By Daniel
Show fades in on the Manhattan skyline and we hear Dana summoning the first team to the studio. In Dan and Casey's office, Natalie is trying to hustle the boys to the desk, but Casey's on the phone and Dan's just standing there. Casey's berating some poor assistant athletic director for not being straight with him, and you'd think this was going to be an important plot, but it turns out to be nothing. Casey tells the guy on the phone he has to get his notes, so he gets up from his desk and leaves because notes are, well, not sure where they would be if they're not at his desk. Natalie asks Danny about 50 times in different permutations and combinations if he's nervous. We learn that there's an Esquire piece coming out on the guys, and Natalie says that since Dan hasn't seen an advance copy, he should be nervous, as if Natalie knows anything about anything. Dan says he's nervous about the fact that he has a stalker, one of the CSC morning aerobics girls. Yes, because a woman who hosts an aerobics show would really dig Dan's skinny ass. Dan and Natalie try to figure out her name. Sandy? Randy? Mandy? Oh, ha ha! Those rhyme! And it was even funnier because they said it really fast! They decide the stalker's name is Madeleine, and then Casey bellows at Natalie, so she heads into the newsroom, where she and Casey talk about what seems significant in terms of this episode's plot but actually isn't. Natalie seems to have a good idea that it's unimportant, since she only wants to talk to Dan about his stalker, which they do as they walk through the newsroom, at least until Casey all angrily tells Dan to let her go, but Natalie only says, "Casey!" and makes a gesture to let him know he has to be on the air soon.
Casey is now bartering with his source, offering to mention his student's name in connection with the Heisman trophy for the twelve weeks if he'll just "give me this one." And Casey's spotty ethical accountability aside, what's somehow more annoying is that we don't find out what he's talking about. Dan starts waving his arms, trying to get Casey's attention, until Casey, all annoyed at being interrupted, says, "What!" and Dan says, "Natalie says my stalker's name is Mandy," except I thought they'd settled on Madeleine. At any rate, Casey doesn't know what the hell Dan's talking about. Kim appears, since Casey ordered Natalie to get her, and Casey tells Kim to work Ted Lewis, and we finally find out that it has something to do with a coach getting fired. Bobby Knight? Nah. Kim gets on the phone and uses this pouty voice and says, "Ted? You were in town and you didn't call me." I am gripped by this emotion I have never felt when it comes to Kim: annoyance. Oh my god, Kim is annoying me here, and her breasts are doing nothing to stop it. This is all new to me.
Now, as Dan and Casey head to the studio, Dan says it's not as if he's not used to women being interested in him, but Casey says he has no idea what Dan's talking about. When they go into the control room, Dana makes a sarcastic comment about how lucky it is that the sports anchors are here since they're about to do a sports show. "Sarcasm, thy name is Dana," says Casey. Elliot comes in and says, "Toby Benes has a no-hitter in the seventh." So Dana says they'll tease it and go to it live in the ninth. Jeremy says they shouldn't tease it because it's bad luck. "Bad luck for the pitcher," says Dana. Jeremy says yes. "We don't work for the pitcher," says Dana. Score one for her. Jeremy says something about a dilemma, but Dana says she's okay with it.
The show goes live, and the boys tease the top stories. When they mention the no-hitter, Jeremy shoots this half-worried/half-admonishing look at Dana. They go to commercial, and Dan and Casey start talking about Dan's stalker again, and there's more Mandy/Sandy/Randy rhyming name stupidity that wasn't even in the general vicinity of funny the first time and is now grounds for justifiable homicide. Jeremy tells Dana that teasing the no-hitter was a tough call (even though it wasn't) and while he didn't agree with Dana's decision, he respects it. Dana gives Natalie this disbelieving look. Jeremy sure seems to have gotten over his nervousness pretty quickly. Elliot reports that Benes just lost the no-hitter. Jeremy takes Dana's hand and says sincerely, "Don't blame yourself." Commercials.
Casey is glued to his copy of Stuff, I mean, Esquire. Elliot walks by and tiredly asks how often Casey is going to read it. Casey claims he's "searching for nuance," which is an assertion undermined by the fact that I swear I saw his lips moving. Kim wants to know how much trouble Dan is in. Casey reveals that although he and Danny are close, he's not concerned about Dan so much as he's concerned about himself. This shocker stuns the entire newsroom into silence. The problem is that Dan is seen as the cool one, while Casey is, well, not. Dana shows up to talk to Casey, but before she can get a word in, Casey says, "There is a perception in the press, never more clear than in this article, that I'm not cool. Now, where do you think this perception comes from?" Dana, not missing a beat, says, "I think it comes from reality." Heh. She drags him into the meeting room as Elliot suggest to Kim, "It could be his haircut."
In the meeting room, Dana says, "So how much trouble is Dan going to be in?" Uh, why is Dana asking Casey this? Isn't she the boss? It's not Tony Danza, I know that. The big boss, Luther Sachs, has seen the article, so Casey anticipates "a certain degree of trouble." Dana asks, not angrily, if Isaac didn't ask Casey to keep an eye on Dan when the two of them are doing press. "We're working out some kinks in the system," he says. She tells Casey that there's a lawyer in the building with a guy from Standards and Practices. "We have Standards and Practices?" asks Casey. "It's a whole wing of the..." says Dana, but Casey interrupts her and says, "No, I mean, we have actual standards and practices?" Oh, it's a joke. I get it. I get jokes. Dana doesn't think Casey's all that serious. Casey outlines the situation for Dana and the audience: "He belongs to a fly-by-night organization that supports the legalization of marijuana. Is the network going to be happy about it? No. Is Sachs going to order someone to order someone to slap him on the knuckles? Probably."
Then of course Casey steers the issue back to his perceived non-coolness: "I am cool! I'm completely cool! Huh?" "You dress cool," concedes Dana, although I think by doing so, she is still saying he's not actually cool. Then she disses his haircut as they leave the meeting room. "Excuse me?" says Casey as he walks away.
"She says she thinks it's the haircut," says Natalie, waiting outside, doing her patented college-freshman-cross-armed-binder-clutch-to-chest thing with her clipboard. She tells Casey that Jeremy is cutting his first highlight package today, and she wants Casey to give him some pointers. She'd do it herself, except she's developing feelings for Jeremy and might just wind up servicing him in the editing room. Except it took her two hours to say it. Also, she didn't actually use the words "servicing him," but I'm paraphrasing here. They're in Casey and Dan's office by this time, and Casey agrees to help Jeremy out. Natalie gets up to leave as Dan comes in and Natalie says, "You'll be nice to him? It's his first time," and Casey, no stranger to being nice to guys their first time, says yes. Natalie then feels the need to explain her burgeoning Jeremy-servicing feelings to Dan until Casey barks at her and she scurries off.
Casey says, "speaking of feelings," that by the elevator that morning, Mandy the aerobics stalker seemed to be showing no interest in Dan whatsoever. "That's how the game is played," says Dan nonchalantly, which was kind of funny. "What time is your meeting?" asks Casey. "Right now," says Dan, who then parks himself on the couch, because making them wait for him is part of his "strategy." "Yeah, well, it sounds pretty sophisticated," says Casey. Casey then says they did the interview for that piece three months ago, so if Dan knew something like this was going to happen, he might have warned Casey. Dan says they completely missed the point and he had no idea they were going to completely miss the point three months in advance. Casey asks him what the point was. "The point was that any law that makes criminals out of fifteen million Americans is probably not such a good idea. The point was that drug abuse is not a criminal issue, it's a health issue." And also spending the money more wisely than on prosecuting a surfer in San Diego, et cetera. Casey agrees they missed the point, then: "Hey, can I change the subject a second?" Well, I wonder what topical detour Casey might make here. "What is up with me not being cool?" "What is up with that?" says Danny agreeably. "I love music! I have a great appreciation of music!" says Casey. "Dude, I've been in your car, you have the Starland Vocal Band singing 'Afternoon Delight,'" says Dan, except he sounds like that's a good song, and Casey of course can't tell Dan's playing with him. "That's right!" he says, pointing at Danny, then clarifies that he doesn't actually have the album, but it's on his Time Life "Sounds of the Seventies," like good thing the Esquire writer didn't have that piece of information. "Well, there you have it," says Dan. And when the laughter subsides, it's time to get serious. "How can I be cool again?" Casey asks Danny, and Danny contemplates Casey in some insipid version of My Fair Lady and says, "Well, first I'd have to disabuse you of your notion that you were ever cool before." So Casey laughingly tells him to go to his meeting.
Danny doesn't, though; he gets up and sits on a corner of his desk with his back to the door, so were anyone to walk in the office, Danny wouldn't immediately see them. Never seen this done on television before. Dan says he's just making them wait, but Casey figures Dan's making them mad. Isaac walks in; Danny doesn't see him. D'oh! Casey, spotting Isaac, says, "I think Isaac, specifically, is mad." Dan then blathers on about how Isaac "understands" him and is hip to Dan's "battle plan" and a whole lot of other nonsense until Casey tells Dan that Isaac is right behind him, and Dan, a lot less cocky, starts sucking up until Isaac tells him to get his "sorry ass" to the meeting. Dan scurries off. Casey, never one to wait for a more appropriate time and place to get his ego stroked, says, "Isaac, you think I'm cool, right?" Isaac just stares at him and says, "Do I look like I'm in the mood to do this right now?" and Casey says "no" and Isaac says, "Then let's assume I'm not," and leaves.
Isaac's office for the knuckle-slapping meeting. There are a couple of suits there. One is this tweedy balding guy, and the other is the guy who played gun-happy police officer Tackleberry in a series of films that are arguably the finest movies in cinematic history, Kryzystof Kieslowki's Trois Couleurs (Sars, could you double-check that for me? Thanks). ["Sorry -- too busy reading up on Julie Delpy's exquisite performance in French Vacation." -- Sars] Except that, in a Stallone-esque bid to look more respectable, Tackleberry has a goatee and glasses. Whatever, Tackleberry. The suits want to know who encouraged Danny to get involved in this group. Dan says it was his own idea. Tackleberry suggests that it was the flaky new English teacher, but Dan denies it. Tackleberry relates how, just the other day, he was walking by Dan and Casey's office and they were ripping pages out of their textbooks. The upshot of the meeting is that the suits want Dan to give up Mr. Keating and sign a paper saying it was all his fault, and Dan won't be fired. Danny won't sign, but his dad (did I mention Danny's parents are there? His dad is played by the dad from That '70s Show, the mean guy who says "ass" all the time) gets all mad and is all, "Sign it, Danny!" and Dan is practically crying, and Tackleberry says Luther Sachs is suggesting that Dan apologize on air but Dan isn't having it. And while I agree in principle with most of what Dan says here, he does get a bit annoying when he starts pompously spouting stuff like, "Actions are immoral, opinions are not," and even prefaces one of his statements with, "For those of us fortunate to be the subject of magazine articles..." Yeah, in Esquire, standard-bearer of world-changing ideas and debates. The magazine is all about deep thinking, as evidenced by its recent selection of Matthew Perry, Pierce Brosnan, and Shaquille O'Neal as Men of the Year for...what, exactly? None of them even write for MBTV or anything. I drifted off here, into my increasingly frequent daydream involving Destiny's Child. Yeah, that's right. I'll pay your bills. I'll pay your telephone bills. And your "automobills," whatever those may be.
Meanwhile, back in Isaac's office, Dan has finished describing his heroic efforts to "raise the level of debate." Tackleberry says, "Plus, there's the health insurance issue," taking off his glasses (prompting Isaac to say, "Hey! Tackleberry, right?"). He's concerned because Dan is quoted as saying he hasn't used drugs in eleven years. "Eleven years ago today, as a matter of fact," says Tackleberry. There's a neat coincidence. Wonder if that will come into play later. It's the specificity of Dan's answer that concerns them, since that's information that generally only a recovering addict or alcoholic has. Dan takes umbrage at this, and Isaac ends the meeting, saying Danny will apologize. "You think I should apologize?" asks Dan. "No. But you're going to anyway." "Why?" "Because this is television and this is how it's done." Then, making his earlier pretentious statements seem almost self-effacing in comparison, he says, "Yeah, well, sitting in the back of the bus was how things were done until a 42-year-old lady moved up front. I'm not very impressed with how things are done, Isaac." Isaac shows the suits the door, then turns back on Dan. Dan says he still doesn't know what to say or who he's apologizing to, but Isaac tells him he'll think of something. Then: "Danny, you know I love you, right?" "Yeah." "And because I love you, I can say this: No rich young white guy has ever gotten anywhere with me comparing himself to Rosa Parks." Well said. Dan looks suitably chastened. "Got it?" asks Isaac. "Yes sir," says Dan. "Good," says Isaac, and leaves Danny alone to contemplate his unbearable whiteness of being.
Here comes the comic relief! Jeremy is stuffing a hard-boiled egg into his mouth. Casey moseys up and says he's looked at Jeremy's highlights tape for the baseball game. He says it's good, especially for a first time. Jeremy thanks him, and Casey says the one comment he would make concerns length; baseball games get about 30-40 seconds each, give or take, depending on how exciting a game was. "I see," says Jeremy, "and how long did mine run?" "Eight and a half minutes," says Casey. "I don't know what to do," says Jeremy. "You should make it shorter," says Casey. "I've tried everything," says Jeremy. "You should try making it shorter," says Casey, et cetera, for about ten minutes, like, speaking of making it shorter, Sorkin. Jeremy's looking for more specific examples. Casey points out he starts off with the leadoff batter of the top of the first inning, despite the fact that there was no scoring until the fifth. And it goes on like this, and brevity dictates I don't need to fill in all the details, but this was actually a much better introduction to Jeremy's character than his spaz-out in the first episode, and it laid the foundation for his character that was consistently adhered to for the show's entire run, short as it was. Anyway, Casey takes him into an editing room to help him out.
Meeting room; production crew going over tonight's show. Chris and Will argue about whether it's gels or the monitors making the set look beige, probably fulfilling some sort of line-allotment-per-episode clause in their contracts. Dana ends the meeting, then remembers that they have to add some time for Dan's apology. Kim's incredulous that Dan's going to apologize. "To who?" says Elliot. "I don't write Dan's scripts," shrugs Dana. Natalie trails after Dana and says Casey's in editing with Jeremy. "Do they need anything?" asks Dana. "Casey needs a woman," says Natalie. "Don't start that!" says Dana. "He's a single man living his life in an empty apartment," says Natalie. Cough. Just what is she getting at here? "He got divorced two weeks ago," says Dana. "He needs spoons, he needs forks, he needs a woman," says Natalie. Dana doesn't even thank Natalie for placing her on the same level as kitchen utensils. As Dana tries to go over instructions for the show, Natalie keeps trying to tell her that Casey's "reaching out" and that she's missing the signs. "Really?" asks Dana. "Reaching RIGHT out to you!" says Natalie as she throws her hand up, and the Seinfeld actors should get royalty cheques for that little acting technique.
Later, Casey and Jeremy are still at it in the editing room with some woman we've never seen before. Ha ha ha, not that "it" -- they're cutting down Jeremy's highlights tape. "We've been at this two hours now, which is just slightly longer than your coverage of the seventh inning stretch," says Casey, which was pretty funny. Jeremy is pacing around, presumably because his masterpiece is being ripped apart. Natalie taps on the glass (I guess because she doesn't trust herself in the same room as Jeremy) and asks how things are going. Casey says they're fine, but Jeremy says they're having some very healthy creative differences. Natalie says, and I spit up my bourbon laughing, "Casey listens to the Starland Vocal Band so I wouldn't take any stock..." and Casey charges the window and yells, "Go away from me now!" and Natalie scuttles off. Heh.
Back to work: Casey wants to cut the bit where the batter taps dirt from his shoe and spits four times. Horrified, Jeremy says, "We can't cut that! Storm clouds are gathering!" That was pretty funny too. As Jeremy pleads his case, he says they have a responsibility to give the viewer more than just the score: "We have an opportunity to affect their appreciation of baseball!" "God knows you've affected mine," says Casey. Dana comes in and says she needs to make room for Dan's apology, she just wants "the double off the wall, the homer in the fifth and the error at third." "That's a travesty!" cries Jeremy. Ignoring that (I rather like Dana when she's all business like this), she just says, "I need it in my hands right now," and reminds Casey they're on air in fifteen minutes. Jeremy leaves, and Dana starts to get a little nervous with Casey. Then she blurts out, "Do you need spoons?" Casey's not sure what to make of this. "And a fork?" she asks. "Do I need spoons and a fork?" asks Casey. Dana then says she was just wondering, since she knows he hasn't been in his new apartment very long. He assures her he has spoons and a fork, and makes to leave. "You got a whisk?" she says. Who in the what now? Casey's not clear what that is. She explains that when you make scrambled eggs, you "stir it in the bowl really fast," and she mimes it, like how painful is this? And I thought a whisk was one of this miniature brooms. "I can't just use the fork?" says Casey. "Truthfully, yes," admits Dana. Casey gives her this "you are a head case" look and walks away. Dana collects herself and starts barking orders at people.
we're in the middle of the show, and the boys have thrown to the ubiquitous Kelly Kirkpatrick. "You know who I didn't see today?" says Dan. "Mandy the healthy stalker?" asks Casey. Ding ding ding! "That's because she's not stalking you," says Casey. Dan looks at him, and I think they forgot to turn on the laugh track for that one. Nice little non-plot that stalker thing was. In the control room, Natalie is asking Dana -- well, I'm not sure what she's asking. She's whispering, maybe because the mic that's right to her mouth can't pick up stage whispers, and she says, "Did you talk to him about...?" and Dana says. "Yes," and Natalie says, "And did he...?" and Dana says "No!" and Natalie says, "You talked to him about spoons and forks?" and Dana says, "Yes." So whatever the hell information was just exchanged here I'm not sure, but it only convinces me more that women's brains work on a far more complex level than mine does, which is why I always dread the question "What are you thinking about?" when it's asked, as the fair sex like to do during intimate moments, and I feel pressured to come up with something sweet and romantic, but I'm usually thinking something like, "I thought I'd never get that stupid thing unhooked" or "Don't fall asleep yet because she hates that and I won't get to do this again for a while and I like doing this." So of course I say, "Nothing," which is admittedly not the best answer either and certainly doesn't guarantee a repeat performance.
Anyway, Isaac pops into the control room and tells Jeremy he did good work on the highlights, and Jeremy bitches about how the life was sucked out of it, and Isaac says he knows how Jeremy feels, whatever that means. Dana tells them to be quiet. The show goes back live. Casey turns it over to Dan, who says the network has asked him to clarify some remarks he made in a magazine article: "It is possible that one could come away from this article with the impression that I don't believe that drugs are a destructive and deadly force on our culture, our economy and the lives of our children." Then he pauses. Long pause. Reaction shots of the crew looking concerned. "Stay with him," says Dana. "Come on, Daniel," says Isaac. Finally (it was a twenty-one-second pause, very long for live television), Danny tells a story about his younger brother Sam, whom Dan calls a genius. "As a kid, he tested off the charts." Dan says Sam was a great source of pride to his parents. "And there's no doubt he'd be living a great life right now, except that he's dead. 'Cause when you're fourteen years old, all you really want to be when you grow up is your sixteen-year-old brother. And in my case, that meant smoking a lot of dope." Dan says the day he went to college was the day Sam got his driver's license, and he celebrated by going on a drive with some of his friends, drunk and stoned. "He never saw the red light he ran, and he probably never saw the eighteen-wheeler that put him in the side of a brick bank either." Another long pause. "That was eleven years ago tonight. And I just wanted to say, I'm sorry, Sam. You deserved better in my hands. And I apologize." His voice gets a little husky on "apologize." He then throws to commercial. "We're out," says Dave. No one in the control room or on the set says anything. Casey slowly slides his chair over and says, "Can I just say one thing about the Starland Vocal Band?" Surprisingly, it's not an ego thing -- it relaxes Danny, who smiles and says, "Sure." Much to my chagrin, however, the show outros with "Afternoon Delight." And somewhere in Manhattan, an editor at Esquire is chewing out his poor reporter for missing the story of Dan's younger brother Sam.