriated, and booze-drenched holiday since Cinco de Mayo, he tells her she actually loves the Irish: Jack is her mentor, and he’s Irish; she dated Dennis Duffy, who watchers may be surprised (not) to find out is also Irish; and Liz donated to the IRA (though, in her defense, she thought it was a retirement account). Jack then tells her—in Gaelic—that she needs to learn a St. Patrick’s Day lesson; however, Liz takes his talking in tongues as an Irish curse.

As anyone who read AllMediaNY’s article on surviving St. Patrick’s knows, the first rule of staying alive on St. Pat’s, is stay home on St. Pat’s. Liz takes this advice to heart and she and Criss plan on holing up for the day. They’re awoken to the sounds of This American Life’s Ira Glass being attacked on radio by drunken hooligans, and after playing a killer trick which we’re copying next year—leaning out her window over the parade while screaming “Megan!” to watch all the women whip around—Criss says what anyone would say if they were lucky enough to bang such a hilarious and cunning person: “I love you.”

All Liz replies, however, is, “I ordered Thai food,” and mistakes a knock on the door for the deliveryman. It seems, though, that if Liz won’t go to St. Patrick’s, St. Patrick’s will come to her—because that’s not Thai food at the door… but Dennis. The curse!

Taking a break from being “Mayhem” for Allstate Insurance and instead being a whirlwind of mayhem in Liz’s life, the obnoxious, squatter’s-rights touting Dennis immediately lays down on her couch; he has a concussion because a “black guy” cold-cocked him at a Duane Reade when Dennis tried stealing beer. Unable to leave because Liz can’t get through to EMTs (what could they be busy with, on St. Pat’s?), ex-Burning Man medic Criss tends to the injured Duffy, who says he doesn’t “have health insurance because of Obama.”

Liz takes Criss aside and warns him off Duffy’s wiles: “Dennis Duffy is like the Terminator with cheaper sunglasses. He just keeps coming back because his potato brain still thinks he has a chance with me.” Sure that Dennis is just trying to drive a wedge between her and Criss, Liz calls Jack for help. When Jack is too tied up to lend a hand, she places a German curse on him: “May your pornography be free of diarrhea.”

Finally, when Dennis tells Criss he should take his hot dog van and just sell buns to street drunks, Liz has had enough. “I know Dennis Duffy’s brain,” Liz says, “I saw some of it when he jumped on the ice at an Islander’s game.” Liz sees this all as a Duffy ploy to get Criss out of the house so he can jump down Liz’s pants, or knock her out and have her wake up on their honeymoon. At Sea World.

Thinking she can turn the game around on Duffy, she goads him into revealing he has a “girlfriend,” named Megan, who can’t pick up her phone because her boobs are so big. Liz pretends to freak out, starts crying and says “but Dennis, I love you!”

Now Criss is the one who’s had enough—enraged that Liz can fake-say it to Dennis but can’t real-say it to him, Criss storms out to sell buns to idiots. With Criss out of the house, Dennis sits down and tells Liz the truth: Megan isn’t his girlfriend; she’s his wife.

Dennis Duffy and Megan (Image Source: These are Their Stories, Blogspot)

Liz still refuses to believe him, but she changes courses when a short, big-boobed, orange-haired, tipsy woman named Megan shows up at her door—and tries to fight Liz. Lemon, tired of the “Irish nonsense,” kicks them out, but with Dennis about to leave, he tells Liz she’s the one spewing Irish nonsense: “You’re stubborn, you hold grudges, you’re emotionally repressed… You’re the most Irish person here.”

Liz Lemon gets her St. Patrick’s Day lesson after all. Running to Criss, she apologizes and admits she’s terrible at expressing her feelings, though, “This is the happiest I’ve been in a long time.” With everything on the line, the words finally come out of her mouth: “I love you,” Liz says. Criss replies “I know.” Liz: “You Solo-ed me.” We’re not sure what that last line means but we’re sure dorks do.

Meanwhile, Kenneth plays the role of guardian angel when Hazel Wassername, new TGS page, screws up Jenna and Tracy’s relationship. When Kenneth hands Hazel his good luck tail (it literally used to be his tail), Hazel tells him to let go, “This is my rodeo now. Except, not literally, because the US Rodeo Association does not lift lifetime bans.” She’ll treat TGS like her own baby, Hazel swears, except, that’s not a great analogy because she left her kids at a Sears back in 2004.

Hazel, we find out, has an IQ of 70, and this quickly becomes apparent when she shows Tracy and Jenna the promo for their hosting of the St. Patrick’s Day Parade—hosting, which, due to their previous debacles, now has to be scripted: the promos have Jenna’s name first, ensuing a power struggle between the two. Tracy and Jenna break up their praying (to Michael Jackson’s ghost and the Kabbalah monster, respectively), and Jenna quickly starts wielding her new power, telling Tracy to move his stuff out of his dressing room: “I’ll replace your lizard with a gay guy in a giant champagne bottle.”

Pete tells Hazel that the two TGS actors aren’t allowed to watch NBC: “Jenna thinks Christina Aguilera lost her voice during childhood.” After he says she’s ruined six years of getting these two to get along, the dark Hazel reemerges—see, Hazel doesn’t take that type of language; she’s not Kenneth. She offers to take Pete to Sears to buy him a toy…

Thinking the issue can be resolved if she removes Tracy and Jenna’s name from the teleprompters, replacing them with host #1 and host #2, Hazel only makes things worse, because they both only read from host #1’s lines—each thinking they’re the bigger star.

Seeing the fiasco on television, Kenneth resolves not to get involved… but a quick call to 30 Rock proves the problem is worse than he thought. With some quick thinking, Kenneth intervenes, tricking Jenna and Tracy into realizing what their fight is really about: they’re both insecure about their fame, their careers, and themselves. The two make up and everything is hunky-dory.

Jack too, must learn his own lesson in this episode. Jack is thrown into a crisis when he’s losing at Colonizers of Malaar, a strategy board game from the makers of Virginity Keep, with the TGS writers (who can’t be outside on St. Patrick’s Day because they all have faces people naturally want to punch). Stuck with nothing but Malaar’s vast, unused desert, Jack views it is a parallel to his new position at KableTown. Production, commodity diversifying, world domination—these are not just Malaar concepts, they used to be Jack’s job at G.E. “That kind of thinking is what I used to do for a living—at least, I used to. Just replace Malaar with Fairfield, Connecticut.”

Seeking guidance in the saint’s namesake midtown church, Jack realizes that St. Patrick—the person—started with nothing, being born in fourth century Ireland, which, according to Jack, is equivalent to being born in a grave, and having no possessions besides “no snakes,” yet turned nothing into something great.

Using his last gold coin in the game, Jack uses a fire spell—against himself—turning his vast stretch of desert into glass, a commodity all players need. His voice booms, victoriously, “I will create something from nothing.”

Except, this is a problem Jack faced—and conquered—before. Remember porn for women, his innovative new money-generating idea for pay-per-view services? Why Jack has the same crisis again—as if he suffered amnesia—is a little boggling, but all ends well if Jenna sings, and of course, she does so in this episode, to none other than “Danny Boy.”

This article was originally published on AllMediaNy.com