It's 11:55 PM at the Speedy Burger on Chicago's west side. The restaurant is clearing out and closing up for the night, the air pierced by police and fire-truck sirens blaring through the neighborhood. Two tall black men approach the counter and whistle at the young girl working behind it, convincing her to serve them food in the five minutes before Speedy Burger closes. She charges them $9.90 for two burgers, two large fries and two Cokes. One man pays her while the other stares off into space with sinister eyes. He's either evil incarnate, or simply irate that he's out ten dollars, which could've scored him some beef jerky, Doritos, and a good porno mag if only he'd gone to 7-11 instead. "As long as you eat fast," the employee cautions them jokingly, handing each man an empty cup. The store manager strolls over to the glass door and locks the handle to bar anyone from entering. We see a gray car parked across the street, and a pregnant woman waves frantically at the manager. He blows her a kiss with a lingering loving smile, and turns back toward the kitchen. The woman smiles, resumes waiting and flips through her book. It's called Why Your Husband Will Die Violently.
Chapter 1. He's not in the credits.In the restaurant, the two surly men nibble on fries and pretend to remove their thick gloves. Intelligently, the manager shouts for the cashier to grab the money and hustle back into the kitchen. The restaurant is clear now, and the men pull the gloves back on, dump a soda on the floor and stroll into the kitchen. The woman in the car looks up briefly, then stares back at her book. "Why Your Husband Will Die Violently, Chapter 6: You're pregnant," she reads. She jerks her head back up in time for five slow, measured gunshots. She curses, because the author didn't put that higher up on the list. The two guys stroll casually out of the restaurant, still chewing their fries, as the woman hides in her front seat. Slowly, she crawls out of the car and walks into the store, a bare twenty seconds after the felons leave. She's bloody lucky they didn't come back for the fries, but then again, everyone knows Speedy Burger potato products are crap compared to Wendy's. The woman, her pregnant belly protruding, enters the store her husband had supposedly -- and apparently, ineptly -- locked. "No wonder it took him three years to get promoted," she sniffs. Surveying the scene, she creeps back toward the kitchen, opens the door and emits a piercing scream. Fade to black.
Chapter 2. He's waving lovingly at you, and all that's separating you from acting on this abiding passion are the two burly men eating slowly and glaring menacingly.
Newspapers roll through the presses. It's the harmonica-riddled credits, which creator Dick Wolf (of Law & Order fame) peppered with scenes from New York City to ensure that we know exactly where the show's set and what it's about. Thanks, Dick. The opening credits use white, thick, all-caps letters and a red line, much like the format employed by Murphy Brown. Dick Wolf added this little touch to make his star feel right at home on the show, not realizing that Oliver Platt and Robert Pastorelli have not yet agreed to give in and become the same person.
Wallace Benton waddles off the elevator and through the newsroom, his nose buried in today's New York Ledger. He's the kind of man who sees life through the glass at the bottom of the Jack Daniels bottle, looking greasy and rumpled and dumpy and drunk -- in a sense, the Ted Kennedy of media. "Masucci!" he bellows. Bebe Neuwirth appears. She's the managing editor of the Ledger, her first name is Nikki, and she gets final approval over what stories appear in the paper and on which pages they run. Nikki also likes candlelight, satin, and men who aren't Wallace. "Five Executed in Fast-Food Massacre," Benton reads to her. Nikki says she saw the story hit the news wires, but that it's a Chicago tale, not a local one. Wallace points out certain facts that ring familiar to him. "Sounds like your award-winning Bradford and Washington series," Nikki exposits. "When was that, '78?" she asks. Wallace grimaces. "It was '98," he spits, "and they're gonna kill 'em in three days." During the entire pseudo-chat, Nikki and Benton hoofed it through the newsroom at breakneck pace. Nikki shouts out stuff like "news meeting, four minutes," and addresses people by their last names so that we know she wields authority. A tall blonde struts past. "Wallace, are you going to give the Pulitzer back?" she sneers. She's Brooke, and she struts around like an emaciated peacock as Mumford's Hope Davis taps every ounce of her nonexistent charisma to inhabit the role. ["Hey! I like her! I just watched her in Stop, Wonderland again the other night, and so...where were we?" -- Wing Chun] She blathers about a copper-coil recall while Wallace brats, "Nobody cares, nobody cares, nobody cares." Nikki yells that Benton is a drama queen and writes this off as a copycat crime. "I don't want a couple innocent dead guys messing with my karma," Wallace says charmingly. They banter and piss each other off, then she slams a glass door in his face so that the daily news meeting can begin.
Nikki sits down and asks for the page-eight rundown. That's the province of gossip columnist Hildy Baker, and it's time to brace yourselves for Lili Taylor's longest line in the entire episode. "Stripper-turned-wheelchair jockey gets $450 million. Quote-unquote, 'I'm so happy,' sobbed the grieving bimbo," Hildy reads. Subtle swipe at Anna Nicole Smith, Lili, but be careful about insulting creatures of Satan. I hear one of her breasts personally doubled our gasoline prices and the other is responsible for such terrors as nutrition-information labels and Cop Rock. The sports editor spouts something about the Mets and a strip-club barroom brawl. The camera pans around the table to an open newspaper, from which Tom Conti's voice drifts. "Hapless Hurlers in Topless Bar," Conti lobs at the editor in thick brogue. Everyone giggles. He's Si Beekman, he's short, and he's the most hands-on newspaper publisher ever. Usually, they don't bother with editorial decisions. The Metro editor says something about the insect count in the city, Brooke makes a biblical reference, and Lili snags her second line. "Call Sting," she grins. "He's always good for an ecological Armageddon kind of quote." And the pop-culture quips are flying. "Mrs. Benton?" Nikki says, addressing Brooke. Ordinarily, calling her "Mrs. Benton" would send Brooke into such a fierce tizzy that her breastbone would snap, but Plot Exposition planned ahead and slipped valium into Brooke's morning coffee. She's got a story about rats in four-star kitchens, to which Si cracks, "Waiter, there's bubonic plague in my soup!"