The episode begins with some bedraggled hoser blowing a perfectly good hand of blackjack. His gaffe attracts the attention of the security cameras. Big Ed asks, "Who sticks on a 12 when a dealer's showing a nine?" "An idiot?" Danny guesses. "Or a cheat," Big Ed replies. They review the tape, and Danny says, "I'm going with idiot." He would. Big Ed moves in on the guy with yet another camera, then watches again from another angle. Danny notices the dark glasses and hearing aid, and comments, "Birth-control goggles and a hearing aid? Must be a bitch getting a date." Or maybe not -- if you can neither see nor hear your potential paramour, the dating pool may become much broader and deeper. Big Ed then goes to the micro-pico-close-up, wherein the camera zooms in through a tiny piece of sunglasses lens and shows the marked cards on the table. Big Ed orders Danny to run down there and shut the table down. That seems like a waste of time -- don't they just have people on the floor they can call? It would seem that any good security operation would have folks strolling on the floor and folks manning the security station, and the two work in concert to stop sticky situations fast, not this whole "Danny! Sprint on down to the table before this guy runs the risk of winning money!" thing.
In any event, Danny soon slides into a conveniently empty seat at the blackjack table and tells the dealer to shut it down. He then turns to the guy with the glasses -- who, for some mysterious reason, has not noisily protested the closing table and then moved on -- and asks, "Nearsighted or farsighted?" The guy turns around. We finally get a good look at those glasses, and they look like the kind of Ray-Bans that give you giant bug eyes. Anyway, he's all, "Huh?" Danny persists, "Nearsighted or farsighted? See, I always forget -- does farsighted mean you can't see far, or you can't see near?" The guy responds in a British accent of some sort, "I think it depends on the eyes." Bzzt! Nearsighted means you can only see that which is near you, while farsighted means you can more easily things the farther away they are. Danny yanks off the glasses, and it takes the ear device with it. He drawls, "Dude, you've got a battery stuck in your ear. That's gotta hurt." Well, here we are, only two minutes into the episode, and I'm saying, "Gosh -- he's like Ben (sigh) Browder's little brother. Same build. Same cocky I'm-smarter-than-I-look attitude. Given that this show is crawling with female regulars, what say we even up the ratio by ditching Delinda and bringing on Ben (sigh) Browder as Danny's older brother?" Y'all, I'm creative. I can and will find a way to lobby for Ben (sigh) Browder on a weekly basis. In any event, Danny puts on the bug-glasses and notices the marked cards and the thumbprints the dealer's left all over the table in invisible ink. Danny comments, "Sloppy work with the magnesium silicate -- you can't tell the tens from the deuces. No wonder you're losing." The bedraggled cheater rubs his hand over his sweaty brow, and through the lenses, we see that his hand must have been covered in the stuff, and he was therefore responsible for marking the cards. Danny chortles. It must be nice when something goes right for him.
Elvis ain't chortling right now. He'd like a little less conversation, a lot more Ben (sigh) Browder. Okay, that's me. Elvis wants more action.
When we get back from commercials -- which I fast-forwarded through at super-high-speed because the cell phone commercials either irritate me (Nextel) or make Mr. Sobell blink and claim the house is getting dusty (AT&T Wireless) -- Danny is busy stalking around the seated man in a tiny, windowless room. He is one well-placed light and a tray of dental tools away from evoking Marathon Man. "Rowan Davies!" Danny barks. "How do you know my name?" Rowan asks. Danny says abruptly, "Shut up." Yeah! This is the first time in three episodes Danny hasn't been talked off the screen by Bodhi Elfman, Delinda, Big Ed, or Mary. Let the man get a sentence or two out. Danny continues, "At this point, it's safe to assume I know your mother's maiden name, her birth date, and her real weight." He was in the Marines, and this was the most terrifying thing he could come up with? How did his drill sergeant treat him on Parris Island? Was he all, "The only things to come out of Vegas are -- hold on. What rhymes with 'showgirl'?" Rowan asks, "What do you want?" Danny replies, "I want to break every one of your fingers, that's what I want! I want to crack them like $2 glow sticks." Ooh. Is it wrong that I find Danny appealing when he acts like this? Rowan protests that he's exhibited bad judgment, but "breaking me fingers ain't right -- and it's illegal." Danny counters that cheating happens to be illegal too, so they've entered a whole gray area of moral relativism. Or something to that effect.
Just then, Big Ed comes in to play Good Cop. Danny protests that he's simply laying out options for Rowan -- "like his left hand or his right hand. I'm thinking both." Big Ed dismisses this with a sanguine wave of the hand. You know, if they knocked every other character to supporting status and retooled the show so it's the Big Ed-and-Danny show, I'd be all for that, 'cause this professional interplay is fun to watch. Big Ed then sits down and says apologetically, "My, ah, young protégé here, uh, he, uh, he gets very excited." I love the way Big Ed inserts the little hesitation pauses in his speech -- it's a canny little affectation when he wants people to underestimate him. Big Ed says he's trying to avoid any kind of violence; that's a philosophy both Gandhi and Rowan can get behind. Danny pops in then to ask, "Just let me break one finger, Ed." Big Ed replies, "Will you please? Just…stop." You can tell that if he had a spray bottle, he'd be soaking Danny in the face right now, saying, "Down, boy!" Big Ed comments regretfully on Danny's finger fixation, and adds almost as an afterthought, "But I suggest you tell me who sent you." Rowan claims to be a lone wolf. Big Ed gently explains why this isn't so: "You see, here's the thing. You were losing out there, which means either that you're not smart enough to use magnesium silicate the way your boss told you to, or you're so stupid that you thought you could figure out how to do it by yourself -- which you obviously could not." Just then, Nessa bursts into the room, hollering in Big Ed's general direction that if he had a question about her résumé, he could have asked her. Danny hollers that they're in the middle of something, but Nessa outshouts him, telling Big Ed there was no need to call England to verify her particulars. Big Ed conveniently ignores both Rowan and Danny -- and if I were Danny, I'd take advantage of the distraction to grin and begin cracking my knuckles in a menacing fashion -- so he can tell Nessa repeatedly and firmly, "We are in the middle of something." For some reason, she thinks Big Ed has a wild hair about her dad. Gosh, why on Earth would Nessa want to air her family laundry around Rowan the cheater? In any event, Nessa storms out, Danny gapes some, and Big Ed irritably orders that Rowan be cut loose. Big Ed then leans over and tells Rowan, "If you ever think about coming back here, I'll have this kid break every bone in your body." Rather than grin menacingly, Danny's still stunned at Big Ed's about-face.
Rowan gets, and the minute the door slams, Danny rounds on Big Ed, practically shouting, "What are you doing? What-- did-- why'd you let the guy go? I am serious!" He's sputtering over Big Ed repeating calmly, "You can cut the bad cop act." Heh. Again -- if this were The Big Ed & Danny Show, we'd have something. Danny shouts that they know Rowan's part of a big cheating ring they've been trying to bust. Big Ed says placidly, "Exactly. And that's why I need for you to follow him. Do you get it?" There's a very long moment of silence there. Big Ed sends Danny out the door. When Danny takes off, Big Ed slumps in the chair, mutters, "God," and kneads his brow.
Danny and the bananamobile speed on off into the distance.
And now, it's Ken -- not Dan -- Marino. Although wouldn't it be funny if Dan Marino were psychic? Then he could properly predict who would drop his passes and why Miami's lack of a running game kept them out of the Superbowl. Then again, even I could see that. Anyway, the guy on stage is Ken Marino, erstwhile member of The State ["and erstwhile Professor Creepy" -- Sars]. He's ushering a woman on stage while Mary stands in the audience and beams. Ken Marino compliments the woman on her smile -- he was a charming guy on The State -- and then asks, "Cynthia, have you and I ever met?" She answers, "No." Pause. "Omigawd, how'd you know my name?" Ken shrugs modestly and says, "Cynthia James from Ukiah, California, let me ask you a question." She's all, "How'd you know where I'm from?" Just then Ken says in closed-captioning, "And you wanted to see the white tigers." But there's no sound -- just him mouthing the words. Smooth move, o sensitive NBC editors who fear the wrath of a thousand wound-up Siegfried and Roy fans. Ken further emphasizes how he knows these things through some mysterious agency by asking if she's let him root around her purse. Cynthia says no. There's a little banter, and then Ken dimples, "In order to plumb the deepest recesses of my spirit and open myself up to Cynthia's psychic vibrations, I need to put myself in a trance. This is a very vulnerable state for me, people." Someone laughs, and he replies, "What are you laughing about? It is. Very vulnerable state." As he's talking, we see a waitress wearing a pendant circle through the crowd; for some reason, she's accompanied by a mechanical hum. Anyway, Ken carries on some more about complete quiet, and Mary begins giggling. Ken immediately bounces out of the chair he was settling in and says, "Laughing is not complete quiet, but I appreciate the encouragement." Oh, he and Mary are meeting so cute! Mary grins and waves. Ken gets all meditative on his throne, and then stands up with his eyes shut. He rattles off the contents of Cynthia's purse as she holds them up for the audience: a tan leather wallet with seven credit cards (seven?), plus $23.18. No cash in Vegas? Huh? Plus "a pack of Her Pleasure condoms," Ken adds, with a faux-startled look. Cynthia's looking a lot less pleased about the sixth sense now. Out in the audience, Mary claps and beams.
Meanwhile, Rowan has parked at some pub and is charging inside. Danny and the bananamobile pull up a short while later. You know, it's hard to be stealthy and follow someone when you drive the bananamobile. And given that Mike will probably outfit it with a popcorn popper and a dashboard-mounted flamethrower as a wacky sweeps stunt, that car will never drop to low profile. Anyway, Danny sidles around the hall outside the pub's men's room -- that has to have led to some awkward social misunderstandings -- and then someone comes out, pats his cheek and sings, "Danny boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling…" Let's hope the guy washed his hands first. Hey, Danny says the same thing. Anyway, the two of them head into the back office, there's some razzing about how Danny's all soft from his life in the high-tech aerie, and then Danny proves he's still D-Mac from the block by peeking out into the main room through a peep hole in a dartboard. Rowan is sitting at the bar, getting shot down by women.
We transition to the Montecito again with a little musical clip I recognize only as the music from the Cartoon Network's Adult Swim bumpers. Ken is walking through a back corridor after his show, and Mary scampers to catch up with him. She's pretty nimble for someone wearing a tourniquet and high heels. She introduces herself, and Ken points out that he knows her name. She quips, "I guess if you didn't, you could just read my mind." Not that I believe in ESP, but why on Earth would you assume that psychics are thrilled to go rummaging around strangers' heads willy-nilly? It seems like an invitation to the wide world of misanthropy. Anyway, Ken blah-blahs about no such thing as mind-readers, and Mary coos, "Whatever you have, it seems to work." Ken turns to stare at her and ask, "You mean, personally or professionally?" We get a close-up here, and I spend five minutes staring at my screen to determine whether Ken Marino looks more like a missing Baldwin brother or more like Zach Braff and Tom Cavanagh's beefy older brother. There's something about the eyes and nose, plus the demeanor. It could go either way. Anyway, Mary totally backpedals and widens her eyes to Margaret Keane proportions when she says, "Professionally. Of course. I wanted to talk to you about some promotional ideas for the show." Ken asks, "Can I predict your future first?" Mary laughs coquettishly. Ken laughs too and says, "A nonbeliever. May I?" Mary rolls her eyes as if to clear all the impure thoughts she's had about him in the last few minutes, and then gives the go-ahead. Ken does a few deep-breathing things, then says, "Later tonight, you're going to have dinner with an extremely charming psychotic -- I mean psychic. Damn! I always mix up those two words, and -- hey, why are you backing off?" Oh, right. Mary actually corrects him, "It's drinks, not dinner." Ken mourns the dulling of his approach. Mary bounces off, beaming.
Hey, everyone, it's another plot! Sam is escorting some violently blonde woman and her nondescript escort out of an exit and saying, "I think you guys are really going to love this." Okay, then. Whatever happened to all those high-end whales she was supposed to have been wrangling? A hotel employee comes up to her a moment later and hisses, "That woman wants to be comped." The way she says it, you'd think the woman in question had just asked for a human sacrifice. For some inexplicable reason, there's a little dance in the lobby as Hotel Employee, Cynthia (from the psychic Ken show), and Sam figure out who's going to talk to whom where. Cynthia eventually marches to the middle of the lobby and requests a comped room and a meal at "Carinthia" -- huh? Should that be Corinthia? Would a restaurant named Carinthia have seats made of fine Carinthian naugahyde? Oh, wait -- there's a Carinthia in Austria. Never mind. Sam steers Cynthia back to the bench and points out that guests who play big money are usually the ones who are comped. Cynthia protests that she may not be a high roller, but "[Ken] the psychic brought me onstage and told the audience I had condoms in my purse." And then, presumably, the audience began throwing stones and screaming, "Whore! Whore!" Cynthia claims to be humiliated, which only supports my contention that anyone who can't handle admitting they use birth control with any sangfroid should stay away from the horizontal hurly-burly until they grow up. Sam asks, "Did you read the disclaimer notices in the lobby? Did you volunteer?" That matters not to Cynthia. She was embarrassed, and baby wants her bottle. Sam continues in a level voice, "Do you really think you deserve to be compensated?" "Yes!" Cynthia says heatedly. "I don't," Sam says smoothly and matter-of-factly. Cynthia finally backs down. It turns out the real problem is that Cynthia was hoping to hook up with someone named Ethan after the show, and he disappeared afterward, and "my pathetic, overactive imagination went straight into 'the condom made him think I'm desperate' mode." You know, it seems like the condoms in the purse would generally be hailed as a good thing by someone who's trying to pick you up, unless they're ideologically opposed to birth control. Maybe Ethan's a right-wing fundamentalist. In any event, Sam tells Cynthia that the Montecito is a big hotel, it's entirely possible that Ethan did look for her but couldn't find her, and maybe she should ratchet down the self-involved paranoia and give this guy the benefit of the doubt. Anyway, Sam leaves Cynthia with a free dinner at Carinthia -- jeez, this staff gives away perks at the drop of a hat -- and wanders back across the lobby to ask the hotel employee, "Find out how many Ethans we have registered." The high-rollers must be staying away in droves if she's got the time to do this.
Big Ed walks into a kitchen stocked with lederhosen-wearing men. Of course. Someone with an impenetrable Eurotrash accent comes on out, hugs Big Ed, and says, "Zo! Zis is vhere it ohl happens. In. The. Kitchen." Big Ed acts suitably awed. Gunther the restaurateur orders Ed to come with him so he can zhow him zomething. First, it's the vunderful, beautiful vegetab-bles. Then it's the "tarmasalata rojo." It's apparently quite good. Gunther pushes a little on Big Ed, who tries declining politely. Gunther then plays the "don't hurt my feelings" card, and Big Ed folds. The man is a pushover. He takes a gummy vedge of zomething and pops it in his mouth. As Big Ed is chewing, Gunther is bouncing up and down with a manic grin, zing-zonging, "Ja, ja, ja -- is guhd, ja?" Big Ed nods with a tight zmile on his face. Gunther continues, "Gunther's zecret ingredient: escargot entrails." I thought escargot were mostly entrails. Isn't that the whole point of a mollusk? Big Ed zays flatly, "Snail guts," and as Gunther bobs around in a fit of gleeful confirmation, Big Ed does the zpit-and-dump. Gunther urges more on him, and Big Ed replies, "No. I mean -- no thank you." That's more for Gunther.
Big Ed eventually gets around to his point: Delinda expressed an interest in the restaurant business at one point. Gunther interrupts to say, "Oh! Is a vunderful bizznezz. Bizznezz of ze godz. Almighty Zeus himself vould have ohned a restaurant." Almighty Zeus vould have also turned his girlfriends into svans, impregnated them via golden zhower, and generally turned out to exhibit appalling judgment, zo using him as your letter of reference may not be for the bezt. Big Ed tells Gunther, "Delinda's perfectly happy to work her way up." Gunther zeizes on the name and repeats vith delight: "Dee-linnn-da? Dee-LINNN-da! I luf zis name -- Delinda Devine. Flohs off the tongue, like, like a song." You know, Gunther's freakily hypnotic. I vonder if Big Ed knows him from Mittel European covert operations. Possibly not, zince Gunther just got distracted by a zlice of vegetab-ble. He says, "No, no, no, no. Benito!" He shrugs at the slice, then throws it at the off-screen Benito, who yelps. Yep, there's a background in the Stasi for sure. Big Ed vetches impazzively, and Gunther turns back to him to ask, "Does Delinda know about the bizznezz?" Big Ed pauses, mentally debates lying, then resolves it vith, "Yeah. She studied at Cordon Bleu." Gunther is ecstatic to hear this too, then clasps his hands as if in prayer, brings them to his lips, and requests, "Vill you please gif me time to decide?" Big Ed looks a little unsure, but accedes to the request by leaning in really close and zaying, "Sure." Cue Gunther unclasping his hands and announcing, "I have dezided." Gunther laughs a little manically, then explains, "Ed, my friend, vhen I came to America, people extended zheir handz to me. I zaid, 'I am now an American! I-I vill change my vay of dressing, I vill make better cleanliness and odor. I vill now extend my hands to your daughter like a true American. She! Can! Ztart! To! Night!" Gunther goes to ztick out his hand for a shake, but Big Ed is ztill hung up on the cleanliness thing and zettles for clapping Gunther on ze zhoulder. Well, Delinda now has herzelf a job. Big Ed heads off, and ve see Gunter crook an impervious finger as he orders, "Benito, come to me!" Benito protests off-screen, "What?" as the polka music fades out with "shave and a haircut, two bits."
Back at the dive, Danny's friend smirks, "Told you -- once you use 'Peeping Tom' you never go back." Danny makes like he's done, and then Nessa sidles into the joint, so he's interested all of a sudden.
Commercial break: Hey, everyone, America's sweetheart is serious now! You can tell because she dyed her hair brown for In The Cut.
And now, Rowan is trying his luck with Nessa at the bar, telling the bartender that her round is on him. Then he heads over to Nessa and tells her, "I grew up in Essex." Nessa leans in and says in her more clipped accent, "Let's sit someplace where we can talk." Rowan is delighted by this turn of events. As the two sit in a booth, he continues, "Like I said, I'm an Essex boy, but judging from your accent, I'd say you're from…" "London," Nessa supplies. Rowan claims that's where he was going with that question. Nessa says that she knows who Rowan is; he pushes her on that, and she says, "I was at the Montecito today -- remember?" Rowan mugs like he doesn't. Nessa continues, "Yeah. Big Ed and Danny Boy can be pretty intimidating. I'd say you dropped ten pounds sweating." Wouldn't she refer to that as seven stone, given that they're talking Brit to Brit? The penny finally drops for Rowan. He freaks for a moment and makes to leave, but Nessa crisply orders, "Sit down and shut up." Rowan does, and she says, "Look, mate, I want to meet your boss, and when you tell him I'm Nessa Holt, he'll want to meet me too." Oh, how bad-ass do you have to be to be able to say something like that? Nessa's the coolest. Within eight sentences, Nessa's finagled a meeting with the boss for midnight that very night. Danny watches, stunned. You know, for someone who works in the thick of schemes and intelligence-gathering, he really is a simple lad.
So Danny's move is to call Big Ed and tell him, "I followed Rowan over to the Laddie, and Nessa's with him." Big Ed makes a disbelieving noise, and Danny adds, "Our Nessa." Danny just got inadvertently dialectical; one of my favorite conversational ticks in my crazy British football soap Playing the Field came from Teresa's mum, Mrs. Mullins (who, incidentally, looked like Terry Jones in drag), referring to everyone in her family as "our T'resa," or "our Jo," or "our Luke" or "our Matthew." Anyway, Big Ed tells Danny to stay on Rowan, and he'll handle Nessa.
Meanwhile, at the bar in the Montecito, Ken "Anton" Marino is lounging against the bar and grinning at nothing in particular when Mary comes hobbling up in the latest dress wardrobe has sewn her into. You know, I personally think Nikki Cox has a gorgeous, curvy figure, and I'm all for wardrobe people celebrating someone who isn't a talking coat hanger, but I do have to wonder if Cox goes to work some days and is like, "You know, just once, I'd like to wear a pair of sweats and a t-shirt that hangs to my knees." I mean, the poor woman rarely looks comfortable. Anyway, hellos are exchanged, Ken tells Mary she looks great, then adds, "You'd think I can come up with something more original -- I spout out one-liners 12 shows a week." Mary thinks it's okay if those compliments keep coming. Ken does so. She tells him, "I don't have a condom in my purse." He replies, "I don't wear 'em anyway." Oh, he does not either. The two of them decamp to a table, and Mary says, "So tell me something you couldn't possibly know." That's the second reason being a mind-reader would have to suck: your skeptical date is always demanding free entertainment, and in return, you get to rummage around their noggin while trying to tune out their smug, doubting thoughts. Ken commands Mary to give him her hand. She does, he clasps it between his own, takes a deep breath, and says, "Just so you know -- this has nothing to do with psychic transference. I just wanted to hold your hand." They have a little laugh. Then Ken does a little focusing thing and fixes on Mary, saying, "Your childhood wasn't happy. Something about your father. You had two close friends growing up, both male. One is no longer with us, and the other, you still have feelings for." Mary yanks back her hand, and Ken apologizes, "I'm sorry -- your aura's very close and --" "You're really very good!" she chatters loudly, a bright fake smile pasted across her features. "It's a blessing and a curse right now," Ken says apologetically. Mary says she's fine, and Ken tells her, "Actually, that's not what I meant. Someone's going to die during my show." The camera zooms in on Mary looking all stricken.
Back in the Carinthia kitchen, a group of appreciative men in chef's whites (is there a term for these togs? Please tell me if you know in the episode thread) is clustered around Delinda, who's got her hair pulled back in a ponytail (but not restricted in a hair net or anything) and is wearing a modified chef's jacket cut to reveal a lot of midriff. Is that sanitary? Gunther comes tearing into the kitchen, demanding, "Vot is zis -- talky-time? Go, go, go! Come on! Quick! Quick!" Delinda gives him the wide-eyed innocent act and tells him, "They were instructing me on the finer points of carrot-chopping. I'm Delinda Devine." Gunther is delighted. Really. He says so. Then he adds that Delinda looks nothing like her father. He adds, "Don't tell him!" Delinda giggles and puts a finger to her lips, and Gunther drops the jovial act and says, "No. Really. Don't tell Ed." I like Gunther. More Gunther! Except then he derails Delinda's nascent culinary career to guide her on the restaurant-hostessing career path. Well, it's worked out so well for Adriana La Cerva. Anyway, Delinda huffs that she can't very well hostess while she's dressed inappropriately for chopping carrots, so off she goes to change.
Delinda's leaving gives the camera the perfect excuse to zoom around the casino and alight on Danny. Oh, crap. It's the "Mary's asinine request of the week" segment. Yes, I like the chemistry between these two, but she has the worst damn timing when it comes to petitioning Danny for anything. To make an excruciating scene less so by truncating it: she asks for paramedics to be on standby through Ken's show, Danny scoffs, Mary advocates for the powers of ESP, Danny points out that Ken is hoping those powers lead to the bedroom, Mary gets feisty about that, Danny kinda caves on the ambulance, and Mary flounces off…
…past Sam, in another swoopy camera transition. The hotel employee is telling Sam that there is one Ethan Gursky registered. She heads off -- no more time for you, extra! -- and Sam heads on over to Danny and gives him the slip of paper with Ethan's name, telling him to find out if Ethan has any outstanding warrants. Well, what will they do if he does? It's not like they had a legal reason to be investigating him. I guess it means Cynthia goes back to northern California with a purse full of Her Pleasure condoms. Danny stands there for a moment, wondering how he became Sam and Mary's personal errand boy.
We see him in the security office. He's pouring himself some coffee. Big Ed comes over and asks what Danny got on Rowan, and Danny replies, "Nuthin'. Spent half the night watching him learn how to roller-skate backwards. I think he knew I was onto him." It's the car, I tell you. Big Ed gets a smile on his face and says, "Obviously he was skating backwards." You can tell Big Ed is totally the type of guy who, were it to rain frogs, would shrug and say, "Of course it's raining frogs. I just washed the car." Danny presses the Nessa issue, and Big Ed makes noncommittal noises. Danny then presses about the conversation concerning Big Ed checking up on Nessa, and asks what the deal is concerning her father, and Big Ed answers only, "I knew the guy." Danny knows when he's being blocked. He walks off.
Meanwhile, Ken is giving a show, and nobody is keeling over dead. Mary's stalking around in the corridors outside. Now I'm all confused about this show's timeline: if Danny spent half the night watching Rowan roller-skate backwards, then we're already one day removed from the beginning of the episode. If Mary met Ken and had drinks with him the night that she met him, and that scene took place on the same night Danny spent watching Rowan play all the roles in Xanadu, before heading into work, then…what the hell happened? Throw in the whole Cynthia thing, where she didn't get to meet Ethan after the show, and that takes place before or during the drinks, and then this scene in the corridor. I need a graphic indicating where all the plotlines coordinate. The dress really throws off the show's chronology.
It's too bad there are no helpful voice-overs telling me what time it is. Actually, I don't miss the voice-overs. In any event, Danny ribs Mary about the disappointingly healthy people, and concludes, "He's a charlatan, Mary." "He knew things, Danny," Mary countered. Maybe Ken just watched episodes of the show. Maybe he hears voice-overs. Anyway, Mary stalks off, and Danny watches her go, a little surprised she's so touchy.
Over at Carinthia, Delinda's seating people. She looks pretty good. This raises another timing question: when she went home to change, did it take all night? Is this day two of her job? We know she was chopping carrots within hours of Big Ed visiting the casino, but I don't know if that was the same day as the Rowan tail and/or the show. My head hurts trying to figure this all out -- I'm going to have to resort to the same diagrams I used to rock those "Anna, Bob, Charlie, Daniel, and Ellen all want to go out to eat. Anna and Ellen want to sit together. Bob cannot sit across from Ellen, as they're in the middle of a bitter divorce, but he can't sit to Charlie, because Charlie is left-handed. One other male party is left-handed. Daniel is also divorcing Ellen, but wants to sit to Anna and across from a left-hander. Determine where they are sitting"-type questions on the GRE.
Anyway, Delinda's looking chic and seating people. Gunther bounces up to say hello, and Delinda asks if she can make a suggestion. He's all ears. He's all eyes too, but he's not exactly making eye contact. Delinda continues, "The location is perfect. The food, excellent. But the lederhosen reminds me of the Seven Dwarves." I'm irrationally irritated that she managed to mispronounce "lederhosen" (it's not "lee-derhosen," for crying out loud) and muff the subject-verb agreement on it. I know -- how the line was written isn't her fault. I'm still irked. Gunther sees nothing wrong with this: "You are my Snow Vhite." Delinda tells him it's "not a Vegas vibe, Gunther." Gunther's shocked to hear this. Delinda adds, "And the décor. Sucks. And you could improve upon the name -- the 'Carinthia'? Get real." And to think most of us usually spend the first or second day on a job trying to figure out where the Post-Its are hidden. Gunther tells her, "I am skeptical, but I am ztill listening." That's so he can continue to stare. Anyway, Delinda busts out some blah dee blah about table turnover, and decrees that there will now be a "Club Mystique" back room for dancing and debauchery. After Delinda drops this news, she waltzes off and leaves Gunther pole-axed.
Hey, Nessa's meeting with the boss. So it must be midnight on the same night that she met Rowan at the bar…despite Danny coming in and reporting that he already spent the night watching Rowan, and has since dealt with a post-drinks Mary, and at this point I officially give up trying to figure out the timeline for this episode. Anyway, Nessa parks her car to a limo and walks on over. The window rolls down, and it's Elliott Gould. Nessa says, "And you are?" Ross and Rachel's dad? A casting crossover from the Ocean's 11 remake? He's actually The Professor. The camera stills, as if taking a snapshot. Very precisely and assertively, The Professor says, "You wanted to see me about something?" Nessa leans back in her limo seat (they're facing each other) and says, "I assume you're interested in large amounts of money." The Professor wonders if there's anyone in Vegas who isn't. Nessa makes her pitch: she wants out of the Montecito, and "I won't bore you with the sordid details, but let's just say it has something to do with working for asses." She wants to know why he cares, and The Professor replies, "I'm curious. Curiosity is sort of a sine qua non in the professor business. How could your father go from being one of the most notorious cheats in Europe to working for Ed Deline and the CIA?" Nessa gives him a long look before replying, "He made a few mistakes." The Professor makes a little moue of doubt, then asks, "Is he really dead?" "I wish I knew," Nessa replies. The Professor then tells her that he's skeptical of what she's saying, since she is pretty closely connected to Ed Deline. Nessa deflates his dubiousness: "The Montecito's hosting a blackjack tournament. The finals are this Friday. Six play at the final table. Two are wild cards. I can arrange for you to be one of them, and I can make sure you win." The Professor regards her with an "Oh, aren't you cute?" look and Nessa adds, "Ten million dollars." The Professor does a self-amused little eye-roll and asks drolly, "What would your father think?" Nessa replies, "Look -- I have nothing on you. You have nothing on me. You're not interested, I get out of the car, we never met." The Professor gives her another droll look. We then see Nessa hop out of the car -- and can I just tell you how much I covet her black leather jacket? It's this great fitted blazer. Anyway, as Nessa stands in the parking lot to watch the limo drive off, The Professor rolls down the window, and a piece of paper flutters from his hand to Nessa's. She's in.
Commercials. Hey, it's the Matrix Reloaded. Oh, like any real geek hasn't already downloaded a pirated copy off BitTorrent.
When we get back from commercials, the producers have further screwed with my sense of time further by showing the first sunny outdoor shot. Then we go to Nessa walking into what appears to be a pawnshop. She approaches the guy behind the counter and says, "I'm looking for the latest in small arms." Without looking up, the counter guy asks, "What do you have in mind?" "H&K .23 pistol," she replies. The guy looks up to ask around his dangling cigarette, "What's a girl like you want with a gun like that?" "A seed crop for my body farm," she replies. Oh, she does not. Nessa actually goes with the line in the apparently-scripted patter, which is, "None of your bloody business." She's waved on through. The guy presses a button, and Nessa walks into a room that looks like a bargain-basement casino.
Predictably, The Professor appears to give introductions, since every would-be crime caper gives us name, rank, and serial number as a way of forging team unity. Jasper can throw weighted dice by making the switch between pairs with his tongue. Jasper also has a vigorous love life, I'm guessing. Apparently the rest of the introductions will have to wait. Nessa and The Professor then do card tricks all over the blackjack table between them. Then they get down to business; after dickering over how much Nessa gets of the take (it's a 60/40 split; she gets the 40 percent). The Professor tells her he won't appear, but he will train someone. Nessa tells him she's not doing this with students, and The Professor replies, "Do you know why no one knows who I am? Why I'm not in the black book? Because I've never set foot in a casino. I'll train Jasper personally." Nessa says, "You can train him -- but I test him." The Professor looks cute again.
Danny. Mary. More portents of doom at Ken's show. Don't care. The one good line comes courtesy of Danny, who asks why Mary's so obsessed with "Nostra-dumb-ass." Heh. Mary gets him back by tipping her emotional hand: "He may not be psychic. He may just be more perceptive than I am. He told me there was a guy in my life I always thought I'd end up with. I told him he was right. And he told me it was never going to happen." It's pretty obvious that they both know Mary's referring to Danny. Danny attempts to avoid heavy questions about friends and long-burning torches and all that by snorting, "No ulterior motives for that prediction." Mary snaps, "Actually, I was relieved, Danny. I was. It's like a weight has been lifted." Danny looks shocked. As he struggles for something to say, Mary gives him a look of mixed fury and triumph and walks off. Oof -- it sucks to be on either side of that situation.
After that little tiff, Danny's idly flipping though a number of windows on the screens at his workstation -- one camera shows Nessa looking unsettled as she does her job, then we see a computer screen with Rowan's DMV record, then we see a ventriloquist act. This casino has an Austrian restaurant, a King Arthur show, a psychic, and and a ventriloquist? They could ditch three of those and get either an insane diva with her own theatre, or a Cirque du Soleil knockoff and thus approach something resembling a theme. Then Danny asks for the cameras in Ken's dressing room. We see Ken shrugging off his jacket and sitting at his vanity as he watches the same ventriloquist act on a small television to his vanity. We zoom from the television screen to the show, but we're actually viewing it from the perspective of an audience table. Two women are talking, and their conversation is so achingly banal, I refuse to recap it. We then zoom from the table to Ken watching the conversation to Danny watching Ken. Some media scholar somewhere could go into raptures on the many layers of mediation in this chain of information and what it all means; Danny, however, is not any media scholar. This is actually a good thing: Danny quickly figures out that the waitresses in the ventriloquist act are wearing little cameras, and Ken is prepping for his shows by eavesdropping. "Busted!" Danny crows. Just then, Big Ed comes over to ask what Danny's doing, and he gives it the old "nothing! Just checking cameras" routine while performing the security-cam version of alt-tab. Big Ed's too smart for such blandishments. He switches the camera back, and we see Ken's dressing room again -- only this time, we see Ken sitting on the couch talking to Mary. Big Ed sighs knowingly and says, "Come on, Danny. We'll talk over dinner." It seems like having your boss acutely interested in your love life could make for an awkward workplace.
And now, a nighttime transition tells us that more time has presumably passed. Nessa and The Professor are riding in a limo together. This time, she's sitting to him, turned toward him coquettishly, and they're laughing over glasses of champagne. He says in mock-outrage, "A cooler? You're as brazen as your father!" Nessa laughs and says, "I'll take that as a compliment." The Professor assures her, "You should. I worked with him. He was the best there ever was." "He wasn't that good -- he got caught!" Nessa protests. The Professor tells her that Big Ed set up Nessa's pop because he needed the man's skills for a covert operation. He thinks this is incentive for Nessa; she seems to take it as such.
Cut to Big Ed and Danny discussing Rowan (stupid, yet here legally and gainfully employed) and Nessa (also here legally, and Big Ed has no intention if sharing more). They go to enter Carinthia -- ah, so they're going to that awkward dinner to talk about Mary while Danny's ex-girlfriend seats them. That should be smooth all around. Anyway, they go to enter Carinthia, but a giant bouncer won't let them through, and tells them to take it to the end of the line. I may be misunderstanding how casinos work here, but wouldn't it be in the best interests of a casino restaurant to know who the security people are, and treat them with courtesy? Also, wouldn't security be on top of any business changes among its tenants -- like, say, setting up a hot new back-room club within however many days? So Big Ed and Danny get rebuffed at the door, and Big Ed asks Danny, "You think I should go back and, uh, check on Delinda in the kitchen?" I can't tell if he's genuinely unsure or trying to plant the idea in Danny's head that Delinda isn't a shiftless nutbar. Danny laughs, "Delinda? In a kitchen?" Big Ed replies, "Yeah, she works here now." Danny asks, "Are we talking about the same Delinda?" Big Ed replies heatedly, "Yes!" Oh -- so he was going for the Delinda-PR campaign. He does admit, "This week, it's cooking. week it could be pottery, chemical engineering -- but please, she is working, and I think that's kind of a novel idea." Ed, you only have yourself to blame on this one; you should have cut off the support when she graduated college, at the latest.
Because this plot has to get even more ridiculous, the restaurant has now been completely decorated, it's awash in dry-ice fumes, and Delinda is holding court at the door. I ask again: a casino restaurant gets renovated and enjoys a huge buzz surge in two days (we have confirmation; Big Ed says, "It's two days and she's promoted!"), and the people who run the casino security knew nothing about this? Long story short, Delinda declines to let her father or Danny into the restaurant, but both Mike and the elusive Ethan (a total slob shepherded in by Sam for a fix-up dinner with Cynthia; in terms of time, this means -- AAAIIIEEE! Brain exploded.) manage to get in. I can't even willingly suspend disbelief anymore; to get through this episode, my disbelief is going to have to be supported by the flying buttresses of delusion.
And now, the caper sequence. Call it Ocean's 1.1, since the technical complexity is hardly that remarkable, the scale is much smaller, and the operation lacks either the panache of Dean Martin and Sammy Davis, Jr. or the sly humor of George Clooney and Brad Pitt. Nessa explains how it's going to work: "This is me as dealer, and this is Jasper at first base. Jasper is the only one who touches the cooler [fake deck]. He switches it for the real deck and plays out the rigged hands. These are the other players, and these are you guys. Now, you've got to turn not just the people watching, but [these players] too. [The second player] should be looking down right about here. Brad'll take care of that. Now, the blokes from the TV station will have three additional cameras. The first will be angled down on the table. I'll take care of that. The second will be angled on the players, so nothing to worry about there. And the third -- Franklin here is going to be our cameraman. Whether that camera stays steady, it's all up to him. So this is how it's going to go…"
And it goes like this: a blonde goes sauntering by. Someone gives a wolf whistle. Franklin sneezes and drives the camera up, so Nessa takes advantage of that to slide the cooler over. Jasper blows the transfer. After about eight dry runs -- during which Jasper blows all the transfers -- Nessa throws up her hands and says she's out. The Professor reluctantly concludes that she was right all along, and it's going to have to be him at the table. The scene ends with Nessa giving him a long, hard look.
Commercials! I'm fascinated by the promos for Third Watch because they manage to be all exciting and ominous, without ever actually revealing what the hell happens on that show or why I should care about the cop who looks like he ate his partner.
When we get back from commercials, enough time has elapsed for it to be Friday and the finals for the blackjack tournament. Big Ed is pacing around the security office, keeping an eye on the monitor; Nessa is all over the screens. She's looking equally nervous down below. She's also looking very hot; her suit is sleek and well-cut, and low-cut, and her makeup is just amazing. Normally, I only notice the war paint when it's making the wearer look like a John Wayne Gacy painting, but this is just nice: subtle black eyeliner, and an almost opalescent glow to her skin. We see that Brad is setting up his camera now. Then we zoom over to a woman who looks like she just drove down from the Vivid Videos offices, and I realize it's the attractive blonde from the set-up scene. Boy, does she look awful here. We then see Brad walking by with a big bunch of balloons. I can't see security being too sanguine about letting those near a high-stakes table, but I'm sure in this case, it all serves the "plot" of the show. We then see the young man who's going to be wolf-whistling, and Jasper sitting by the tables, chilling in his dinner jacket.
Just then, the TV announcer blah dee blahs about being live from the Montecito, and Nessa's looking around. The music gets all dramatic, and then we see The Professor walking slowly toward the table, looking dapper in a nice gray suit. Elliott Gould is one of those fortunate men who wears his age much more attractively than he did his youth. The announcer explains the rules of blackjack at auctioneer speed (just remember: you want your cards' total value to hit 21, not "bust," or exceed it) and Nessa gives a tiny smile to The Professor as he sits down. The smile disappears when Danny charges out and grabs Mary, pulling her away from the crowd watching the table and telling her, "I want to show you something."
That something turns out to be yet another scene that makes me cranky: Danny pulls Mary into Ken's dressing room and shows her the TV monitor, explaining that Ken has the waitresses wear pendant cameras that let him spy on would-be audience volunteers. Mary becomes the first person in this episode to remember that the Montecito is a business by saying, "I'm really, really glad you wasted your time and the Montecito's money to get the goods on one of our own entertainers." Danny protests that he was merely firing a shot of well-supported rationalism against the pink cloud of belief in ESP: "Ken says extrasensory perception, I say extra coaxial cable." Zing! He's two for two tonight. Not bad, Danny boy. His revelation has no effect on Mary, who storms out to go watch her psychic boyfriend in his latest show. She flips off the lights on her way out.
Cut to Ken doing the usual spiel about how he's going to go into a trance. He then nicely undercuts the tone by leaning forward and asking, "Is that too dramatic?" People laugh; the camera lingers on an old woman sitting to her equally antique husband, who's wearing a mask that leads down to his oxygen tank. You just know he's going to be fine -- that old man will outlive everyone else in the room. Anyway, Ken goes into the whole trance spiel again ("In order to plumb the deepest recesses of my spirit and open myself up to psychic vibrations, I need to put myself in a trance.") and says he needs quiet.
So we head back to the blackjack tournament. We establish the positions of all the Ocean's 1.1 caper players again. The moment The Professor sets up his rack of chips and grins, we zoom up to the security cameras and then the bank of monitors, where Danny is sitting and watching the tournament alone. He looks troubled, as if something's bothering him and he can't put his finger on it.
Big Ed has wandered on over the Contrivance (What? I'm betting Delinda changed the name); he greets his daughter, who is clad today in one of Barbarella's castoffs. She says hello back at him, and he says, "Still working, huh?" "People keep coming. I'll probably be here past four." Big Ed's kind of happy to hear about that. Delinda asks if he came by just to check on her. After a none-too-convincing protest, Big Ed admits that he did. He tells her, "I'm proud of you, Dee." She remarks, "You haven't called me that since I was four." Big Ed says, "That long, huh?" and then hastily retreats.
Ken is still in his trance. The tall blondes behind him are getting antsy. The audience is also getting antsy. Mary has a horrible premonition, or dramatic timing, or something, and runs to the stage to shake Ken, and he falls on over. Cue the paramedics and the chaos -- and the was-he-or-wasn't-he? question, since Anton predicted a death at his show -- and that death was his. Believe it or not.
And now, the caper is about to go down. Balloons up, blonde walking, wolf-whistling, cameraman sneezing -- it's like the human version of my old Mousetrap board game. Nessa makes the switch, and as the balloons drift over the camera, the focus shifts back to the security room. Danny has all the caper team members in different screens, and Nessa in the middle, and he's studying the whole thing intently. "They're running something," he decides.
Nessa begins dealing, and the voice-over announcer tells the viewers at home that The Professor has just made blackjack -- 21. The Professor smiles smugly, and Big Ed's hand lands on his shoulder. Big Ed says, "You've had a very nice run, my wise, large friend. I'm sorry -- it's over." He fishes out the other deck of cards. The Professor looks at Nessa at the same time Big Ed does. One of the men looks pleased; the other looks betrayed. Guess which is which? The Professor rises and asks, "What would your father think?" "You'll never know, will you?" Nessa replies. Big Ed leads The Professor off. This makes me sad -- what this show could use to tie together the episodes is some over-arching sense of purpose, and having The Professor slip out of Big Ed's grasp and act as a nemesis would have been pretty cool. We hear the announcer ask, "What the hell just happened?" Danny comes down to bust the racket when he runs into Big Ed and the already-busted Professor coming the other way.
Cut to the Catch-up Kid figuring out what happened: "You mean, she was working with you?" Big Ed leans back in his office chair and nods. He tells Danny that The Professor was the head of the cheating ring they were trying to bust, and at long last, he has his man. See -- it would have been so cool to see this play out over a few episodes, with a winning con here and a security bust there. Big Ed remarks, "No sailor but a fool attacks a fortress." Danny protests, "Ed, I'm not really --" Big Ed interrupts him: "I'm playing and you're not: ' No sailor but a fool attacks a fortress.'" Danny mutters, "Lord Nelson in 1793, in reference to naval attacks on harbor fortifications." Big Ed explains, "See, Nessa got The Professor to attack us." Danny's a little pissed that Big Ed played him; Big Ed stands by his decision. Danny's still not happy about it, and he takes off to ribbing from Big Ed about the bad cop routine.
Nessa comes in then, grinning like crazy. Big Ed comes over and tells her how well she did; she thanks him in a low-key way. Big Ed's feeling expansive, though: "I just wanna say I'm very --" "Impressed?" she asks. "Proud," Big Ed says hoarsely. Aw. Nessa tries the "t'wernt nothin'" approach, but Big Ed ignores it. She says, "I think there's more to you and my dad than you're telling me." Big Ed nods and says, "Yup. Yup. That could be very true." Nessa says she's not sure she'd like to know the story, and asks Big Ed, "What do you think?" He replies, "What I do think is that I love you like you're my own daughter, and I'm just very, very proud." Then, before they get all weepy (shyeah, right), he tells Nessa to get back on the floor and continue dealing blackjack. Nessa smooches him on the cheek, says, "Thanks, Pops," and heads out. Awwww.
Cut to a shot of a white bridal bouquet sitting on a table -- and Ethan and Cynthia sitting at the table marveling over their new wedding bands. Oy. Danny walks by, smiling, and then rounds the corner and runs into Nessa. She's there to apologize for being complicit in the elaborate "let's take down The Professor and fool Danny" scheme. He asks how she liked being a scam artist, and she admits, "It was quite fun, actually. I understand the allure it had for my father." Danny tries to pry for details on Nessa's da and gets nothing.
That's okay. It gives him more time to deal with Mary, who's wandering around the casino floor in something of a daze. Danny tells her, "I'm so sorry to hear about Ken." She correctly notes, "You didn't even like the guy." "But you did," he replies. Points to Danny! Mary explains that Ken died from a virtually undetectable brain aneurysm -- conveniently diagnosed at Autopsy-While-U-Wait -- and isn't it ironic, don't you think? Danny goes to take Mary home.
As they walk off, they pass Nessa back at a blackjack table, happily dealing away as the flow of casino life goes on.