'30 Rock' Seeks to Close a Controversial Chapter With Comedy When real-life events pierce the fictional world of "30 Rock," the NBC series unhesitatingly turns it into fodder for comedy, whether it's the death of the North Korean leader Kim Jong-il or a controversy that engulfed its co-star Tracy Morgan while the show was on hiatus. Last June, Mr. Morgan got himself in hot water when a Facebook account of homophobic jokes he made in a standup routine (including a vow to "pull out a knife and stab" his son if he came out as gay) went viral on the Internet. Mr. Morgan was quickly chastised by the "30 Rock" creator Tina Fey and the NBC entertainment president Robert Greenblatt. But the comedian turned the incident into a teachable moment, offering public apologies and holding meetings with hurt fans and representatives of the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, as well as gay youths who had been forced out of their homes by their parents and a mother whose gay son was killed in a hate crime. If Thursday night's installment of "30 Rock" had a lesson to teach, it might be that the show sees satire in even the most perilous circumstances. In a familiar scenario Mr. Morgan's character, Tracy Jordan, angers audiences with a standup set that is criticized as homophobic. ("Being gay is stupid," the character says in his routine. "If I got turned into a gay, I'd sit around all day and look at my own junk.") In the fallout from this incident, the NBC offices are picketed, and it's up to Ms. Fey's character, Liz Lemon, to explain to Tracy Jordan what he did wrong. Why did you have to offend the gay community? Lemon berates him. It is the most organized of all the communities. They make the Japanese look like the Greeks. How is what I said offensive and that's not? Jordan asks. "Because no one heard me say it," she replies. Jordan offers his preemptive apologies to Glad - the trash-bag maker, not GLAAD, the advocacy organization - and Lemon makes a public statement declaring that Jordan "is not capable of hate" but merely "an idiot who doesn't know what he's saying." That leads Jordan to call on his fellow idiots for a protest at NBC, the results of which we'll learn about in next week's episode. GLAAD took the kidding from "30 Rock" in stride. Herndon Graddick, the organization's senior director of programs and communications, said in a statement: "I thought it was hilarious. We've been called worse than trash bag manufacturers and look forward to seeing the second part next week.