Previously on The $treet: Bathroom. Eyebrows told the still pee-dripping Alex that she made out with TES. Alex gave TES his ring back. Donna told Nicky NotKatt that she was under investigation for making restricted trades; Giancarlo warned Nicky to stay away from her. The Rocke-who got up in Rickman's face as the ever-creepy Giancarlo watched amusedly; The Rocke-who told him that he was just afraid of his little boys' club ending. "I am so gunning for you, honey," Rickman replied. Oh, I just saw a two-page ad for the show in a magazine where they're trying to give away cell phones to get people to watch the show. And six cast members are pictured, but not Rickman. That says many very sad things about many people.
Gym. Nicky NotKatt and Rickman ride exercise bikes. Rickman thinks that they should trade people on the market. He says that his "first human IPO" is gonna be Prince William: "Instead of cash flow, we're going to have to measure chick flow." As long as you don't measure good first scenes on The $treet. Nicky complains that he has it tough being "a working stiff from Queens." Rickman tells him that he's in the performing business and that if he was a chick he'd date him. "That might be the nicest thing you've ever said to me," says Nicky NotKatt. Rickman goes on to list Nicky's good points, which for me would have been a very short list indeed. Rickman stops mid-sentence, probably because he ran out of things to say, and is distracted by a woman working out in boxing gear, with a protective helmet. "If I was single," he says, "I would hound her like a crazed jackal. Look at her, it's all that anger. I love it." He says that she's surely a "freak-toy" in bed and that he would do "very very bad things to her." As he begins to list the things he would do to her, she takes off her headgear to reveal: The Rocke-who! Mid-list Rickman says, "and then...I would shoot myself." Credits. And as I watch the credits, I start to remember all the other credit sequences from short-lived television shows I watched and can see how this will fit in very clearly in my mind like D.C., and Wonderland...and Manimal. (Disclaimer #7: Okay. I kinda like this show. It's sleazy and quick and sorta hip. My big problems: the miscasting and the so-far uninteresting financial stories. This show could make it, I'm sure. It just needs...something. And really, if you're looking for a casting hook: Jennie Garth and Molly Ringwald for five lines isn't going to do it. The Kids Don't Care. Like ODB, you have to be for the children...)
GiancarloOffice. Giancarlo reads poetry to Donna and gives her the poetry book. Yes, I always hand people poetry books before I punish them. It softens the blow. He fops about his office, telling Donna that he's sure she didn't mean to buy stocks on the company's restricted list, but the appearance of impropriety is bad enough. When she calmly tells him that she won't do it again, he explains that he can't take the risk; she can't trade anymore. "Why? I'm the only one who made any money around here last week," she observes. Maybe if Giancarlo showed the slightest sense of humor, that tactic would work. As it is, he seems about as jovial as John Goodman at a salad bar. I'm just guessing that Giancarlo's feelings about the show are bleeding into his performance, just a wee bit.
Donna storms down the hall, telling Nicky NotKatt what happened. As they talk, the prick Giancarlo stands outside his glass Oz-like office and folds his arms. Donna asks if Nicky NotKatt is scared that he'll find out he's "sleeping with the help." Nicky says that Giancarlo already knows and that he's afraid Donna will file a sexual-harassment suit. Um, why wasn't Giancarlo worried all those times the men were showing porn on the floor-wide TV monitors or disrespecting the new VP The Rocke-who or trying to measure Timmy-Fell-Down-A-Well's cock? Nicky goes on to tell Donna that it's due to the "professional"-and-"non-professionals"-not-dating clause. Donna is offended by the terminology, blinks a lot, and tells him not to worry: "Us non-professionals are pretty tough." Burn?
AlexOffice. A type-A personality Designing Woman stamps around the office, complaining that her show is in ten hours and that she has to find two new models, and then smokes despite Alex's request that she not. Eyebrows tells the Designing Woman that Alex takes care of this kind of stuff all the time, whatever that kind of stuff is. Two models come in, walk across the room, and the Designing Woman (Nicole), hires them on the spot. Man, time a model tells me how hard her job is, I'm going to make her do some coal mining for a week. Then let's see her bitch that she had to roll around in the sand in a bathing suit for two hours. Alex tells Nicole that "a man named Clive is about to buy [her] company for about $45 a share." Nicole calls Clive a "pompous son of a bitch" and says that she never should have married him. Bah dum pum. Yeah.
Trading room. The blank-looking models (is that redundant?) walk through the room, being ogled and whistled at by all the male extras, and I think one female one. Now, what was it that Giancarlo was saying about a sexual-harassment suit? I thought this was an investment bank, not a construction site. Rickman tells Nicky NotKatt never to get married before you get rich. Suddenly after fucking a hooker in the first episode, Rickman has morals? Good planning, writers.