As the show starts, Dan is teasing championship billiards at 1 a.m., a match between two players (and I have no idea if the ones Dan mentions are real or not, but knowing Sorkin they probably are) of whom Dan says, "When those two get together, it's a barn burner," in that tone of voice he reserves for soccer and other sports that Dan considers too marginal to deserve the respect accorded to football, baseball, and basketball. And I really don't understand or appreciate Dan's wit in these situations, because if he's attempting to encourage people to watch more programming on his stations, he might want to try being a little more sincere, because all he's really doing is pissing off real billiard fans. Not that I am one, understand; that shit is boring. , Casey closes with an inane comment about how if the viewers had half as much fun watching the show as they had making it, "well, then, we've had twice as much fun doing the show as you've had watching it." He does this in his trademark deadpan, which is accompanied by that freaky chilling stare he does, possessed by him and stalkers in television movies. And judging from what we've seen, there's a term for people who only have half as much fun as this show: clinically depressed. I got dumped by a girl once, went home, and listened to the Cure's "Disintegration" album for six hours straight. That was more fun than this. Then I went out with my friends, got a little drunk, and picked up another girl. That was more fun. And classy!
In the control room, Dana says, "Nice show, everybody," which is nice, even if it reminded me of that annoying voice-over the credits for Dateline NBC that says, "Nice job, everyone," like, who are they kidding?
At the desk, Dan wants Casey to come out to a bar called "El Perro Fumando," which Casey helpfully translates as "The Smoking Dog." Casey wants to know why he should go. I was going to make a snide comment about how apparently Dan's friendship isn't a good enough reason for Casey, but I suppose I'd be wary of a bar called "El Perro Fumando" too. Danny says if you wear something blue, you get two dollars off a giant blue margarita. Casey says he makes a good living, and he can wear what he wants and pay full price. I guess it's like that old truism: if you have to ask how much the giant blue margarita costs, you can't afford it. Dan says it's not so much the "economic upside" that's cool, but the chance to drink something giant and blue. This fails to sway Casey. Much as I think Casey is a jerk and a wet blanket and all, I can't see myself getting worked up about this either. Likewise, it's not so much the economic upside, but the fact that there comes a time in every guy's life when drinking a giant blue margarita just isn't a thrill. For most guys, that time is when you are born. Danny and Casey start walking and talking, and Dan convinces Casey by telling him Dana's going to be there: "You know what that means." "'Boogie Shoes'!" says Casey, and Dan starts "singing" "Boogie Shoes," and Casey starts "dancing." Jeremy walks into the fray, and they invite him to come along. Casey says, "If Dana gets half a margarita in her there's a better than even chance she'll get up on a table and start dancing to 'Boogie Shoes,'" as they enter the newsroom. Dana, from the other side of the newsroom, says she only did that once. Now the gang gets into a discussion about whether El Perro Fumando is "The Smoking Dog" or "The Flaming Dog." Casey says it's not "The Flaming Dog" because "the dog's not gay." Dana calls him on his subtle homophobia by saying she meant flaming as in the dog is on fire. And now we get a whole sub-argument with Kim and Elliot, who can't agree on whether the dog is smoking a cigar or a pipe (Casey having said the dog is smoking a cigarette). Is this building properly ventilated? These people are seriously fucked up, I mean it. "I say he's gay," chimes in Dan. God help me if I even need to argue about the smoking object of choice of a stupid dog in a stupidly named bar, but if the discussion were also to circle around the dog's sexual orientation, I think I'd be agreeing with the guy excited about drinking the giant blue margaritas.
Natalie invites Jeremy, and he says he'll catch up with them because he's writing to his sister Louise, who is a sophomore at Amherst. "You write letters?" says Dan. "I write to Louise," says Jeremy. "That's nice," says Casey, and because he can't stand it when everyone's not focused on him, he starts going on about how he never writes letters; he does everything by phone now. "My sister can't hear," says Jeremy, shutting Casey up. Then everyone recovers from the apparent shock of finding out one of their colleagues is actually related to a Deaf Person and tell him to come out later. Natalie asks if Jeremy wants her to keep him company. Damn, BACK OFF, Natalie; the dude's just writing a letter to his sister, not waiting for his biopsy results. He declines, and they have this awkward conversation about whether or not he needs stamps, and Casey has to butt in with some crap about how HE can never find stamps, and Dana reminds him that no one cares, but not soon enough for my liking, and I'd like to say that the hearing-deprived Louise isn't missing a thing around these idiots, especially since they return to the smoking-dog debate. Dan wants to know how they know the dog is a he. "'El Perro' is masculine," says Casey. Isn't Dan an Ivy League graduate? I didn't go to some high-falutin' school like Yale or Princeton or the DeVry Institute, but I know about masculine versus feminine words in the Romance languages, and I don't even speak Mexican. "Dear Louise," says Jeremy's voice-over as the opening sequence ends, so we know we're in for an episode that rips off all those M*A*S*H episodes where Radar O'Reilly wrote home.
Back from commercial, Jeremy's voiceover says "Dear Louise" again, because I guess not only is Louise deaf but she needs everything written out twice for her. He starts telling her about how much he loves this place and other boring stuff. "I've only been here three months but it feels a lot like home to me." The camera does this circular pan, and one of the computers actually has an "I (HEART) CURLING" sticker on it, which is kind of cool except it's probably sarcastic, like those "I (HEART) NY" bumper stickers and T-shirts that are so popular. He tells Louise about how the guys invited him out for drinks, and that's never happened before. Poor Jeremy! Well, he didn't fit in at his other jobs, so I guess this makes sense. Wait a minute -- it took the Sports Night crew three months to invite Jeremy out? What a bunch of assholes! Jeremy, apparently giddy from his new-found popularity, essentially blows off his own sister by telling her he wants to join them, so this will be a short letter. He goes on to tell her about the Sports Night crew, starting with Dan and Casey. Apparently, Louise asked about what Danny and Casey are like, and since he's blowing her off, he says he'll tell her all about them in person. "For now, I'll just say that, as impressive as they are on the air..." -- surprisingly, the laugh track doesn't kick in here. We also see on Jeremy's computer screen a letter with about ten times what his voice-over has said so far -- "the thing that constantly amazes me is that the pressure of writing and performing a live show every night never gets to them."