Watching Studio60

We’re taking a second look at “The Hungry and the Hunted,” the second episode of Sports Night. Following up on the review, here’s a recap of the episode. Still to come: memorable lines from the episode.

Jeremy’s getting the call. He doesn’t know what that means, whether it’s good or bad, and whether it’s some sort of punishment for guessing about a football play better than Isaac did, but he’s getting it.

The call is for him to produce a segment for a CSC hunting show — go to the Adirondacks with a professional guide and a guest hunter, shoot down some ducks and some deer, come back and cut together his segments, and knock Dana and Isaac’s socks off. Jeremy looks nervous about the hunting, and even more nervous about the fact that Isaac has talked to his old boss at USA Today, but he gamely takes the assignment.

Taking the assignment to go to some annoying late-night Luther Sachs reception are Dan, Casey, Isaac, and Dana. Natalie’s all over the limo seating planning, and tells Dan that he’s got to ride with Isaac so that Casey and Dana will ride together and fall in love. Dan thinks that’s a pretty stupid plan, but mentions to Casey that he should ride with Dana anyway. Casey rants a little about how, after a long day, he’s not in the mood to notice Dana’s clothes or her shoes or her hair … until he actually sees her in that dress, which literally knocks him off his feet. Before the limo seating actually begins, though, Isaac gets a call from the professional hunter — something’s happened with Jeremy.

We return to the studio the following night before the show, with Dan in an unaccustomed position — Casey’s driving him crazy, instead of the other way around. Seems Dana had a date for that cocktail party, Gordon, and Casey’s obsessed with him, with the very fact that there could be another Gordon in the world. Doesn’t seem right.

And hunting doesn’t seem right to Jeremy, who comes back claiming that the trip went great but is called to Isaac’s office to explain what went wrong. The call Isaac got the other night was about Jeremy fainting and being taken to the hospital. Jeremy’s description of what transpired — involving the killing a deer he inadvertently lured out into the open with a Twinkie Natalie had sent with him for a snack — makes it clear that he strongly disapproves of hunting for sport.

Isaac wonders why he didn’t tell them about that in the first place, and Jeremy explains that he’s lost other jobs, including the one at USA Today, because he didn’t fit in, and he didn’t want to take that chance again. Isaac lets him know that people who don’t fit in, and people who aren’t afraid to disagree, are the people he wants working for him. After Isaac and Dana leave, Jeremy uses Isaac’s phone to call his parents and tell them, proudly now, that he got the call.

Sports Night, ABC, The Hungry and the Hunted, recap