The Fighting Irish
Encyclopedia
"The Fighting Irish" is the seventeenth episode of NBC
's first season
of 30 Rock
. It was written by one of the season's co-executive producers, Jack Burditt
and it was directed by Dennie Gordon
. It aired on March 8, 2007 in the United States. Guest stars who appeared in this episode were Dan Bakkedahl
, Katrina Bowden
, Henry Boyle, Anna Chlumsky
, Siobhan Fallon Hogan, Chris Hoch, Alice Kremelberg, Nathan Lane
, Boris McGiver, John F Mooney, Brian Murray
, Maulik Pancholy
, Lonny Ross
, Molly Shannon
, Jason Sudeikis
and Kristen Sudeikis.
The episode features the appearance of Jack Donaghy
's (played by Alec Baldwin
) brother, Eddie Donaghy (Nathan Lane
), who visits Jack claiming that their father (Brian Murray
) is dead. Jack also tells Liz Lemon
(Tina Fey
) that she has to fire ten percent of her staff. Liz struggles with this task until she meets Floyd's (Jason Sudeikis) girlfriend, Liz Lemler (Anna Chlumsky
), who works in the accounting department at TGS with Tracy Jordan, a fictional sketch comedy
series for which Liz is the head writer
.
for an impromptu family reunion. As his family are about to watch a taping of TGS, Jack's supposedly dead father visits Jack in his office, claiming that Eddie is dead. This eventually leads to an argument on the TGS stage and Liz getting beaten up by one of Jack's sisters, Katherine Catherine.
Meanwhile, Liz has been told by Jack that she has to fire ten percent of her staff. While the staff try their best to keep their jobs, Liz struggles with making a decision of whom to fire. Liz's problem is solved when Floyd, for whom Liz has romantic feelings, tells her that his girlfriend works in accounting at TGS. After Liz fires Floyd's girlfriend, she goes on a rampage around 30 Rock firing people, including her producer Pete Hornberger (Scott Adsit
), who disagree with her decision to fire Floyd's girlfriend for her own personal gain. Jack later tells her that he hired all the fired people back, but he is transferring Floyd's girlfriend to General Electric
headquarters in Fairfield, Connecticut
.
Tracy Jordan
(Tracy Morgan
) has been told by his lawyer that he should join a religion. He asks advice of people including Liz and Jack, going as far as attending church with Kenneth Parcell
(Jack McBrayer
).
, a weekly sketch comedy
series which airs on NBC
in the United States.
Kristen Sudeikis, the sister of Jason Sudeikis, appeared in this episode as an "advanced hip-hop groove" gym class instructor. Kristen Sudeikis is a professional choreographer.
Judah Friedlander
, who portrays Frank Rossitano in 30 Rock, is known for his trademark trucker hat
s which he wears in and out of the Frank character. The hats normally have short words or phrases glued onto them. Friedlander has stated that he makes the hats himself. He has also said that "some are in-jokes, and some are just flat out jokes." The idea came from Friedlander's stand-up persona
in which his hats are all printed with "world champion" in different languages in different appearances. In this episode, Frank wears an "extra-flashy 'Liz Rocks' hat" to try and persuade Liz not to fire him.
This episode is the third episode written by Jack Burditt after "Jack Meets Dennis" and "The Baby Show". Also, this is the first episode directed by Dennie Gordon.
system. The 2.5 refers to 2.5% of all 18–49 years olds, and the 6 refers to 6% of all 18–49 year olds watching television at the time of the broadcast.
Robert Canning of IGN
wrote that "while the episode was fun, there just weren't as many of the laugh-out-loud moments that have made recent episode so memorable." Matt Webb Mitovich of TV Guide
wrote that "something about this week's episode, in which Liz claimed power, Jack found family and Tracy sought religion (a subplot deserving of far greater screen time), just wasn't clicking for [him]." Julia Ward of AOL
's TV Squad thought that "this episode didn't reach the farcical highs of 'Black Tie
'. It was more standard sitcom fare than goofy bliss, but it wasn't bad."
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
's first season
30 Rock (season 1)
The first season of the television comedy series 30 Rock originally aired between October 11, 2006 and April 26, 2007 on NBC in the United States...
of 30 Rock
30 Rock
30 Rock is an American television comedy series created by Tina Fey that airs on NBC. The series is loosely based on Fey's experiences as head writer for Saturday Night Live...
. It was written by one of the season's co-executive producers, Jack Burditt
Jack Burditt
Jack Burditt is an American producer and screenwriter who has worked on many television shows.He has worked as a writer on the NBC comedy series 30 Rock...
and it was directed by Dennie Gordon
Dennie Gordon
Dennie Gordon is an American film and television director.Her directorial television credits include, Chicago Hope, Picket Fences, Dawson's Creek, Sports Night, Ally McBeal, The Practice, 30 Rock, Grounded for Life and among other series.She has also directed the feature films Joe Dirt, New York...
. It aired on March 8, 2007 in the United States. Guest stars who appeared in this episode were Dan Bakkedahl
Dan Bakkedahl
Dan Bakkedahl is an American improvisational actor, comedian and teacher from Chicago's Second City. Born in Rochester, Minnesota and raised in Stuart, Florida, he attended St...
, Katrina Bowden
Katrina Bowden
Katrina Bowden is an American actress. She is known for her short role as Britney Jennings on One Life to Live and for her role as Cerie in 30 Rock .- Education :...
, Henry Boyle, Anna Chlumsky
Anna Chlumsky
Anna Chlumsky is an American actress best known for playing Vada Sultenfuss in the 1991 movie My Girl and the 1994 sequel My Girl 2. Her father, Frank Chlumsky, is an instructor in the culinary program at Kendall College in Chicago...
, Siobhan Fallon Hogan, Chris Hoch, Alice Kremelberg, Nathan Lane
Nathan Lane
Nathan Lane is an American actor of stage and screen. He is best known for his roles as Mendy in The Lisbon Traviata, Albert in The Birdcage, Max Bialystock in the musical The Producers, Ernie Smuntz in MouseHunt, Nathan Detroit in Guys and Dolls, Pseudolus in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to...
, Boris McGiver, John F Mooney, Brian Murray
Brian Murray
Brian Murray is a South African actor and theatre director. He was inducted into the American Theatre Hall of Fame in 2004....
, Maulik Pancholy
Maulik Pancholy
Maulik Pancholy is an American actor. He is best known for his recurring role as Sanjay on Weeds from 2005 to present, and his role as Jonathan on 30 Rock, which he has played since the show began in 2006....
, Lonny Ross
Lonny Ross
Lonny Ross is a comedy actor and writer. He was nominated for a Screen Actors Guild Award for his work as Josh Girard on the NBC sitcom 30 Rock...
, Molly Shannon
Molly Shannon
Molly Helen Shannon is an American comic actress best known for her work as a cast member on Saturday Night Live from 1995–2001 and for starring in the films Superstar and Year of the Dog. More recently, she starred in NBC's Kath & Kim from 2008–2009 and on the TBS animated series Neighbors from...
, Jason Sudeikis
Jason Sudeikis
Daniel Jason Sudeikis is an American actor and comedian currently starring as a cast member on Saturday Night Live.-Early life:Sudeikis was born Daniel Jason Sudeikis in Fairfax, Virginia, the son of Kathryn , a travel agent who was president of the American Society of Travel Agents, and Dan...
and Kristen Sudeikis.
The episode features the appearance of Jack Donaghy
Jack Donaghy
John Francis "Jack" Donaghy is a fictional character on the NBC sitcom 30 Rock. He is the Vice President of East Coast Television and Microwave Oven Programming for General Electric and later Kabletown....
's (played by Alec Baldwin
Alec Baldwin
Alexander Rae "Alec" Baldwin III is an American actor who has appeared on film, stage, and television.Baldwin first gained recognition through television for his work in the soap opera Knots Landing in the role of Joshua Rush. He was a cast member for two seasons before his character was killed off...
) brother, Eddie Donaghy (Nathan Lane
Nathan Lane
Nathan Lane is an American actor of stage and screen. He is best known for his roles as Mendy in The Lisbon Traviata, Albert in The Birdcage, Max Bialystock in the musical The Producers, Ernie Smuntz in MouseHunt, Nathan Detroit in Guys and Dolls, Pseudolus in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to...
), who visits Jack claiming that their father (Brian Murray
Brian Murray
Brian Murray is a South African actor and theatre director. He was inducted into the American Theatre Hall of Fame in 2004....
) is dead. Jack also tells Liz Lemon
Liz Lemon
Elizabeth Miervaldis "Liz" Lemon is the main character of the American television series 30 Rock. She is portrayed by Tina Fey, who is also the creator of the series and its showrunner.-Personal history:...
(Tina Fey
Tina Fey
Elizabeth Stamatina "Tina" Fey is an American actress, comedian, writer and producer, known for her work on the NBC sketch comedy series Saturday Night Live , the NBC comedy series 30 Rock, and films such as Mean Girls and Baby Mama .Fey first broke into comedy as a featured player in the...
) that she has to fire ten percent of her staff. Liz struggles with this task until she meets Floyd's (Jason Sudeikis) girlfriend, Liz Lemler (Anna Chlumsky
Anna Chlumsky
Anna Chlumsky is an American actress best known for playing Vada Sultenfuss in the 1991 movie My Girl and the 1994 sequel My Girl 2. Her father, Frank Chlumsky, is an instructor in the culinary program at Kendall College in Chicago...
), who works in the accounting department at TGS with Tracy Jordan, a fictional sketch comedy
Sketch comedy
A sketch comedy consists of a series of short comedy scenes or vignettes, called "sketches," commonly between one and ten minutes long. Such sketches are performed by a group of comic actors or comedians, either on stage or through an audio and/or visual medium such as broadcasting...
series for which Liz is the head writer
Head writer
A head writer is a person who oversees the team of writers on a television or radio series. The title is common in the soap opera genre, as well as with sketch comedies and talk shows that feature monologues and comedy skits, but in prime time series this function is generally performed by an...
.
Plot
Jack's down-and-out brother, Eddie, pays him a visit claiming that their father is dead. Jack and Eddie, after feuding, later bond and they even decide to invite their sisters (Molly Shannon and Siobhan Fallon Hogan) and brother-in-law (Boris McGiver) to 30 RockGE Building
The GE Building is an Art Deco skyscraper that forms the centerpiece of Rockefeller Center in the midtown Manhattan section of New York City. Known as the RCA Building until 1988, it is most famous for housing the headquarters of the television network NBC...
for an impromptu family reunion. As his family are about to watch a taping of TGS, Jack's supposedly dead father visits Jack in his office, claiming that Eddie is dead. This eventually leads to an argument on the TGS stage and Liz getting beaten up by one of Jack's sisters, Katherine Catherine.
Meanwhile, Liz has been told by Jack that she has to fire ten percent of her staff. While the staff try their best to keep their jobs, Liz struggles with making a decision of whom to fire. Liz's problem is solved when Floyd, for whom Liz has romantic feelings, tells her that his girlfriend works in accounting at TGS. After Liz fires Floyd's girlfriend, she goes on a rampage around 30 Rock firing people, including her producer Pete Hornberger (Scott Adsit
Scott Adsit
Scott Adsit is an American actor, writer and improvisational comedian. He is currently co-starring as Pete Hornberger in the hit NBC comedy 30 Rock and worked in the Adult Swim stop-motion animation programs Moral Orel and Mary Shelley's Frankenhole.-1990s:After attending Columbia College Chicago,...
), who disagree with her decision to fire Floyd's girlfriend for her own personal gain. Jack later tells her that he hired all the fired people back, but he is transferring Floyd's girlfriend to General Electric
General Electric
General Electric Company , or GE, is an American multinational conglomerate corporation incorporated in Schenectady, New York and headquartered in Fairfield, Connecticut, United States...
headquarters in Fairfield, Connecticut
Fairfield, Connecticut
Fairfield is a town located in Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States. It is bordered by the towns of Bridgeport, Trumbull, Easton, Redding and Westport along the Gold Coast of Connecticut. As of the 2010 census, the town had a population of 59,404...
.
Tracy Jordan
Tracy Jordan
Ogbert Jordan, better known by his stage name, Tracy, is a fictional character on the American television series 30 Rock, based on and played by Tracy Morgan.-Brief overview:...
(Tracy Morgan
Tracy Morgan
Tracy Morgan is an American comedian who is best known for his eight seasons as a cast member on Saturday Night Live and currently known for playing the role of Tracy Jordan on the NBC series 30 Rock.-Early life:...
) has been told by his lawyer that he should join a religion. He asks advice of people including Liz and Jack, going as far as attending church with Kenneth Parcell
Kenneth Parcell
Kenneth Ellen Parcell is a fictional character in the comedy television series 30 Rock. He is portrayed by actor Jack McBrayer and first appeared on television in the 30 Rock episode "Pilot" on October 10, 2006...
(Jack McBrayer
Jack McBrayer
Jack McBrayer is an American actor and comedian. He gained national exposure for his characters on "Late Night with Conan O'Brien"...
).
Production
Jason Sudeikis, Molly Shannon and Siobhan Fallon Hogan, who played Floyd, Katherine Catherine and Patrica in this episode, have all appeared in the main cast of Saturday Night LiveSaturday Night Live
Saturday Night Live is a live American late-night television sketch comedy and variety show developed by Lorne Michaels and Dick Ebersol. The show premiered on NBC on October 11, 1975, under the original title of NBC's Saturday Night.The show's sketches often parody contemporary American culture...
, a weekly sketch comedy
Sketch comedy
A sketch comedy consists of a series of short comedy scenes or vignettes, called "sketches," commonly between one and ten minutes long. Such sketches are performed by a group of comic actors or comedians, either on stage or through an audio and/or visual medium such as broadcasting...
series which airs on NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
in the United States.
Kristen Sudeikis, the sister of Jason Sudeikis, appeared in this episode as an "advanced hip-hop groove" gym class instructor. Kristen Sudeikis is a professional choreographer.
Judah Friedlander
Judah Friedlander
Judah Friedlander is an American actor and comedian, known for his trademark trucker hats, oversized glasses and unkempt appearance, which he retains in many of his screen roles.-Early life:...
, who portrays Frank Rossitano in 30 Rock, is known for his trademark trucker hat
Trucker hat
A trucker hat or mesh hat is a type of baseball cap. It is also sometimes known as a "gimme cap" or a "feed cap" because this style of hat originated as a promotional give-away from feed or farming supply companies to farmers, truck drivers, or other rural workers.The design of a trucker hat is...
s which he wears in and out of the Frank character. The hats normally have short words or phrases glued onto them. Friedlander has stated that he makes the hats himself. He has also said that "some are in-jokes, and some are just flat out jokes." The idea came from Friedlander's stand-up persona
Persona
A persona, in the word's everyday usage, is a social role or a character played by an actor. The word is derived from Latin, where it originally referred to a theatrical mask. The Latin word probably derived from the Etruscan word "phersu", with the same meaning, and that from the Greek πρόσωπον...
in which his hats are all printed with "world champion" in different languages in different appearances. In this episode, Frank wears an "extra-flashy 'Liz Rocks' hat" to try and persuade Liz not to fire him.
This episode is the third episode written by Jack Burditt after "Jack Meets Dennis" and "The Baby Show". Also, this is the first episode directed by Dennie Gordon.
Reception
In the U.S., this episode was viewed by 5.2 million viewers and received a rating of 2.5/6 in the key adults 18–49 demographic according to the Nielsen ratingsNielsen Ratings
Nielsen ratings are the audience measurement systems developed by Nielsen Media Research, in an effort to determine the audience size and composition of television programming in the United States...
system. The 2.5 refers to 2.5% of all 18–49 years olds, and the 6 refers to 6% of all 18–49 year olds watching television at the time of the broadcast.
Robert Canning of IGN
IGN
IGN is an entertainment website that focuses on video games, films, music and other media. IGN's main website comprises several specialty sites or "channels", each occupying a subdomain and covering a specific area of entertainment...
wrote that "while the episode was fun, there just weren't as many of the laugh-out-loud moments that have made recent episode so memorable." Matt Webb Mitovich of TV Guide
TV Guide
TV Guide is a weekly American magazine with listings of TV shows.In addition to TV listings, the publication features television-related news, celebrity interviews, gossip and film reviews and crossword puzzles...
wrote that "something about this week's episode, in which Liz claimed power, Jack found family and Tracy sought religion (a subplot deserving of far greater screen time), just wasn't clicking for [him]." Julia Ward of AOL
AOL
AOL Inc. is an American global Internet services and media company. AOL is headquartered at 770 Broadway in New York. Founded in 1983 as Control Video Corporation, it has franchised its services to companies in several nations around the world or set up international versions of its services...
's TV Squad thought that "this episode didn't reach the farcical highs of 'Black Tie
Black Tie (30 Rock)
"Black Tie" is the twelfth episode of the first season of the American television comedy series 30 Rock. It was directed by Don Scardino, and written by Kay Cannon and series creator Tina Fey. The episode originally aired on the National Broadcasting Company in the United States on February 1, 2007...
'. It was more standard sitcom fare than goofy bliss, but it wasn't bad."