Let Bartlet Be Bartlet - TWW S1E19

Original airdate: April 26, 2000

Teleplay by: Aaron Sorkin (18)
Story by: Peter Parnell (1) and Patrick Caddell (5)

Directed by: Laura Innes (1)

Synopsis

• The entire administration feels stuck in place, mired in meaningless meetings going nowhere  as the President's poll numbers fall. When word leaks of a memo written by Mandy outlining ways to attack the President on his inability to take strong stands, the staff is energized to turn the tables and reset the tone of the Bartlet presidency.

"I serve at the pleasure of the President."

"Good. Now let's get in the game."

Great storytelling often involves pulling together threads and plotlines, sometimes seeds of ideas planted long before, and wrapping them up into a unified, perhaps even surprising, final product. As viewers, we find ourselves gratified when a person or event or crumb of information mentioned weeks ago suddenly is revealed as an important element of the story's climax. Aaron Sorkin shows he's pretty good at this, and the final few episodes of Season One bring his skills to the fore.

In fact, this method of ending a season with a group of linked episodes, bringing together threads and storylines established over the entire year and rushing towards a cliffhanger of a season-ending climax, is basically a standard of Sorkin's TV-series style. I know you can see it in The Newsroom, and while I haven't seen Sports Night and didn't last very long with Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip, I'll bet he did the same thing there.

Right from the start in Pilot, with President Bartlet's bicycle-tree collision, we have been bombarded with talk of the listlessness and futility of his administration. While the staff got to celebrate the confirmation of Bartlet's nominee to the Supreme Court in Six Meetings Before Lunch, that seems to be the only big success of the administration's first year-plus in office. They did push through a watered-down gun control bill, but Vice President Hoynes ended up with the credit; they found themselves bogged down in a fight with Congress over Leo's former drug abuse problems; Bartlet was taken to task by a retiring Supreme Court justice over his move away from the liberal policies he ran on; the President's poll numbers have been aggravatingly stuck at an anemic 48 percent*. We also learn Bartlet's election victory came with just 48 percent of the popular vote - my take is there must have been a third-party candidate that split the national vote (similar to Ross Perot in 1992, which meant Bill Clinton won the presidency with only 43 percent of the vote). There's just a gnawing feeling that there's no overall strategy, no drive, no inspiration - it's seen as a presidency stuck in neutral, hoping to make it to re-election in 2002 without any higher goals than that. As Toby shouts to Leo, "One victory a year stinks in the life of an administration, but it's not the ones we lose that bother me, Leo, it's the ones we don't suit up for!"

(* I will take this one last opportunity to mention that Sorkin undermines his own agenda multiple times over the course of the season: the administration is successful in passing a banking reform bill over the objections of the banking lobby; they get hate crimes legislation through after the beating death of a gay Minnesota teen; they have the economy running at a pace that results in a huge budget surplus, and appears to have some success in where that money was delegated; and they convince Congress to go along on studying changes to the census process. So it hasn't been a total disaster of an administration - but even with these "wins," the overall public opinion of President Bartlet continues to be poor, and the opposition Congress is flexing its muscles against what is seen as a weak White House. That's all I have to say about that.)

Now, all those tendrils of impotence and caution and vacillation come crashing together, leading us to a reset in the direction of the Bartlet presidency that Sorkin has been setting up since Pilot. A move to look into the chances of naming two champions of campaign finance reform to the Federal Election Commission is met with disdain on Capitol Hill, with senatorial aides even threatening to bring up retaliatory legislation if the White House tries it; a meeting with congressmen and military liaisons on getting rid of Don't Ask, Don't Tell and letting gay servicemembers serve openly is dead on arrival; a new poll shows the President's approval ratings have dropped five points in a week ("We didn't do anything!" exclaims Leo, exasperated at how public opinion has dropped without any misstep by the administration); even the White House e-mail system is slowed to a crawl, thanks to Margaret's message about the calories in the raisin muffins being "reply-alled" into e-mail hell. The feeling of despair and frustration has spread throughout the entire West Wing:

CJ (asking about the President): "How's his mood today?"

Leo: "We had breakfast. He seemed very upbeat, very energetic, very optimistic about the day."

CJ: "How long do you suppose that's going to last?"

(cut to President and Mrs. Landingham at the OEOB)

President: "Can't we get this godforsaken event over with so I can get back to presiding over a civilization going to hell in a handcart?"

And whatever the staff tries to do, they find themselves stymied at every turn. Josh asks Leo if the President expects to go anywhere with making his nominations to the FEC; Leo says no. The military officers ask Toby and Sam what the consequences of their meeting will be; Sam says the consequences will be little. Admiral Fitzwallace later tells Sam he's not going to get anywhere with that meeting. Josh, looking at Mandy's memo, says to Toby, "Our second year doesn't seem to be going a whole lot better than our first, does it?" Even Donna makes mention of the gloom permeating the entire West Wing:

Donna: "Why is everyone walking around like they know they've already lost?"

Then, just to add more misery to the situation, word comes out of an explosive "piece of paper" that's been discovered by the media, which turns out to be a memo written by Mandy to help Senator Russell as he was contemplating a possible primary challenge to President Bartlet. This memo outlines the weaknesses of the President and his staff, blaming Leo for holding Bartlet back from his more progressive instincts, and serves as a playbook for stopping the incumbent from being renominated in 2002. The memo serves as a spark for some lively scenes between CJ and Mandy (CJ treats Mandy like a disobedient child, which is pretty apt, I think) and CJ and Danny (a emotionally loaded scene - the tightness of CJ's voice with her final "OK" before she goes out the door is so perfect. Have I mentioned how much I love Allison Janney's work?). Danny hits on the listlessness of the administration too:

Danny: "You guys are stuck in the mud around here, and none if it is the fault of the press. I know you're frustrated - but it ain't nothing compared to the frustration of the people who voted for you, so don't come in here and question my --"

Sorkin takes all this inaction and frustration and uncertainty plaguing the White House and brings it to a boil in a crackling Oval Office fight between Jed and Leo. Leo turns the tables on the memo, pointing out that it's Bartlet himself who's been holding back, Bartlet himself who's been too timid to do what he really wants. Instead he's keeping things safe and noncontroversial, playing the long game for reelection instead of using his office to make forceful policy changes. It's a fantastic scene, made a classic by those pros John Spencer and Martin Sheen, and ends with Jed coming around to the knowledge that his staff, these loyal employees who believe in the President and democracy and the United States, will truly go to the ends of the earth to fight for those ideals:

Leo: "Everyone's waiting for you, I don't know how much longer."

President: "I don't want to feel like this anymore."

Leo: "You don't have to."

President: "I don't want to go to sleep like this."

Leo: "You don't have to."

President: "I want to speak."

Leo: "Say it out loud. Say it to me."

President: "This is more important than reelection, I want to speak now."

Leo: "Say it again."

President: "This is more important than reelection. I want to speak now."

And Leo comes up with the beginnings of a strategy, with something on a legal pad that we're going to see echoed on a napkin in the future:

And when Leo goes back into his office to tell the rest of the staff that the game has changed, they proudly and happily proclaim one by one, "I serve at the pleasure of the President." The course of the administration has changed; the energy has crescendoed, and they're going after the long shot policy changes that can actually better the country:

Leo: "And we're gonna lose some of these battles. And we might even lose the White House. But we're not gonna be threatened by issues. We're gonna put 'em front and center. We're gonna raise the level of public debate in this country. And let that be our legacy."

And, as Leo said, they're ready to run through walls for President Bartlet:

It's a marvelously crafted reset of the direction of the administration (with some really stirring Snuffy Walden music over the final scenes), and we are ready to see what these folks will choose to do with their restored energy and inspiration.



Tales Of Interest!

- Toby has a microwave in his office. Apparently Sam does not, as he comes over to use it to heat up his coffee:

Also note the CNN weather on the television (cable news weather reports are seen on quite a few background TVs in this episode). This shows a front with widespread precipitation all across the eastern seaboard, so Sam's reliance on Coast Guard Lt. Lowenbrau's forecast is clearly misplaced.

- The timeline of this episode matches with the real-life calendar, as CJ briefs the press about what's coming up for Easter ("The Easter Egg Hunt and the Easter Egg Roll are two different things. The theme of this year's event is 'Learning Is Delightful and Delicious,' as, by the way, am I.") Easter in 2000 arrived on Sunday, April 23, three days before this episode aired.

- This is the first episode of The West Wing directed by Laura Innes, who you might know as Dr. Kerry Weaver on ER (ER being a John Wells-produced show, as was The West Wing). Innes got her start in directing with ER in 1999, going to direct 12 episodes of that series as well as 5 more episodes of The West Wing. Since 2002 she's directed for 14 other TV series as well. She shows she's really got the hang of the West Wing style - I loved the swooping shot around the table as Sam and the military officers are arguing in the Roosevelt Room.

- Once again, what exactly is Mandy's job, and how exactly is she supposed to be any good at it? As a media consultant, all she can do is tell Josh not to get involved in hot-button issues like flag burning, school prayer or English as the national language, but when Josh tells her they're not going to push their candidates for the FEC, she says, "Why not?" You crazy woman, you just told him not to stir up trouble and stay on the safe road, now you're questioning that exact same policy? PLUS - if she had written an opposition memo while working for Russell, wouldn't the FIRST THING YOU'D DO after being hired by the White House be to offer that memo to the administration, so they can work on correcting those weaknesses? Sorkin puts the onus on CJ (through Danny berating her) for not asking for any such material, but I think it's on Mandy to volunteer to give that up when she first came on board. Anyway ... Mandy's not very good at her job, and it was nice to see CJ slapping her down a little.

- Toby can be a riot, with his prickly personality put to good use when he's putting others into what he thinks is their place. His talk with Margaret about "the lab" is a classic:

Margaret: "I was simply informing the others that the calorie count in the raisin muffin was wrong, and it is, Toby, you don't believe me. You should take one of those muffins and, you know, take it down to the lab."

Toby: "I'll do that."

Margaret: "Will you?"

Toby: "Get me a muffin. Careful not to handle it yourself, you want to use gloves. Slip it to me in a plastic bag, I'll send it off to the lab."

Margaret: "You're mocking me now, aren't you?"

Toby: "Yes."

- In the early days of the series, we saw CJ used a Gateway laptop. Later we saw Sam and Toby using Macbooks. Here ... well, I can't tell the brand, although it's certainly not a Mac:

- Even though Fitzwallace later tells Sam he isn't going to get anywhere with the military guys over Don't Ask, Don't Tell, he lays down a truth bomb to them when he crashes the meeting:

Officer 1: "Sir, we're not prejudiced toward homosexuals."

Fitz: "You just don't want to see them serve in the armed forces."

Officer 1: "No, sir, I don't."

Fitz: "Cause they pose a threat to unit discipline and cohesion."

Officer 2: "Yes, sir."

Fitz: "That's what I think, too. I also think the military wasn't designed to be an instrument of social change."

Officer 2: "Yes, sir."

Fitz: "Problem with that is, that's what they were saying about me 50 years ago. Blacks shouldn't serve with whites. It would disrupt the unit. You know what? It did disrupt the unit. The unit got over it. The unit changed. I'm an admiral in the US Navy and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Beat that with a stick."

Quotes    

President: "CJ, are you taller than you usually are?"

CJ: "No, sir, I'm my usual height." 

-----

Toby: "Sam?"

Sam: "Damn it!"

Leo: "What?"

Sam: "I forgot to do something."

President (offscreen, to trout fishermen): "As I look out over this magnificent vista --"

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

• Steve Onorato, aide to the (apparently Republican) Senate Majority Leader, is played by Paul Provenza (Empty Nest, The Facts Of Life, Northern Exposure).

• Congressman Mike Satchel is played by Andy Buckley, probably best known for his role as David Wallace in The Office.

• Gail's fishbowl is decorated with colorful Easter eggs.

• Did you notice the newspaper framed on Toby's wall? It's the Hartford Chronicle front page that Sam used in Celestial Navigation to prove to the police officers that they were from the White House, convincing the police to release Roberto Mendoza.

• The gays in the military as a plot point first came up in 20 Hours In L.A., when Ted Marcus threatened to cancel the fundraiser if President Bartlet didn't speak out against a bill banning gays from serving. Jed convinced Marcus things would be worse if he took a public stand on the issue; a position that's reflected in the wishy-washy approach of the administration in general shown here.

• Jed tells Leo "you came to my house" and talked him into running for President. We'll soon see where that conversation takes place, and it's not at Jed's house.

• Speaking of running for President, it seems clear here that Bartlet is holding back and playing it safe to set things up for reelection in 2002. We are going to find out later that because of his MS, he was not planning to actually run for a second term, or at least that was the agreement he made with Abbey. Of course, the rest of the staff had no knowledge of this (Leo didn't even find out about the MS until He Shall, From Time To Time ...), so they would have been working towards another election, but Jed's discussion with Leo here seems to show he was planning on running.

• Josh and Donna ... personally, I love the chemistry these two actors have with each other (Janel Maloney is so good she gets promoted to appearing in the starring cast credits next season). A lot of people have issues with their relationship - Josh does treat her pretty badly a lot of the time, it's true, but he also has sweet, tender moments sometimes. If you throw out the whole boss-subordinate kind of relationship-power-imbalance angle (and you have to, in this case, because it's TV and because it was a different time almost 20 years ago), well, they have a pretty long will-they-or-won't-they thing going on. I won't deny I was rooting for these two kooky kids all along. ANYWAY - there's a bit of foreshadowing of their future relationship. It doesn't come to fruition for years, but the seeds are being planted:

Donna: "So the President has the opportunity to stack the FEC with our people and make a measurable impact on campaign finance reform?"

Josh: "Yes."

Donna: "Well, do it, baby."

Josh: "There's a couple of roadblocks."

Donna: "What?"

Josh: "Whenever a vacancy comes up, the party leadership on both sides, uh ... did you just, call me 'baby' back there?"

And later, when Josh comes back from his meeting on the Hill:

Donna (meeting Josh in the foyer): "How'd it go?"

Josh: "How do you know to be standing here?"

Donna: "I see you out the window."

Josh: "You don't have a window."

Donna: "There's a window in your office."

Josh: "What are you doing in my office when I'm not there?"

Donna: "Looking for you out the window."

DC location shots    

• The early scene with the President and staff walking through hallways on their way to the (relocated) speech to the United Organization of Trout Fishermen is described as being in the Old Executive Office Building (OEOB), which is located just west of the White House (the outside of which was used for a scene in The Short List). The building was actually renamed the Eisenhower Executive Office Building in November, 1999, but it's not a stretch to think people would still call it by its old name a few months later. I've been unable to find information about where that scene was actually shot - it may have been the OEOB (although I doubt it), it may have been in the Daughters of the American Revolution building (the exterior of which was seen in 20 Hours In L.A.), but most likely it was somewhere in Los Angeles (as the museum rotunda was used to stand in for a government building in Take This Sabbath Day).

(Also, it seems odd to me that we first see the President and Mrs. Landingham heading up a couple of flights of stairs to a hallway, then to see the staff burst in from an obvious ground-floor entrance to join them.)

References to real people    

• Donna uses James Madison in her bullet points for Josh about English as the national language.

• Danny gives a shout-out to the ice cream franchise Baskin-Robbins.

• The bad news about losing five points in a week comes from a CNN/USA Today poll.

• Josh is seen carrying the book A Necessary Evil by Garry Wills, subtitled A History of American Distrust of Government. It would seem to be clearly connected to the overall theme of this episode, how politicians tend to do things that are safer for their own ends rather than breaking out of the box and working to improve the nation.

End credits freeze frame: President Bartlet sharing a smile and a nod with Leo at the end of the episode.