Watching Studio60

I watched “The Hungry and the Hunted,” the third episode of Sports Night, again last night, and saw again the emergence of the Jeremy I came to love over the course of the show. Of course, the character’s overwhelming love of sports — already well-established with his episode 1 meltdown and his episode 2 inability to cut even a second of a lengthy baseball-game recap — continued with his expert guess on what would happen next in the football game Isaac and Casey were watching. But with his horrible hunting story, more full of sarcasm and hurt than geek bravado, Jeremy took on some depth. That’s a great anti-hunting speech written by Aaron Sorkin there, and Joshua Malina totally sells it.

In addition to making Jeremy one of the team, this episode also launched the relationship triangle that would be tripping Casey and Dana up throughout the rest of the season. We didn’t learn anything more about Gordon but his name this time around, yet that alone was enough to send Casey into a tizzy, much less the fact that the guy got to spend a lot of time with Dana-in-the-hot-dress. Dan tries hard with his Inconsequential Subjects of the Day — the greatness of yachting, and the non-greatness of soccer — but he’s no match for jealous Casey.

The other important work of this episode was to establish Isaac as the single greatest boss in the world. Jeremy sure got lucky, even if that poor deer didn’t.

What did you think about this episode? Share your thoughts in the comments.

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