Studio 60 - 1.21 K&R Part III

[caz963]

I’m … verklempt. That final scene just about killed me.

I’m choked up - because of the wonderful acting I’ve just seen from both Matt and Brad, but also because before I know it, it’ll be next week and it’ll all be over soon.

I knew I was going to miss this show – I don’t watch a great deal of TV and I’m not particularly invested in anything else. But, as coloneljack said to me a couple of nights ago, “Sorkin has ruined me for all other TV.” And I’m sorry if that’s hyperbole, but it’s true. And I’m going to miss Studio 60 more than I thought I would. Not as much as I still miss West Wing of course, but pretty damn close. This last run of episodes has been fantastic – the writing, the acting; everyone appears to be firing on all cylinders, and it's making for some amazing television.

I think I have to say this now - Fuck you, NBC. So not everything in the garden was rosy the whole time, but I really hope that one day, you realize what you had and that you screwed it up big time.

Anyway. This week, Jordan (who we don’t see again this ep) develops a post op infection, Jack wants Simon to apologise for what he said to the press, Tom is still waiting for news on his brother – and we get more flashbacks to how Matt and Danny left the show before.

As with last week, there were far too many great lines to quote – which reminds me - crossmymind posted a collection of the best lines from the last three episodes here.

There are some hefty themes here – but I think they’re all handled brilliantly. The overall tone of this episode was pretty dark, but despite that, there’s still a lot of humour. And I’m even more convinced that no one can do that like Sorkin. NO ONE.

(Sorry I haven't done my usual "quote heavy" recap this week... I'm just... gah!)

I was delighted to see Jack back this week. He’s one of my favourite characters on the show – beautifully written and played. Also, I found myself not hating Simon – which was a real surprise! And the point about the fact that it was entertainment reporters – the ones who cover their wrap parties and who Jeannie’s going home with – were the ones outside the studio, making the story “user friendly” was just spot on.
They make the capture of three US troops a showbiz story, and in the process casually put the three of them in greater danger, and then they ask me if we’re manipulating the story for our benefit..?

Jack wants Simon to apologise for his comments to the press, and Simon won’t. I loved the way these scenes were linked back to the Matt and Danny getting fired scenes, via Jack this time – you could tell he’s haunted by it.
We’re doing it right this time! When Matt and Danny had to leave five years ago, I wasn’t the bad guy, I was the guy telling them what I’m telling you now… all they had to do was apologise.

Harriet smacks Matt in the head in flashback a lot this week. She wants them to drop the Karl Rove sketch. One of the more annoying things about her is her tendency to think everything’s about her – is Matt doing the sketch to get back at her? (Why the hell would he be doing that?)
Matt puts his put in his mouth at dress - I’m Jewish – I wanted to kill Arabs before any of you!. Yeah. Oops. (But he looks really good in this scene!)

Back at the hospital, Harriet is driving Danny up the wall with Holly Hunter – Jordan’s blood still won’t clot, she’s being given transfusions, drugs…
It sounds worse than it is.
We’re gonna stop saying that now.
(beat) It sounds worse than it is.

Danny pushes him to tell him how her condition has been classified. It’s critical. And here’s where I fall in love with Bradley Whitford all over again for the nth time this week. He says nothing to that, yet he says everything – his face is amazing. He’s taken a punch to the gut, he’s struggling to process the information, yet he still tries to protect Harriet from knowing the truth, just telling her there’s been no change in Jordan’s condition. And I liked that Harriet could see his distraction – last week, Danny wanted to be kept up to date with Mark Jeter’s situation; this time he can’t take it all in. Harriet knows there’s something not right, but she doesn’t push it. Instead she goes back to driving him nuts.

Matt and hot-lawyer-chick decide it’s time to bring Tom in on the K&R plan. Tom doesn’t like the odds. Captain Boyle knows exactly what’s going – and tells Tom to steer clear.

The exchanges between the two of them were really good as well, the Captain keeping Tom from freaking out by using just the right amount of snark –

He [Simon]went from zero to stupid in 4.5 seconds.
Dealing with the press isn’t easy.
I wouldn’t know, I spend my adult life dealing with people who are trying to kill me.
It’s roughly the same principle.

In the past, Matt and Harriet are still arguing about the sketch, patriotism and Matt’s job security. She thinks the sketch is a ticking bomb waiting to go off.
And, being such a great fan of Dubya myself, I admit that I liked this from Matt a lot:
I remember a few days after the megaphone thing at Ground Zero, I was at the Writer’s Guild, and people were talking about what a seminal moment that was. And while people were talking about what a great leader he and become in that moment, I was thinking, ‘Gee, what I saw was a guy getting an “allie oop” pass from a heckler.’ …But I didn’t say anything because I was scared, and I’ve been scared for five weeks and that’s too long for a grown man -

Doctor Jess tells Danny and Harriet that they’ve stopped Jordan’s haemorrhaging, but that now she’s developed an infection – and it’s not good. She could go into shock and her organs could shut down. Danny wants to know the odds – Jess doesn’t want to tell him, but Danny won’t let it go. She’s got a 25% chance.
Again with the saying it all with his face and I haven’t any words either. But after all that bad news – still the snark.

Harriet – I can give you two choices. More Holly Hunter…
Danny - Or?
Or I can teach you how to pray.
Teach me.
God always wins.
No – it’s just… your Holly Hunter’s unbearable.

Fab scene between Matt and Jack –

Jack – I need you.
Matt – Jack – my whole life I have been waiting to hear those words from you. Heh.

Jack wants Matt to talk Simon into the apology. And of course they get into what happened five years ago. Jack insists and apology would have saved Matt’s job – Matt says Jack should have told the naysayers to screw themselves.

Monday morning after the show with the Rove sketch, Jack calls Matt and Danny into his office to listen to a radio broadcast from a local station in Phoenix. Suffice to say they aren’t fans of the show.
I had to laugh at the treason jingle - and Danny looks cute when he’s puzzled.

Matt refuses to apologise for the sketch – Jack threatens to fire Danny.

What did he do?
He was sitting next to you when you said you wouldn’t apologise

Captain Boyle gets a call telling him Al Jazeera is going to report that one of the airmen has been executed – except he hasn’t, they’ll be broadcasting footage of someone who was killed months ago. But Tom doesn’t want to know. He’s made up his mind. He wants to buy Mark out.

In the chapel, Danny asks Harriet why he needs to “audition” for God…

See, this is my first speedbump. I would think, if I were God, I wouldn’t have any ego problems… there’s a baby that’s two weeks premature, her mom can’t stop bleeding, my friend and employee’s brother is being held prisoner by medieval heroin dealers… if he needs ten minutes of sucking up before he’ll fix this, I don’t want to work with him… if he’s real –
He is
And he loves me
He does
Why not just fix it?

Wow. Those are more or less the same arguments I’ve made for years.

I can’t believe I’m saying this, but Simon is awesome in his next scene with Jack, where he points out the hypocrisy in his situation.

Matt points out that No one who would be offended by this show watches Studio 60… is true patriotism really that fragile that it can be threatened by a late night comedy show?
How often do we come across this? People up in arms about a television show or film they’ve never watched because they’ve “heard” its blasphemous or something similar.

Matt, Jack, Tom and Mary discuss the next move for the K&R – and after Jack and Tom leave, Mary asks Matt if he’s spoken to Danny about the baby.

This last minute or so is the part where I start to tear up. Matt was awesome – his reaction when Mary suggests that he gets Danny to get Jordan to sign some papers making him (Danny) the baby’s guardian choked me up. His voice cracks when he tells her that Jordan’s a friend of his too, and that she’s not going to die – and he’s close to tears as he asks if she knows how to draft the papers.

He could lose his fiancé and his daughter in one night, and that’s preventable.

So I’ve got a lump in my throat – when we cut to Danny looking through the window at the baby. It’s all over his face again – he’s exhausted, he’s desperate… (I'm teared up) he leans his head against the glass and then stands back and kneels down…

And I become a quivering heap on the carpet.

Putting my fangirling hat aside, I think Brad is quite simply one of the finest actors working in television today.

(Putting that hat back on, thank you wardrobe for the tight jeans and the extra undone shirt button! I thought he looked gorgeous last week, but I think he topped that here.)

And another Tim Busfield directed episode - he's done a fair few of these now, and he's done a great job.
Which means - and I can't help being gobsmacked here - that Brad must have directed the finale. I'm reliably informed that he definitely said at the John Wells event that he'd directed "the last one" - although some of us were wondering if he meant the finale or the last episode shot, because they aren't the same.

Next week will undoubtedly come around too soon - it always does. Of course, I want to see what happens - and how the hell Sorkin is going to tie all this up in 42 minutes! - but it's going to be an emotional rollercoaster.





I’m with Matt and Danny when it comes to religion – perhaps I’m even more sceptical in that I guess I’d describe myself as an ‘open minded atheist’. But I’d be more than willing to be convinced if, at some time in the future, I could know that when Zucker and Reilly and whoever the hell else is responsible for what’s happened to this show, turn up at the gates of wherever is heaven for them, that God will turn to the fella sitting scribbling across the way and say, "So, Aaron – whaddya think to these guys?"

Comments

[hooloovoo_42]

It's amazing. Whenever I read your recaps, I sit here (or lie here) thinking "yeah, that's just what I wanted to say, if only I could express myself properly".

I am *so* going to miss this show.

"So, Aaron – whaddya think to these guys?"

*snigger*

[caz963.livejournal.com]

Thanks.

And yeah, that last bit 'wot I wrote' just sort of hit me - there's got to be some smiting or something over this, surely?

[hooloovoo_42]

I think a head of cabbage and a potato may be involved.

[crossoverman.livejournal.com]

It's not that Sorkin has ruined all television for me, it's just that when this show is gone, we won't have many articulate television characters on TV anymore. Just watching the Simon and Jack scene at the start of this episode - they way they are sparring and reasoning with each other, smart and articulate men making their cases for Simon to apologise or not... this kind of scene just doesn't get written that much for television.

Oh, there are smart and complex characters on television. And complicated plots. But so rarely does it come down to reasoned arguments - thoughtful and complex dialogue as the source of the drama.

I can get off on other kinds of drama - action and more emotional conflicts, but there is no other Sorkin.

[caz963.livejournal.com]

I agree completely. I was going to write someting about the number of "two-handers" this week, but I was so completely drained at the end that I left a lot out.
That's the thing about Sorkin - he makes you think and work things out for yourself. It's not always handed to you on a platter, it's not always black and white.

There are indeed other complex characters and complicated plots - but how often are they played out through two people sitting down and talking?

I'm going to miss my weekly dose of intelligent TV - and sadly, there doesn't seem to be anything else on the horizon that can come anywhere close to matching it.

I've come to realise that I'm now more conscious of dialogue/writing on TV shows than I ever was - and there really is very little around to touch Sorkin.
I really hope his experience with Studio 60 hasn't led him to turn his back on TV for good. I don't think I'd blame him, but I can't bear the thought that I'll never hear his words in a new television show again.

[zinke.livejournal.com]

That's the thing about Sorkin - he makes you think and work things out for yourself.

A skill I fear is becoming a lost art. When I was in school we literally were taught lessons on how to think critically. It seems to have fallen quite a ways down the priority ladder for a great many people in recent years. *sighs*

[zinke.livejournal.com]

So many things to respond to, so little space....

Fuck you, NBC. I really hope that one day, you realize what you had and that you screwed it up big time.

Given the promo spot for "Journeyman" that ran during last night's episode, I'm thinking that day is gonna come sooner than NBC thinks. Honestly, it's "Quantum Leap" without Scott Bakula, which is simple blasphemy if you ask me.

Putting my fangirling hat aside, I think Brad is quite simply one of the finest actors working in television today. (Putting that hat back on, thank you wardrobe for the tight jeans and the extra undone shirt button! I thought he looked gorgeous last week, but I think he topped that.)

Hee-hee! I totally agree. I am perpetually amazed that he is able to continually up the ante in terms of his acting skills and his hotness.

I'm still in complete denial about next week, and so refuse to comment on what the end of the series will do to me. Time enough for a complete meltdown on Thursday.

[ozzyols.livejournal.com]

Given the promo spot for "Journeyman" that ran during last night's episode, I'm thinking that day is gonna come sooner than NBC thinks. Honestly, it's "Quantum Leap" without Scott Bakula, which is simple blasphemy if you ask me.

Aaaargh - that's what I said when I first heard about it! excuse me while I go kick something.

[caz963.livejournal.com]

The meltdown for me will be on Friday, but I'll be with you in spirit.

I'm going to have a "virtual wake" here, I think at some point over the days following the finale. I want to try to collect my thoughts and I hope others will weigh in as well.

And bringing the shallow - Brad was utterly gorgeous. I can't seem to stop saying that, because I just seem to have run out of words to describe him - his acting is quite simply astonishinlgly good (if these eps had been shown earlier, they'd be engraving his name on another Emmy by now!) - and he's a truly beautiful man.
's all I got.

[ozzyols.livejournal.com]

You know I have been thinking... there might not have been too much "acting" with Brad at the end. All he had to do really is put himself back to when George was born. I remember on the IP with Jane K that they were saying George spent a couple of weeks in the ICU with prem birth problems and they were both really worried. I am guessing there was a bit of drawing on experience happening there.

But what a scene.... Yeah it choked me up too....

Have you been to Brad's IMDB site recently. There is a thread in their forums on the hotness of Brad and how many people are just seeing it... aaaah to be in those early stages of conversion!

[sillyg.livejournal.com]

You know what I'm going to seriously miss about this show? It's so smart. Sorkin inspires me to be a better person and a better writer. You're right. He's ruined me for all other television. I'd rather watch TWW on DVD or S60 on my computer than reruns of anything or the Food Network (and that used to be my catch all channel). I mean, he creates these people that you want to be or know.

God I'm going to miss this show.

When does the finale air? *is so out of the loop*

My only criticism of Sorkin (and it's weird because it's one of my favorite things about him too) is that he uses the same actors in everything. I mean, I love BW and MP and TB but maybe if he mixed it up...I don't know.

[caz963.livejournal.com]

The thing is that not many actors can really handle the "Sorkinese" - it's often complex dialogue, very rhythmic, not a word is out of place etc. etc. and to be honest, I'd rather hear Brad or Tim speaking his words any number of times than hear someone who didn't quite "get it". Although I'd happily watch Brad read the phone book..!

I'm not an insider so this is just guessing, but I'd say he probably feels comfortable writing for people he knows can handle it - he's known Brad and Tim for well over twenty years, remember - and he writes for them like no other writers can. If you read the pilot script for "Studio 7" as it then was, it was obvious Sorkin had written the part of Danny for Brad, even though he hadn't been cast.

The finale is next week :(

It seems that "smart" is no longer "sexy" in TV land - and it's much the poorer for it.

[flippet.livejournal.com]

The thing is that not many actors can really handle the "Sorkinese" - it's often complex dialogue, very rhythmic, not a word is out of place etc. etc. and to be honest, I'd rather hear Brad or Tim speaking his words any number of times than hear someone who didn't quite "get it".

You know what I find amusing about this? That Brad does it SO WELL.....and yet, when you hear him speak all on his own, it's kind of far from this. If all I'd ever heard was Brad being Brad, I might question if he could pull it off. Just goes to show how good he really is. (And yeah, I'd PAY to watch Brad read the phone book. You hear, that, networks? PAY. GOOD. MONEY.)

In an aside to that....when the HECK are we gonna get Brad on Inside The Actor's Studio? NEED. MUST HAVE.

[caz963.livejournal.com]

Yes, Brad on ITAS would be fantastic. We do get that over here, so let me know if it ever happens!

Brad does the Sorkinese exceptionally well - and you also have to admit that Sorkin writes exceptionally well for Brad.

I've run out of superlatives to describe his acting. And his hotness.
*sigh*

[flippet.livejournal.com]

Brad does the Sorkinese exceptionally well - and you also have to admit that Sorkin writes exceptionally well for Brad.

Yeah, Sorkin knows just how to play to Brad's strengths. Makes me wonder what could have been---if he'd been allowed to go as dark as it looked like he would at the beginning of the season. With the addiction and all, it looked like he was only going to build on where they both took it in Noel.

Which reminds me....we never did find out what caused Danny's 'long weekend', did we?

Damn NBC. Sorkin can drop important storyline threads all on his own, he didn't need their (and AP's) help. :-P

[caz963.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure that Sorkin dropped those threads all on his own - especially considering his fondness for putting his own experiences into his storylines.
I'm trying not to think about what "could have been" - it upsets me too much.

I still blame AP for a lot of this!

[sillyg.livejournal.com]

PS-What does it say about Sorkin's writing that we are content to watch Jack and Simon, just two men, sit in a room and talk to each other for the better part of an hour?

At a time in America where it's all about sex and murder and action and reality TV?

I mean, come on! Sorkin makes us think and he's awesome at it!

How can NBC not see the magic in that?!?!

[hooloovoo_42]

PS-What does it say about Sorkin's writing that we are content to watch Jack and Simon, just two men, sit in a room and talk to each other for the better part of an hour?

You should try the old BBC series "Yes Minister" and "Yes Prime Minister" - three middle aged blokes talking.

[bingblot.livejournal.com]

That final scene killed me too. I was holding it together pretty well until then-- but then that scene and I died.
I must say, yet again, that I love Brad Whitford in hospital scenes. It really seems to bring out all the amazing expressiveness of his eyes and his entire face. I love it. *flashes back to the Gaza eps* Oh I wish we could have gotten an 'I love you' for J/D... I want to know what Josh would have said about Donna in such a situation, if they'd been together... (Actually, I want to read a WW fic where Donna experiences complications in childbirth, just to have Brad bring the Josh!angst the way he does so well... Because much as I love the Danny!angst, I'm just so much more invested in J/D and it doesn't hit me the same way for Danny/Jordan.)

I <3 Nate Corddry. I love Jack Rudolph's character. And you're so right, Aaron Sorkin has spoiled me for any other tv show. I don't know how he's going to tie all this up in just one more episode-- waaaahhh, only one more episode!!!-- but I have every faith in him.

I confess that I loved Harriet saying 'this isn't the time but he made some good points' in that chapel scene.

I love the Matt/Danny friendship we've seen. Matt saying that he'll commit a crime and lead a high speed chase back to the hospital if necessary... I just about died. And at the end... well, yeah... I died.

that God will turn to the fella sitting scribbling across the way and say, "So, Aaron – whaddya think to these guys?"
haha, I love that image!! Damn you, NBC, to hell and back a million times over!!

[caz963.livejournal.com]

I want to read a WW fic where Donna experiences complications in childbirth

Poor Donna! But let me think about it...

Brad was utterly gorgeous this episode - and I don't just mean the way he looked, it was just... everything about him.

Jack has developed into a truly wonderful character, I think. I said a couple of weeks back I think that he's the pragmatist on the show. He does what he needs to do even though he might not like it ("I love reality TV - don't watch it...") - he knows what's right, but he has to exist in a different world where sometimes he can't afford to do what's right and has to do what's expedient.
I never, ever thought I'd be so cut up about the ending of a TV show. I mean, sure I was sad when WW ended, but at least that had a "long and (reasonably) healthy life". Studio 60 hasn't made it out of infancy.

Yeah - I'm pissed.

I'm planning on holding a "virtual wake" maybe next weekend - just ramdom thoughts on the show and stuff. Hope youl join in.