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Sports Night/Special Powers
| Special Powers | |
| |
| Season 2, Episode 1 | |
| Airdate | October 5, 1999 |
| Production Number | N-324 |
| Written by | Aaron Sorkin |
| Directed by | Thomas Schlamme |
| ← 1x23 What Kind of Day Has It Been |
2x02 → When Something Wicked This Way Comes |
| Sports Night — Season Two | |
Special Powers is the first episode of the second season of Sports Night, and the twenty-fourth episode overall.
Timing is everything: Casey waits a month longer than necessary to kiss Dana, Isaac may have returned to work a few months too early, and Natalie could get a better job any day now.
Special Powers is the first episode of the second season of Sports Night.
Starring: Josh Charles (Dan Rydell), Peter Krause (Casey McCall), Felicity Huffman (Dana Whitaker), Joshua Malina (Jeremy Goodwin), Sabrina Lloyd (Natalie Hurley) and Robert Guillaume (Isaac Jaffe)
Guest Starring: Kayla Blake (Kim), Greg Baker (Elliott), Timothy Davis-Reed (Chris), Jeff Mooring (Dave), Ron Ostrow (Will)
Co-Starring: Suzanne Kellogg (Alyson)
Contents |
Plot Overview
Fade up on Casey's office, where he attempts to write something on paper, then crumples it up and throws it away. It lands by a pile of similarly abandoned notes. It's been 23 days since Dana's breakup with Gordon.
Day 40: Casey gives Dana a longing glance in the hallway.
Day 71: Casey leaves a white rose and a note on Dana's desk. After thinking a moment, he removes the note. And then the rose.
Day 79: Going over the rundown with Dana in an elevator, Casey tries to ask her out, but loses his nerve when other people file in.
Day 86: Casey spots Dana across the room at a bar. He puts down his drink to approach, but when he looks back, some other guy is already chatting her up.
Day 90: Minutes before showtime, Casey uses his makeup mirror to catch glimpses of Dana. Dan interrupts him to remind him that the "statute of limitations" has expired. Casey admits to being frightened of asking her out. Dana enters the control room to shuffle the opening segments. There is some disagreement about this, as Casey wants to open with a football story, while Jeremy has an extended pitch for a segment on a Taiwanese swimmer. Natalie has a baseball story, and she is clearly carrying a grudge against Jeremy today.
Dana brushes them all off and asks Casey and Dan to script their intro. With only 30 seconds left before air, they decide to "wing it," but as the cameras roll, they both start speaking the intro at the same time. Dana is mortified, and heads off to apologize to Isaac.
With Dana out of the room, Dan counsels Casey to take the risk in asking her out, but Casey doesn't handle risk very well. In Isaac's office, Dana learns that the gaffe hasn't made it to air yet, as CSC had delayed the broadcast 10 minutes but Isaac forgot to tell her. Not wanting to yell at him, Dana goes back to restart the show. She takes the opportunity to jump in front of the studio cameras and poke fun at Casey, which surprises the entire control room.
While the crew resets, Dana takes Dan and Casey in private to fume over Isaac's forgetfulness. Dan downplays the severity, but Dana is worried. Casey misses another chance to ask out Dana, a missed opportunity which Dan taunts him about.
During a commercial break, Jeremy and Natalie leave the control room for a quick talk. The source of their current tension is revealed: Natalie was offered a job as "human-interest" reporter for a TV show in Galveston, Texas, which she turned down because it involved no writing. However, she's angry at Jeremy because she perceives in him a jealousy that she got a TV offer before he did.
When the show switches to a satellite feed, Dan and Casey have free time. Dan heads to confront Isaac in his office, saying that the ongoing recovery from his stroke has left Isaac unable to do his job full-time. Isaac maintains that he is getting stronger, and refuses any special treatment.
Natalie and Jeremy are alone in the control room. They disagree again over whether or not Jeremy let slip his "ugly side" at this news. Knowing that this is not the last time one of them will be offered a job, she wonders how they can deal with it as a couple. Jeremy gives an impassioned speech about how, despite his enthusiasm for her career advancement, the Galveston job would have forced him to give up his job and move to Texas with her. He would have done it, he claims, because he loves her, but he would not love the idea. He does apologize for not being more supportive, which she accepts, ending the argument.
Casey finds Dana waiting in his office. She admits to waiting there for him, and he tenses up again. Casey confesses that he was following Dan's advice on the 90-day statute of limitations, and Dana corrects him. The limit, she says, was 60 days, and she chides him for waiting this long. Casey moves forward to kiss her, but hesitates again. He leaves the office to go back to the studio, then suddenly wheels around and meets Dana at the office door to kiss her hard, which she equally returns.
Dan immediately notices the swagger in Casey's step, while in the control room, Dana adjusts her lipstick. Natalie lobs some dirty talk at Jeremy, Isaac sits in to watch the broadcast, and the studio is full of love once again.
Notes
- Present-day viewers should note that Jeremy's story about a Taiwanese swimmer named Cho Chang is totally unrelated to the character of the same name from the Harry Potter books.
Arc Advancement
Happenings
- Five months after his stroke, Isaac has returned to full-time work at Sports Night. Dan theorizes that the CSC executives are sensing weakness on his part, and that Isaac is trying to avoid losing control of the program.
- Natalie and Jeremy have their first fight related to their possibly diverging job paths.
- Casey successfully works up the courage to kiss Dana.
Characters
- Dana was clearly hoping for Casey to make a move sooner than 90 days, confirming her previously ambiguous feelings towards him.
- Jeremy appears to have some ego-involvment in Natalie's job. As an associate producer, she's fine, but he objects to her being a "weather girl."
Referbacks
- Dan: Four soccer highlights! Pinch me!
Dan's lack of enthusiasm towards soccer first appeared in 1x03, and he first mentioned it on-air in 1x11.
- Isaac: When I screw up, I don't want you coming in here for "the talk." I wanna hear some chatter out there.
Natalie asked her co-workers for the same firm treatment after her mistakes in 1x06.
- Jeremy confessed his prediliction for Natalie wearing his dress shirts in 1x10.
- Natalie makes fun of Jeremy's desire to make proclimations, just as he did in 1x20.
Fast Forward
Trivia
The Show
- The song playing at the beginning of the episode is "She Will Have Her Way" by Neil Finn.
- Isaac tells Dan that he's 63 years old.
- The song playing when Casey kisses Dana is "The Shoop Shoop Song (It's In His Kiss)" by Betty Everett.
- Beginning this episode, ABC began running teasers for the following week's episode over the end credits.
Behind the Scenes
- In reality, actor Robert Guillaume (Isaac) was 72 at the time of this episode's filming.
Allusions and References
- St. Swithin was a British bishop who is now part of English weather lore. His day falls on July 15.
- Jeremy has clearly never been to Galveston, or else he would know that malaria is not a problem there. Galveston is a major tourist destination in Texas, both for its history and current culture.
- Jeremy pitches to Dana a story of a Taiwanese swimmer whose attempt to swim across the Taiwan Strait is made more complicated due to the political status of Taiwan. Natalie later taunts him by calling him "Chungking," an odd non-sequitur since the province of Chungking is nowhere near Taiwan!
Memorable Moments
- Casey and Dan wing the tease - in stereo!
- Isaac uses the words "crazy ass."
- Dana interrupts the broadcast for important news about Casey!
- Jeremy's monologue warms Natalie's heart, and he apologizes like a man.
- Casey finds the courage to end the statute of limitations.
Quotes
- Dan: The time is right, and I don't want you to be scared.
Casey: I appreciate that, but I'm not scared.
Dan: You've been telling me for three months that you are scared.
Casey: Well, I am scared.
Dan: Right, and I don't want you to be.
Casey: That's great, but fear doesn't really work like that. - Natalie: (to Jeremy) Listen Chungking, if you wanna say something to me, you say it to somebody else.
- Casey: We're winging the tease tonight, Alyson.
Alyson: Good luck!
Casey: Flying without a script for eighteen seconds! Living on the edge!
Dan: Living over the edge! - (After a disasturous tease, Dana takes her head out of her hands)
Dana: Is it over yet?
Dan and Casey: (simultaneously) All right, that was totally his fault! - Casey: (re: Dana) Risks aren't really my strong suit, Danny.
Dan: Tell me about it, Casey.
Casey: I can't, you know, become this thing that I'm not.
Dan: You are this thing that you're not!
Casey: No, I'm not. - Dana: We turned off the network feed!
Isaac: Why?
Dana: Will's afraid of lumber sports.
Isaac: What the hell--
Dana: He's afraid of the axes and the saws, he thinks they're going to cut themselves. - Dana: This is the craziest thing I've ever experienced in my life!
Isaac: Well then you've gotta live more, Dana, 'cause there's some crazy-ass stuff out there. - Isaac: You didn't turn off the clocks in there, did you? Will's not afraid of clocks?
- Dana: (standing in front of the studio cameras) Hello, my name is Dana Whitaker, I'm the executive producer of Sports Night, and I'm interrupting this broadcast to tell you that Casey took gymnastics after school for seven years! How's he lookin' to you now, girls?
- Jeremy: I wanna say, while acknowledging that not everyone shares each other's view of the world, and while most situations between two or more people involve various shades of gray, as opposed to black and white--
Natalie: What are you trying to say?
Jeremy: I'm trying to say that I'm right and you're wrong! What's more, you know I'm right and you're wrong!
Natalie: No, you mean you're right and I'm cute. - Dan: (re: soccer) A modest proposal: make the nets bigger.
- Dan: Isaac, you can't work full-time.
Isaac: I have to.
Dan: Why?
Isaac: Because they pay me to.
Dan: You had a stroke.
Isaac: Is that what that was?
Dan: Yes!
Isaac: (sharply) I thought it was bad swordfish! - Dan: Admit that it's harder now!
Isaac: (walking to his office's bar) I have no trouble admitting that.
Dan: Ask people to do things for you.
Isaac: Like what?
Dan: Like getting you a drink.
Isaac: Why?
Dan: Because you've been walking over to that bar for like, a half-an-hour now. - Natalie: Men harbor this illusion that they can cover up their, you know, with this other thing, but women always know.
Jeremy: No, they don't! You know why not? 'Cause women don't have special powers, let's dispense with that theory right now! Women don't have a sixth sense, women don't have intuition, they don't have special powers! You were being offered a job in Galveston. That meant I was gonna have to like, go there. I was gonna have to go, and live there, and get a job in Galveston. And I wasn't gonna get offered a job in broadcasting, it was gonna be ranch work for me, OK? Or big game fishing, either way, my life has taken an abrupt and bizarre turn, 'cause one minute I'm paying my bills with money I'm earning at my dream job, while dating the most beautiful woman on the planet, and the next minute, I'm on a cattle drive and I'm dating the weather girl from "Good Morning Galveston!" And I'd have done it! I'd have moved to Galveston, with the heat, and the cattle, and the malaria, I'd have done it because that's how much I love you, and that's how much I want what you want. But you can't expect me to be wild about the idea! (pause) What?
Natalie: You are so cute. - Jeremy: I didn't behave like a man.
Natalie: You're apologizing like one.
Jeremy: Yeah?
Natalie: (pause) You're so cute it freaks me out. - Jeremy: I deem that the fight is officially over.
Natalie: Excellent. I deem I'm coming to bed in your tuxedo shirt, high heels and nothing else.
Jeremy: Excellent.
Natalie: Tell me women don't have special powers! - Casey: Danny's been talking to me all week about this "statute of limitations."
Dana: Have you committed a crime?
Casey: No, no, I... Well, I mean, back when I was pledging my fraternity, but I took care of that with community service. - Dana: It's sixty days.
Casey: What?
Dana: It's sixty days. Whatcha been waitin' on, McCall?
Casey: I was...
Dana: Huh?
Casey: I was, y'know, waiting.
Dana: You were waiting for what? St. Swithin's Day?
Casey: I was waiting the proper ninety days, the way I was taught.
Dana: Yeah, well, whoever taught you taught you wrong.
Casey: It was Danny.
Dana: No kidding. - Casey: Well, listen, unless you wave me off I'm gonna kiss you right now.
Dana: If it's not too much trouble.
(He walks towards her.)
Casey: I'm gonna do it, Dana.
Dana: I'm saying "do it," Casey.
(He hesitates, and they both smile.)
Dana: You've done this before, right? I mean, you have a child. - Casey: (on-air) Welcome back! And say what you will, but Timothy Nieuwendyk did a yeoman's job before becoming completely unhinged.
