Greenzo
"Greenzo" is the fifth List of [30 Rock episodes|episode] of NBC's second season of 30 Rock and twenty-sixth episode overall. It was written by Jon Pollack and directed by series producer Don Scardino. It aired on November 8, 2007 in the United States. Guest stars in this episode include Kevin Brown, Grizz Chapman, Al Gore, John Lutz, Madison McKinley Garton, Maulik Pancholy, Paula Pell, Dion Sapp, David Schwimmer and Meredith Vieira.
The episode focuses on Jack Donaghy's success, and later disaster, with Greenzo, "America's first non-judgmental, business-friendly environmental advocate." Kenneth Parcell decides to throw a party, but, knowing that nobody will attend, Liz Lemon and Tracy Jordan plot to make the party a success. Jenna Maroney and Liz suspect that Pete Hornberger is having an affair.
Plot
, the chairman of General Electric, challenges Jack and his rivals to come up with an idea to make money "from this environmentalism trend." This leads to him casting an actor called Jared to play Greenzo, NBC's environmental mascot. Initially, Greenzo is a success, making a well received appearance on The Today Show with Meredith Vieira. Eventually, he becomes more and more self-absorbed and starts insulting the TGS staff and criticizing the staff's environmentally unfriendly habits. This is until he conducts a second interview, when he begins ranting negatively about "big companies and their two-faced, fat-cat executives," referring to GE and Jack. Angered, Jack fires Jared and tries tricking Al Gore into replacing him to no avail. Also, a drunken Greenzo shows up and tries to continue, only to cause a giant globe to hit a stage light and catch on fire. Liz cries out, "Okay, this Earth is ruined. We need a new one."Meanwhile, Kenneth is planning a party. Knowing this, Liz recounts past parties of Kenneth's to Tracy, telling him that she was the only other person who attended those parties because of how cornball they are. Feeling pity for Kenneth, Tracy tells the biggest gossips on TGS with Tracy Jordan, Grizz and Dot Com, that T.I. will be attending. They persuade other people to attend by telling various other lies. Liz tries to get Tracy to stop it, but fails. The next day, Jack holds a meeting about the chaos that happened. Kenneth reprimands everyone about their debauched behavior and announces that he's never throwing another party at his apartment again.
When Liz finds another woman's lipstick in her apartment, she and Jenna begin to suspect that Pete, who is separated from his wife, is having an affair. Liz later discovers, much to her horror, that Pete is having an "affair" with his own wife, Paula Hornberger, in Liz's apartment, due to Paula getting turned on by the "sneaking around". Later, Pete asks if he can still stay with Liz because for the first time, they have been able to date.
Production
"Greenzo" is the first episode of 30 Rock written by Jon Pollack. Pollack was added to the writing staff of 30 Rock at the beginning of the second season. The episode is the ninth episode of 30 Rock directed by Don Scardino. This episode aired as part of Green Week, an initiative introduced by NBC's Chief Executive Jeff Zucker which included having every primetime program which aired between November 4, 2007 and November 10, 2007 contain some sort of positive environmental theme. This was also the first episode of 30 Rock to air after the start of the 2007–2008 [Writers Guild of America strike]. The strike began on November 5, 2007 and ended on February 12, 2008. This episode was filmed on September 27 and September 28, 2007.Reception
"Greenzo" brought in an average of 6.6 million viewers, the highest number of viewers since the second season premiere, "SeinfeldVision". The episode also achieved a 3.1/8 in the key 18- to 49-year-old demographic, matching the series' highest rating in that demographic. The 3.1 refers to 3.1% of all 18- to 49-year-olds in the U.S. and the 8 refers to 8% of all 18- to 49-year-olds watching television at the time of the broadcast, in the U.S. This episode also ranked in first place in the men 18–34 demographic, against programs airing on other networks in the same timeslot.Matt Webb Mitovich of TV Guide praised "David Schwimmer for throwing himself into this role" as Jared, "this rather unlikable lout." Webb Mitovich also wrote that " party in and of itself has to be one of 30 Rock