By Daniel
We are welcomed to the show by the dulcet tones of Kim giving the "five minutes to air" call and summoning the first team to the studio. And I'm a lot more encouraged by this episode already, because Dan and Casey stroll out of their office announcing to themselves and everyone in the general vicinity that they are pumped and that their pumpitude is "excellent," and you just know this is going to get annoying before long, but it's preferable to the crabbiness and bored looks we've been greeted with more often than not lately. Dan and Casey start talking about how "five minutes to air" are the best words in the English language. No, the best words in the English language are "No, go ahead and watch the hockey game. I can watch Ally McBeal week. And since I'm up, can I get you a beer?" Of course, by saying that, I've probably ruined any chance I have of hearing those words for some time. Casey then says "five minutes to air" in French, Spanish, and German (the latter prompting Danny to say, "Now you're just showing off"). This little dialogue exchange reveals a flaw in so, so many sportscasters: they're failed jocks. I don't mean has-been jocks -- failed jocks. Dan and Casey compare the rush of showtime to the rush of game time. Yeah, tackling people and reading aloud about other people tackling people are the exact same thing. Dan asks Casey if Orlando Rojas pitched this afternoon, but Casey doesn't know. Dan asks Natalie, but she doesn't know either. "Thank God none of us work in sports!" yells Dan, because I guess it's okay for him to not know, but not anyone else. As the guys sit down at the desk, Natalie asks if they've heard from Jeremy, who's gone to his parents' house. They haven't. She heard from him the first night, but not last night or today. Dan says Jeremy's probably just busy and Natalie accepts that, even though she looks like she's just this side of freaking out. Casey, ever the sensitive man, says, "Maybe he met another woman and forgot all about you." He changes his tune, however, when Natalie offers to jam a No. 2 pencil up his nose. Up his nose is probably the only place it'd fit.
In the control room, Chris gives a heads-up that they're two hours ahead of Baja California. Will says they're three hours ahead. Elliot points out that Baja California isn't on Daylight Savings Time. Kim says "the whole country is on Daylight Savings Time." I get a little messed up here, because for the first time ever we didn't get one line from each Tertiary Character before a TC gets a second line, as we go back to...Chris, who says, "Baja California isn't in this country," and Dave speaks, so his agent can probably stop yelling at Sorkin to give him some dialogue already, and what Dave says is, "California isn't in this country?" and Chris is totally hogging all the lines here as he says, "Baja California isn't in California," and we all learn (or maybe some of us already knew) that Baja California is in Mexico, but I could hardly pay attention to that, because I happen to live in the one province in Canada that doesn't practise Daylight Savings Time, Saskatchewan, and you have no idea what a controversial idea it is here. Every so often someone suggests adopting Daylight Savings Time for a variety of reasons, usually having to do with gaining longer nights to play baseball and golf in the summer, and someone else gets their back up over it for a variety of reasons, ranging from "why should we change" to "it's confusing." Yes. Setting your clocks back or forward one hour twice a year is so confusing that an entire continent has been able to manage it for decades, including Alabama.
Anyway, since the two-minute warning is synonymous on this show with Extreme Word Overuse Syndrome, here comes Dana to say about 150 times that she is "pumped," and remember how I said before with Dan and Casey that this was probably going to get really annoying? Well, here we go. And as many different ways as Dana says she's "pumped," that's how many different ways other characters will either tell each other that Dan is "pumped" or ask Dana herself if she is indeed "pumped." And God forbid that anybody else change the subject away from Dana's pumpedness, since that is not allowed to happen. Example: Natalie frets about why Jeremy hasn't called her. A normal friend would probably either offer to listen or reassure her that Jeremy's probably just busy (which I concede that Dana does here, albeit half-assedly). Granted, just before showtime really isn't the best time to address concerns about your boyfriend, but you know what Dana's advice is here? She tells Natalie she should "get pumped," which is probably the worst display of non-empathy from a friend in the history of friendship, made all the more unforgivable when you consider that the last two episodes have consisted almost solely of Dana whining to Natalie about her own man troubles. I'm not talking about Dana merely seeking advice, either; we're talking industrial-strength complaining performed at the expense of any other activities such as, you know, work.
But, if you recall, it's not just Dana who's pumped; Casey and Dan are also pumped, we're reminded as we go back to the desk. Casey asks Elliot if Rojas pitched today. Thank God, Elliot knows; he tells Dan that Rojas is pitching tomorrow. Dan asks if he pitched in the bullpen yesterday. Elliot says yes and that Kelly (I'm assuming the often-referred-to-but-never-seen Kelly Kirkpatrick) watched him pitch. Dan asks how his fastball looked, and Elliot says it should be crossing the plate just about now. Maybe I should explain that. After all, I realize the number of people who read my recaps and know a lot about sports is far smaller than the number of people who think Josh Charles is sex on wheels, so what Elliot means is that Rojas's fastball isn't looking very good, apparently. No time for that, though, because Allison gets some lines! Yes! My favourite character on this show! The criminally underused Allison tells the guys to have a good show. Casey says they will, and asks if Allison knows why. "Because you're pumped?" she says. Oh, Allison. Listen to the dreck they have you saying. They give you lines less often than I clean my bathroom, and when they do, they involve you in this whole "pumped" nonsense. Then Casey starts bragging about how he speaks four languages, but Dan argues that he speaks only three: Spanish, French, and German. "I dabble in a little English," points out Casey, which was pretty funny, but it was only a momentary digression because Danny says, "The point is we're pumped." Allison asks if she needs to keep standing there. The boys send her away, and my world gets just a little bit darker. Casey tells her to go "get pumped," and she leaves. We find out that Dan gets pumped by Orlando Rojas and Casey gets pumped by grape jelly, which is really weird in both instances. The boys tease the top stories as the show goes live. Right now I'm pumped for some commercials, which we get after Dana finally makes a sincere effort to put Natalie's mind at ease about Jeremy.
The day, Dan is talking about Orlando Rojas to Rebecca, but she doesn't know who that is. Dan tells her he's a pitcher. "Oh, Orlando Rojas the pitcher!" she says. "I don't know who that is." Heh. Despite the knowledge that she'll break Dan's heart, Rebecca does tend to grow on you. Dan tries to tell her that he's pitching this afternoon, but since she doesn't know who Rojas is, she has a hard time getting excited, or maybe that should be "pumped," about that and she then threatens violence against Dan, picking up a large book and asking if she can hit him with it. He tells her it's Casey's book, and speak of the devil, Casey walks in. Casey gives Rebecca permission to hit Dan with the book. That permission is presumably retracted when Dan finks on Rebecca and tells Casey that Rebecca doesn't know who Orlando Rojas is. "He's a pitcher," says Casey. Heh. Dan explains to Rebecca that, eleven years ago, Rojas pitched a perfect game. "And a perfect game is good?" says Rebecca. Dan and Casey look nonplussed for a moment, then Dan says, "Listen, I know there's a lot of jargon, but some of these are self-explanatory," which really cracked me up. Unfortunately, I can't get too deep into women's lack of sports knowledge, since it's kind of a stereotype. Also, the woman editing my recaps knows more about baseball than I do. ["I did spend several years thinking that 'a perfect game' was a colloquialism meaning that, yeah, the pitcher did pretty well, but also, you had good seats and it wasn't too humid and the hot-dog guy didn't blow you off. My dad finally had to explain to me that it is in fact not open to interpretation. So, for anyone else under the same impression, a perfect game is a game in which nobody reaches base at all -- no walks, no hits, nada." -- Sars]
Fed up, Rebecca decides to take off. Dan escorts her to the elevator and says he can't believe she was married to Steve Sisko all those years and didn't pick up any sports knowledge. Yeah, great, Dan. Bring up past failed relationships. Women love that. Rebecca says it was only two and a half years and besides, does Dan think Neil Armstrong's wife knows much about astro-propulsion? Dan figures Neil Armstrong's wife had at least heard of the moon, when I was expecting his comeback to be along the lines of "We're not talking about rocket science here." Rebecca finally just says, "Sports isn't what I do for a living." Dan asks her what she does do. He knows she's a market analyst, but he doesn't know exactly what that is. Neither did I, and rather than going to the trouble of transposing Rebecca's explanation, you can look it up your own damn selves. But even I would know better than to accuse Rebecca of not knowing what she herself does for living, like Dan does here. Rebecca huffily declares herself "a graduate of the Wharton School," which I have no idea if it means anything or not ["it does -- it's the business school at Penn, which has probably the highest name recognition of MBA programs in the country" -- Sars], but Dan cracks up and asks her to say that again. She asks if anyone has ever tried to kill him. He says yes, but he defends himself with his "superior wit and guile." Yes, you read that right.
And now, having insulted Rebecca's education and occupation, Dan figures now would be a good time to ask her to watch the Rojas game with him later. He plans to tape it and watch it after the show. Rebecca turns him down, because Dan likes her right now and he loves sports, but if she and sports were in the same room together, he might not be as keen about her anymore. I have to say she's wrong at the score. I know what I said up above about the stereotype of women who hate sports, but conversely, a lack of sports knowledge never diminishes a woman in a man's eyes; on the contrary, it gives him an area in which he can feel superior, an area where he can feel like a woman needs his help, because, let's face it, in what other aspect of life can a man feel like a woman truly needs him? Other than for killing spiders? Dan, feeling cocky, asks Rebecca what makes her so sure he does like her right now, and Rebecca points out his penchant for stalking her. He says she's making too much of that. Is anybody really interested in yet another "Dan wins over Rebecca" scene? I know I'm not, especially after Dan smugly points out that he went to Dartmouth and then talks about breaking down Rebecca's Wall of Pain, with its bricks of pain and tears for mortar, and maybe instead of his Dartmouth psychology classes he starts bragging about, he should have enrolled in a metaphor class or two, because he stumbles over the third material used to build brick walls with, and Rebecca says it's just bricks and mortar. Dan isn't sure. Look, even I'm able to come up with a trowel of cynicism, and I didn't even go to Dartmouth. As Rebecca gets on the elevator, Dan is still going on about tearing down Rebecca's wall of pain. "For I am Dan, doer of good deeds where women are concerned." This shit works no better for him here than it did in Dead Poets Society. The two other women on the elevator just stare. Dan struggles to maintain his dignity with a "how y'all doin'," and the doors close as Rebecca explains to the other women that they're just friends.
Jeremy Goodwin, in the newsroom, on the phone, ordering up some nautical charts. He's interrupted by a squealing Natalie, who's excited that Jeremy's back. So excited, in fact, that she can't wait until he gets off the damn phone before she starts asking if he got the card she sent and the box of Good 'N' Plenty. When he gets off the phone, he thanks her and apologizes for not calling last night. "Or the night before," she reminds him. It would be a good idea if someone reminded Natalie that Jeremy's parents are getting a divorce, so this really might not be about her. She says she's such a good girlfriend that she's not going to ask why he didn't call. This is, of course, followed by her asking why he didn't call. He tells her it was just one of those things. She presses him until he shuts her up with a pointed "Natalie" or two. The phone rings, and he picks it up and starts talking about nautical charts that he needs because he wants to figure out what happened, while all Natalie can do is point out she bought him the big box of Good 'N' Plenty.
Conference room. Dan and Casey sit, by themselves. They look around, fairly certain there's supposed to be a rundown meeting going on, wondering why no one else is there. Casey seizes the opportunity to start bragging about how well-rounded he is. His evidence: he speaks many languages, he knows how to juggle, and he plays the piano. And just so you know how desperate I was for something to happen, I passed the time by comparing myself to Casey. I can juggle and I play the piano, but I only speak two languages. You'd be surprised how much it depresses you to measure yourself against Casey and come up short. Dan is likewise desperate to escape Casey running down his good qualities, and demands that people enter the room. As if on cue -- well, it is a television show -- everybody else starts coming in from both ends of the room. You'd think a larger audience would only encourage Casey to continue, but here it shuts him up. Dana gives Will crap for sitting in Isaac's chair. Will feebly says, "I thought Isaac wasn't here," but Dana says he still can't sit in Isaac's chair. Does that rule apply to everybody, or is it just because this is Will, the office doormat? Dana starts going on about how excited she is because this meeting only has nine items to cover and they're going to quickly get through them. Then she says "bam!" a whole bunch of times and really, any time that might have been saved she has totally wasted by babbling endlessly about just how quick this meeting's going to go. Dan interrupts her to say, "Dana," and he puts his hand up, and Dana groans and covers her face with her hands and says, "This meeting sucks!" and maybe somebody should be concerned about Dana's bi-polar disorder here.
Anyway, Dan interrupts just to tell everybody that he's taping the Orioles game because Orlando Rojas is pitching, and he's warning everybody not to mention the outcome of the game in his presence. He wants to share a sports experience with Rebecca. Aw, isn't that sweet. If only there were the occasional sporting event in New York, Dan wouldn't have to tape something. Casey reasonably points out that it might be difficult for Dan not to find out since, essentially, it's his job to find out. Not to worry, because apparently Dan has spent the entire day figuring out the logistics of it. He instructs Casey to take the Orioles game, tells Elliot to reroute the sports wire so that Dan doesn't get American League scores in his office, and asks Kim to coach the staff in signals to warn each other when Dan is coming so they'll know to shut up about the game, and he wants a blindfold and a Walkman and tells Dana that, just to be on the safe side, she should put a Hefty bag over the floor monitors. Okay, now I forgive Dana's extreme reaction earlier. Dana asks Natalie to kill her now, which is likewise completely understandable. After Dan's done, Dana thinks they're going to get back on track, but Jeremy has something. He says tomorrow is the tenth anniversary of the wreck of The Sword of Orion in the Governor's Cup, a sailboat race from New York to Nassau. Casey says something about not noticing Jeremy. He's over there, Casey, behind your battleship-sized ego. Jeremy lays it out for them: The Sword of Orion was favoured to win, but went "massively" and "inexplicably" off-course into 90 mph winds and 30-foot seas. He says the tactician, the son of the boat's owner, was thrown overboard and drowned, and some other dudes went overboard but they were later rescued. For his feature, Jeremy wants to recreate what happened. I won't list all the work and sources Jeremy has amazingly already lined up, but it's impressive. Then he starts babbling about getting the nautical charts and learning how to read them, which he's confident he can do. The more he speaks, the more obvious it is to everyone (demonstrated by shots of the rest of the crew listening, slightly puzzled) that this feature really means a lot to Jeremy. The reasons will be made anvil-clear later on. He asks Dana for permission to do the feature, but she seems unsure. "It's a good idea, Dana," says Casey quietly. Dana recovers; she seems a little stunned, but was probably just confused by the sudden poignant lite electric guitar that has kicked in to underscore the gravity of Jeremy's request. Dana gives him the okay and tells him to keep Natalie posted. Commercials.
Dan has apparently stalked Rebecca all the way down to her office, because they're standing in the hallway, arguing. Rebecca says she never said she'd watch the ballgame with him, but Dan says he figured she secretly wanted to. And Dan can't stop asking about how it came about that she never watched a game with Steve Sisko, and she freaks about how he always uses Steve's full name, which drives her crazy. Then she says that everything he does drives her crazy. Meanwhile, these unnamed extras keep saying hello to Dan, and it pisses her off that he is already friends with everybody on her floor. Then there is some more eye-roll-inducing "for I am Dan" stuff, but it seems to work on Rebecca, who starts walking to her office with a half-smile on her face. She starts asking Dan questions about Rojas, like if he's good or not. Dan says no one knows, because he's been out for two years after shoulder surgery. Dan says some stuff about interviewing Rojas, who is "one of the good guys." He pitches for the Orioles. Rebecca asks what happens if Baltimore wins. "Nothing," says Dan, confusing Rebecca, who thought maybe they'd go to the championship or something. Dan explains that the season hasn't even started yet; this is just an exhibition game. The look on Rebecca's face is the perfect expression of someone who just doesn't get sports. She asks what the big deal is, then. Dan explains, in all seriousness, that if Rojas pitches well, he might not get cut from the team as quickly as everyone thinks he will, which cracked me up. But Rebecca has lost all interest and gets back to work, while Dan rhapsodizes about how there's nothing like watching a guy realize he's not done yet; it usually goes the other way. Rebecca is suddenly irritated again, and maybe Dan should consider these mood swings of hers before he asks her out again. She tells Dan she'll probably just go home and take a bath and go to bed. "Should I stop trying to sell you?" he asks. She says yes and starts walking out of her office. Dan follows, and says, "Let me try to sell you." As I did with Dana, I take back my comment on her mood swings; Dan's getting on my nerves now, even more so when he explains that he knows that, deep down, Rebecca really wanted him to sell her. Someone else says hello to Dan, making Rebecca flip out. She yells for everyone to stop being friendly to Dan, who starts in again with the pestering: "Number one, there'll be pretzels." This is the part where Sars would say, "Shut up, just shut up. You had me at 'pretzels.'" Commercials.
In an editing room, Jeremy has the all-important nautical charts spread out on the floor in front of him as he explains what happened on the night of the storm. Even more important, he has all those cool things you used to get in geometry sets when you were in grade school. I used to poke Brandy McGee with them, which was my way of saying that I wanted to, well, poke her. Give me a break, I was 12. It was either that or yank her ponytail. Okay, I did that too. Jeremy's finally interrupted by Casey, who asks if something happened at home that he wants to talk about. Jeremy says no, just that his parents are getting divorced. "I mean, it is what it is," says Jeremy, and he plunges right back into the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald. He says that a few minutes after midnight, The Sword of Orion turned to a new heading of 82 degrees south. "And that was the last mistake they'd have a chance to make." Damn. I'll say this for Jeremy: he knows how to tell a story.
Dana enters the control room with Natalie and tells Dave that she wants to have a look at the graphics for tonight's show. Dave says she can see them, but the TCs should probably do the talking. Dana wants to know why. "You frighten the people in graphics," says Dave, which Dana denies. She says the people in graphics are her friends. "That's not quite right," says Natalie officiously. She explains that Dana sometimes expresses her displeasure with their work in a way that makes them want to take their own lives. Heh. Dana's flabbergasted by this. She starts going on about how nice she is. "Watch how nice I can be," she says, putting on her glasses. "Show me thirty." "Thirty's up," says Chris. Dana looks at it for a moment. "Oh, that blows!" she says. Into his mouthpiece, Chris says, "Yeah, she's not wild about it." Heh. You know, as much as Dana irritates me when she whines as much as she has been lately, that's how much I love her when she's like this. She stomps out of the control room, Natalie following her, stepping over the bodies of the graphics people on their way out. Natalie starts jabbering again about how it's not like Jeremy to not call her, and equally upsetting to her is that he didn't get all excited about the big box of Good 'N' Plenty. Dana asks some details about the divorce, and we find out that Jeremy's dad is staying at a motel right now. Dana asks if Jeremy and his dad are close, and Natalie says Jeremy worships his dad: "He's the sweetest man." Dana says it's not hard to understand, then, if Jeremy's a little unsettled right now, but Natalie says there's something Jeremy's not telling her. Dana strokes her arm and tells her not to worry, which brings us right back to the beginning of the show, three hours ago already. Just before they split up, Dana whispers to Natalie, "The people in graphics are afraid of me?" Natalie says yes. Dana smiles and says, "Excellent." Heh.
Down in Rebecca's office, Dan is sitting on her desk and showing some of her co-workers the grip for a two-seam fastball. He tells some extra named Celia not to throw it until her arm is good and warmed up, which was pretty funny. Rebecca comes in and freaks out because "this is so totally [her] office!" Dan tries to soften her up by suggesting that someone show her the grip, but she is getting more irritated by the second. Dan scoots everybody out of her office and proceeds to annoy her some more as she tries to get back to work. "You really won't watch the baseball game with me tonight?" he says. She says that's right, and he says "really?" and she assures him of it. He looks kind of bummed, and I'd feel sorry for the guy but Rebecca has told him this about fifty thousand times already. Dan says he's not discouraged, and she says "good," and he says "I am Dan" and slouches out of there. Obligatory shot of Rebecca wondering if she's being too hard on him, even though Dan right now is not far removed from a dog humping your leg.
In the editing room, Jeremy is outlining for Casey the Orion references in Paradise Lost, because what sports fans really want are more parallels drawn from Milton. Natalie comes in and asks Casey if he got his "five minutes to air" call. He says "no" and she gives him his "five minutes to air" call, which she could have just done in the first place. Casey looks at his watch and points out there's still ten minutes to air, so she tells him she needs to talk to Jeremy, which SHE COULD HAVE JUST DONE IN THE FIRST PLACE, I mean, it's not like their relationship is a secret or anything. Casey leaves, but actually pauses to brag about how he's leaving without incident, like, Casey can massage his own ego using the littlest and stupidest reasons you can imagine. After he leaves, Natalie sits down without saying anything. Jeremy tells her he's found a lot of good stuff on Orion, both the god and the constellation. He starts describing the constellation to her, looking really sad; Natalie just watches him. "Most people only see the belt, which is formed of Delta, Epsilon, and Zeta, three second-magnitude stars that are spaced equally in a straight line. Beneath the belt is a line of fainter stars, and of these stars, Theta isn't really a star at all; it's actually the brightest part of the Orion nebula." He pauses. "So this great pink star in the Sword of Orion turns out to be something far more complicated and interesting." Natalie sits and waits. Jeremy swivels her chair toward her and says, "My father has been having an affair with a woman for 27 years." Natalie asks if he knows her. Jeremy says no. "How did your mom find out?" asks Natalie. "He told her," says Jeremy. Natalie seems unsure what to say. Jeremy says he doesn't know if he can get the feature done for tomorrow. Natalie smiles and says it's okay. "It's worth it, I think, to figure out how this boat that was supposed to win met with such disaster," says Jeremy. He pauses again. "I'd like to look at a chart," he says. "It's okay," says Natalie reassuringly. "I'm sorry I didn't call," he says. "Don't think about that now," she says. Yeah, no kidding. I sure hope this makes it okay that he wasn't overjoyed by the big box of Good 'N' Plenty. You know, this metaphor was pretty heavy-handed, and normally I'd be asking Sars to format a special 72-point bold font blinking "WE GET IT" over and over again, but Joshua Malina pulled it off. In the hands of a lot of actors, this would have been so much cheese. James Van Der Beek, I'm looking in your direction.
At the desk, Casey is still listing his good qualities to Allison. Now he's saying he can cook. And once again, I'm comparing myself. So listen up, fool: mix one can of condensed cream of mushroom soup, one quarter cup of water, one cup of chow mein noodles, one can of tuna (drain it), one cup of chopped celery, one-third cup of chopped onion, half a cup of cashews. Spoon it all into a greased two-litre (two quart) casserole dish and cover the top with more chow mein noodles. Cover the dish and microwave it on high for 10-12 minutes. That's some old-school tuna casserole, D-Train-style. I'd make it for Allison here, who asks why Dan has his fingers in his ears. Allison doesn't get nearly as many lines as she did before, and Casey just blows her off with a "don't worry about it" and comes in after the reporter at the Orioles game, which Casey refers to as "an auspicious outing for Scott Erickson and the lefty Orlando Rojas." Then Casey rolls his eyes and bangs the desk really hard, which is Dan's cue to unplug his ears (the desk-banging part, anyway; I'm pretty sure the eye-rolling was all Casey). Dan ends the show, and everybody starts congratulating each other on what a good show it was, and in the control room we briefly revisit the whole "pumped" nonsense, and for me it was like in horror movies at the end where the killer is dead but there's one last false-alarm scare to piss you off. Dana quietly tells Natalie to tell the graphics department that the wise thing to do would be to leave the building now. Okay, this was funny the first time, but are they trying to have us believe that the graphics department is suddenly Dana's arch-nemesis? I mean, we're never going to hear about this again.
Leaving the set, Elliot hands a tape of the game to Dan. Casey says he'll pop into the office to watch the game later, but he's going to talk to Jeremy for a moment. Heading into the newsroom, Dan starts yelling for everyone to shut up about Orlando Rojas and the Orioles game, as if Dan and the other members of the main Sports Night gang pay any attention to what the little people say anyway. Dan walks into his office, where Rebecca's waiting. He stops bellowing. She tells him Rojas slipped on a tangerine peel in the locker room before the game, twisted his ankle, and didn't pitch. Dan's totally fooled, but the "tangerine" part smelled like slightly too much detail to me, so I didn't buy it. Dan smirks. "That was nice. You played a little joke," he said. Then Rebecca offers up a whole lot of apologetic blah blah about how Steve Sisko didn't want her in his world of sports and blah blah blah and I tuned out because I once had a girlfriend who used to pull the same shit on me; she got all neurotic when I didn't behave the same way her boyfriend did, the same guy whose behaviour she always complained about. So when I didn't crowd her like her ex did, that freaked her out. And when I didn't get paranoid and jealous like he did when she had to work late, that freaked her out too. And then she'd whine and apologize for it and blame him, which I bought, but only up to a point. And maybe I'm just analyzing this in light of the knowledge that Rebecca goes running back to Steve, but I just folded my arms here when Rebecca started going on about how she appreciates all the effort Dan went to today, but it's just hard for her because of her wall of pain. You see? Yeah, Rebecca, it's not you; it's your wall of pain. Dan cheerfully says he's going to tear down the wall. Bit by bit, he says. In for the long haul, he says. Bit by bit, he says again. Is he improvising here because Rebecca forgot her line? "I expect the process to be excruciating but ultimately worth it," he says. Excruciating, check. Rebecca finally remembers her line and interrupts him to tell him she booked a room at the St. Regis and there's a bottle of champagne chilling there right now. "Could I take you there, please?" she says, eyes wide. Hmmm. You see, it was usually gestures like these that had me going back to the aforementioned ex-girlfriend again and again. It wasn't champagne at the St. Regis -- usually beer on her couch -- but same thing. Dan manages not to completely lose his cool. Rebecca tells him to follow her and heads out of the office, but stops to tell him to bring the tape. Of course, Dan is all, "Tape?" Heh. Then he figures it out, smiles, and says, "Excellent." I hope he knows she's talking about the baseball game. The Beach Boys take us out with "Sloop John B," a song I absolutely love. Dan puts his arm around Rebecca as they stroll through the newsroom, smiling the smile of a man who knows it's in the bag. They wave to Casey, Jeremy, and Natalie in the editing room. So I guess "Sloop John B" was picked because of its nautical theme, although it seems pretty breezy when compared to the fate of the Sword of Orion. I mean, the first mate, he got drunk and broke into the captain's bunk and everything, but still.