Episode Report Card Miss Alli: C- | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Raise Your Hand If You're Illiterate
By Miss Alli | Season 1 | Episode 12 | Aired on 01.21.2007
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.It turns out that Danny has spent the Christmas holiday pestering Jordan, just as he promised he would. She hasn't yet blown him off, but she has turned him down. She has bigger problems to deal with, though, because when she returns to the office, she learns that there's a new VP of alternative programming, and what's hilarious is that Jordan refers to it as "illiterate programming." Because reality television is illiterate, and it's for illiterate people. Do you get it? Ha ha ha! Good one, Aaron Sorkin. Aaaaanyway, so Jordan and the new lady get into various catfights and make actual comments about who's prettier and who looks slutty without her shirt on, because that's what girls do, even if they're grown up and have jobs. Meanwhile, Jack is battling to keep the network from knuckling under to a fine of -- are you ready for this? -- $73 million dollars (HA HA HA!) that it has been levied for broadcasting a frightened remark from a soldier under fire. Because that would totally happen, given the political unpopularity of soldiers who are literally in the middle of having things explode at them. Nothing a Republican president likes to do more than tell the troops to go get bent and stop being such pottymouths. Matt and Harriet are bickering about the fact that she's a Christian. And he's not a Christian. And he doesn't like this value or that value that she has, and he lectures her about it, and then she makes fun of the fact that he's lecturing, but you know he's going to keep doing it. Throughout the hour, Danny is engaging in a series of inappropriate and unwelcome gestures, which conclude with his getting a bunch of famous people to send Jordan letters telling her to go out with him. At the end, Jordan makes an obviously impassioned and sincere request to Danny to leave her the hell alone, because his stalking behavior is embarrassing, unprofessional, and likely to do her actual harm. Nevertheless, he openly refuses. Next week's previews make clear, however, that we will learn that, as all women do, Jordan is merely saying random things that are stupid, because girls never know what they want. Want more? The full recap starts right below!
"Monday," reads the title card, as we hear the obnoxious ring of a cell phone, meaning the episode kicks off with the pushing of the button in my brain that hates deedle-deedle-deedle telephone rings more than anything. In a darkened room, a woman is awakened by the sound of the sexual revolution telling her she is allowed to choose her own boyfriends. No, I'm just kidding -- she totally slept right through that. What does wake her up is that annoying cell phone, and she turns on the light. Oh, look. It's Jordan! And the caller ID tells her it's Danny. This time, she's not even chewing, so he's become substantially more courageous by approaching her when she has the physical ability to tell him to go away. Somewhat reluctantly, she picks up the phone. "Hello?" "Hi, it's Danny." It turns out that he's unhappy she isn't at the wrap party from the Christmas show. Remembering the importance of never letting overbearing weird dudes in on your exact location, she tells him she was tired, was packing, and is going to her parents' house "back East." And then, she'll be going to St. Lucia. Danny blanches, but says, "Okay," granting her his permission to go before she even remembers to ask. Looking a little weirded out but not yet displeased that he called, Jordan comments that the show tonight was good. He wishes her a good trip and a good Christmas. She gives him the same. See? Still okay!
And then she is at her parents' house for Christmas, and her phone is ringing again, and guess what? It's Danny. As she walks through an idyllic home decked out for the holidays -- while eating, of course -- she has to remind him where she is after he suggests a midnight mass in Pacific Palisades on Christmas Eve. He wants to know when she'll be back, hoping it'll be soon. She reminds him that she's headed for the Virgin Islands next, as if she didn't already explain this once. He suggests maybe they could see a movie when she gets back.
The phone rings some more, and we join Jordan in the Virgin Islands, where she's suddenly looking pretty goldurn pregnant and having a pedicure while swathed in a white robe. When she answers and finds out that it's Danny, she wonders whether he changed his phone number, and he says that he did. And why? Because he figured she'd be using caller ID to deflect him right about now. So that would be your first red flag. I think based on the rest of this episode, we can surmise that it probably was for Jordan. Danny tells her that he got a new phone while he was evading her efforts to get privacy during her vacation, and he could use this phone to "edit a feature-length film." Presumably something very romantic involving forcing yourself on the unwilling. Jordan wants to know if he's at the theater, which he denies. She claims to be able to tell he's at the theater, and then she points out that Matt has just loudly yelled in the background, "I'm eating it!" "Matt's here, so I'm here," Danny finally admits. Jordan overexplains that "with Harriet gone for two weeks," Matt is falling apart. "You're not supposed to be as confused as Matt," Jordan says. Danny responds by asking her out to dinner after she gets back. She says, "I don't think that's a good idea, Danny." This is the part we call Now You Should Get The Point If You Haven't Already.