'30 Rock' Season 6, Episode 12 Recap - 'St. Patrick's Day'

It's a good day when Dennis shows up (for us, not for Liz). It's also a good day when you get Jack Donaghy playing a fantasy board game (for us, not for Jack).

"St. Patrick's Day" brought us both, plus another appearance from James Marsden and the reappearance of Hazel, played by the hilarious Kristin Schaal. Good day.

Liz vows to wear orange and stay inside on St. Patty's, in order to avoid all the drunks outside. Unfortunately for her, one of them shows up at her door: it's Dennis, and he's here, as always, to cause trouble while also being effortlessly hilarious. He immediately starts causing a rift between Liz and Criss, though it's mostly due to Liz's own fretting than Dennis' actual meddling.

The nail in the coffin, though, is when Liz pretends to say "I love you" to Dennis, something that she can't say in earnest to Criss. That's all resolved in a pretty cute scene that involved Liz wearing Hulk hands.

Hazel, meanwhile, has her hands full with Tracy and Jenna now that Kenneth is gone, immediately putting them at odds against each other and making them argue about who's the biggest star. Eventually, Tracy comes to the realization that he might have become second fiddle to Jenna, who now worries about losing said stardom. They do slightly better with their St. Patrick's Day parade coverage this year.

But the best storyline goes to Jack, who worries about losing his mojo in the new Kabletown landscape. When Frank starts talking about his game of the Settlers of Cataan-like "Colonizers of Malaar" that he plays with the other writers, Jack sees an opportunity to get his mojo back. He sits down to play, and quickly starts losing, but finds an opportunity to "make something out of nothing" with just a little bit of gold and a fire spell. Jack is back!

So, it looks like this Criss thing is here to stay, at least until the end of this season. But can Kenneth really stay away from the page program? Are we enjoying that character growth as much as Tracy and Jenna tell us we should be?

Notes & Quotes:

- Great Ira Glass cameo at the beginning

- "Don't you want to celebrate Ireland's accomplishments, like Michael Lohan and vomiting into a bagpipe?"

- "Without Germans, you wouldn't have any of the Indiana Jones movies"

- "Siri, kill Jenna!"

- "Irish pride, go Celtics, Celtics suck, go Knicks!"

- "That failed, and the orcs raped everybody"

- "By the scepter of Thalmane!"

- "You Solo'd me!"

Frank's Hats of the Week: Dorm Food