By Sobell
The episode starts with a Cat in the Hat promotion where the shrill and didactic goldfish tries for Dr. Seuss's anapestic meter and fails miserably. Yeah, so Will and Grace's Sean Hayes is in the movie. Don't care! Make the incessant promos go away! I will not see this at the Loew's / I will not see Mike Myers's nose / I do not like live-action Seuss / as you already have deduced. I do not like this on TV / I hope it fails worse than Gigli / If these promos go away / I'll watch again another day.
And then the show starts. After the stock zooming footage of the Strip, we get Mike striding across the lobby. A girl calls out, "Mikey!" and he hugs her with a "Happy birthday, you!" A thousand other women then descend, and Mike's smile gets bigger. It's good to be a valet in Vegas. Mike tells Lani the birthday girl he talked to Delinda up at Mystique, and she'll be taking special care of the birthday girl's party. Lani overreacts with joy. Mike takes off again, and the herd of women thunders on through the casino. Mimi Rogers watches them with the avid air of a zoologist thinking of documentary shots.
Danny and Big Ed go by. Big Ed is asking Danny if he's checked assorted areas. Danny impatiently tells him, "Done, done, and done." Big Ed stops and grits, "Danny, do not interrupt me. It really pisses me off." Me too! I've actually called out people during meetings with, "If I can finish my sentence, we'll both be a lot happier." Danny clumsily exposits, "Ed, Janet Ellis is a one-time-only headliner. I get that, okay? This isn't the only major concert I've ever handled." Just then, Danny begins hearing voices. They tell him to burn the local topiary as an offering, then protect France from the infidels. No, not really: he's wearing an earphone, and someone's telling him they've seen a suspicious woman near the entrance. Someone's been watching too much X-Files. Danny turns to check Mimi out, and she turns to check him out. Big Ed continues waving his finger in Danny's face and hectoring him. Danny bluffs that he's listening, and then the camera zooms ominously over to Mimi's sleek tote, where she's managed to pack both a laptop computer and a gun. I'm covetous of her organizational skills. The guys in the security office don't share my admiration of a well-packed tote. They're all, "She's got a gun," and the camera gets zoomy -- with special audio effects, so we know it's serious -- and there's an urgent little moment in which Danny watches Mimi reach into her purse while he's processing that "She's got a gun" statement. And then Danny assumes she's pulling the gun, so he reacts, if by "react," you mean, "Scream 'nooooooooooooooo' while lunging for Mimi in super-slow-motion."