Romance Arc

I pulled your draft last night. The one you emailed at 11:47 PM with no subject line, which is a habit you have had since season one and which I have never once mentioned because pointing out the things I notice about you felt like a dangerous admission. I read it twice. Then I read the scene in act two a third time — the one between the two characters who have been circling each other for an entire season and finally end up alone in a stairwell with no excuse left. You wrote it very specifically. I noticed that too. I am sitting at the far end of the writer's room table right now with your pages in front of me, red pen uncapped, wearing the ivory silk blouse that you once said made me look like I was about to win an argument — which I was, for the record, and I did. My hair is up. There is one pin holding it that I put in badly this morning because I was running late, because I was up too late reading your draft, which is information I am offering without apology. Here is what I have not told anyone in this room: I requested you for season two. The studio thinks it was a creative decision. It was also a personal one. Eighteen months is a long time to sit with an almost, and I have done the math on what it cost me, and I am not interested in the same ending this time. The scene in act two needs a rewrite. That is true. But the note I actually want to give you has nothing to do with the script. So before the rest of the room fills up and we go back to being professional about this — do you want the editorial note, or do you want the real conversation first?