Entry 020 - Sports Night 117 (How Are Things in Glocca Morra?)
In which plans are changed, in more ways than one
SERIES: Sports Night
EPISODE NUMBER: 117
TITLE: How Are Things in Glocca Morra?
PREMIERE: 9 Mar 1999
DIRECTOR: Marc Buckland
DRAFT SCRIPT: HTML
It should be noted that Sports Night differs from all the other television shows Aaron Sorkin has created in one subtly crucial way: the episode title never appears on screen. For The West Wing and Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, we get the episode title on an unadorned black card after the Previously On™ sequence; for The Newsroom, the episode title appears on a black card at the end of the opening credits sequence. Sports Night does neither of those things, so the only means of knowing the title of each episode in the series is looking it up beforehand or after-the-fact.
The reason I’m bringing that up now? Being quite far removed from when this show originally aired, I have no idea whether episode titles were known by viewers in any capacity — though the fact that the title of episode three later changed is suggestive of the negative — but if they did know, they were bound to be mightily confused by the title of this episode. “How Are Things in Glocca Morra?”, while being quite meaningful to your average Broadway connoisseur, has ostensibly nothing to do with the actual episode.
Upon reviewing the publicly available draft script for this episode, however, we get an answer as to the origin of the episode title: there’s a subplot in this draft script that is completely absent from the episode we see which involves the song after which the episode was named. In point of fact, the character of Isaac was written out of the episode entirely between draft script and final product.
I’ll give you three guesses as to why. You have four weeks. In the meantime, let’s look at this episode.
DANA: (V.O.) Previously on Sports Night…
Woah, hey, what? A Previously On™? In my comedy show? Man, if you needed any more proof this show should never have had a laugh track, here’s your smoking gun, folks!
ELLIOT: Kim, I’m still looking for two back in the ‘teens.
Still not sure how you know something like that…
This is not how the episode begins in the draft script — in the draft script, we start with a back-and-forth between Dan and Casey on how “five minutes to air” are the “best words in the English language” wherein Casey shows off just how many languages he can translate the phrase into. In its absence here, the sequence would be repurposed for the very next episode instead. On the surface level, it’s a strange decision to remove the sequence considering a lot was already being removed from the episode to begin with, but arguably the sequence clashes tonally with the rest of the episode so I don’t necessarily mind.
JEREMY: (V.O.) Dear Louise — here’s what’s going on right now. CSC is carrying the Continental Challenge live. Sampras is playing a first round match…
The “Continental Challenge”, eh? You mean to tell me a company whose sports television network is consistently third place in viewership and was once described as “fourth-rate” is able to host a large tennis tournament sustainably? And that tournament is well-established enough to attract Pete Sampras himself? … Aight, I’ll bite.
JEREMY: (V.O.) And the thing is, we’re supposed to go on air at 11, and if Fedrigotti holds his serve and forces a new set, that means we’ve gotta hold for another half hour while Sampras makes this guy say ‘uncle’ — and nobody here likes to hold.
A line for the voiceover got cut after this one that elaborates on why no one likes to hold:
DRAFT JEREMY: (V.O.) There’s an energy that Dana builds into the show. Eight hours ago we weren’t much more than scattered notes on index cards, but throughout the afternoon and evening, she coaxes the whole thing to a critical mass that’s designed to ignite at eleven o’clock.
Ain’t that a nice bit of tone painting? I’m kind of at a loss as to why that got cut considering, once again, so much had to be added anyway. There’s also this subsequent line from Dana that got cut as well:
DRAFT DANA: (at Fedrigotti) Let’s go, my Italian friend, I’ve got a show to do and mine’s better than yours.
Down, girl…
DAN: This has something to do with the shirt, doesn’t it?
CASEY: Danny…
DAN: Does it have something to do with the shirt?
CASEY: You’re wired.
DAN: No, I’m not.
CASEY: You’re wired.
DAN: I’m perfectly calm.
CASEY: (grabs DAN’s mic) You’re wired. I don’t want to talk about it.
To be fair to Dan, we’ve established in the past that being wired in doesn’t necessarily mean the control room can hear you.
DANA: Can you believe this guy is doing this to me?
JEREMY: I don’t think it’s personal, Dana.
DANA: Oh, it is personal, Jeremy.
Good lord, the world of sports really does bring the unnecessarily superstitious out of people — this is basically equivalent to something thinking their tuning in to watch a game caused their team to lose.
NATALIE: Don’t worry, my Pete’s gonna take care of him.
JEREMY: ‘Your’ Pete?
NATALIE: Pete Sampras has a little crush on me.
…
JEREMY: In Natalie World or [in the actual —]
NATALIE: [In Natalie World.]
JEREMY: Ah.
NATALIE: He sends me flowers a lot. One time he came over and cooked me dinner.
(sigh) I see she’s back on those damnable herbs again.
JEREMY: Hang on…
(after a beat, everyone reacts to game)
JEREMY: (V.O.) I didn’t see the forehand passing shot that Fedrigotti made to force the new set.
What do you mean, you didn’t see it?! You were looking directly at the monitor for a good while there!
CASEY: Why are we holding?
DANA: ‘Cause some guy named Fettuccine Alfredo just… Jeremy, what’s his name?
Wow, alright — guess we’re getting the accidental racist arc for Dana now…
CASEY: Why would he do this to me?
DANA: He’s not doing it to you personally, Casey, he’s doing it to me personally.
“So now I’m going to go outside, turn around three times, curse, and spit.”foreshadowing detected
DAN: No, this is good — ‘cause now we can talk about it.
So the index cards line got traded in for this useless line? The choices get curiouser…
NATALIE: Want to go get a doughnut?
JEREMY: Ah, I was gonna stay and write a letter to Louise.
…
NATALIE: Do you want to go someplace and make out?
JEREMY: (beat) That sounds good, but… I really want to write this letter to my sister.
Damn, way to be task-focused, my guy — not a lot of men would choose writing a letter to their sister over making out with their SO.
DANA: Oh, hey, did someone tell Isaac —
NATALIE: Yeah.
monkaS
DANA: I have nothing to do.
NATALIE: Do you want to go with me to get a doughnut?
DANA: Mmm… nah.
NATALIE: Wanna go someplace and make out?
Oooooo…
DANA: No.
Dangit.
By the way — this sequence where Natalie is a total horndog? Not in the draft script! This is what we get in exchange for pushing “funf minuten bis sendungzeit” back an episode.
DANA: Louise is a nice name.
JEREMY: She’s named for our grandmother. (keeps typing)
…
DANA: My grandmother’s name was Alice… on my mother’s side — on my father’s it was Penelope… which is a name you don’t hear much anymore. (beat) Penelope was —
JEREMY: You know what’s hard? Writing here and talking there.
DANA: I have unscheduled time on my hands.
JEREMY: And I know how difficult that must be for you, but I want to write this letter.
You know, if it were anyone else but Dana, I’d expect the response to Jeremy’s task focus to be to call a family member and shoot the breeze to pass the time. Indeed, Dana has six brothers to choose from! Instead:
DANA: Wanna play garbage can basketball?
I don’t necessarily blame her for looking to remedy her state of being wired, but given what we see in a future episode, that it doesn’t occur to her to try calling one of her brothers just for the heck of it makes for an interesting contrast. We already know one of her brothers plays for the Denver Broncos, so it’s not like all her brothers would be asleep at this point.
JEREMY: (V.O.) Anyway, Michael said when he saw you you were upset about the divorce and talking about leaving school. For the moment, I’m not going to lecture you. I know you’re concerned about Mom and Dad, and we’re on this hold right now, so my intention is simply to take your mind off things with some tales of Sports Night.
The explicit mention of Jeremy’s parents’ getting a divorce is not present in the draft script, nor is the promise against a lecture. This addition is paired with another one later on that we’ll discuss when we get there. In the meantime:
JEREMY: (V.O.) I’m gonna have to get up for a second, though, ‘cause I know what’s about to come from Dana.
DANA: Is it ‘cause you’re chicken?
JEREMY: (V.O.) Be right back. (gets up)
Jeremy knows Dana too well…
Also, I have to take a detour from the writing to explore how this sequence was directed. Dana had to pause just long enough for the voiceover to run its course, without hearing the voiceover herself. Presumably there was someone off-screen (perhaps behind the glass) who was listening to the voiceover and cueing her for her next line, and despite that bit of potential awkwardness it comes out quite naturally — props to Mr. Buckland.
JEREMY: (V.O.) I’m likely to have a random visitor or two while I write this, but for the most part everyone here has gone to some neutral corner for a little bit.
Wow, sounds just like my mom’s family…
Before this sentence in Jeremy’s line is the first full scene to get cut between draft script and final product: Isaac walks in to Jeremy’s letter writing absentmindedly singing some Broadway tunes to himself. He then professes to having a “comprehensive command of American musicals” and challenges Jeremy to name any song from a musical — at which point Jeremy offers up “How Are Things in Glocca Morra”. Isaac is unable to answer the challenge in the moment and walks away to let the question fester.
If that sounds familiar to you… that’s because it is. We’ll see why much later.
DAN: Is this one of those times when you say you don’t want to talk about it but you really do?
CASEY: No, but it’s shapin’ up into one of those times when I say I don’t want to talk about it but we end up talking about it anyway.
Oh, Casey, you know your screenwriter too well…
REBECCA: Casey, do you remember the reason why Dan came down to my office in the first place?
CASEY: Please, oh please, don’t drag me into this.
REBECCA: It was to tell me that he couldn’t ask me out because he’d started seeing a woman named Elaine. Am I right, Casey?
Does it really look to you like Casey cares, ma’am?
CASEY: You see, I’m sitting here with no provolone.
Case in point.
REBECCA: Then when he became helplessly in love with me, as men are prone to do…
Yeah, just ask Jimmy Smits.
REBECCA: … he said he’d tell Elaine that they couldn’t see each other anymore.
DAN: Rebecca —
REBECCA: Oh, by the way, I took a couple of phone messages while I was sitting here.
A couple of lines got dropped here: before this last line, Rebecca first asks Dan how Elaine took it when he broke it off with her. “I think I see what you’re getting at,” Dan responds. While it’s 50-50 for me whether the lines were officially cut or if Teri Polo simply skipped a line by accident, I’d say its absence makes for a better-paced exchange that doesn’t hit the audience over the head about what’s coming next. To wit:
RETURNING Verbal Tic: Here’s the thing
Running count: 10
DAN: Here’s the thing — I would do it right now, I would do it right this second, but I’m in sort of a pre-show mode. It’s a very delicate energy and it can’t be tampered with. All anyone here is thinking about is the broadcast.
DANA: (sticks her head in) Guys, a little garbage can basketball?
REBECCA: Dan’s in pre-show mode.
DANA: (laughs) That’s a good one.
In the draft script, the interrupter of Dan’s pre-show mode is not Dana with her garbage can basketball, but rather Isaac trying to get some help on the lyrics to “How Are Things in Glocca Morra” (which for some reason is typo’d not to have ‘Are’ capitalized). The result is the same in both variants:
RETURNING Verbal Tic: You bet
Running count: 5
DAN: See, the thing about the pre-show mode is that —
REBECCA: I’ll see you after the show.
DAN: You bet.
(REBECCA leaves)
DAN: Kim!
…
KIM: Yeah?
DAN: Next time I step out of my office and ask you to catch my phone calls, could you do me a favor and, you know, do it?
You know she’s not your secretary, right?foreshadowing detected
DANA: Dave, you’ve got H; Kim, you’ve got H-O; Will, you’ve got H-O-R-S, which is sad. I’m winning, which is inevitable. Natalie, your shot.
Hold up — these guys are using a foam ball? Come on! True garbage can basketball players use a crumpled-up piece of paper!
JEREMY: (V.O.) Everyone’s assuming that Sampras’ll finish off this guy in just a few minutes — but there’s a look on Sampras’s face now that you have to be around sports long enough to recognize.
Two words cut from the draft: “He’s scared.” Frankly, I think its exclusion is warranted, as it puts easily misinterpreted words to something only someone long-immersed in sports should be able to recognize, and putting it to words like that almost certainly doesn’t do it justice.
ELLIOT: What’s going on?
What the hell is this typo in the draft script? It has an apostrophe after “going” that indicates the final g shouldn’t be there, and yet it is. Carol was having another bad day, I guess…
JEREMY: He just broke his serve.
ELLIOT: Ah, it’s about time. I’ll go tell everybody.
JEREMY: Elliot?
ELLIOT: Yeah.
JEREMY: Fedrigotti just broke Sampras’s serve.
I suppose this counts as dramatic irony? It’s extremely short-lived, but it’s still a case where we as an audience are likely already in the know of the break direction before Elliot is. For those who didn’t suss it out, though, this sequence serves as a decent fake-out.
DANA: Alright — from the plant, ricochet off Will’s head.
Between draft script and final product, we lost Dana’s referring to the plant as a “Fiddlely-fig”, which is presumably a (purposefully?) botched reference to the fiddle-leaf fig, an established species of house plant. I don’t know enough about house plants to say for certain, but perhaps the line had to be changed to account for the set’s having a different species of plant?
DANA: Doesn’t this guy understand that I’m in television?
This is how the act ends in the draft script — but for the episode as we get it, a longer button is added:
JEREMY: (V.O.) This match, which was supposed to be a walk, was heading into its fourth hour — and that was a bad break for Dana ‘cause tonight’s the night that Dana’s meeting Gordon’s friends.
Again with a group date! What is it with Gordon and group dates?! Good fucking lord…
NEW Dialogue Motif: Got ourselves a ballgame
JEREMY: (V.O.) Dana and Gordon have been on thin ice lately, due mostly to Gordon’s feeling that Dana’s more involved with the show than with him and that Dana’s not making an effort. She knew that cancelling their date tonight with infuriate Gordon. She tried catching him at the office before he left to come over, but he’d already left to come over.
DANA: Well… we’ve got ourselves a ballgame.
Well, okay — I said a longer button was added, but actually the voiceover from Jeremy is a repurposing and slight elongation of a voiceover line from the first scene of Act 2. Its move here makes for a delicious double meaning from Dana on this last line — is she referring to the actual ballgame, or the events that are to come from Gordon’s coming over? Time will tell…
DANA: This man is ruining my night.
WILL: You’re up fifty dollars.
Fucking goddammit, more sports betting — and this time from the woman whose boyfriend has cited the RICO act in response to an office betting pool! What gives with this throughline?!
NATALIE: There’s another option.
DANA: What?
NATALIE: Give the show to Sally.
Natalie’s direct reference to Sally, in addition to Jeremy’s mention of Sally in his subsequent voiceover, is not present in the draft script. The sequence instead simply has Natalie referring to the time before having Dana go off her rocker. Jeremy’s voiceover notes that “the only thing Dana likes less than holding is losing the show to the 2am” — Dana even refers to handing over the show as “the nuclear weapon of last resorts”. Sally’s name isn’t even mentioned until this line:
NATALIE: Would you care this much if Sally wasn’t involved?
Frankly, I prefer how it is in the draft script — the omission of Sally’s name coupled with Jeremy’s note on “losing the show” allows room for reasonable doubt as to Dana’s reasons for objecting to the option. Indeed, in the draft script Dana even outright states, “Yes, I would care if Sally wasn’t involved in this.” Instead:
DANA: This isn’t about Sally.
DANA: Everything was fine until your Pete started playing like two pounds of stuffed cabbage.
That is… a colorful simile — how exactly does one expect two pounds of stuffed cabbage to play? I tried looking up the phrase and the only other instances I could find outside of the transcript for this episode were a couple of sports blogs dated many years after this episode aired. Perhaps some closet Sorkin fans there?
DANA: Honey, I’m really really sorry, but there’s nothing I can do.
GORDON: Natalie can’t do the show?
NATALIE: I didn’t prep it.
DANA: She didn’t prep it.
GORDON: But, I mean, at this point isn’t it just calling out numbers from a script?
NATALIE: You produce a lot of live television shows at the district attorney’s office?
You know… I suppose there’s something to be said for Natalie’s coming to Dana’s defense here. Natalie has spent a good deal of airtime trying to tell Dana she doesn’t actually want to be with Gordon, yet when a confrontation happens with Gordon and Dana, Natalie is quick to help Dana with keeping the relationship together.
… Either that, or she’s secretly trying to keep Dana stuck in the office to prevent the date with Gordon — I mean, really, she did fine doing the show without prepping it ten episodes ago, did she not?
DANA: News happens, Gordon — this is news.
GORDON: This — this is sports!
DANA: Yes!
Okay, really, Dana? Why aren’t you dumping him right then and there? He basically just slagged off the entirety of your profession to your face. Just leave him already!
SALLY: Here are some people who are staying late after school.
Shit.
SALLY: Startin’ to get late.
DANA: Yeah — I’m not dumping the show, Sally.
SALLY: I’m saying they’re tied up in the fifth.
DANA: I know.
NATALIE: It’s not Pete’s fault.
SALLY: No, Pete looks good.
NATALIE: I’ll say.
Down, girl.
DANA: Sally, you’ve met my boyfriend, haven’t you?
SALLY: (offers her hand) Gordon.
GORDON: (beat) That’s funny — my name’s Gordon, too.
Quality Dad Joke™
CASEY: Gordon had my shirt.
Wait, what? You’re actually talking about it?
CASEY: You asked me to talk about it, I’m talking about it.
Yeah, but you said you didn’t want to talk about it. What gives?
DAN: Why is Dana still with him?
CASEY: She doesn’t know.
DAN: She doesn’t know?
CASEY: She doesn’t know.
DAN: Because you haven’t told her.
CASEY: That’s right.
DAN: Because to tell her that Gordon slept with Sally, you’d have to tell her that you slept with Sally.
And apparently that’s something we don’t want to do because we think she’ll react like a child, is that what we’re thinking? Honestly, being functional adults shouldn’t be this hard…
DAN: What’s Dana thinking?
JEREMY: About dumping the show?
CASEY: (chuckles) She’s not gonna dump it.
JEREMY: Half past 12 and Gordon’s here.
CASEY: I’ve known Dana for fifteen years, she’s not dumping the show.
This story beat is completely different from how it goes in the draft script. In the draft script, Jeremy instead opens with request for confirmation that Dana isn’t going to drop the show, to which Dan responds… that it’s Isaac’s call, not Dana’s. (Indeed, in the very next scene in the draft script, Jeremy goes to see Isaac again, which of course got cut.) In response to Dan’s correction, Casey mumbles to himself a prediction that Dana will dump the show — the complete opposite of what we get in the final product. That change makes for a considerably cleaner conclusion to the episode, but we’ll get there when we get there.
DAN: Just the market analyst I’m looking for.
“Cut! Come on, Josh, you know how our writer feels about ad-libbing!”
DAN: I have called Elaine. I have told her that while she seems like a very nice woman, I’ve met someone else. I’ve met a woman named Rebecca — wonderful, sensational, dare I add sexy Rebecca — and Rebecca is who [sic] I’m dating right now.
“Cut! Damnit, Josh, you’re improvising beyond the line in the script again! We’ve talked about this!”
REBECCA: Really?
DAN: No, but I left a message on her machine to call me.
“Okay, you know what, never mind, butter it up all you want, Josh.”
JEREMY: There’s a sort of impromptu meeting in the conference room going on. You might want to get in on it.
DAN: What’s goin’ on?
JEREMY: It’s quarter to one.
DAN: (beat) Sally?
You know, it just occurred to me… the implication of everyone’s thoughts on the matter so far is that Dana would be handing over the show to Sally rather than just cancelling the show altogether. As far as the network may be concerned, it would suffice just not to have Sports Night that night and instead have Paul and Peter do West Coast Update, but beefed up with more from the day. That, of course, would mean all of the work from the Sports Night staff going to waste, and in all likelihood Paul and Peter probably don’t have the requisite experience to beef up their own show as needed, so the implication that Sports Night would be handed off to Sally is probably justified.
NEW Dialogue Motif: You and me both
REBECCA: I want to see a show. I was told there’d be a live sports show of some kind, I heard the anchors are kinda cute, and I want to see the show.
DAN: You and me both.
You heard the anchors are cute, too, Dan? That would have been continuity from the pilot if the lines in question hadn’t been cut…
NEW Dialogue Motif: Won’t make fool(s) out of you
DAN: Rebecca?
REBECCA: Yeah?
DAN: I’d never make a fool out of you.
REBECCA: (beat) Okay — what made you say that?
DAN: (beat) Nothing, no reason.
Let’s be real, everyone watching knows exactly why Dan said that.
DANA: I’m very sorry that I can’t spend time with your friends tonight.
GORDON: No, no, you can spend time with my friends and you can spend time with me. You just heard Sally tell you that you can.
DANA: Okay, and why don’t we just have one of the guys in your office take over your case load.
Not gonna lie, Dana, that parallel seems kind of faulty to me. If Gordon takes sufficiently comprehensive notes on all his ongoing cases, then someone else in his office should be able to take over his case load temporarily for him. The trick, of course, is for that someone else to have sufficiently advance notice, which is where the parallel theoretically comes back into play — Gordon wouldn’t necessarily want to hand off a case whose first hearing is the very next morning, for instance. I’m gonna give you a mulligan on that one, Dana.
DAN: (walks up) Hey.
“Cut! You blew your cue, Josh, you’re supposed to wait a couple more lines!”
DAN: Hey, Sally, you must’ve slept with this guy, Fedrigotti. How long you think he can keep at this?
SALLY: I was just thinking, it’s been such a long time since Dan said something charming to me, and then there it was.
DAN: I do what I can.
Don’t snark the Snarkmaster, Sally, you’ll never win.
RETURNING Verbal Tic: Let me tell you something
Running count: 4
GORDON: She just told you she could do the show at this point.
DANA: Let me tell you something, I know she could do the show at this point.
GORDON: So what are you saying?
DANA: I’m saying this is my show, this isn’t my hobby — and I’d appreciate it if you didn’t come in here and try to broker deals between Sally and me.
GORDON: I need to get something from you, Dana. I need a sign. I mean, I thought you wanted a life.
What the fuck, Gordon?! Do you really want to imply Dana doesn’t have a life? After she basically all but told you she is the show? FUCKING DUMP HIM ALREADY, DANA!
DANA: You know what? It’s 1am. I’m dumping Sports Night.
WHAT?! NO! I SAID GORDON, NOT THE SHOW!!
DANA: Sally, you’ll run the show with my team in the room and Dan and Casey at the desk.
Once again, the story beat herein was rather thoroughly rewritten between draft script and final product — the end result is much the same, but how we got there changed. Once again, Isaac’s role in the matter was removed entirely: in the draft script, Isaac comes into the room with the answer to the Glocca Morra Conundrum™ before deciding that West Coast Update would be bumped in favor of Sports Night. Isaac, however, appends to this decision an ask to Gordon on having ruined his plans, after which Isaac himself offers up that Sally could run the room in Dana’s absence — which, after some resistance, Dana accepts. That Dana’s dumping the show ostensibly comes out of nowhere as seen honestly makes for a better scene, in my opinion — especially since it means we get this gem from the voiceover.
JEREMY: (V.O.) I’ll never get it, Louise. I understand what makes a woman think that any man is better than nothing. I’ll just never understand what makes a woman think she’s got nothing.
Holy shit, someone on the show actually verbalized it! Here I was thinking all this time that the toxic heteronormativity I’ve been railing against was a feature of the show, and now we’re being told it’s actually a bug! Granted, the framing of that revelation could use some work — I personally don’t understand why a woman would think any man is better than nothing — but the line definitely does bring into fine point how Dana is seriously underestimating what she already has with her Sports Night family.
JEREMY: (V.O.) Casey didn’t see it coming…
Neither did we!
JEREMY: (V.O.) … and to see his face at the moment he found out, you’d think a string inside of him broke.
Okay, I’m gonna have to give minus points on how this sequence was directed — Casey just quasi-casually picks up a piece of paper without purpose and conspicuously glances at Dana while doing so. Not a good look for Mr. Buckland on this beat…
JEREMY: (V.O.) I have a hunch it’s gonna be a while before Casey and Dana are quite the same with each other.
As much as I’ve liked this story beat so far, I’m not sure I buy Casey’s continuing grudge against Dana for dumping the show. Yes, it came out of nowhere and Casey was shocked, I’m okay with that — but making as big a meal of it as he ended up doing? Seems a little clunky to me, to be honest.
REBECCA: Oh my god, it’s happening.
DAN: Yeah.
REBECCA: The show’s starting.
DAN: Yes.
REBECCA: Wow.
Damn, it really seems like she’s a kid on a sugar rush, doesn’t it?
ALYSON: Have a good show.
CASEY: Thank you, Alyson.
“Cut! Come on, Peter, her name is Angela in the script!”
NEW Dialogue Motif: Hard not to like…
REBECCA: I’ll stand over there.
DAN: Excellent.
REBECCA: Okay.
(REBECCA moves to stand behind the cameras)
CASEY: Hard not to like her.
DAN: Tell me about it.
Be careful what you wish for, Dan.
JEREMY: (V.O.) Alright, ready for the lecture now?
Hey, um, no? You said earlier you weren’t going to lecture her.
JEREMY: (V.O.) Under no circumstances are you to leave school. End of lecture — there will be a test on that material.
Not in the draft script! Honestly, from start to finish I didn’t see enough in the way of added material to amount to the two and a half scenes that got cut from the draft. Maybe they just talked slower?callback detected
Alright, I’m feeling mighty good about this episode, if you ask me. While the exact aftermath that comes in subsequent episodes will be a point of contention for me, Dana’s backsliding into her questionable relationship with Gordon makes for a gripping pump fake that serves to give the overall story arc some more juice than I’ve felt in the arc so far. That we finally get someone outright telling us that what she did doesn’t feel right serves to extinguish the frustration viewers like me would otherwise feel from seeing the act unfold before our eyes. The B plot involving Rebecca can perhaps feel a little tacked on, but through Dan’s emboldened promise not to make a fool out of Rebecca we see a potential parallel with the A plot that makes what happens later for that storyline all the more bittersweet. Honestly, the only real downside to this episode is Isaac’s absence — but there’s good reason for that, as we’ll see very soon.
Once you’re done checking to make sure your blood pressure is within an acceptable range for someone in your age group, please subscribe to this blog so that you’ll be fully briefed immediately upon the next entry’s being published. Coming up next: … are we amnesiac, maybe?
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