Celestial Navigation - TWW S1E15

Original airdate: February 16, 2000

Teleplay by: Aaron Sorkin (14)

Story by: Dee Dee Myers (2) & Lawrence O'Donnell, Jr. (5)

Directed by: Christopher Misiano (2)

Synopsis

• Josh tells a college lecture audience the story of the previous 36 hours at the White House, which includes the signing of a new education reform bill; the fallout from a Cabinet secretary calling a Congressman a racist; a disastrous press briefing following CJ's emergency dental surgery; and a Supreme Court nominee whose independence may threaten his confirmation. Meanwhile, Sam and Toby make a trip to Connecticut to get Roberto Mendoza out of jail.

"A secwet pwan to fiwght infwation?"

"Ok, CJ, for a little while, you're going to have to write it down."

This is absolutely the funniest episode of The West Wing. While that might seem like damning with faint praise, considering the show is not a sitcom but a political drama, as we've seen already in Season One there's lots of humor written into these scripts. This one leans heavily into comedy territory, with CJ's "woot canaw," Josh's disastrous attempt to "instill discipline" into the White House press corps, Charlie's efforts to awaken a sleepy President, and the traveling comic duo of Ziegler and Seaborn.

Aaron Sorkin also takes the opportunity to play with structure. What's actually happening during the episode is Josh's guest appearance at a lecture series at some unnamed college campus, while concurrently Sam and Toby are on a mission to get Supreme Court nominee Roberto Mendoza out of a Connecticut jail. As Josh tells his audience what a typical day in the White House might entail, we get flashbacks of the prior 36 hours. It's an interesting dramatic structure, to play with time in this way - there's two things happening "now," but then we are shown the events of the past couple of days that help explain how we got to "now."

Let's go back in time with Josh's story. To start with, President Bartlet is going to sign a $700 million education reform bill that has groundbreaking advances for teacher recruitment and training. Unfortunately, this good news for the administration gets stepped on when a report about HUD Secretary Deborah O'Leary basically calling a Republican congressman a racist comes out:

Mandy (reading the press story): "'Are you calling me a racist?' Wooden shot back."

Toby: "Of course not, she answered wisely."

Mandy (reading): "'If the shoe fits,' responded the Secretary."

Toby: "Well. Wasn't that clever of her."

This turns the media story away from the signing of the education bill to whether or not the President is going to fire Secretary O'Leary, or at least demand an apology. Complication number two: CJ isn't at the bill signing, as she's at the dentist getting an emergency root canal. Therefore, the staff is late to step in, and President Bartlet (goaded by Danny) kind of blurts out that he thinks an apology would be a good idea. This forces the White House's hand - while Leo was privately going to force O'Leary to apologize anyway, now the whole process is out in the open and makes the White House look a little like a bully.

In conjunction with that second complication, and in a great comedic performance by Allison Janney, CJ's dental surgery results in her cheeks being stuffed with cotton and her unable to speak very clearly.

Josh: "What the hell happened?"

CJ:  "I had woot canaw."

Josh: "What happened to your cheeks?"

CJ: "I had woot canaw."

Josh: "Why are you talking like that?"

CJ: "I had woot canaw!"

Josh: "Yeah, I heard you the first time, I was just amusing myself."

She's ready to cancel the press briefing, but Josh breezily claims he can handle it, while instilling some discipline in what he sees as a rowdy, uncontrolled White House press corps. As you can see from several miles away, this is going to turn into a disaster, as Josh unwittingly reveals President Bartlet might be keeping a secret from the American public:

Reporter: "But he has no plan to address inflation specifically?"

Josh: "Twenty-four Ph.Ds on the Council of Economic Advisors, Katie, they have a plan to fight inflation."

Danny: "Is the reason you won't tell us about it is that it's a secret?"

Josh: "Yeah, Danny, we have a secret inflation plan."

The briefing collapses from there, leading Josh to look like this:

Thankfully, Donna is there to help Josh pick up the pieces:

Donna: "Oh, my God, Josh! I mean, oh, my God!"

Josh: "I can fix this."

Donna: "How?"

Josh: "I can fix this."

Donna: "I don't think you can."

Josh: "This would be a great time to feel a little support from you, Donna!"

Donna: "You have my support, Josh."

Josh: "Do I?"

Donna: "Yes."

Josh: "Ok, that's a start. Tell me what you think I should do right now."

Donna: "Go into your office and come up with a secret plan to fight inflation."

Josh: "That's support?!?"

Complication number three: Mendoza is still awaiting confirmation to the Supreme Court, but he's been stating his mind independently on several topics over the past 8 weeks, criticizing the American Bar Association, the AFL-CIO, and the New York state legislature - which is driving Toby crazy, since he's in charge of shepherding the judge through the confirmation process. Mendoza wastes no time telling the Chicago Tribune that doesn't think Secretary O'Leary should have to apologize at all, calling a reporter to give his opinion even though he's on vacation in Nova Scotia. So now, the administration needs to bring Mendoza in the White House for a stern talking to ... but he's going to take his time driving down, even stopping for antiquing in Connecticut on the way.

Leo: "He's driving from Nova Scotia to Washington."

Sam: "Yeah."

Leo: "How's a person do that?"

Sam: "Oh, my guess is he'll take the Trans-Canada Highway to New Brunswick, then maybe catch the One and take the scenic route along the coast of Maine. 95 through New Hampshire to the Mass Pike and then cut over to the Merritt Parkway around Milford."

Toby: "Something really kinda freakish about you, you know that?"

(As an aside - here we see the California travel-speak of calling highways "The [something]," like "The Five" or "The Four Oh Five" or "The Ten." This terminology isn't generally used elsewhere in the US, and the phrase would be "Highway One" or "US One." However, I believe we find out later in the series that Sam is a California native, so perhaps he's keeping that habit with him even in the eastern US.)

On the way, Mendoza is pulled over and arrested in Wesley, Connecticut (a fictitious place, by the way), for drunk driving - something which Sam assuredly states multiple times can't be possible, as Mendoza doesn't drink (Sam later tells the police Mendoza has chronic persistent hepatitis, which means if he drank enough alcohol to be impaired, he would likely die). And now our timelines converge, as Josh's retelling of the education bill/O'Leary apology/CJ root canal/press briefing/Mendoza interview meets up with Mendoza actually being held in a Connecticut jail.

Leo dispatches Sam and Toby to get the judge out of jail, flying them in an Air Force jet from Washington to Westchester, New York, then having them drive to Wesley. While in the world of television this makes sense (Mendoza was pulled over for being Hispanic, not for actually breaking the law, and just getting him out of jail and having the arrest dropped is the thing to do) in the real world this would be a scandal of pretty significant proportions (you can't just send White House staffers to talk the city police into releasing an arrested Supreme Court nominee and cover up/destroy the arrest records completely). But as I said, in the world of TV, it feels like the right thing to do. And it provides us some more comedy in the sight of Sam and Toby trying to navigate their way across Connecticut:

Josh (on the phone with Toby): "What's going on?"

Toby: "Sam feels we're zeroing in on it."

Josh: "You haven't found it yet?"

Toby: "We've been navigating by the North Star, which turned out to be the Delta shuttle from La Guardia. It's a miracle we're not in Nantucket right now."

But once Sam and Toby find the police station, they discover Mendoza doesn't want to leave. He wants to stay and use the legal system to fight the unjust arrest (he didn't take a Breathalyzer that he knew would clear him because he saw it as an invasion of his privacy). And in the most serious section of this mostly funny episode, Toby and Mendoza have a heart-to-heart about race, justice, and what's right:

Mendoza: "My kid was in the car, Toby. They patted me down and they handcuffed me in front of my nine-year-old boy. Then he and his mother got to see them put me in a squad car and drive away."

Toby: "He's also seen you wearing a robe, with a gavel in your hand."

Mendoza: "He doesn't understand that. He doesn't know what that is. He understands what the police are because he watches television. That's what he's going to remember - his father being handcuffed. So America just got another pissed-off guy with dark skin."

Toby turns the tables, though.

Toby: "Nothing about this that doesn't stink. Nothing about it that wouldn't be better if you were a Supreme Court Justice."

Mendoza agrees to go with Sam and Toby, Toby makes the police sergeant apologize to Mendoza (interesting parallel with O'Leary's forced apology to Wooden - the apology that led to Mendoza being in Connecticut in the first place), and Josh's talk with the college students continues as the episode ends.

While generally with Sorkin and The West Wing we find serious topics of national and political import being leavened with humor, this mostly comedic episode finds the overarching humor being brought back to solid ground with this serious moment at the end. It's a neat reversal of the typical format. And it's fantastic to see the comedy stylings of Janney, and Bradley Whitford, and Richard Schiff, and Rob Lowe, and even Martin Sheen (in his scenes with Charlie and in the Oval Office) - it's funny stuff, and it works.


Tales Of Interest!

- The last episode, Take This Sabbath Day, didn't have a "previously on The West Wing" section at all. This episode has one, but it's just many of the characters introducing themselves and their titles. It's almost as though the producers and/or NBC decided these two episodes -which, admittedly, are both nearly stand-alone episodes with no big plot tie-ins to the overall season - should serve as introductions to audience members just tuning in past Season One's halfway point.

- Allison Janney submitted this episode (along with the upcoming Lies, Damned Lies & Statistics) in her nomination for the Best Supporting Actress Emmy Award, which she ended up winning.

-  Former White House Press Secretary (for both Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush) Marlin Fitzwater said this about the getting-Mendoza-out-of-jail plot line:

"I've only seen one that I thought was so far off the mark that it was really a mistake, and that's when they had a Supreme Court nominee arrested for speeding, and two members of the White House staff went and broke him out of jail, which is an impeachable offense. And for any White House to really try that would have been stupid. First of all, everybody in the White House would have gotten fired. The president would have gotten impeached, and the Supreme Court nominee would have to be dumber than an owl to ever break the law by getting out of a speeding ticket. So that was the only one that I thought was really off the mark."

- We clearly see it's the Wesley city police that arrested Mendoza and are holding him; the sign outside the police station indicates it's the city services building, and both police officers' uniforms have a "Wesley Police" patch. Yet on the way out, Toby tells them "the county" won't have to worry about a wrongful-arrest lawsuit.

- Check out Josh's "manspreading" up on the stage in front of all those college students. And this was before the term "manspreading" was even a thing! Josh certainly isn't shy ...

Quotes    

CJ: "What happened?"

Sam: "It's not as bad as you think, CJ."

CJ: "Was the President's nominee for the Supreme Court just arrested for drunk driving?"

Sam: "Yes."

CJ: "Then it's pretty bad, isn't it?"

-----

President: "'If the shoe fits'? Is that the best she could do?"

Leo: "Of her many transgressions, Mr. President, let's not worry about she resorted to cliche."

-----

President (on the phone with Charlie's wake-up call): "Who the hell is this?"

Charlie: "Sir -"

President: "And what could you possibly want?"

Charlie: "Sir, I need you to dig in now. It wasn't a nightmare. You really are the President."

-----

Leo: "Mr. President, we experienced a few public relations - what's the word?"

Toby: "Catastrophes."

Leo: "Incidents, in the few hours you were away last night."

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

• Add the education reform bill to the list of administration victories since last fall: a gun control bill; hate crimes legislation; banking reform; changes to how the census is conducted; plus improvement in the unemployment rate and an economy good enough to provide a large federal budget surplus. It's hard to imagine an administration with these kinds of wins struggling to get its favorability numbers above 50 percent, but that's what we're supposed to believe.

• Gail's fishbowl has red gravel this week, probably related to CJ's dental surgery.

 

•  Josh is sporting a mug from Wesleyan University. Interestingly, while Wesley, Connecticut, isn't a real place, Wesleyan University is in Connecticut and is located near the route Sam says Mendoza would take to drive from Nova Scotia to DC.

• Secretary Deborah O'Leary (Department of Housing and Urban Development) is played by well-known actress CCH Pounder (ER, The Shield, NCIS: New Orleans, Avatar). Pounder was actually one of the finalists being considered for the role of CJ Cregg as The West Wing was being cast.

• Roberto Mendoza first appeared in The Short List, when President Bartlet decided to make him the nominee to fill a Supreme Court vacancy. It's stated here that it's been 8 weeks since that nomination was made - this episode aired 12 weeks after The Short List. It's also the last appearance of Edward James Olmos as Mendoza, which is too bad.

DC location shots    

• When Sam first calls Josh to inform him of Mendoza's arrest, Sam is standing on a street in DC with the Capitol in the background. In the DVD commentary with Aaron Sorkin, Thomas Schlamme, and director Christopher Misiano, it's stated it is not Pennsylvania Avenue, but one of the cross streets with a clear view of the Capitol. It was also very cold that night, they remember.

References to real people    

• Sam mentions Dale Carnegie, famous for courses on self-improvement and interpersonal skills.

• Barney Fife is mentioned in relation to the Wesley police force. While Fife was a fictional character in the TV series The Andy Griffith Show, apparently that show exists in The West Wing universe.

• Mentions are made of La Guardia Airport (named after former New York Mayor Fiorello La Guardia) and the Merritt Parkway (named after Congressman Schuyler Merritt).

• At the unnamed college where Josh is speaking, we see it's in the Marjorie Du Pont Lecture Hall (and part of the Marjorie Du Pont lecture series). "Marjorie Du Pont" is a name apparently created for the episode; of note, though, there is a Du Pont Hall at the University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg, Virginia, not too far from DC.

• Product placement: President Bartlet wears a Notre Dame T-shirt to bed; the Chicago Tribune is mentioned as printing the story of Mendoza criticizing President Bartlet's decision to have O'Leary apologize.

• The newspaper in the police station with the picture of Toby in the Oval Office is the Hartford Chronicle. That newspaper does not exist since 1947; the primary Connecticut newspaper is the Hartford Courant.

End credits freeze frame: The tired and cranky President about to get some bad news from his staff.