 |
| Yes, this show is that dated (via sepinwall.blogspot.com) |
There I said it.
I totally get that Ricky Tahoe is a thinly veiled attack on Rick Cleveland, but as characters I completely dug them. I feel like the show is suffering without them and I wish that Sorkin would revisit those characters at some point down the line.
Today's episode is, The Harriet Dinner Part I
Host & Musical Guest: Masi Oka & John Legend
# of references “Crazy Christians”: None
Sketches Referenced: Black Fruit of the Loom, Dora's Hammer of the Gods
Sketches Shown: Black Fruit of the Loom, Dora's Hammer of the Gods
The great thing about this episode is that on the off chance
you missed the previous episode, Jack and Jordan have a conversation that
really runs down the pertinent plot points from pervious episode. It’s pretty amazing how it pretends to
be an actual conversation. And
Matt and Danny have a similar conversation.
The episode actually starts with Jack informing Tom that he
has to convince Kim not to give up the viola for improv comedy. Tom is less than thrilled with having
to break his date with Lucy, but Jack is totally his boss.
For some reason, Tom actually listens to relationship advice
from Matt regarding how to break the date. So Tom concocts a lie to tell Lucy and of course she
believes it.
Elsewhere at Studio 60 Cal convinces Danny and Matt that he
can shoot commercial spoof (Dora’s Hammer of the Gods) for under budget in the
studio rather than on location.
Danny is mildly worried because it involves snakes in the studio, but
Cal tells him it’ll be fine.
Naturally while shooting the commercial, they lose a
snake. Cal is worried, but the
snake handler is totally cool with it.
He tells Cal that they’ll just get a ferret to get the snake. Of course since the ferret will kill
the snake, replacing the snake will cost another $6000. And the handler is surprisingly cool
with a snake getting killed. You’d
think that maybe he’d be attached to the animals he works with every day, but
nope.
For plot reasons, Matt gives the writer’s room (Andy, Lucy
and Darius) viewer mail to read.
Lucy and Andy get Matt mail, but Darius gets Simon mail, which seems to
be hate mail. Darius is totally
not cool with it.
We see a read through of the Black Fruit of the Loom sketch
and it’s kind of bewlideirng. It
looks like the target is supposed to be Black militants, but it’s Simon’s idea
and race is so much a part of his identity that it’s kind of unbelievable that
he’s target a pro-Black mentality.
It honestly sounds like something a white writer would pitch, not an
idea Simon would champion.
Sam and Dylan ask Simon why Darius isn’t working on this
sketch, because it seems like something he’d do (I guess just because he’s
Black) but Simon doesn’t take the bait.
Enter Darius.
Darius confronts Simon about the hate mail and Simon talks
down to him. Darius loses his
temper and yellos that he didn’t want to write the stupid sketch at which point
Simon admonishes him for the tone.
Simon says that it’s cool if Darius didn’t want to work on the sketch,
but if the reason is that it was a Black sketch it makes Darius “the pool boy
at the little house of Uncle Thomas” a phrase that I don’t quite
understand.
Meanwhile Harriet shoots a promo for the show with Masi Oka
where she does her Dolphin Girl voice, despite Matt having not figured out
exactly what the sketch is. To
further complicate things, after she rehearses a scene for Luke’s film, he
tells her that while Matt and Harriet have broken up, they still work closely
together which has blurred things too much. Then he asks her if she wants more.
Also, Matt finds out that he didn’t win the auction, it was
declared a tie. And Danny
confesses to Matt that he’s blown his chance with Jordan.
Two days later and everyone is excited for the Harriet banquet. Jordan is going to accompany Harriet,
so she doesn’t have to deal with the bidders alone. But before Jordan goes off, Danny pulls her to the side to
kill her to talk to her. He takes
her to the roof so no one can hear her screams for privacy. Then he apologizes to her for his
actions. But they end up locked on
the roof.
Naturally, they can’t get anyone’s attention because they’re
facing the back alley, they can’t get any signal on their cell phones and no
one inside can hear them.
Danny feels that he courted Jordan every hour of every day, which I
guess is his way of saying he stalked her. But Jordan still feels like Danny was motivated out of pity
rather than genuine love, at which point Danny correctly predicts the abysmal
Green Lantern film in a rant about a “one-sheet” world.
Meanwhile at the banquet, Harriet is surprised when Matt
reveals himself as one of the bidders.
Matt is equally surprised when the other bidder isn’t Luke, but rather
15 year-old professional snowboarder Cody, which is genius because it explains
why a kid as so much money to spend and allows him to exit the story to sign
autographs.
Jordan was supposed to introduce Harriet at the banquet, but
Matt agrees to step in case Jordan is killed by Danny never shows up. We learn that Harriet bounces between
Luke and Matt on a regular basis and Harriet realizes the wisdom in Luke’s
words on Tuesday. Matt tries to
make a point by saying he paid $11k for the date, but really just reveals he
was balancing his contributions.
Harriet is the opposite of flattered that Matt bid on her
and informs him that after tonight they are done.
Also at the banquet, Tom and Simon briefly discuss the
Darius situation before both being blown away by Kim in her revealing outfit. Kim proceeds to go buckwild with shots
and unrepentantly coming on to Tom, while Tom is behaves like a gentleman.
But surprisingly Darius shows up to confront Simon, who just
blows him off again. Even more
surprising; Lucy’s also at the banquet and to blow up Tom’s charade. Jack checks in on Tom’s progress and
less than satisfied when his results.
Back at Studio 60 the snake and the ferret are still under
the stage, which is going to require a coyote to get them out. Cal doubles down on the fiasco. Thus ends the first part of Harriet’s
Day.
No comments:
Post a Comment