Entry 013 - Sports Night 110 (Shoe Money Tonight)
In which professional acumen goes out the window
SERIES: Sports Night
EPISODE NUMBER: 110
TITLE: Shoe Money Tonight
PREMIERE: 8 Dec 1998
DIRECTOR: Dennie Gordon
Holy shit, we finally reached an episode of Sports Night not directed by Tommy Schlamme. If there’s a tracked record of most consecutive episodes of television directed by a single director, that streak of episodes has to be at least high up on the list, I would think.
Certainly if there’s an episode for Mr. Schlamme to eschew director’s credit, it would be this one. There are some directoral choices for this episode that lend itself to a return to that lean into half-hour comedy format I railed against in my entry for the pilot. That lean, however, is not just a directoral choice — there are some writing choices as well which we’d be hard-pressed to find outside of half-hour comedy that produce some mixed results for me, which we’ll have to detail later as we now step through the episode.
CASEY: Hey, I don’t understand the insurance.
DAN: You don’t have to understand the insurance.
CASEY: I just buy the insurance.
DAN: Yes, you do.
For those who have to look it up like I did: “insurance” in blackjack is a concept whereby a player will bet half their original wager for a hand when the dealer’s upcard is an Ace that the dealer has a blackjack, typically with a 2-to-1 payout if the player is correct. Dan’s suggestion that Casey should always buy insurance is questionable as the odds are only really worth it if the player is an expert in strategy and/or card counting, which both Dan and Casey are almost certainly not.
DAN: I’m in the zone.
CASEY: There’s no zone.
DAN: There’s a zone.
CASEY: There really isn’t.
DAN: There’s a very palpable zone, my friend, and I am in it.
“There is a zone, and its population is me. I am the mayor of the zone. I am the zone. The zone has become me.”
“Shut up.”
“Okay.”foreshadowing detected
CASEY: Jeremy, check Natalie’s shot sheet in the 20s, she got something wrong.
JEREMY: You got something wrong?
NATALIE: Yes, I did, wonder boy, and after the show I’m gonna kill myself.
What the fuck, Natalie?! Fuck you for even joking about that! Here I was thinking her character had turned a corner…
JEREMY: We’re having a little thing.
DANA: I’ve been hearing about it all day.
In any other context, this line from Dana would be a damning indictment of workplace relationships, but instead it’s played for laughs. It’s also frankly a sign of how close-knit this group is that Dana didn’t fire Natalie at any point that day for her treatment of the situation. I already feel like I’m going to be breathing through a tube for this episode…
DANA: What’s going on?
ISAAC: I’m shrinking — but that’s not what I came to tell you.
Then why did you bring it up, Isaac?
ISAAC: You wanna listen to me or you wanna tell your funny jokes?
DAN: I can do both.
At the same time?
NEW Sorkin Name: Pete(r)
DANA: Paul and Peter are stuck at the airport?
ISAAC: They’ve been sitting on the tarmac.
Do you suppose Mary is able to stand in for them?
DANA: Casey and Dan are gonna be pretty mad, Isaac, you better get in there and tell them.
ISAAC: I’ve decided to let you do it.
DANA: … Really.
ISAAC: I’m delegating.
…
NATALIE: Who’s gonna tell them?
DANA: Funny you should ask that, Natalie…
Alright, now Natalie has the chance to pass the buck further to Jeremy, then Jeremy passes it to Kim, then Kim passes it to…
NATALIE: Fellas, I’ve got some bad news.
Oh, never mind.
CASEY: When the show comes down, Danny and I are hoppin’ in a limo, heading down the Garden State Parkway, and getting off at the exit clearly marked ‘The Zone’.
NATALIE: That’s great, Casey, but all those things you just said?
CASEY: Yeah?
NATALIE: Not gonna happen.
CASEY: (to DAN) Show her the card thing.
DAN: (leans back) Paul and Peter are trapped in an airport.
Dang, ace detective Dan Rydell in the house — he basically just read Natalie’s mind there.
DAN: We all work for the same network.
CASEY: We’re happy to help out.
NATALIE: I have to say, I’m really impressed with the maturity you two are exhibiting right now.
DAN: Part of the job.
NATALIE: Have a good show. (leaves)
Maturity degradation in three… two… one…
DAN: (snaps pencil in half) Bites!
CASEY: It bites hard.
DAN: Hard bites.
Do you suppose they think this bites?
RETURNING Sorkin Player: Brenda Strong
Character: Sally Sasser
Previous appearance: Malice
SALLY: My stuff’s out there — I talk to a lot of people.
DAN: Just as long as none of them are talking back.
SALLY: CNBC, MSNBC…
DAN: (singing) M-O-U-S-E.
CASEY: Danny.
DAN: Oh, like she’s listening to anybody but herself.
SALLY: Even CNN.
Man alive, have you ever seen a more heavy-handed character introduction? The entire point of this introduction seems to be to establish Sally as a debilitatingly narcissistic woman whose supposed professionalism seems to go second to her desire to get Casey to notice her. Already, we’re being told to hate her.
DANA: I have a keen dislike for that woman.
See?
DANA: And be sure Casey sees your cleavage as you walk out… there ya go.
Oh, good fucking lord — is that what this is going to be? Two professional women whose rivalry has a physical jealously component? I’m already fucking done with this plot arc.
CASEY: So don’t adjust that dial, and while we’re gone, if any talking animals ask you to buy some tacos or beer — for god’s sake, do what they tell you.
He makes it sounds like a talking animal is holding his family hostage.
NEW Plot Bunny: Poker at the office
DAN: You know… it occurs to me that we have some time to kill.
CASEY: Yes.
DAN: And a deck of cards.
CASEY: Yes.
DAN: We’ve been to the ATM.
CASEY: Some people around here with a little too much change in their pockets.
DAN: We gotta lighten these folks up a little bit.
CASEY: Take them off their coin.
Really, guys? We established only a week ago that “disposable income” is a joke to some people in this organization. You sure you want to contribute to making that problem worse?
DAN: You know what they say.
CASEY: About what?
DAN: About money won.
CASEY: What do they say?
DAN: I don’t know, I’m asking.
CASEY: They say it’s twice as sweet as money earned.
Is the eqivalent value in I.O.U.s just as sweet to you? Because that’s likely what you’ll have to expect.
DAN: Uh oh.
CASEY: You’re not in the zone anymore, are you?
DAN: Not in the zone.
CASEY: Lost the zone.
DAN: I’m down here with the rest of you.
Bold of you to assume you were ever above everyone else, Dan.
NEW Plot Bunny: Empty firing threats
DANA: Hey, Isaac, you in here? Whoa! I can barely see you down there.
ISAAC: Pretty funny coming from someone I can fire anytime I like.
“You can’t fire me, I’m impervious.”foreshadowing detected
DAN: Either of you interested in participating in the sport of kings?
DANA: We’re gonna race horses?
DAN: We’re gonna play poker.
DANA: That’s not the sport of kings.
DAN: What’s the sport of kings?
DANA: Racing horses.
DAN: What’s poker the sport of?
DANA: It’s the sport of people who play poker.
Thank you for another edition of Null Semantics Theatre, Dana.
RETURNING Plot Bunny: Women and shoes
Previous instance: The American President
DANA: Ten dollar minimum, three raise limit?
DAN: Whatever.
DANA: Shoe money tonight!
DAN: … Whatever.
Yeah, I’d react the same way, too.
DANA: Isaac, I’m gonna bring along this material on shrinking and read it aloud as we play — unless you think that’s gonna distract you?
ISAAC: No, I just want to make sure you got time to put your résumé together and clean out your desk.
DANA: He’s nuts about me.
Unfortunately for you, Dana, he’s allergic.
NATALIE: We go back to my place or we go back to your place, we have a lot of sex, we watch the 2am wrap-up, we go to sleep, we come to work — what kind of relationship is that?
JEREMY: It’s working out pretty well for me. (NATALIE starts storming out) It was a joke!
Swing and a miss, Jeremy.
NATALIE: It wasn’t the greatest joke I’ve ever heard.
JEREMY: I never said I was opening for Jack Benny.
NATALIE: You meant Henny Youngman.
JEREMY: I meant Jack Benny.
NATALIE: Jack Benny plays the clarinet.
JEREMY: Jack Benny plays the violin. For that matter, so does Henny Youngman, but you’re thinking of Benny Goodman.
Quick fact check: Jack Benny and Henny Youngman were both indeed violinists and comedians, so either one would have worked for Jeremy, probably. Benny Goodman was not a comedian, however, simply a clarinetist bandleader. Correct on all counts, Jeremy.
NATALIE: Do you really always have to be right?
No, in fact, he doesn’t! Remember back before Thanksgiving when he didn’t correct Casey for giving the Roman name for a Greek god? Good times…
NATALIE: We’re fighting because instead of going to the movies with me, you decided to play tennis with Judy Rootie-Tootie.
JEREMY: You guys getting all of this?
WILL: You know someone named Judy Rootie-Tootie?
JEREMY: Judy Restin-Taylor.
CHRIS: The actress?
JEREMY: We went to school together.
CHRIS: I hear she’s great in that new thing.
You know, if we’re going to go to the trouble to make up a famous actress’s name, surely we could make up a movie’s name instead of referring to it as “that new thing”?
CASEY: Hey, we’re playing poker in the conference room. You guys in?
JEREMY: Natalie and I can’t play, it’s important we spend these precious moments together.
NATALIE: Oh, they’ll be no precious moments tonight, darling. You know what I mean?
JEREMY: I think I do.
NATALIE: No precious moments of any kind.
You know they can still hear you, right?
NEW Dialogue Motif: Have you fallen on your head
NATALIE: The guys at Sigma Kappa Pi let me play in their poker game any time I wanted — now why do you suppose that was?
JEREMY: Because you’re a knockout and your parents are loaded?
NATALIE: ‘Cause I’ve got game baby.
JEREMY: Have you fallen on your head?
She must have if she’s naming a Filipino fraternity that doesn’t appear to have chapters in the United States.
NATALIE: Rack ‘em up, Casey.
(sigh) This is going to be a long episode.
RETURNING Dialogue Motif: Tell ‘em X => “X”
Previous instance: Sports Night 107
DAN: Tell them about the time I was in the zone.
CASEY: There was a time he was in the zone.
DAN: … Beautiful.
Yeah, you can surely expect a three-picture deal off that story.
CASEY: Look at your cards, make a bet.
DAN: Fold.
ISAAC: Call.
DANA: Shoe money tonight!
ISAAC: Would you stop that?
DANA: Isaac’s a little cranky, seems that while he was growing up he didn’t get enough calcium and vitamin D.
Hold up — Dana’s holding a cigar here! Did she steal that from Isaac’s fumidor? She sure didn’t get one from him two episodes ago.
SALLY: How are my guys?
(silence; DAN and CASEY exchange glances)
“Stuck on the tarmac — and you?”
SALLY: We are putting together a great show for you guys.
DAN: Good.
SALLY: Well, ‘great’ is relative, I guess, I mean, it’s just the 2am. On your show, though, I could really do my thing, I mean, let it fly!
What in the world… Sally is either markedly tone-deaf or is deliberately trying to get a rise out of Dana. Either way, fuck you, Sally.
RETURNING Verbal Tic: Can I say something
Running count: 4
NATALIE: Can I say something?
JEREMY: Sure.
NATALIE: Of my entire roster of boyfriends — and it is, believe me, quite the lengthy list — you are my least favorite.
JEREMY: Hey, I’m just happy to be on the team.
Heck yeah, Jeremy, rock that positive mindset!
DANA: On segments 10, 12, and 13… (stops to raise her field of view)
Oh, good fucking lord…
DANA: Did he say it like, “hey, you’re the producer, whatever you think is best,” or did he say like, “you’re the producer, whatever you think is best, doesn’t really matter since I know Dana’s gonna look over the rundown and take care of it anyway?”
SALLY: The first one.
DANA: (laughs nervously) Oh, interesting…
SALLY: You’ve got a little thing for Casey, don’t you?
Bechtel Test status: FAIL
So now that Natalie’s been paired off, I guess it’s Sally’s turn to be the walking Bechtel Test failure for this show? How much more purpose-built to being a hated character can this woman get?
SALLY: You know, I don’t mind telling you I could really go for him. We don’t even need to have a relationship — just the sex and the contacts. My friendship with you is the important thing, Dana, and I really mean that.
And hundreds of console players everywhere press the X button…
NATALIE: I know why you’re beating me so much.
JEREMY: It’s ‘cause you’re not a very good poker player.
NATALIE: That’s not why.
JEREMY: It really is.
NATALIE: Or isn’t it just possible that you’re sitting in the good chair?
Is that sort of shit something poker players will actually believe? That some chairs at a table are better than others? The chairs in that room are all identical, for crying out loud…
DANA: Isaac? Did somebody step on Isaac? Oh, no, there you are!
ISAAC: You still work here?
DANA: I’ll never leave you, li’l buddy!
You’re treading on thin water, Dana.
NEW Non-Verbal Signature: Slap upside the head
DANA: Casey?
CASEY: Yep? (DANA slaps CASEY upside the head) Ow!
Isaac’s still there, Dana, you’re just giving him more fuel to fire you.
DANA: You approved Sally’s rundown?
CASEY: Yeah.
DANA: You approved it?
CASEY: Yes.
DANA: Just like (snaps) that, it was approved?
CASEY: Well, I didn’t hold confirmation hearings or anything.
Hey, by that point, confirmation hearings barely made any difference anymore anyway.
DANA: No, you just approved it without even looking at it.
CASEY: Well, I never need to approve your rundowns.
DANA: Thaaaaat’s right!
CASEY: (beat) I have done something wrong, but for the life of me…
No, it’s just that Dana was just hoping to be taken seriously, is all.callback detected
NEW Verbal Tic: Shove it up your ass
DAN: What are you gonna do with your old suits?
ISAAC: I was thinking about shoving them up your —
DAN: No problem.
Come on, Isaac, it was a perfectly benign question!
JEREMY: I’m just gonna run to the bathroom. You wanna come with me to the bathroom, Dan?
(everyone looks at DAN)
DAN: Why, no, Jeremy, I don’t.
JEREMY: You don’t wanna step outside with me and talk on our way to the bathroom?
(everyone looks at DAN again)
DAN: Sure.
JEREMY: We’re just stepping out and going to the bathroom.
They’re gonna go smash, aren’t they?
JEREMY: I just wanted to talk.
Dang it.
DAN: You’re very wise to come to me with this problem.
JEREMY: Thank you.
DAN: Natalie is angry because she doesn’t understand a fundamental principle.
JEREMY: What’s that?
DAN: The principle?
JEREMY: Yeah.
DAN: A man’s past is more important to him than his future.
Way to immediately disprove the wiseness of Jeremy’s move, Dan — it is complete B.S. to consider that a difference between men and women. Plenty of women live in the past and plenty of men live in the future, just as much as the opposite is true.
NEW Dialogue Motif: A Little Punishment™
DAN: You have to stand firm on this, Jeremy. Sooner or later she’s gonna realize that she’s wrong, and when she does you have to stand firm. You can’t forgive her right away, she needs a little punishment.
JEREMY: What kind of punishment?
DAN: I’d withhold sex.
JEREMY: You would?
DAN: Yes.
JEREMY: That sounds like it would be way worse for me than it would for her.
Not if you had followed through on the bathroom opportunity, you coward.
JEREMY: We’ll have an argument and she will take a position that absolutely defies logic. Now, I have a pretty good respect for logic — but then all she has to do is put on one of my shirts.
DAN: The shirt.
JEREMY: She’ll grab a white dress shirt from my closet.
DAN: You’re cooked.
JEREMY: It’s over.
DAN: That’s it!
Maybe you should switch to black dress shirts instead… eh, nah, that would just make it worse.
JEREMY: My chess team is playing Lakeland. I start my match king’s pawn 3, king’s pawn 3, bam bam bam, all of a sudden the guy moves bishop to queen’s rook 7. I lost 32 moves later, but I was never even in it.
I desperately hope Mr. Malina flubbed this line and no one in production noticed, because otherwise Mr. Sorkin wrote a thoroughly nonsensical chess opening. For starters, “king’s pawn 3” — or e3, in algebraic notation — means starting with moving a pawn one square forward when a pawn can move two squares forward for its first move, a vastly superior option for a center pawn. Furthermore, I trust I don’t have to say the same move can’t be made twice in a row — best I can figure, the line meant for one of the moves to be for the queen’s pawn instead of the king’s pawn, which would mean a combo of e3 and d3 for the first two moves from White. Even that poor excuse for a Reverse Hedgehog attempt is an utterly dogshit opening that makes literally no sense to perform, let alone have any viability in any sort of tournament or league setting.
CASEY: I didn’t want to bring this up, but it seems to me, and I’m just speaking as a friend, but it seems to me that your jealously of Sally doesn’t have quite as much to do with her professional acumen as you would lead us to believe.
DANA: Woah there, huckleberry, come on back to the stable. First of all, Sally doesn’t have any professional acumen, and second of all, what the hell are you talking about?
Really? You were just indicating your chest and hips earlier in reference to Sally and you don’t know what he’s talking about? You’re the one who’s left the stable here, sister.
CASEY: I’m just saying that it’s hard not to notice that the woman’s body was put together by a technician very close to god.
DANA: A technician close to god?
CASEY: Well, not god himself, but certainly a high level staff person — senior VP.
So you’re saying she doesn’t actually exist? That would be a welcome change of pace for this episode, honestly — like A Beautiful Mind, only through a collective consciousness.
NEW Dialogue Motif: Legs go all the way down to the floor
CASEY: I think the source of your problem —
DANA: Is her body?!
CASEY: Her legs do go all the way down to the floor…
Yes, Casey, that’s usually what legs do…
DANA: … two of your intros contain puns.
CASEY: Puns?
DANA: Puns.
CASEY: There are puns?
DANA: Yes.
CASEY: Puns?
DANA: Bad ones.
CASEY: Is there such a thing as a good one?
DANA: No.
Hold on — you mean to tell me not only is Sally directing them but she’s writing for them as well? How on earth did Casey even come close to approving that balance of power? What the hell is going on here?
RETURNING Verbal Tic: How ya doin’
Running count: 4
DAN: You give Casey a talking to?
DANA: Yes, I did.
NATALIE: He didn’t really mean anything, Dana, he just wasn’t —
DANA: Bonding!
NATALIE: I’m sure he deserved it!
DANA: Thank you. How ya doin’, Jeremy?
JEREMY: Can’t complain —
DANA: Shut up.
NATALIE: Thank you.
Once again, Isaac is still in the room, folks!
NEW Dialogue Motif: Living on a charitable grant from the X Foundation
JEREMY: Natalie, listen to me — you’ve lost a lot of money to me tonight. You’re basically going to be living the rest of your life on a charitable grant from the Jeremy Goodwin Foundation. Take the hundred bucks back and fold.
NATALIE: Scared?
JEREMY: I’ve got a straight, you’ve got three sevens.
NATALIE: You don’t have a straight.
JEREMY: Look at me — I’m not lying to you. I have a straight.
NATALIE: How do you know I don’t have a big house?
(pause for laugh track)
Fucking goddammit, I had almost forgotten about the laugh track — must we have a massive pause in dialogue there?
JEREMY: I want you to trust me right now. I want you to say to yourself, “Yeah, I’ve dated a string of jerks in my life. They were stupid, they were mean to me, but maybe this one’s different. Maybe I should take a chance and not adopt the ‘break up with him before he breaks my heart’ strategy.” I want you to remember that when I started liking you, I didn’t stop liking tennis — and I want you to know that I don’t think there’s a woman in the world that you need to be threatened by, no matter how glamorous you think she is. But mostly, I want you to trust me just once when I tell you that you have three sevens and I have a straight.
This monologue is basically exactly what Jeremy needed to say, going precisely to the root of the issue between the two of them. It’s almost as if Jeremy actually took something from the absolutely horrendous attempt at advice Dan gave him — either that, or he had this in his back pocket the entire time and the sidebar with Dan was completely unnecessary. Given the pace of the rest of this episode, I’m not sure which one is more likely anymore.
NATALIE: You’re bluffing so hard it’s coming out your ears.
Oh, fuck off.
JEREMY: Six, seven, eight, nine, and guess what? Five.
DANA: That was cool.
(JEREMY starts collecting his chips)
NATALIE: I don’t deserve you.
JEREMY: No, you really don’t.
He’s right, you very much don’t.
JEREMY: Natalie, I think it’s best if we spend tonight apart.
NATALIE: You’re probably right. I’ve got no clothes at your place anyway, so I’d just end up having to wear one of your shirts, and I know how much you hate that.
(long pause)
JEREMY: (slaps table) I was never even in it!
Really?
CASEY: Where are you guys going?
DAN: White dress shirt.
CASEY: Got it.
I don’t know, man, she’s no Annette Bening…
CASEY: Dana, you’ve either got to stand over that woman’s shoulder or you have to call everyone in the Pacific time zone and tell them I’m not really like this.
DANA: Ah, the thing is Jeremy’s gone now, the cards are still hot, and I’m feeling like I might be just a little somewhere in the vicinity of the zone, and you know what that means?
ISAAC: Please don’t say it…
DANA: Shoe money tonight!
Just shut up already.
DANA: An ace for my sexy boss.
ISAAC: Somebody take her money.
DANA: No chance, Stretch.
FIRE HER!
NEW Dialogue Motif: Dave of Love™
DANA: Ten of hearts, also known as the Dave of Love…
No, it’s not.
(sigh) Yeah, I think it’s pretty clear I had trouble writing this entry — this episode firmly belongs on the weaker side of the episode strength spectrum for me. Sally’s introduction gives her basically no redeeming qualities, which is not exactly something you want from a character clearly being set up to recur. Dana’s multifaceted dislike for the woman, while partially warranted, only manages to make me feel further tired of her character as well. Not even Jeremy’s continued assertions of confidence, which I’ve been quick to praise, do anything near enough to save this episode for me — particularly since the reason behind the assertion is Natalie’s regression into the annoying. I joked how not having Mr. Schlamme directing was a coincidental timing, but frankly I find myself wondering if this episode would have been written more tastefully if the man had been more involved in Mr. Sorkin’s writing process on this episode. I’m probably reading too much into that, though.
If you managed to survive reading this entry, then it would really behoove you to subscribe so you’ll be ready for greener pastures ahead. Coming up next: credit where credit is due.
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