Watching Studio60

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

We’re in the middle of another show, and as usual, there are problems. This time, they’re due to the fact that Natalie — understandably rattled after her abuse by Christian Patrick in the previous episode — is making mistakes. Like losing a tape that’s due to go on the air. She’s sure it was there, and promises to make it right, but Dana and everybody else are all sorts of forgiving for her every fumble.

Meanwhile, in front of the camera, Dan and Casey are freezing due to problems with the climate in the room, and have to be layered with Elmer Fudd gear during commercial breaks. Also, Casey is riding a football coach named Rostenkowski for making a bonehead move that cost Casey’s alma mater a game, and Dan thinks he should cut it out. But Casey’s a pundit, and he’s doing his job.

The next day, Natalie’s happy to report to Dan and Casey that she’s arranged for the repair of the air-conditioning … except, of course, it’s the heat that’s on the fritz. But no one’s blaming Natalie for anything. It’s okay. No problem. Don’t worry about it. The only one being hard on Natalie is Natalie.

Jeremy is being pretty hard on himself, too, staying up all night cracking Natalie’s e-mail password so he can head off any threatening e-mail. He brings a death threat he found to Dana and Isaac, but the FBI’s already been over it, and his bosses are mostly concerned that Jeremy is exhausting himself with all this Natalie protection.

While Jeremy’s obsessing over death threats, Casey’s reveling in fan letters full of support for his campaign against Rostenkowski. Dana pulls him away to ask him to fix any errors that come through from the increasingly distracted Natalie. Casey, in turn, is distracted by how nice Dana looks, and how she’s looking nice because of a dinner date with Gordon, a dinner he resolves to ruin.

Dana’s got another dinner to set up. She talks with sleep-deprived Jeremy about the fact that he likes Natalie, Natalie likes him, and the best thing he could do for her right now is just take her out for dinner, to get her mind off things. She also orders him to get some sleep at once, but that doesn’t look likely to happen.

Casey and Dana have a conversation about whether he’s conversationally anal-retentive (yes), and whether she can make a proper crash-and-burn sound (no). Jeremy and Dan have a conversation about where Jeremy should take Natalie for dinner, since the software program he designed to pinpoint the perfect spot isn’t doing the trick. Dan gives a quantity of poetic advice about finding The Place, but what it all boils down to is that Jeremy should choose a place he likes himself.

Dana brings Gordon to a place she likes — her studio — and he chats with Casey before the show begins. In agreeing with him about Rostenkowski, Gordon gradually leads Casey to see that it’s way easier to be critical than to do a coach’s job. And so Casey finally knows what Dan’s been telling him all along: He’s got to lighten up on Rostenkowski.

And then, it’s another show, and another screw-up: Natalie fails to get some copy on the teleprompter, and Dan’s left ad-libbing thirty seconds, which he does by talking about Tony Orlando. Natalie’s mad that no one is mad at her for all the mistakes she’s been making, and she’s mad again when she goes to her desk and sees Jeremy there, asleep on the floor, with a candlelight Chinese dinner spread out picnic style in front of him — inspiring Dan to observe that, indeed, Jeremy found The Place.

Natalie wakes him and asks if this is supposed to be some kind of charity, but Jeremy says simply that he wanted to help because he likes her, and she sits down and puts his head in her lap and lets him go back to sleep. Dana gently gives her the lecture she’s been wanting, and then leaves the two of them in their romantic spot, as Gershwin’s “Someone to Watch Over Me” plays us out.

Sports Night, ABC, The Head Coach Dinner and the Morning Mail, recap