Sports Night: “Rebecca”

Date: February 22, 2021

Season 1, Episode 14

Music Video of the Day: Happy 22nd Day of Black History Month!

Interstellar News: Tonight we continued our virtual movie marathon of all things Star Wars by watching the animated film, The Clone Wars.

Favorite Quotes:

Dan: You don’t have to ask questions, I’ll tell the story clearly. The things you need to know, I’m gonna tell you.

Casey: Yeah, but I married someone once who said that, and now she has half my stuff.

Dan: I don’t want your stuff.

Casey: You say that now.

Casey is on point this whole conversation.

Dana: The truth is I have a job that involves me and stimulates me and rewards me and takes up a lot of my time and I’m not willing to do my job just a little bit, I want to do all of it. It’s part of me and I’m different without it. And that is who I am, and that is who you need to love. Except it won’t work!

Casey: Yes it will.

Dana: It won’t.

Casey: Say it just like that.

Dana: It won’t.

Casey: Dana, any man who hears that and doesn’t say “For a woman like you, for a person, for you, I will take whatever time you can give me and be grateful for that all my life”… any man who hears that and doesn’t throw you down on the nearest flat surface, is just taking up space for the rest of us. And you shouldn’t need Natalie to shove you in here when you want to talk about something.

Dana telling her truth, Casey encouraging her to tell it to Gordon, and also being incredibly suave about it.

“This’ll sound ridiculous, but I actually need a staple remover.”: Dan is obsessed with a woman named Rebecca, who isn’t at all interested in him. Dana thinks Gordon is going to break up with her. A story leaks about Luther and JJ comes to smooth things over, and Isaac is almost positive JJ is the leak.

Dan becomes a bit of an obsessive stalker in this one, and we’ll see in later episodes too, and it didn’t really age well. Rebecca was clear she wasn’t interested and Dan just can’t get over himself… so he keeps persisting. At the end though, it looks like he’s going to turn around and understand her decision even if it’s disappointing to him. After horribly telling Casey a story at the top of the episode that he just doesn’t get, they finally come to an understanding at the end.

Natalie encourages Dana to talk to Casey, and it’s my favorite part of the episode when they actually do… because Casey totally helps, mostly because Dana can talk to him more comfortably than she can with Gordon. They go back and forth until they have the second quote I posted in my favorites, and it’s such a wonderful exchange. It shows how much Casey respects Dana but also how much he really is secretly in love with her without realizing it. Love comes in many forms and you don’t have to have sex with someone to prove you love them. You love them like a parent, a sibling, a friend, a co-worker, or just as a neighbor. I think that Casey loves Dana enough to want her to be happy, even if it isn’t with him, because he thinks he isn’t good enough. So he’s there to support her, even if he can’t sleep with her.

After not seeing JJ since the first episode this bit feels a little out of place, but it also works well as a follow up to the Tennessee Tech incident. I love how Isaac lays down the law and can turn the charm on and off as it’s needed. He proves here, as he has in past episodes, why he’s the boss and not Agatha Christie. He also artfully deals with his staff when they clearly did not remember to “don’t worry about it”.

TA Out!