The Midterms - TWW S2E3

I realize it's been nearly four months since we last gathered to talk about The West Wing. I'm sorry, I'm sorry! It shouldn't happen again. I'm back now, baby! Let's continue with Season 2 -

Original airdate: October 18, 2000

Written by: Aaron Sorkin (24)

Directed by: Alex Graves (2)

Synopsis

• As Josh recovers from his wounds suffered at Rosslyn, the administration pushes forward towards the midterm elections in November. Sam recruits an old friend to run for an open seat in Congress (with unexpected results).  The psychological effects of the shooting linger, as Charlie turns colder towards Zoey (and the President), and Toby becomes obsessed with using questionable tactics to go after extremist groups. President Bartlet also finds himself obsessed with a school board election in New Hampshire. A meeting of media types in the White House ends in a verbal beatdown of a conservative radio host.

"Well, Toby, it's election night. What do you say about a government that goes out of its way to protect even citizens who try to destroy it?"

"God bless America."

Now that In The Shadow of Two Gunmen has concluded, and we've had the flashbacks revealing how the entire Bartlet gang got together, now it's time to deal with the present and the psychological aftereffects of that assassination attempt. Pair that with the onrushing midterm elections and the prospect of the Democrats actually taking control of Congress, and the White House staff has plenty on their plates in this episode.

I won't go into the timeline problems here, but you can read all about it in the next section (apparently time is pretty much meaningless in The West Wing universe). Aaron Sorkin decides to compress the calendar between the shooting (originally in the spring) and the fall election in order to create a sense of urgency and conflict on both the personal and macro/national levels.

As we begin, the lingering impact of the attack at Rosslyn is working on a couple of levels. The President's approval rating has shot up 30 points, and Ed and Larry in particular think this puts the Democrats in solid position to take over the House, add two Senate seats, a couple of governorships and a half-dozen statehouses. Toby, on the other hand, wants to use this temporary wave of good feeling to make an end-run around the Constitution and go after white supremacist groups like West Virginia White Pride, whose members mounted the assassination attempt on Charlie.

This actually fits what we're getting to know about Toby, as well as what we'll learn about him in the future. While he's mostly a prickly, standoffish leader of the Communications staff, when a topic touches him personally, his passion comes roaring through. He gets in a yelling match with CJ (as she and Sam try to be the voices of reason and defenders of the First Amendment), and even threatens to go above everyone's head straight to the President in order to bring the government's power to bear on white supremacist groups. That's when Toby and Jed have a meaningful discussion; after Toby asks for a leave of absence to deal with his personal demons regarding the psychological aftermath of the shootings, the President talks about his own nightly urge to send the Department of Justice and the FBI after West Virginia White Pride, and explains why he doesn't:

President: "Then I hang up the phone because I know it'll be better tomorrow, and better the day after that. We saw a lynching, Toby, that's why it feels like this."

Toby: "I'm not sure I'm gonna come out of the other side of this thing." 

President: "I'm not sure I can either. But until we are sure, I think we should keep coming to work every day."

Charlie is dealing with demons of his own. Realizing it was his relationship with Zoey that led directly to the shooting, he pulls away from her, using his work to put distance between them in an effort to avoid putting others in danger. It takes Andrew McIntosh, an IT specialist working on Mrs. Landingham's computer, and his son to reach Charlie. As Charlie sees the little boy coming along with McIntosh as he works, he recalls how he asked his police officer mother to change shifts that fateful night a year and a half ago, when she was shot and killed on the shift she traded into at his request; and when McIntosh tells him the old adage "If they're shooting at you, you must be doing something right," Charlie realizes he can't hide from the consequences of dating Zoey. If he's going to be in, he's going to be in all the way, and he patches things up with her as he gets ready to go vote.

Another election subplot is Sam recruiting his law school friend (and current District Attorney) Tom Jordan to run for a House seat in some unspecified district. The Democratic incumbent, Grant Samuels, died in office in August, and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee thinks Jordan would be a good candidate to replace him. Sam brings Tom and his (pregnant) wife to the White House to convince them to run, on short notice, true, but he promises the full support of the White House and the Democratic party.

But then, as usual, complications ensue. A month later, CJ brings word that Jordan's history of jury selection may be a problem; he has a history of favoring white jurors when he's prosecuting African-American defendants. That alone wouldn't prove enough to sink him, but by October, when the fact that Jordan belonged to an all-white fraternity in college comes to light (coupled with weak polling numbers), Leo tells Sam the party and the White House are pulling their support to focus on other, more promising races. Tom's wife Sarah tears Sam a new one, probably rightfully so - they've now been tarred as racists, abandoned by their party and left to twist in the wind:

Sarah: "Not even a word from the White House; not even a word."

Sam: "That's how we do it."

Sarah: "Sam -  any time we have the opportunity in the future to screw you - count on getting screwed."

All in all, though, this really illustrates the hard realities of politics, with Leo's "We can't afford all the things we want, Sam. It's over" a terrific shorthand description of the whole thing. Sam knows Tom isn't a racist, he knows him personally and knows he's a good guy, with a new baby on the way - but the realities of allocating party resources and ditching losing battles takes priority, no matter who gets hurt on the way.

Finally, let's go to the President and his seemingly irrational focus on a school board race in New Hampshire. When Jed discovers Elliot Roush is running for the school board in Manchester, he wants to pull out all the stops to defeat him. He gets a White House polling group to actually poll the school board race; he tells CJ he'd be willing to do an interview on the record to oppose Roush; it all seems kind of nutty when you're talking about a school board. It just so happens Roush was the guy Bartlet defeated in his first race for Congress, and apparently he was a real piece of work:

President: "CJ, I've known men of faith in my life. Towering men. Men of wisdom and compassion. Men of all faiths, of healing and peace. Pro-choice, pro-life, Republican, Democrat, men and women of God. Elliot Roush ...(long beat) ... is polling at 53 percent. He's polling at 53 percent. He's the front runner."

CJ: "Then that's the way it is. In a democracy, oftentimes, the other people win." 

By election night, the President has come to his senses (thanks in no small part to a tasty egg cream). He tells Toby Roush is going to win, and he's fine with that. When Toby asks how he beat him in that first congressional race, Jed realizes he can't remember. Sam rolls in to invite the President downstairs to the meeting of radio talk show hosts (with crab puffs!):

President: "Toby. Go with us to this radio thing."

Toby: "Oh, God. Really, sir?"

President: "There'll be crab puffs. New England crab puffs, by the way, made in New England."

Sam: "Actually, it's Alaskan crab."

Toby: "Sam -"

President: "There's Alaskan crab in this White House?"

Toby (to Sam): "He would have known the difference?"

President (to Sam, narrowing his eyes): "Have you tried them?" 

Sam: "I - Yes, reluctantly. I think it was clear the way I ate the crab puffs that it was a gesture of protest."

President: "Were they good?"

Sam: "Extraordinarily good, and going very fast."

President: "Let's get there." 

So off they go, and that brings us to one of the highlight moments of early Season 2. One of the radio hosts is Dr. Jenna Jacobs, a conservative talk-show host modeled after Dr. Laura Schlessinger, who caused some controversy in the late 1990s due to her strong views against homosexuality and her reliance on the "Dr. Laura" title despite her degree in physiology (instead of any field of ethics, psychology or theology). A letter written to Schlessinger focusing on her hypocrisy went viral via e-mail about that time, and Sorkin admits this was the source of the scene where the President calls out Jacobs. I'm going to put a big chunk of the exchange here, because it's a great moment in West Wing history and needs the context around the hammer drop at the end. Firstly, when President Bartlet comes into the room all the guests stand, except for Jacobs (proudly wearing her crab pin, to go along with the delicious Alaskan crab puffs):

And then President Bartlet, attempting to make some remarks to the group, finds himself distracted by Jacobs and turns his attention to her:

President: "Forgive me, Dr. Jacobs, are you an M.D.?"

Jacobs: "A Ph.D."

President: "A Ph.D."

Jacobs: "Yes, sir."

President: "In psychology?"

Jacobs: "No, sir."

President: "Theology?"

Jacobs: "No."

President: "Social work?"

Jacobs: "I have a Ph.D. in English literature."

President: "I'm asking 'cause on your show people call in for advice and you go by the name Dr. Jacobs on your show, and I didn't know if maybe your listeners were confused by that and assumed you had advanced training in psychology, theology, or health care."

Jacobs: "I don't believe they are confused, no, sir."

President: "Good. I like your show. I like how you call homosexuality an abomination."

Jacobs: "I don't say homosexuality is an abomination, Mr. President. The Bible does."

President: "Yes, it does. Leviticus."

Jacobs: "18:22."

President: "Chapter and verse. I wanted to ask you a couple of questions while I had you here. I'm interested in selling my youngest daughter into slavery, as sanctioned in Exodus 21:7. She's a Georgetown sophomore, speaks fluent Italian, always cleared the table when it was her turn. What would a good price for her be? While thinking about that, can I ask another? My chief of staff, Leo McGarry, insists on working on the Sabbath. Exodus 35:2 clearly says he should be put to death. Am I morally obligated to kill him myself, or is it okay to call the police? Here's one that's really important, 'cause we've got a lot of sports fans in this town. Touching the skin of a dead pig makes one unclean, Leviticus 11:7. If they promise to wear gloves, can the Washington Redskins still play football? Can Notre Dame? Can West Point? Does the whole town really have to be together to stone my brother John for planting different crops side-by-side? Can I burn my mother in a small family gathering for wearing garments made from two different threads? Think about those questions, would you? One last thing - while you may be mistaking this for your monthly meeting of the Ignorant Tight-Ass Club, in this building when the President stands, nobody sits."

(Note: while footballs have colloquially been called "pigskins" for years, perhaps because very early footballs were animal bladders and sometimes pig bladders, footballs today are actually made out of cowhide. So the strictures of Leviticus 11:7 wouldn't apply to the Redskins, Notre Dame, Army, or anyone else.)

And then, Jed turns to Toby and says, "That's how I beat him." Which is followed by Sam taking a crab puff right off Jacobs' plate:

The episode wraps up on Josh's stoop, with the staffers stopping by to hang out, drink beer, and await the election results. Josh, at the end of his recuperation and just about ready to return to work, shows off the pajamas CJ gave him (keep a close eye, you might see these again):

And in a very anticlimatic finish, Sam brings word that the last 12 close House races all ended with the incumbent losing, but the nature of the parties in those races meant the Republican/Democratic split in the House remained exactly the same. After a summer and fall of optimism, hard work, and plenty of money spent, nothing changed as far as the balance of power in Congress.

And that's the real theme of the episode. Life goes on, events come and go, we have some influence on the outcome of some things, but by and large - the world grinds on. Democracy continues to work. The people keep on making their voice known, and the best these public servants can do is keep on serving the public in the best way they know how. The Constitution lives. The rights of the citizenry are protected. And that's, well ... the blessings of America.

God bless America, indeed.

Tales Of Interest!

- Let's get right to the timeline issue. It seemed clear back at the end of Season 1 (What Kind Of Day Has It Been) that the Rosslyn shooting happened in May, or at least sometime in the spring. The first season episodes kinda-sorta matched the calendar with when they aired, there wasn't any obvious reason why the finale would jump in time, and, perhaps most revealingly, President Bartlet was anxious to get back to the White House after the MSNBC town hall in order to watch an NCAA women's softball game; Sacramento State vs. the University of the Pacific, to be exact. The NCAA softball season runs from February to May, with the national championship series in mid-May (in reality in 2000 Sacramento State actually played Pacific in softball on April 21 and 22). That little nugget alone firmly plants the shooting in the spring, either late April or early May.

So here, the cold open shows us that Josh is still in the hospital at George Washington University. We don't know the exact date yet, but we find out Congressman Grant Samuels died the night before. A bit later, when we're told it's August 12, we hear Samuels died "a few days ago," so Josh was still in the hospital in August. In general, gunshot victims stay in the hospital, at most, a couple of weeks. President Ronald Reagan, seriously injured in the attempt on his life in 1981, left the hospital 13 days after being shot and undergoing surgery. Considering the seriousness of Josh's injuries, let's give him some more time ... but three months? Seems excessive.

Then let's get right to the timeline as told by the characters themselves. On August 12, talking about the President's 81 percent approval rating, CJ says, "A week ago the job approval's at 51, we get shot at it's 81." Later that day we hear, "It's been a week and the high noon's about to be over. We want to be sure it doesn't look like we're taking advantage of the situation" (meaning, the assassination attempt). On election night in November, the President says, "Every night for the last 12 weeks" he's been wanting to send the FBI after West Virginia White Pride; that same night Josh says, "Everybody should have to stay inside for three months so that they truly appreciate the outdoors." Again, that puts the shooting and Josh's hospitalization/recovery starting in August, because if it were in the spring as the show itself led us to believe in Season 1, he'd actually be talking about six months and the President would say he's been struggling with the decision for 24 weeks.

There's a definite attempt by Sorkin to fix the time of the Rosslyn shooting a week or so before this episode opens, so early August. This ties into the temporary bump to President Bartlet's approval ratings, Toby's obsession at going after West Virginia White Pride, and Charlie's raw-edged relationship issues with Zoey. However, there's no way to make that fit the timeline of the actual events that occurred in What Kind Of Day Has It Been ... so this becomes an irreconcilable timeline/continuity glitch.

- We see in the background of the cold open TV news broadcasts with a "Hate Crime" graphic. It's not a stretch to say this is continuing reporting on the Rosslyn assassination attempt and coverage of white supremacist groups (which continues to rile Toby throughout the episode).

- We see dates on the screen during this episode to show the passage of time from August to Election Day. These dates match up with the 2000 calendar: August 12 was a Monday 12 weeks (plus a day) before Election Day; September 5 was exactly 9 weeks before Election Day; October 20 was a Friday 2 1/2 weeks before the election (not three weeks, as the graphic shows); and November 7 was Election Day in 2000 (and what a fateful Presidential election that turned out to be ...).

- The final straw ending the Democratic and White House support for Tom Jordan's campaign is the news that he belonged to an all-white fraternity while an undergrad at Oberlin College. It turns out in reality Oberlin doesn't allow fraternities on campus.

- Zoey must have earned some college credits while she was still in high school; she just started at Georgetown in the spring semester, yet by November (in what would be her second semester of college) her father mentions she's a sophomore.



Quotes    

CJ: "You know anything about theoretical physics?"

Sam: "Ah, the great Unified Theory."

CJ: "You know anything about it?"

Sam: "No." 

-----

CJ (at press briefing): "And as a special treat for our friend Josh Lyman, who is recovering very nicely at GW, the President's science adviser is telling us that psychics at Cal Tech and the Fermi National Accelerator Lab ..."

(Cut to Josh in his hospital bed, banging his head against the headboard)

CJ (voiceover): " ... you know what, I'm pretty sure that was supposed to be physicists." 

-----

Sarah Jordan: "When we were out in the lobby it seemed as if you didn't know that Tom was married and that there was a baby on the way, and now it sounded like you already had that information."

Sam: "Sarah, there's very little information about your husband that I don't have. And tell your mom happy birthday for me."

-----

President: "This is real. And a man who makes the Spanish Inquisition look like a Barbara Walters special is now polling at 46 percent in your school district (pointing at Zoey), for which I have personally baked things to raise money. (to CJ) You can go, too."

CJ: "You baked things?"

President: "You can go."

-----

Josh: "Well, Toby, it's election night. What do you say about a government that goes out of its way to protect even citizens that try to destroy it?"

Toby: "God bless America."

Sam: "God bless America."

CJ: "God bless America."

Donna: "God bless America."

Josh: "God bless America."

-----

Story threads, callbacks, and familiar faces (Hey, it's that guy!)

• Sam's law school friend Tom Jordan is played by Jamie Denton, although he hardly has any lines as Jordan's wife ends up with them all. While he had a recurring role in The Pretender and appeared in many TV series, he's probably best known as Mike Delfino on Desperate Housewives.

• We are back to seeing pagers, just as we did in Pilot when Sam and Laurie got theirs mixed up. Here CJ is paged just outside President Bartlet's bedroom. Admittedly, it appears pagers may be used in certain situations when cellphones may not be as secure or reliable, so this could make sense in the White House (even though pagers were on their way out by 2000 and Motorola actually stopped making theirs in 2001).

• Zoey says, in the August 12 section of the episode, that she and Charlie have been dating for nine months. That puts their relationship starting in December, which fits fairly close with what we saw in Season 1 (it's in Lord John Marbury where Charlie asks the President if he can date Zoey. That aired the first week of January).

• Charlie also mentions his mother's death as being "a year ago June," so June of 1999. In A Proportional Response, when he was first being interviewed to work at the White House, he said she had been killed "five months ago." With that episode airing in October 1999, that's pretty close for the timeline.

• We all remember Sam's disastrous effort in Pilot to tell elementary students about the history of the White House, because he doesn't know any of it. There's a little callback to that as he welcomes the Jordans to the White House:

Sam: "This is the Mural Room." 

          Sarah Jordan: "Oooh. Can you tell us anything about it?"

          Sam: "It's called the Mural Room."  

• Gail's fishbowl has a ballot box in it, reflecting the theme of the midterm elections.

DC location shots    

• I personally doubt the production went to DC to film the final scene on Josh's townhouse stoop, but I'll be damned if that street doesn't look like some of what we've seen in earlier DC location shots. I did try to use Google Street View to look at the blocks in Northwest DC/Georgetown that still have streetcar rails, but I did not find anything that matched this stoop. I'm pretty sure this was a Warner Brothers backlot shot, but I could be wrong.

They Do Exist! It's The Real Person, or Thing    

• We find out Sam is a graduate of Duke Law School, annually ranked as one of the top law schools in the country (and also where my son earned his law degree. Oh, and Richard Nixon, too ... they have his portrait tucked away in a corner of the law library).

• Tom Jordan is referred to as a graduate of Oberlin College, in Ohio.

• The President sports a Notre Dame coffee mug.

• The Pendleton Act is mentioned, a law requiring civil service jobs to be granted on merit and not patronage, and named after Senator George Pendleton of Ohio.

• There's a Dunkin Donuts cup on a cart in the hallway as Sam and Toby walk by.

• Toby also lambastes the civil-rights-upholding record of the "Warren Court" (the Supreme Court when Earl Warren served as chief justice) when he's on the warpath to take away constitutional protections for white supremacist groups.

• Real-life media groups and people mentioned include the CNN/USA Today poll, the New York Times, Barbara Walters, and radio talk-show hosts Howard Stern and Don Imus.

• There's a sign for ADT home security outside Josh's townhouse.

End credits freeze frame: President Bartlet surrounded by paperwork as he awaits news on the midterms and Elliot Roush.

End of an Era

The Administration building at the Mike Monroney Aeronautical Center, Oklahoma City

April 17, 1991. I walked into the Administration Building at the FAA Academy in Oklahoma City to begin my orientation for the screen program, beginning my journey as an air traffic controller. That chapter comes to an end at midnight this Saturday, as I officially retire from the FAA after 27 years, eight months, and five days. For the first time since late summer of 1988, I won't have a job when I wake up Sunday morning.

It's been a long trek - the air traffic control career has been infuriating, exhilarating, fulfilling, and frustrating, but the one constant was that every day was different. I worked with some of the best mentors and colleagues I could ever hope to have, and our joint commitment to excellence and safety fills me with a sense of pride I kept all throughout my career.

Tabletop exercises at the FAA Academy (yes, some tower training still involves walking around carrying toy airplanes)

The memories are thick: Driving away from my wife and 15-month-old daughter that April morning as I headed from Minnesota to Oklahoma, unsure of exactly what lay ahead; the folksy instructors and the lab grades that determined your future; the bathroom graffiti at the Academy from all the students there before you; the unexpected move to Cedar Rapids; training, lots of training, and learning to dread the sight of aircraft in the touch-and-go pattern on my drive to work; the early morning when a cargo plane veered off the icy runway into the snow when I was getting some under-the-table training time on local control, then taxiing back and taking off (without anyone present whispering a word about it to anyone else - this was in 1992 so I think the statute of limitations is up); the changes at the airport, as the old terminal building came down and new structures and taxiways were built; the time I spent as the training specialist, and a temporary supervisor; the frantic pace of air traffic we saw in the late 1990s, before the dot-com crash; visits from Presidents and presidential candidates and rock bands and college football teams (the pilot of the Delta jet bringing the Miami Hurricanes in to play the Hawkeyes actually trash-talked us, that was fun); the effects of 9/11 on our jobs and on travel in general; the Chicago Center fire and the mad scramble to keep the air travel system working over those weeks; and the emergencies, the pilots lost in snowy weather, the aircraft running out of fuel, the ones landing without gear or tipping nose-first onto the runway, the smoke-filled jets evacuating on the ramp or the runway, and the last-minute traffic calls that prevented possible collisions.

Not actually me entering training at the FAA Academy - but the nonradar screen I went through in 1991 was set up much like this

So many good people I've worked with over the years, some of whom retired, some of whom moved on to other facilities, and some of whom still work in the tower at Cedar Rapids. You guys didn't always work traffic the same way I would have, but you all had the safety and best interests of the flying public at heart. Working with so many people dedicated to this public trust fills me with pride.

Cedar Rapids Tower

And so, I move forward, on to a new chapter. One involving, it appears, more culinary activities (which is exciting in its own regard!) as well as a chance for me to take on the multiple tasks and projects I've been able to get started, but not had enough time to move ahead with. My yard will get more attention, that's for sure.

And for my friends and acquaintances here in Cedar Rapids ... if you know about a part-time position with flexible daytime hours that would work well for a guy just entering his crotchety years, hit me up. I might be able to use something to do for a few hours a week.

I Know, I Know

Yes, I know, it's been over two months since my last West Wing post, all the way back on the first of September. I did have good intentions - but this time of year is pretty cluttered. I do high school football on the radio, and with the time I put in with that plus my regular job, that's somewhere around 55-60 hours per week. My wedding anniversary is in October, too, and I always do remember to set aside time for that. Excuses, I know ... at least I'm not working on Daddy Warbucks this fall, like I was last year at this time.

I thought maybe I'd get my next post out before the midterm elections (because the next episode is, of course, The Midterms) but that didn't happen either. It will be soon, though! I promise! Plus, as you'll discover in my take on the episode, time really doesn't mean much in The West Wing universe anyway (how can an event happen in the spring, then be referred to as "last week" in August? It can, in West Wing World!).

Have patience, my friends. I'll be firing up the DVD player and diving back into the fantasy world of sane, functioning adults in the White House soon (and, spoiler alert, I'm retiring from my 27+ year career in December, so I'll actually have time to do important stuff like this!).

In The Shadow Of Two Gunmen, Part II - TWW S2E2

Original airdate: October 4, 2000

Written by: Aaron Sorkin (23)

Directed by: Thomas Schlamme (7)

Synopsis

• As Josh's surgery continues, flashbacks reveal how Sam, CJ, and Donna joined the Bartlet campaign. We also see Jed's growth as a candidate and his eventual trust and reliance on the staffers. The remaining conspirator in the assassination attempt is caught, with a surprising revelation about the actual target. Toby talks to Ron Butterfield about the White House and not the Secret Service taking the blame for the President being in the open at Rosslyn. Josh comes out of surgery with a whispered "What's next?"

"Leo ... I'm ready."

I appreciate irony as a dramatic device, good irony, anyway. So I leave this to you ... how ironic is it (in a good way, I mean) that for this three-episode arc (What Kind Of Day Has It Been and the two parts of In The Shadow Of Two Gunmen) it has taken me more than six weeks to recap and discuss literally 36 hours in the life of the Bartlet administration? That drips with irony, right? Like rain on your wedding day? (I know, I know ...)

Well, anyhoo, Part II of this season-opener covers more ground of what we got started with in Part I. While the President is now out of danger from his gunshot wound, Josh is undergoing tricky surgery for a collapsed lung and severed pulmonary artery. Flashbacks cover how Sam, CJ, and Donna joined the campaign team, as well as seeing Jed grow from a grumpy old "son of a bitch" (as Josh calls him to Abbey's face) into the lovable-yet-stern President-father figure we've gotten to know over the first season.

Leo: "He's really very easy to like once you get to know him."

Josh: "How many people get that far?"

Leo: "Not that many." 

The teaser opens with the skinhead Gina spotted in the crowd at the Rosslyn shooting hanging out at The Dixie Pig BBQ. This is a special BBQ place, because not only is it open at 3:28 on a Tuesday morning, blasting Hamilton, Joe Frank & Reynolds, it's fairly busy. How are we supposed to know this skinhead character is bad news? Well, because he puts out his cigarette in the yolk of a sunny-side-up egg.

Oh, yeah, the swastika tattoo on his hand, that too, but that mistreatment of the poor egg ... (In the DVD commentary director Tommy Schlamme admits that if he could do this scene over, he would make sure some of the food on the plate had been eaten, rather than showing that egg untouched). When the skinhead steps out of the diner (immediately lighting up another cigarette, for Pete's sake), he's immediately captured at gunpoint by a huge crowd of law enforcement officers, and even a helicopter. Apparently Gina was able to give enough of a description for the guy to be arrested less than six hours after the shooting, so good job, Gina!

That kicks things off for the episode, knowing that the investigation into the assassination attempt is moving forward and the authorities are well on the case. But, before we move forward in present time, let's take the flashbacks first.

When we last saw Sam at Gage Whitney, he was distractedly creating liability protection for a company wanting to buy barely seaworthy oil tankers at a discount, while telling Josh wouldn't have to say if he found the "real thing" in New Hampshire because of Josh's terrible poker face. Now, as the clients are finalizing their purchase of the bargain-basement tankers, Sam undermines his boss and his firm by trying to convince them to buy a safer, more up-to-date, brand new ship (for a lot more money). Obviously this illustrates Sam's moral code and the fact he's just not onboard with the business-before-ethics credo at this big-law firm in New York. When he's just about to get fired, Josh rides to the rescue with his indeed-terrible poker face:

And Sam is off to join the Bartlet campaign, with a smile, no less - something we never saw while he was doing his lawyering work in the Gage Whitney conference room.

[As an aside, if you remember the location scenes from Part I (Josh and Leo in DC and Josh and Sam on the streets of New York) - isn't it rather green and mild for the time of year? This is taking place sometime prior to the New Hampshire primary, so it's February or maybe even January; you wouldn't know it from the location shots we saw in Part I.]

Later we move on to CJ's flashback. Here we find out CJ's frizzy hairstyle is the signpost we didn't know we needed to let us know it's 1998:

We see her getting called in to work early at the PR firm she works for, because a movie studio chief is incensed at the poor showing he's gotten at the Golden Globe nominations. He wants CJ fired, not only for the lack of nominations she helped secure, but also because he thinks she has a "smart mouth." CJ helpfully proves his point:

Roger Becker (complaining about his status on the Premiere magazine list of Hollywood's most powerful): "I went from third to ninth. I dropped to ninth. Do you know how that looks? Do you know how many other people there were ahead of me?"

CJ: "Eight?" 

She doesn't seem too torn up about being fired from a $550,000 a year job (like Sam, showing the viewer that entertainment PR work wasn't her thing anyway). Luckily, when she arrives home, Toby is there sitting by her pool. He offers her the job as Bartlet's press secretary, first telling her how impressed Bartlet is by her work for that "women's group with the funny name" (EMILY's List), and then, after admitting Bartlet doesn't actually know who she is, he tells her it's Leo who really wants her on board. Which proves impressive enough (along with Toby's assurance that Jed is a good man) for her to take a bit of a pay cut -

CJ: "McGarry wants me?"

Toby: "Yes. Come join the campaign."

CJ: "How much does it pay?"

Toby: "How much were you making before?"

CJ: "550,000 a year."

Toby: "This pays 600 dollars a week."

CJ: "So this is less."

(This equates to about $900 a week in 2017 dollars, by the way - but then her PR job was paying her almost $850,000 in 2017 terms.)

Later on our flashbacks take us to New Hampshire, where the gang is preparing to face the upcoming primary. We hear that Bartlet is making progress in the polls, moving to a surprising third in a straw poll of Democrats, although still well behind the favorite, John Hoynes. Here also, we see how gruff Jed is in the face of these young, energetic, hopeful staffers, nearly biting CJ's head off with a "What's. Next." and listening with alarm as the team suggests the campaign ditch his home state of New Hampshire and make an early strategic move to South Carolina.

Here comes a really neat microcosm of the campaign game plan, and I really like how it shows the smarts and vision of this staff. They realize Jed has nothing to win in New Hampshire; as a native son and former governor, there's no way to beat expectations. So their idea is to pack up and head to South Carolina ahead of the other candidates, hoping to at least finish ahead of the second-place candidate there (Senator William Wylie of Washington, a handful of a title if you ever heard one) and pull in his money and some of his support, and ... I'll let them describe the rest:

Toby: "So, we finish second in South Carolina, we pick up some steam, some endorsements, mostly some money going into South Dakota, Vermont, Maine -"

Sam: "Where we come away with a split, maybe better, and now the presumptive nominee for the Democratic nomination has lost three of the first seven contests -"

CJ: "Past the actual primaries -"

Sam: "- leading into Super Tuesday."

Josh: "Hoynes will win the south, we'll take the north and the Pacific northwest."

Toby: "The race will be decided a week later in Illinois."

CJ: "Illinois' going to be High Noon."

Leo: "Sam, if we win in Illinois do we have a shot at California and New York?"

Sam: "If we win in Illinois we're going to run the table."

This is a great, tightly written scene. It sets out the path to victory for the Bartlet campaign, and gives Jed a great chance to be irritated about these new faces stepping in and making him quit campaigning in his home state.

Jed: "Well, that's it, then, we've saved people the trouble of voting. What's next?"

Josh: "Our point is that it's -"

Jed: "I understood the point. I'm going to South Carolina to set up Illinois. When I ask 'what's next' it means I'm ready to move on to other things, so, what's next?" 

It turns out the scenario described here is exactly what happens, but we never need it shown to us; we are aware this group is smart enough and savvy enough they can put the pieces together in New Hampshire in February and figure out where they'll be by the convention in the summer.

And this is where Josh meets Donna for the first time, right there in Manchester campaign headquarters. Another great scene - Donna just showed up and started answering phones as Josh's assistant, figuring forgiveness would be better than permission. Their meeting, and Josh's surprise at someone acting as his assistant and his repeated question, "Who are you?" is well-written and nicely acted (part of why Bradley Whitford was nominated for a Supporting Actor Emmy for this episode). Another great decision by Schlamme was to make the conversation between the two into a patented West Wing "walk and talk," one of the first (chronologically, anyway). In the DVD commentary it's mentioned the scene was originally written as a static scene in Josh's office, but Schlamme moved it out and around the set (with CJ, Toby and Sam sticking around in the background), giving it some verve and life while establishing this is what these people do, they talk through issues while they're on the move. Josh shows his powers of figuring out people really well, as he can figure out almost instantly that Donna is on the run from some personal issues and a bad breakup, but Donna has her own motives:

Josh: "Donna, this is a campaign for the presidency, and there's nothing I take more seriously than that. This can't be a place for people to come find their confidence and start over."

Donna: "Why not?" 

Josh: "I'm sorry?"

Donna: "Why can't it be those things?" 

And Josh's powers of personal awareness also come to the fore as he silently gives her his campaign ID badge, agreeing to take her on as part of the campaign and part of the team (and as a part of a lot more in a few years, but that's yet to come).

I'm going to save the final two flashback scenes for later, because they turn out to be the true heart of the episode. So in present time, CJ is trying to hold off Danny and other members of the press about a couple of topics; the lack of a tent or cover at the Rosslyn ropeline, and who was actually in charge for the 3 1/2 hour period when the President was under anesthesia. (One of the other urgent plot points from Part I, the troop movement in Iraq, is dropped completely and unmentioned in this episode - I guess Iraq took Leo's threat "Don't mess with us tonight" seriously.) At the same time, CJ is shaky on remembering exactly what happened during the shooting, and still focused on her missing necklace.

How about Schlamme's early shot of CJ and the press room? The camera moves into the room, past the reporters, moves in on CJ's face as it pans around her, zooming back out to show the press ... great active, interesting, immersive camera work.

As to the answers for the press: we eventually find out President Bartlet, like many politicians, was against the idea of canopies or covers at public events all along, and Toby convinced the President to send a note to the Secret Service asking them to not use them. Now that the lack of a canopy has been seen as a factor in this assassination attempt, Toby goes to Ron Butterfield to talk him into letting the White House take the heat, releasing the memo so the media won't blame the Secret Service. The most excellent Michael O'Neill delivers a fantastic monologue letting Toby know the Secret Service doesn't comment on matters of protection, and blame isn't on their radar - doing their job is all that matters.

 Butterfield: "It wasn't your fault. It wasn't Gina's fault, it wasn't Charlie's fault, it wasn't anybody's fault, Toby. It was an act of madmen. You think a tent was going to stop them? We got the President in the car. We got Zoey in the car. And at 150 yards and five stories up the shooters were down 9.2 seconds after the first shot was fired. I would never let you not let me protect the President. You tell us you don't like something, we figure out something else. It was an act of madmen. Anyway - the Secret Service doesn't comment on procedure."

(By the way, going back to the scene in What Kind Of Day Has It Been, the shooting is going on for far longer than 9.2 seconds, even showing the shooters firing after that time. True, the scene is filmed in slow-motion, but it's not that slow, and there's some 20 seconds of gunfire. Just saying.)

The other press question, who was in charge - well, that basically gets dropped. We get hints: Leo says they should send Danny to talk to him; during a later press briefing Margaret pulls Danny aside to have him meet Leo - but we never see the actual conversation. Turns out there was a scene with the two (cut for time) where Leo told Danny they didn't want to invoke the 25th Amendment (the Cabinet could have made the call on their own, even without a signed Presidential letter) and that he, Leo, was essentially in charge while Jed was in surgery. This is striking (and unconstitutional) news to Danny, and we'll see the topic addressed again later in the series (with the President's MS, what are the chances that he might become incapacitated for a time, leaving the unelected and not-in-the-line-of-succession Chief of Staff running things?). But insofar as planting the seed over both Part I and Part II of this being an important question, it's left unresolved for the viewer here.

We do get a fun look at another of Margaret's talents, though - apparently she's quite the forger:

Margaret: "I can sign the President's name. I have the signature down pretty good."

Leo: "You can sign the President's name?"

Margaret: "Yeah."

Leo: "On a document removing him from power and handing it to someone else?"

Margaret: "Yeah!"

(pause - they look at each other)

Margaret: "Or, do you think the White House Counsel would say that was a bad idea?"

Leo: "I think the White House Counsel would say that's a coup d'etat." 

Margaret: "Well, I'd probably end up doing some time for that."

Leo: "I would think. And what the hell were you doing practicing the President's signature?"

Margaret: "It was just for fun."

Leo: "We've got separation of powers, checks and balances, and Margaret, vetoing things and sending them back to the Hill."

(NiCole Robinson makes Margaret into such a great, interesting, living character, in just her little opportunities given in the scripts. That's real acting talent, I'd say.)

And CJ's fogginess on the details and who pulled her down clears up after she hears Sam describing the shooting on the morning news shows. She realizes Sam was the one who knocked her to the ground just before the police car window was shattered by gunfire, and he probably has her necklace. Sam admits he was reluctant to tell her, because he thought she might think she owed him a favor now:

Sam: "I didn't want you to feel beholden to me. I didn't want it to be like an episode of I Dream Of Jeannie where now, you gotta save my life, and the time-space continuum ..."

CJ: "Sam -"

Sam: "...and you follow me around with coconut oil and hot towels ..."

CJ: "Coconut oil?"

Sam: "I'm saying -"

CJ: "Sam, I don't feel beholden to you."

Sam: "Why not? I saved your life."

The other important item revealed in the present-day plot comes out of the capture of the skinhead, Carl Leroy. He admits that the real target of his group, West Virginia White Pride, wasn't the President at all - it was Charlie. This band of white supremacists was furious that the President's daughter, Zoey, was dating an African-American, and hoped to kill Charlie at the motorcade. It helped that they used handguns from five stories up, so their accuracy was terrible, but that was little solace to the President, Josh, or Stephanie Abbott, the three people referred to as being wounded by the shooters. This plot point was actually mentioned by Danny in The White House Pro-Am, when he was talking to Charlie about the threats being made by white supremacists and the fact they're probably lousy shots and would aim at Charlie but hit Danny instead.

(An aside - it's clear those three, Bartlet, Josh, and Abbott, are the only people mentioned as being hit in the assault. Let's look back at the final shot from What Kind Of Day Has It Been - there's a man in a light-colored suit lying face down on the ground, obviously wounded. He wasn't the President, he wasn't Josh, he sure wasn't Stephanie Abbott - who was he, and why isn't anyone talking about him?)

Maybe that was actually Mandy? Something to think about ...

Back to wrap up the flashbacks - we see the excitement and celebration of the campaign at their Chicago hotel, when the TV networks call the Illinois primary for Bartlet, making him the presumptive nominee. We are all brought crashing back to earth, though, when Donna tells Josh that his father has died. Josh's dad had been undergoing chemotherapy for cancer (a point mentioned in passing between Josh and Leo in Part I), but it turns out a pulmonary embolism was unexpectedly fatal on this day.

Which brings us to the airport scene, a real turning point for Bartlet and his relationship with Josh and the rest of the staff. This scene is set up wonderfully - Josh is sitting alone in the terminal, waiting for his flight to be called, when several men in dark suits talking into their sleeves filter in and stand around him. It takes a minute for Josh to realize what's happening, as well as the audience - now that Bartlet is the frontrunner for the nomination, he's receiving Secret Service protection, and he has made his way from downtown Chicago out to O'Hare Airport to comfort Josh.

Here's where Jed becomes the replacement father figure for Josh. As Josh tries to convince Bartlet to go back and deliver his victory speech, Jed is satisfied sitting there in the terminal, keeping Josh company, even offering to buy a ticket himself and fly to New York with him. And Bartlet admits he knows how poorly he's acted around his staff, and asserts he'll try to make things right:

Jed: "I was a jackass to you, Josh."

Josh: "Well -"

Jed: "To everybody. Toby Ziegler, CJ Cregg, Sam Seaborn."

Josh: "Yeah."

Jed: "Don't think I don't know what you gave up to work for this campaign, and don't think I don't know your value. And I'll never make you think I don't again."

(pause)

Jed: "You gotta be a little impressed I got those names right just now."

(Martin Sheen was famously known for not remembering names, and Aaron Sorkin made that a Jed Bartlet trait, too.)

And with that, Jed says to Leo, "I'm ready," ready to really step into the role of Presidential candidate and leader of the campaign. A nice moment, well done by writer and actors.

This two-part start to Season 2 is certainly one of the high points of the series. It gives us the backstory of how these people came together, how they joined forces to help Jed Bartlet get elected, and how their personalities and strengths meshed together to create a real team. The present-day scenes continue to grow the Charlie-Zoey relationship and how it affects those around them, the integrity of the administration (for both Toby, ready to take the blame for not having cover at Rosslyn, and Ron Butterfield, for saying there's no blame to be taken), and the deep personal connections these people have, especially for Josh in this instance. It all wraps up with a whispered "What's next?" from Josh to the President - he's ready to move on to the next thing.


Tales Of Interest!

- We saw in Part I that Leo and Josh's father were friends, and that Sam and Josh knew each other previously. Here we find out that Toby and CJ also knew each other prior to the campaign. We also discover Sam had been a congressional aide at some point before joining Gage Whitney, which shows his interest in politics.

- Roger Becker, the movie studio chief who gets CJ fired, runs the Atlantis movie studio. Sorkin used that name again later, with Atlantis World Media being the owner of Atlantic Cable News in his HBO series The Newsroom.

- Speaking of Allen Garfield, who played Roger Becker, in the DVD commentary it's mentioned the clothes he's wearing are the actor's own, and not supplied by the wardrobe department.

- In the background of the scene at Manchester campaign headquarters, there's a white board with some campaign slogans written on it. This is a direct copy of a sign James Carville had hanging in Bill Clinton's campaign headquarters in 1991-1992 - "Change vs More Of The Same;" "The Economy Stupid;" and "Don't Forget Health Care."

- Sam's office has been remodeled. I looked back to What Kind Of Day Has It Been hoping to find a continuity error, with Sam's old office setup (with the shelves built up on the wall behind his desk) being shown there on Monday and this new setup depicted on the following day, but we don't actually get a good look into Sam's office for several episodes prior to the end of Season 1. So that remodel could have been done prior to the trip to Rosslyn. Anyway, look - there were windows back there behind that shelf unit, and now they're opened up:

The studio actually rebuilt some of the White House set between season 1 and 2; while in Season 1 the set was split between two stages in different buildings, from Season 2 onward the entire White House set was built all together and connected on one stage. This change to Sam's office might have been part of that.

- While Allison Janney won a Supporting Actress Emmy in part for her work for Part I, Brad Whitford won a Supporting Actor Emmy for Part II (and, perhaps mostly, his later performance in Noel.) Thomas Schlamme won the Directing Emmy for both parts of this season opener, while Sorkin was nominated for writing both parts.


Quotes    

CJ: "At this time we cannot, we are not, releasing any information whatsoever about the suspect."

Reporter Steve: "CJ - can you tell us anything, his name, where he's from, ethnicity - if you guys suspect a motive -"

CJ: "Yes, Steve, I can tell you all those things because when I said we weren't releasing any information whatsoever I meant except his name, his address, his ethnicity, and what we think the motive was." 

----- 

Toby: "I tried calling you at your office, they said you were fired. Were you caught stealing things?"

CJ: "Roger Becker dropped from third most powerful person in Hollywood to ninth most power person in Hollywood."

Toby: "Does he still make the playoffs or is the cutoff line -" 

-----

Story threads, callbacks, and familiar faces (Hey, it's that guy!)

• Isobel, CJ's boss at the PR agency, is played by Grace Zabriskie (Twin Peaks, Seinfeld, Big Love).

• Roger Becker, the movie studio head, is played by Allen Garfield in his own clothes (Nashville, Beverly Hills Cop II, Chicago Hope).

• Remember back in 20 Hours In L.A., when both CJ and Sam were being offered movie development deals and neither one knew what they were? Now we find out CJ used to work at a Hollywood PR firm working with TV and movie studios. You'd think she'd know what a development deal is, but Sorkin tried to lampshade it a bit with her line to Isobel, "Take me off film and television, I don't know anything about it anyway."

• In The Short List Josh tells Danny CJ loves goldfish (meaning Goldfish crackers), which results in Danny buying CJ an actual goldfish (good old Gail!). Here, when CJ has been fired and is bringing her office stuff back to her house, you can see a package of Goldfish crackers in the box:

• In The Crackpots And These Women CJ mentions being pushed into a pool by Roberto Begnini while at a fundraiser at movie producer Larry Posner's house. I guess CJ has a thing for falling into swimming pools, even at her own house (and another wonderful Allison Janney pratfall):

• Okay, where was Mandy? All we heard through Season 1 was about how much she helped the campaign, and how much they all owed her for her 1 1/2 years (or 2 1/2 years, depending on who you listened to) working with the campaign (Sam expressly said he owed her more than he could repay). So you'd think, in campaign flashbacks, she might be involved somewhere? The Illinois primary, for example, was a big moment with the entire staff in that hotel suite. Not to mention, Josh's dad dies - Josh and Mandy were still dating in March 1998 when the Illinois primary would have happened, with it stated clearly in Five Votes Down that they broke up July 9; wouldn't she be right at his side comforting him? (All right, Moira Kelly was off the show, her character basically erased from history, I understand that ... but continuity, man!)

• Speaking of Five Votes Down, CJ's swerve in the final press briefing to all the other gun crimes that happened the same night Josh and the President were shot is a pretty strong call for gun control. Five Votes Down was all about the administration trying to get a (somewhat watered down) gun control bill through Congress.

• WHAT'S NEXT MOMENT - This is where it really becomes iconic, in both parts of the season opener. If you remember the last line of Pilot was President Bartlet saying to Mrs. Landingham, "What's next?" Now Sorkin has determined that phrase will be a calling card for the President. Here he cuts off CJ's lessons-learned discussion of missing a media interview with "I blew it. What's next?" and then a biting "What's. Next." when she tries to drive the point home. Of course then there's Jed's grouchy explanation to Josh (mentioned above), which leads directly to Josh's whispered "What's next?" to the President at the end of the episode.

DC location shots    

• The teaser scene, with the arrest of the skinhead Carl Leroy, was filmed at the actual Dixie Pig BBQ diner in Alexandria, Virginia.

The restaurant still exists, although it's now a Greek eatery called Vaso's Mediterranean Bistro (or "Vaso's Kitchen," according to the sign over the front). The Dixie Pig neon sign is still on the roof.

• Toby and Ron Butterfield have their conversation about the Secret Service and comments on security issues in a park across from the Ronald Reagan Institute of Emergency Medicine, part of George Washington University Hospital.

It's the real thing: References to real people and stuff    

• With the NBC network realizing they have their own 24-hour cable news channel that they could use in this fictional world, we get another view of MSNBC covering a CJ press briefing:

• Sam, in his exhortation for the shipping company to buy better ships, mentions the oil companies Exxon and Chevron, as well as these oil tankers involved in spills: the Amoco Cadiz, the Braer, the Exxon Valdez, the Aegean Sea, and the Argo Merchant.

• Josh uses a Verizon telephone booth when he's trying to remember where Sam works:

The odd thing here is that Verizon didn't exist yet in 1997, which is when this phone call would have taken place.

• We see a copy of Entertainment Weekly magazine on Isobel's desk.

• The Golden Globes and Premiere magazine are mentioned (I used to subscribe to dear, departed Premiere magazine - loved it).

• CJ mentions the failure of New Coke; this is an inside dig at co-producer Patrick Caddell, who was actually involved in the marketing plan for New Coke.

• CJ at various times mentions the movies The Maltese Falcon and High Noon.

• CJ talks about her work with EMILY's List (Early Money Is Like Yeast, it helps raise the dough ... I get it, says Toby repeatedly).

• Vending machines in the Manchester campaign headquarters show M&Ms, Minute Maid juices, and Coca-Cola:

• Sam brings up the TV series I Dream Of Jeannie when he thinks CJ might have to bring him coconut oil and hot towels in exchange for saving her life.

• Leo is drinking Pepsi at the Chicago hotel the night of the Illinois primary:

• Music references in this episode include "Don't Pull Your Love" by Hamilton, Joe Frank & Reynolds, playing at the Dixie Pig; "Celebration" by Kool & the Gang, played when Bartlet's Illinois victory is called by the networks; and the Doobie Brothers, a group Josh would rather hear instead of Kool & the Gang. 

End credits freeze frame: The final scene with the President and Leo at Josh's bedside.