See Episode 1.

Murray’s Hill is a half-hour sitcom that takes place in Manhattan’s most prestigious neighborhood. The show centers around the lives of four young professionals, Steve, Gopal, Dan, and Morgan, two investment bankers, a strategy consultant, and a derivatives trader, respectively.

Guest starring Trey, a hipster.

[Opening Credits]
[Theme Song Variation by Daniel Powter]

Narrated by Steve Murray.

[Steve as Narrator]
Banking and life are quite similar, actually. Both are perpetual. Both have their periods of frenzy and their periods of relative calm. And in both, sometimes you just need that little extra edge to succeed.

It was Wednesday afternoon, and Gopal was sitting at has desk nodding in and out of consciousness, his headset microphone mimicking a drinking bird, except this bird was drinking gingham-patterned cotton.

“Financing…” “high-yield…” “synergize…”

Gopal’s drowsy mind captured scattered words as the drool began to form around his mouth. His phone-radar stayed active nonetheless, and he was ready to bounce to attention if he heard his name mentioned on the call (or Bhopal, of course, with no hard feelings taken for the insensitive error).

Gopal mused happily for several minutes, his head finally fallen to the side. A smile crept across his face as he felt a slight vibration near his ass, which at first seemed to be complementing his daydream. But it persisted, and Gopal finally awoke and pulled out his “Eighty-Seven Hundo,” as everyone seemed to be calling it. His fingers felt at peace on the beveled edges as he loaded up the new text message:

“want 2 play 2night?” it read.

The surge of adrenalin and southward bound blood jolted Gopal upright and conscious. He and Sheetal had been texting vigorously over the past few days, and this was definitely the culmination. All the text-strategizing and wordsmithing he had done with Steve and Dan (meathead Morgan was no help) had paid off.

“Play…” he thought to himself giddily, his imagination beginning to run wild. He knew exactly what that meant.

Thirty seconds later, a voice on the conference call finally registered: “BOPAL?! You still there or what?!”

[Steve as Narrator]

A Hill table is a beer pong table fashioned out of two breakfast bar stools and a closet door. A Hill table differs significantly from its frat-like cousins in that it is made from the closet door of an elite high rise building North of 26th street and South of 42nd on the East side of Manhattan.

Gopal, Steve, Morgan, and Lauren (Dan’s girlfriend) were playing casual beer pong on a Hill table later that night while blasting a lil’ Bon Jovi. A very odd occurrence that they’d all be home and boozing on a Wednesday, indeed, but they were being supportive of Gopal’s big date and likewise celebrating Morgan’s recent winning of a seat at the World Series of Poker.

Gopal and Lauren exchanged banter while losing miserably to Steve, a semi-pro that had given up his amateur status when he accepted sponsorship from Beast in college.

“Nervous about your date, huh?” Lauren inquired innocently.

“That obvious?” Gopal asked back, dipping a ping pong ball into a water cup.

Lauren focused her eyes Gopal’s hand and nodded slightly in its direction. He followed orders and looked down to see the little waves his shaking hand was creating in the murky water.

“Correct,” Gopal confirmed. He paused and then changed gears by probing slightly into a problem he knew was ever-growing, “So you and Dan? Things going cool?”

“Yeah, I mean…it’s pretty tough with him traveling so much. I think he just feels like he’s living in your guys’ shadow, you know? He’s always talking about how he’s gotta work ten times harder to land a job in PE…And my friends keep telling me stories about these consultants they know that like end up doing it with maids and stuff which doesn’t really help.”

“Dan? No way, he’d never do something like that…and his job is, uhmm…really great,” Gopal reassured, ricocheting a shot off Steve’s Gucci watch. Gopal was sympathetic but he just couldn’t bring himself to endorse Dan’s job. He chuckled internally thinking about Dan eating at a Bennigan’s and imagining just how stoked Dan would be if a maid even lingered in his room an extra minute.

“But I read to some really cute kids today in The Bronx!!” Lauren added, cheering up at the thought of her small but important contribution to mankind. Then cheering down when Steve sank a generously filled cup which she was tapped to drink.

“Nice.” And Gopal gave Lauren a friendly bump with his hip to move her out of his range of movement, freeing himself up to miss embarrassingly.

The beer pong continued and the gaiety grew. And then, halfway through “It’s My Life” and just as the clan was reaching the pinnacle of merriment and perfect 4-part harmony, Trey came out of Dan’s room.

Trey was Dan’s sublet he had found for the weekdays because he was always traveling for work (consultants and Koreans, always a bit thrifty except at the no-rae bang). Trey was a “designer” of sorts who would live virtually anywhere before going back home to his parents place in Bergen County, North Jersey.

Trey stood in the middle of the cramped living room, arms akimbo, legitimately perplexed by the scene before him. He scratched his head and wished out loud that he would have just stayed at the crack house in Bed Stuy he had been living at before following up on the “Spacious room with 3 great guys in AMAZING neighborhood” ad on Craigslist.

He tried feebly to negotiate:
“Guys…I’m, uhh, trying to organize the mp3’s in my iTunes…and it’s really tough to do with you guys blaring this, uhmm, contrasting music…”

But no one could hear him over the fresh beats.

“Oberlin!!” Steve screamed from across the room, signaling for Trey to pay attention. “Check this motion!” And he skillfully tossed a ball into the front cup with arms so long it was practically a drop. “Ya’ll do that at Oberlin, baby?!”

“Vassar…” Trey muttered, itching underneath the sleeve of his polyester shirt.

“Yeah, take my spot Trey,” Morgan said, bowing out. “I hate playing without paddles anyway, and I’ve gotta go get in a few hands before we go out. Gotta work out these wrists a bit, you know. All those golden bracelets are gonna weigh me down!” And he winked at everyone all at once. Morgan had been much more jovial since getting into the WSOP. He held up two fingers for all to see, and then rotated his wrist in case there was confusion. “Two weeks, baby. Two weeks.”

Trey went back in his room.

Dan was lying on top of his hotel bed in Illinois in his boxers, his ThinkPad warming his crotch to semen-stunting temperatures. Border? No border? He contemplated, toggling between the two options for the box on the slide he was working on. Then his phone rang. He picked up on the first ring and responded eagerly:

“Steve, what’s up man? How’s the NYC?”

“You know how it is, son! Just hanging out, schooling your girlfriend in some Beirut.”

“What the fuck?” Dan responded, incredulous. “Put Gopal on the phone right now.”

Steve shot his phone at Gopal as if it were a ball, landing it perfectly in the hands/cup of the responsible roommate.

“Yo,” Gopal greeted.

“Things all right over there, man?”

“Yeah, bro. But we’re sucking it up over here, bigtime…”

“Did I tell you I’ve got a date with Sheetal tonight …” Gopal started to add in proudly, oblivious to Dan’s growing concern.

But before he could finish, Lauren had snatched the phone away from the childishly excited Gopal.

She scurried off to a corner to chat with Dan. “Are you gonna make it home this weekend?” was all that was audible before she threw the phone down and stormed towards the door, face in hands.

She paused in the entryway and held the door open for a moment. “More like Bushleague Consulting Group!” she shout-sobbed, slamming the door shut.

The guys all paused momentarily before breaking out in laughter. Even Trey’s little liberal arts school giggle could be heard from outside his room. The other dudes all looked at each other like, “They get recruiters there?”

Steve fished the phone out from between the cushions and began to speak to it and the group authoritatively.

“Look fellas. Our boy Gopal here has got a hot ass date tonight, and our boy Morgan just got his PhD in statistics from partypoker.com.”

“So for the occasion, yours truly scored a lil’ bit of the you know whooo,” and Steve bowed. “So Dan, you crush up a Benadryl or do whatever the hell it is you do out there, we’re gonna take a quick bump here before Gopal rolls out.”

Steve tossed the phone back on the couch, still on, and fished out a bag of blow/baking soda from his pocket. He dug out a bit of the powder with a key and inhaled it swiftly. Trey was now by Steve’s side, looking ever so eager. He was determined to at least take advantage of the one, be it marginal, benefit of living with a bunch of Bankers as opposed to crack heads. And he followed suit with a larger, hipster-sized hit.

“Folded fucking pocket aces for this shit,” Morgan informed, jogging out of his room and sniffing a bit himself, perhaps in hopes of being able to channel Stu Unger’s spirit.

Morgan finished and held the bag and key combo out to Gopal, who stared nervously at the urban drug kit. A lifetime of avoiding even a puff of weed showed on Gopal’s face, which had cringed up anxiously.

“Come on, man…for Sheetal,” Steve encouraged. He squatted slightly and flexed his arms. “It’ll make you strong like GOOG’s earnings!”

Gopal continued to stare for a few seconds before responding unconvincingly: “Nah…I’ma pass this time…”

“Don’t wanna go soft on my girl, you know?” he inserted to compensate, futilely trying to save himself with a most fratty bull-riding movement.

The guys permitted Gopal his ungraceful outlet, and got their things ready to head out.

Trey, now more eager than ever to continue hanging with the guys, offered up a birthday party his friend was having on the Lower East Side. Steve and Morgan agreed out of lack of a better option.

And the four headed out of the apartment and into the elevator, but not before Steve had slipped an extra gram into Gopal’s jacket pocket, a thoughtful gift from a man with tremendous foresight.

The door shut behind them and Dan’s longing voice echoed throughout the room from the deserted cordless phone.
“Guys?! … I did the Benadryl…you still there? …Hello?”

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