As this episode opens, Natalie is zipping around dropping off various papers to various people as the show is just about to go live. At the desk, Casey is being fixed up by the fluffers and calls for Jeremy because he doesn't have the shot sheet for the Phoenix game. Jeremy says it should be in there, but Casey says it isn't. Jeremy says "hang on" and starts rifling through his stuff. Casey gets a little more agitated about not having the shot sheet, and Jeremy gets a little more frantic looking for it. "Did not see the Phoenix game, could not tell you about it without I have a shot sheet," says Casey, and I really hope his ESL classes work out for him.
Jeremy runs into the newsroom and yells, "Who's seen Corbin Davis?" but of course the extras are not allowed to respond. Then Jeremy asks if anyone at least saw the Phoenix game. Again, no one says anything. "Nobody, thank you for all your help," says Jeremy and runs on out of there, leaving a little smoke cloud that looks just like him.
Back at the desk, Casey says, "It's not like I couldn't do it without the shot sheet." Without even looking up, Dan says, "Please don't start." Casey continues, saying it's the same as play-by-play, which it isn't, not quite, and Dan tries in vain to put a stop to this madness by saying "dude." But Casey, despite Dan saying "dude," says, "I can do it." "No, you can't," says Dan, finally looking at him. "I got nervous that time," says Casey. "Yes, you did," says Dan. In the control room, more lingo that means they are getting ever closer to going live. Through the back window we see Jeremy still running. Dana enters the control room, giddy and wearing pink. "Two sacks my little brother got tonight!" she says, waving a piece of paper around. "Sacked the quarterback on Monday Night Football, not once, but twice," and I wonder what really obscure, but apt, reference Dennis Miller would make about it. Natalie continues to do Dana's job in addition to her own as Dana brags about her little brother. "That's Whitaker blood," says Dana. "Good blood," says Natalie, and then Dana goes off for about half an hour on how excellent Whitaker blood is and it makes grown offensive linemen cry like little girls. Then Dana tells Elliot to stand where he is because she's going to sack him. "What?" says Elliot. And Dana goes into this gangly, knock-kneed three-point stance, which is probably the best three-point stance you're going to get while wearing a skirt.
In a production room, three guys we've never seen before are watching music videos. You can tell one of them is the head slacker because he's kicking back with his feet up. Jeremy busts in and asks this guy (Corbin Davis, apparently) where the shot sheet for Phoenix is. Corbin seems really confused. Jeremy shuts off the video and says, "Guys, we watch sports around here," and lunges for the door and runs out. I can understand his urgency, but he's too late, because back at the desk, Casey is already holding forth in that pompous voice of his, talking about calling the highlights without a shot sheet like in the "days of old." Dan says again that Casey can't do it. "Why not?" "No other reason than because it's you," says Dan. "What about the days of yore?" "I miss them too," says Dan. Jeremy runs up to the desk and says he's going to slide Phoenix to the fifties, super-speed the tape through and get it to them in the four-block. "Are you telling me it's not that we can't find the shot sheet, it's that nobody did the shot sheet?" says Dan incredulously. "Tell Dana," says Casey. "I'm really looking forward to that," says Jeremy, as he heads to the control room. Then Casey says, "Shot sheets are for wimps." This coming from a guy who cakes on the makeup every night.
In the control room, Dana gets off the phone and Jeremy tries to tell her about the shot sheet, but she brushes past him and heads out to the desk. "Casey, what do you know about Ohio?" she asks; he says, big surprise, "Nothing. What's going on?" "Something about football and drugs," she says. Casey sarcastically says that sounds unusual and is also sarcastically enthused when Dana tells him to come in early tomorrow and "work the phones." Walking back into the control room, Dana is again accosted by Jeremy, who tells her he's going to slide Phoenix to the fifties. "Stand there, I'm going to sack you," she says. Jeremy tells her he needs just a moment of her time, then she can go back to being crazy. Natalie senses that something is wrong and asks, "What's going on?" Jeremy starts to tell Dana that he's going to put together a shot sheet, but Dana gets called away by some Extra, so Natalie turns her nosiness beams on full, although I guess she is a producer, so it is her business. She already seems to know the problem and says, "You're firing him tomorrow." "Can we talk about it tomorrow?" says Jeremy. Natalie tells him Jeremy can plead his case tomorrow, she will tell him for the hundredth time why he is wrong tomorrow, and Jeremy will fire him tomorrow. Dana skips back in, giddily bragging again about her brother sacking the quarterback twice. Then she defines what a sack is, much to the annoyance of Jeremy, who is now grouchy. "He has excellent blood," says Dana. "Whatever," says Jeremy, as the two of them settle in for the show.
Dana says into the mic, "Casey, you got we're sliding Phoenix to fifty?" "I can call it blind," says Casey. Cut to a wide shot of the control room as everybody in unison looks up and says "no!" Casey whines about the lack of appreciation for the days of yore. Commercials. Now would be an excellent time to consider some major plot points so far revealed. Dana brags about her heretofore-unmentioned football-playing brother and his "excellent blood." Casey will be working on a story about football players and drugs. Hmmm. I wonder if -- oh, there's the door. Must be my Chinese food. Almond chicken, wonton soup, and foreshadowing fried rice. Mmmm. Tasty!
Back from commercials, Dana is asking Natalie permission to sack her. Mmmm. This rice is tasty! When Natalie won't let her, Dana says, "My brother can beat up your brother." "My brother is a grad student of comparative literature, my mother could beat up my brother." Heh. Dana, at a rare loss for words, looks around. The rest of the cast look away, probably hoping she won't brag about her brother some more, as the proud big sister has been known to do all episode. Casey walks in and tells everyone that "Jack Kaufman's wife" was brought in for questioning two days ago when a pharmacy in Columbus, Ohio, alerted local authorities. Seems an unusually large number of prescriptions were being written in her name for "fentermine." We learn (well, I learn, anyway) that it's a diet pill, and the "fen" in "phen-fen." "Is Mrs. Kaufman overweight?" asks Dana. "5'8", 114 pounds," says Casey. Uh, to be honest, I'd be a little more suspicious if she were getting all these diet pills and were still overweight, but never mind. Dana then expresses jealousy over the woman's weight. Well, isn't that just like a woman, eh, Sorkin? Casey, all down with the lingo, says Kaufman "rolled over" on the internist who's writing the "scrips." Did she turn in the players she was getting them for? Yes, although she was a "tough nut to crack." Is my use of quotation marks annoying anyone here? I promise I don't make "air quotes" with my "fingers" or anything like that. Nobody asks who the players are, although that would be my first question. Casey says there are also scrips for pendizone. "Oh, man," says Dana, sitting back in her chair, but Natalie doesn't know what it is, so Casey laterals to Jeremy, who might be the office pusher with his encyclopedia-like knowledge, who says the drug has been around for about a year and a half and is one of the world's most powerful oral anabolic steroids. Now we get around to the who, but Casey doesn't know. He says he has an off-the-record source backed up by another off-the-record source that says seven starters from one team are about to be suspended for the rest of the season, including playoffs. "Can we have it tonight?" asks Dana. "I'm on the plane to Ohio," says Casey. So they need a replacement for the desk. "Get Tina," says Danny. Natalie's head whips around far too quickly to not be painful. "Why Tina?" "Why not Tina?" "She's a woman." "I like women." "No kidding." "Tina's fine," says Dana, smiling a little. Casey gets up to leave but pauses to tell everyone that, "Last night? I could have called it blind." Everyone, in unison, says, "Go!" "I'm just sayin'," mutters Casey as he leaves.
As Jeremy leaves the meeting room, he is followed by Natalie, who sings, "Oh, Jerome!" Jeremy, annoyed, wants to know why she calls him that, and she says it's because it's his little-boy name, a little boy too scared to fire one of his people. "You think I'm scared?" says Jeremy. "Scared chicken!" says Natalie. Come on! I heard they said "shit" on Chicago Hope once; can we get a "shitless" over here, please? Natalie wants to know how often this guy can screw up before he gets canned. "This isn't a regular situation. He's related..." says Jeremy. "I know who he is," says Natalie, "and I'm telling you he's not up to the job, on top of which he has a bad attitude. Now go show him the door." Jeremy complains that she's been bossing him around a lot lately and has to be reminded that she is, in fact, his boss and we are reminded that on this show, no one is at all antsy about the possible consequences of sleeping with your boss. It must give all the up-and-coming producers under Jeremy real hope that there's any room for advancement as long as Natalie is calling the shots with her boy-toy at her side. Wait, Jeremy a boy-toy? Never mind, I'm clearly delirious.
Abby's office. Dan sits on the couch digging through a bowl of candy or something. Neither he nor Abby say anything for a while, until Abby says she's starting to feel the sessions are a waste of Dan's time and money. Dan says she's being a little hard on herself. "No, I'm being a little hard on you, Dan." Oh, it's the patient's fault he's not getting better. Dan says he doesn't feel his time is being wasted, although she does charge an awful lot of money -- $700 a month. Dan, in his inimitable style, says that for that much, he should get "the shrink, two rooms and a bath." Abby half-smiles. "Is it important to you that you get every attractive woman you meet to like you?" she asks. And of course we all know Dr. Babe is referring to herself here. Dan says it's important that the unattractive ones like him too. "Why?" asks Abby. "Don't you want people to like you?" says Dan. Abby says she does, and many do, and she doesn't worry about those who don't because many do. Dan says it's easy for her to say that because she looks the way she does. Okay, can we stop it with this "Dr. Abby as ethereal beauty" stuff here? I mean, she's cute, but she's not, I don't know, Jennifer Lopez or anything. ["If you think I'm touching that, think again." -- Sars] Abby asks Dan if he thinks that if he were better looking, he wouldn't have to work so hard to get people to like him. Dan says "no," but from Abby's question I don't know if it was an agreeing "no" or a disagreeing "no." "You think you're good-looking?" asks Abby. Oh, here we go. "I think I'm all right," says Dan. "'Course you do, you can't get over how good-looking you are," says Abby, making me laugh. She posits then that this "thing" (about needing people to like him) must come from inside him, and it's something so fundamentally bad that Dan thinks he has to overcome it or cover it up, lest the whole world run away from him, not unlike two other people Dan knows. He says she always comes back to his parents at the end of every session. "Session's over," says Dr. Punchclock. "What was the point of this?" asks Dan. "In the long run, to relieve you of the pressure of getting people to like you. In the short run, to tell you this: stop trying to get me to like you." He denies it, but she scolds him for flirting with her; she wants him to take this seriously. Uh, isn't his incessant flirting really a part of the problem here? I mean, I thought the point was that he can't help himself and that it's up to Dr. Babe to help him with this. I'm no doctor, but this seems kind of like an oncologist getting annoyed with a cancer patient and saying, "Stop having cancer so I can treat you." Anyway, Dan says he does take it seriously and that he wasn't flirting: "I'm a charming guy, it's not something I can control." Heh. You and me both, brother. Abby kind of sighs. Dan says they could end the whole thing if she'd just admit she likes him. "Not going to happen," says Abby. "I remind you that it is my money," he says. "And I want you to bear in mind that you're the patient, I'm the doctor, and you're in pain." Dan says he has no problem remembering that last part. As he leaves, he tells her to watch him on television tonight. When she asks why, he says, "You'll like me." She says she'll see him week. "That was a joke," he says. "You know what? It wasn't," she says. Commercials.
Dan is standing around watching a pretty girl go by and he doesn't say anything. Kim walks by, and he flags her down and says he wants to put her on alert. She looks a little concerned and asks what he means. "You know how ordinarily I flirt with you during the show?" She smiles and says, "Yeah?" He tells her he won't be doing that. She stops smiling and pouts slightly and says, "Okay." "It's not that I don't like you." "Okay." "Even more important, it's not that I don't want you to like me." "I do like you," says Kim, smiling. God love her. This isn't making it easier for Dan, who can't think of anything to say except, "Well, keep it up." Kim seems a little confused, but she says "okay" and walks away. Dan searches out my favourite, Allison, to break it to her gently that he won't be flirting with her, she shouldn't be alarmed, "it's just something I'm trying," he thinks it's important. "Okay," says Allison. Like water off a duck's back. I think the fact that Kim and Allison haven't responded by wailing and gnashing their teeth might make things worse for Dan. He gets ready to go on air, looking very nervous.
Dana and Natalie are walking through the newsroom, Natalie telling Dana that Casey just got off the plane. "I'm saying, why doesn't he have the names," says Dana. "They'll be faxed to him when he gets here," says Natalie. Oh, yeah, that makes a LOT of sense. Leaving the newsroom, Jeremy passes them coming into the newsroom, so Natalie detaches herself from Dana and follows Jeremy. "Oh, Jocelyn," says Natalie, since I guess he's no longer Jerome. "Please stop that," says Jeremy. "I'm assuming you fired him," says Natalie. "You know what? He's J.J.'s cousin," says Jeremy. "I could [sic] honestly give a damn," says Natalie. Jeremy asks if it's necessary to go out of her way to pick fights with the network. Natalie counters by asking if it's necessary for him to go out of his way to kiss their asses, which Jeremy denies he does. "It's their network, Natalie. We have to work with these people, and the special delight you and Dana take in..." Natalie cuts him off and says he doesn't know what he's talking about, but the way-out-of-proportion degree of incredulity in her voice leads me to believe he struck a nerve with that one. Jeremy says, "They keep us on the air when our ratings don't support it and their paycheques don't bounce." Natalie skewers Jeremy's sellout rationalization by saying she considers neither of those magnanimous gestures worthy of keeping someone on who almost cost them the show. Jeremy snorts, "Cost us the show, it was a hockey game."
Okay. I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that. To demonstrate my newfound hatred for Jeremy's stupidity, I will now transcribe all his dialogue as "blah blah blah." No, I guess I can't do that. Well, I'll think of something.
Anyway, Natalie reiterates that she wants Corbin gone and stupid dork Jeremy promises to do it during the first "c-break."
Stupid dork Jeremy and Natalie walk back into the control room and Natalie says, "Dana, stop sacking Dave." We see Dana bent low, her arms wrapped around Dave's waist with her butt sticking out and her feet scrabbling for purchase on the control room floor. She's explaining about keeping your centre of gravity low. See, the thing about foreshadowing fried rice is that after you eat it, you have to have some again five minutes later, hungry or not. Dave, nonplussed, asks if he can sit down.
The show goes live. Dan introduces himself and Tina Lake, who sounds exactly like Lilith from Cheers. "You're experiencing Sports Night on CSC, so stick around," she says. "Experiencing"? Nice try, B-list. They go to commercial, er, I mean, c-break. In the control room, Natalie and stupid dork Jeremy look at each other and he stupidly leaves the control room to go be a dork or something.
Back at the desk, Dan says, "That was nice." Tina says, "'Experiencing'? You didn't mind that I changed it?" Dan says "no." Tina says, "I'm just trying to plant my flag." Oh, great. Aim for the stars. I guess she wants to be known as "Tina Lake, you know, that chick who says 'experiencing.' That's her thing that she says." Dan says, "Listen, I'm not going to flirt with you tonight." And once again the woman is a little taken aback (either at the fact that Danny won't flirt or at the fact that Danny would bother to explain all this) but still accepting, even though Tina says she likes the flirting. Tina asks if he's okay. "Not even close," says Dan.
Back in the production room of slack, Corbin and his Droogs are watching professional wrestling -- I'd like to insert here how annoyed I am that the local TV listings now include pro wrestling in its weekly wrap-up of sports highlights. Jeremy comes in and asks to see Corbin outside. He then not only doesn't fire Corbin, but he explains how he's supposed to fire him but that he's sticking up for him, and Jeremy's eagerness to suck-up to this kid and apparent need to make Corbin like him seem sadder to me than any of Danny's problems. Corbin reveals he doesn't even want the job, but it puts pizza money in his pocket until he gets out of school, but when Jeremy tells Corbin he's supposed to fire him, Corbin does seem somewhat chastened and promises to do better: "I'm on the team," he says. Jeremy says "good" and walks away, but Corbin stops him by saying, "I don't take sides." Jeremy wants to know what he means. "When J.J. says stuff about you guys, I don't, you know, I don't come back with stuff," and I find it hard to believe that even J.J. would want this barely coherent twit working at the station. Jeremy wants to know what kind of stuff. "Don't worry about it," says Corbin. Jeremy says okay, and Corbin says again that he'll work harder.
Casey comes strolling into the control room and Dana wants to know when he's getting the names, and they continue with the most contrived bit of journalistic non-suspense ever filmed as Casey says "any minute now" and that he's going to go "stake out" the fax machine. There is some inanity regarding Casey surrendering his airplane peanuts to Natalie. Jeremy comes back in. "Did you do it?" asks Natalie. Jeremy, still glum, asks if she has a second. Natalie checks with Dana and then heads out into the hall.
For some reason, Jeremy says he did fire Corbin. Then he says, "but not really." Uh, that would be "not at all," Jeremy. Natalie, disgusted, says, "Put a pair of tights and a party dress on you, you're one pretty little girl." Can I point out that both of the main women characters on this show, in this episode, have demonstrated that the ultimate insult is to call someone a "little girl"? I can? Okay. And I'll also point out that Natalie in particular indicates that "little girl" is a worse insult than "little boy." ["No kidding. Put a pair of tights and a party dress on Natalie, she still sucks. Shut up, Natalie." -- Sars] Jeremy tries to defend his actions by saying he's the only one not acting emotionally and letting The Suits have this one thing if it keeps the peace. Yeah, give them Poland, why don't you, Jeremy. Natalie appears to consider this and wants to know what Corbin said. Jeremy said Corbin said he'd try harder, but those weren't his exact words. Natalie wants to know what his exact words were. Jeremy says Corbin's exact words were "get off my back," and I don't understand why Jeremy would say that, since it doesn't help his case any. Natalie, actually behaving like a boss and not bossy for once, says Corbin is Jeremy's responsibility, but if he screws up again, he's her responsibility. As Jeremy turns to go, Natalie says, "Being emotional about their work never killed anybody. I'm loyal to Isaac, I'm loyal to Dana, and I'm loyal to the show." Jeremy says he is too.
Back at the desk, Danny and Tina are letting the audience experience some commercials. Tina says it's going well, but Dan's demeanour makes her think he doesn't agree, although he's just being non-flirtatious to the point of disdain. To assure her, he says, "I think it's going very well, but rather than 'banter' with you about it, I'll just leave it at that." "Dan, it's not like if you chat with me I'm going to go home with you." Dan, who seems genuinely confused by that, says, "Why not?" In disbelief, Tina says, "What?" Dan says, "Never mind," but I'm still laughing. "You're having a bad night," says Tina. Dan wants to chalk it up to just that and not come to a general conclusion about himself as a result of it. Tina says she hardly ever understands what he's talking about and tells him to keep it together. Dan gets up to go talk to Isaac, sitting nearby.
"She's doing well," says Isaac. Dan says yes. Isaac asks him what's wrong. "She thinks I'm crazy," says Dan. "You are crazy," says Isaac. Dan says he's not helping. "I wasn't trying to," says Isaac. Dan explains that Abby says his flirting is unhealthy. "Who's Abby?" says Isaac. "My therapist, are you paying attention?" "No," says Isaac, in all honesty. Heh. Dan says, "Thing is, she may have a point." "Who?" "Abby!" Heh heh. "Danny," says Isaac, "you're not flirting with me right now, right?" Dan says no. "'Cause that'd just be strange. Not that I wouldn't be flattered..." says Isaac. "Sure," says Dan. "But it'd still be weird..." says Isaac. "I hear ya," says Dan. "Though I'll say this: you're a handsome young man, Danny," says Isaac, getting an almost lecherous smile that was too funny. "Will you stop it?" says Dan. Isaac giggles. Dan's new problem is that he wants to get back his reputation with Tina as a fun and desirable person. Isaac sarcastically says that that will probably go well. Dan rolls his eyes. Dan, listen to me. Cut your losses. Bah. He never listens to me.
Corbin and his guys are watching wrestling again when Jeremy comes back into the production room. Jeremy points out that their show is on right now. "We just switched it for a second," says Corbin, not really convincingly. Jeremy says he stuck up for Corbin, so he'd better put in an effort (translation: Jeremy's not getting any tonight, it better not be for nothing). Jeremy says he put himself on the line for Corbin. "I'll tell that to J.J.," says Corbin, not in a nice "I'll put in a good word for you" way but in a smug "remember, my cousin is J.J." way. Jeremy tells him to tell whomever he wants but to do a better job. Corbin lazily says "okay." Jeremy's about to go, then decides he wants to know what kind of stuff J.J. says. "Does he talk badly about Isaac or Dana?" "Everyone, I guess." "Me?" "Come on, man..." "Never mind, just get back to work." Jeremy turns to go. Corbin says, "Oh, he says Natalie's a nice piece of tail." Oh no you didn't! Jeremy tells everyone in the room but Corbin to get out. Maybe he'll kick this guy's ass like in that Kenny Rogers song "Coward of the County"! Well, no, this is Jeremy. He points at Corbin and says, "You're fired, I'm firing you. Tell J.J. I'm the one who did it." He leaves. Way to go, Jeremy. Don't fire a guy when he screws up, but when he refers to your girlfriend as a nice piece of tail...ah, yeah, that's pretty egregious. Good for Jeremy.
Back at the desk, Dan tells Tina she could make things easier for him by reassuring him that she had a good time being here tonight. "I'm being paid to be here," she says. Dan says she'll tell her friends that she liked it, though, right? "My friends?" says Tina, like it's this concept unbeknownst to her. "The girls," says Dan. "Which girls?" Dan pauses. "The girls in Danny's world of fantasy and psychosis." Tina says, "Daaaan," rather affectionately, "you need to get into therapy." "I'm in therapy," he says. "You need more," she says, seriously now. "I'm not sure how much more I can take." Dana lets Dan know through the mic that Casey's getting the names over the fax and she'll feed the names to him.
Cut to a shot of Casey taking a piece of paper from the fax machine and staring at it. He takes a deep breath.
Danny says to Tina, "Can I ask you something?" Tina, on guard now, says, "Is it creepy?" He says no, and she assents. "Don't you think my obsessive need to get you to like me has less to do with my parents and more to do with the fact that...you look good?" Tina's expression doesn't change, amazingly, since any girl I've used that line on busts out laughing. Er, I mean, nothing. Dan says, "Or is that what you meant by creepy?" "Yeah," says Tina, not unpleasantly. "I'm gonna stay over here," says Dan. "Thanks," says Tina.
Casey walks into the control room with the Fax of Great Suspense. "You got it!" says Dana, excited. "Yeah, listen," says Casey, but Dana grabs it from him all grabby-grabby and starts feeding the names to Dan. "Tommy Reed, Clifton White, Zachary Armstrong..." The camera zooms in as she abruptly stops and the music starts up. "Dana, that's only three," says Dan. Dana stares straight ahead as the other crew members start to wonder what the deal is and look at her. Dana tries to continue but can't. She takes off her headset and says she's going to go call her parents. "Go ahead," says Casey, as she gets up. "Dana?" says Dan. Casey sits down in Dana's chair. "It's her brother, Danny. Kyle Whitaker." Her brother? Aw, fuck me! How did I not see that one coming? Okay, I'm sorry. This was pretty sad, in spite of the fact that you knew it was coming.
Dana picks up the phone and adopts a cheerful tone and says, "Hi, Mom, it's me. Listen. Turn off your television." The show goes back live and Dan breaks the story. Shot of the silent crew in the control room, and the show fades out on Dana on the phone.