After some commercials, we come back to Jeremy reading something and then jumping out of his skin when Natalie comes in. She wants to know why he's reading her mail, which he counters by asking why she's writing to his sister, as though that's anywhere close to being as bad a transgression. Natalie wants to know why it bothers him that she's writing to his sister. He denies it does, then says he doesn't want to discuss it because there are so many people around, as though that's ever been a deterrent for anyone on this show ever, and as if to prove my point, Natalie yells out, "Jeremy's been reading my mail!" to the entire newsroom. Jeremy thanks her for that, and I'm thankful that this scene is over but at the same time I have that vague feeling of dread in the pit of my stomach, knowing that this subplot is obviously going to get on my nerves in a major way.

Like now, for instance, as everybody gathers in the conference room for the rundown and Natalie tells Casey that Jeremy's been reading her mail. Dan announces that Casey got 150,000 votes overnight on the internet poll. "Am I the only one who thinks it's strange?" says Dan. "I think you're the only one who cares," says Kim, the lone person who doesn't piss me off this episode (except for Sam, and I suppose Will and Chris and Dave, except they don't get any lines that I paid attention to so they don't count). Dana announces off the top that the eight o'clock rundown will be at seven-thirty, which seems to throw Elliot into a tizzy because he won't know what to put on the paperwork or something, and if the people on this show would like to quit being so useless sometime this episode, I'd really appreciate it. Dana, who looks quite nice in a red dress, has a "dinner engagement." I don't know what kind of dress it is. The best I can offer you is that besides being red, it has no sleeves. Many annoying comments from the staff follow, including Natalie informing Dana that Jeremy's been reading her mail. Casey puts his hand up and says, "Dinner engagement?" and Dana says, "Something we can talk about later," yet forgets to add, "Or not, since it's really any of your damn business," but at least Dana's attempting to keep personal stuff out of the meeting, unlike Casey, who gives a very annoying "okey-doke" like Dana's the inappropriate one here. Meanwhile, we've had several shots of Sam with his feet rudely up on the conference table, and he hasn't once looked up from the papers he's shuffling on his lap.