Original airdate: May 10, 2000
Written by: Aaron Sorkin (20)
Directed by: Don Scardino (1)
Synopsis
- The White House anxiously awaits results of fresh polling after the administration's change in focus and energy. President Bartlet plays a game of musical ambassadorial chairs to help advance a new policy. Sam's relationship with Laurie hits the press after her law school graduation.
"You think you only have so many times left you can come into the Oval Office and say you're wrong."
The inaugural season of
The West Wing has introduced us to this wonderful cast of characters, working to improve the nation through their public service, and we've also found out so many details about these folks: President Bartlet has a serious chronic disease (that little fact feels like it's going to be important in the future); Toby has an ex-wife; Josh is catnip to the ladies; Sam has been hanging out with a high-priced call girl. I think, though, one of the most important and interesting storylines through this first season has been CJ's story.
The CJ we've seen has always been good in her job as press secretary - she's smart, she's adept at handling reporters, she has great instincts about how to direct the media's attention - but as we first saw in
Lord John Marbury, she hasn't always felt trusted or fully included in the inner circle. Recent episodes have really brought that to the fore, as she feels she's being marginalized on several fronts; being held responsible for not knowing about Mandy's opposition memo, feeling a bit powerless over Danny's publication of that memo, and criticized by Leo for a minor briefing gaffe about the President's legal obligations.
In this episode, the hits keep on coming. CJ has been in charge of the media strategy rolling out the new White House focus kicked off in
Let Bartlet Be Bartlet, with the administration willing to fight for policies and actions that the President truly believes in, such as campaign finance reform and drug treatment instead of punishment. (As an aside: wouldn't developing the media strategy be Mandy's job? What, exactly, is she doing here?) So naturally, the new polling results are more than a measurement of how the President is doing, but also of how CJ is doing her job, and she's a little concerned about her future after the events of the past few episodes. Here things start out with a chorus of criticisms over wording of the polling questions, criticisms that CJ wastes no time in slapping down:
Toby: "We need to talk about the asymmetry of question six."
CJ: "We really don't."
Toby: "Since when are you an expert on language?"
CJ: "In polling models?"
Toby: "Okay."
CJ: "1993. Since when are you an uptight pain in the ass?"
Toby: "Since long before that."
(And hey, look, Ed and Larry are back! They're also criticizing the wording of the questions, just like the rest of the men.)
CJ also has the answer for a Republican claim that the President wants to legalize drugs, as she says the Surgeon General's memo the Republicans are pointing to is the same memo that has been put out for 30 years - but nobody wants to go along with her until "the guys" confirm that fact is true. And even later, after Sam is photographed giving Laurie a gift and a hug after her law school graduation, Leo storms into her office to chew her out over not being informed right away.
Most important to CJ, though, is the seeming disregard for her opinion that she thinks polling will show a five-point boost to the President's numbers. The rest of the staff thinks the numbers will hold steady, or maybe drop a bit, and when Jed asks Leo what everyone thinks, that's all he's told - CJ's opinion isn't even mentioned. That seriously bothers her, so much so that she drops in on Leo later to express her feelings about being ignored and marginalized. And then Leo basically blows her off! It's no wonder she's feeling uncertain about her continued prospects as press secretary.
The arc comes to a good conclusion, though - first Josh tries to reassure her, saying the President thinks of her as a daughter. Then the numbers come in, giving CJ the chance to assert her confidence in her own actions was not misplaced:
CJ: "I was wrong. (pause) We went up nine points."
Giving us one of the most well-deserved grins in
The West Wing history. Allison Janney earned her first Emmy for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama for this episode (along with
Celestial Navigation - "A secwet pwan to fiwght infwation?").
President Bartlet, Leo, Toby, and Sam are also working on a convoluted plot to help make changes to campaign finance, and eliminate soft money contributions. Over the past couple of episodes, we've seen the audacious move by the President to name his own selections to the Federal Election Commission, over the objections of Congress, in order to get two finance reformers on the FEC. To get a majority, though, they'll need four of the six commissioners. It turns out Barry Haskell, one of the current FEC members, is secretly in favor of reform, but it takes a show of the trappings of office in the West Wing and the Oval Office to get him to make his support public:
President: "A dress Marine guarding your door?"
Leo: "Too showy?"
President: "Naw, my thing is, what's he supposed to be guarding right now?"
But they still need one more vote. Toby and Sam come up with a great game of musical chairs: FEC commissioner Ross Kassenbach will be named ambassador to the Federated States of Micronesia, giving the administration another empty FEC seat to fill with a reformer; the current ambassador to Micronesia will be moved to ambassador to Paraguay; the current Paraguayan ambassador gets shifted to ambassador to Bulgaria. And what about the present ambassador to Bulgaria, Ken Cochran? Turns out he's having an affair with the daughter of the Bulgarian prime minister, giving President Bartlet some leverage to force his resignation after lining up another job for him:
President: "Look, he's a good man, a smart man, I think he'd make a very good corporate officer."
Ted Mitchell: "Why is he being fired, sir?"
President: "Gross incompetence. I'll be right back."
After getting all the proper openings set up, Jed meets with Republican senator Max Lobell, an opponent of Bartlet's on everything except campaign finance reform, and gets his assurances the President's FEC nominees will get through. It's a clever, cascading line of dominoes that are set up to fall just right and result in success for the White House.
Cochran, by the way, has a bit of history with Charlie. He was once a member of the exclusive Gramercy Club, where Charlie worked as a waiter. Apparently the "exclusivity" of the club was pretty offensive, although we don't know any details, but Cochran's huffiness about later giving up his membership and his defensiveness about what Charlie might have said about him leave a big impression. The best thing about this angle, though, is Jed's intuition throughout the episode of Charlie knowing Cochran somehow. Charlie keeps denying it, but when Cochran brings it up in their meeting, the President's joy is evident ("Wait a second - you two have a past? You mocked my finely honed sense ..."). And he gets the last word with Cochran:
Cochran: "I think it would be appropriate at this time, Mr. President, to make a confession."
President: "What's that?"
Cochran: "I never voted for you."
President: "Well, thanks for trying, but here I am anyway. Gotta go."
And now, at last, we reach the end of the Sam/Laurie storyline, the plot that began with the very first scene of
The West Wing. Sam seems to have served more as a friend and mentor to Laurie since they first spent the night together back in
Pilot, although I don't know - when he offered her a bunch of money to not go home with her date in
The State Dinner that seemed to indicate he still had some romantic feelings. Anyway, doesn't really matter now. She's graduating from George Washington University Law School, and while Sam wants to be there, Toby lets him know in no uncertain terms that he can't go - the Republicans are aware of their relationship and are looking for anything they can use against the administration. Sam (in cahoots with Laurie's friend Janeane) surprises Laurie in front of Janeane's apartment after the graduation, giving her a gift and a hug, a hug that is caught on camera by a stealth photographer across the street. It turns out the photographer was tipped off by Janeane, and the
London Daily Mirror (a fictitious newspaper, by the way) will be the first newspaper to run the photo.
This gets Leo really worked up, as he slams the door on CJ's office when he storms in to demand why he wasn't kept in the loop overnight. Sam offers his resignation, but Toby (after dressing him down sternly on the way to the Oval Office) defends him, and the President recognizes things aren't really nearly so bad as appearances might seem:
President: "Toby, are you sticking up for Sam?"
Toby: "I know, it's - strange, sir, but I'm feeling a, a, certain - big-brotherly connection right now. You know, obviously I'd like that feeling to go away as soon as possible."
And, by the way, herein ends the Laurie storyline. Lisa Edelstein apparently took her law degree and headed off to medical school, so she could work with Dr. House, leaving Washington, DC, behind for good.
We've hardly talked about Josh and Joey, but there's not a lot to talk about. They quibble and argue and talk about the polling and the possibility of the Republicans countering the President's FEC gambit with English as the official language - but it's all flirtatious and light, in the end. Joey gets a good line late in the episode about the ridiculousness of passing laws to defend the language of Shakespeare, and she gets to give Josh a Bronx cheer (twice!). It's sweet and genuine, this Josh/Joey thing, but there's not a lot plot-wise to go with it.
Aaron Sorkin is really firing on all cylinders with this episode - all these plot lines are well-developed, with plenty of backstory from earlier in the season, and a nicely set-up surprise outcome of the musical chairs game that started off with a random mention of Micronesia in the first act. There's a lot of great lines in this episode, too, and a fantastic contribution from NiCole Robinson as Margaret.
What's really great, though, is the continuing growth and confirmed importance of CJ as a integral part of this team. That grin gives us a really fine wrapup of the overall arc of Season One as we prepare for the season finale.
Tales Of Interest!
- "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics" is a saying popularized by Mark Twain, but it's evident he didn't originate the saying. He credited British statesman and prime minister Benjamin Disraeli, but there's no evidence of it in any of Disraeli's writings. The saying was first recorded in 1891, but an 1885 writing mentions varieties of unreliable witnesses as "liars, damned liars, and experts," which is a very similar construction.
- I keep criticizing Mandy (again, wouldn't the administration's media strategy be her responsibility and not CJ's? What exactly is the DNC paying her for), but come on - she has exactly three lines in this entire episode:
"Okay, here we go."
"Will the two of you shut up? Or the three of you, however many of you are talking. Could you stop?"
"Yeah. Yeah."
- I get the potential embarrassment the administration feels might come if a high-level staffer was known to be friends with a call girl, but let's face it - would a British newspaper pay someone $50,000 to set up an opportunity to get a picture? Of the White House Deputy Communications Director hugging someone? Would any readers of the
Daily Mirror even care?
- I've got to mention Margaret here. When Barry Haskell is summoned to Leo's office, Leo has Margaret wait for a bit before bringing Haskell in, helping to impress him with the mystique and power in the West Wing. Margaret is really uncomfortable with just standing there doing nothing, so later in the episode when she announces CJ is there, she's prepared to fill the time:
Margaret: "You want to hear a joke?"
Leo: "Uh, okay."
Margaret: "You know why they only eat one egg for breakfast in France?"
Leo: "Why?"
Margaret: "Cause in France, one egg is an oeuf."
Which causes Leo to react:
Quotes
Toby: "Direction and track are two different words."
CJ: "Thank you, Funk and Wagnalls."
Toby: "What did she call me?"
Ginger: "Funk and Wagnalls. They make the dictionary."
Toby: "I know who Funk and Wagnalls are."
Bonnie: "Then why'd you ask her?"
-----
Sam: "You know what's fun?"
Bonnie: "What?"
Sam: "The Potomac in the morning."
Bonnie: "Yeah?"
Sam: "Jogging around the Potomac, or sculling."
Ginger: "Were you jogging this morning?"
Sam: "No."
Bonnie: "Were you sculling?"
Sam: "No, I was sitting on a bench eating a bagel, but from where I was both jogging and sculling looked good to me."
-----
Toby: "The Federated States of Micronesia."
Sam: "Toby says it's a country."
President: "It is a country, you know where?"
Toby: "I assume it's a small island in the South Pacific."
President: "It's actually six hundred and seven small islands in the South Pacific. Interestingly, while its total land mass is only 270 square miles, it occupies more than a million square miles of the Pacific Ocean. Population's 127,000. And the US Embassy is located in the state of Pohnpei and not, as many people believe, on the island of Yap."
(pause)
Toby: "Why would a person have that information at their disposal?"
President: "Parties."
(Point of information:
Micronesia actually consists of some 2100 islands, with a total land mass of about 1000 square miles, covering nearly 3,000,000 square miles of ocean. So Jed's not quite as smart as he makes himself sound.)
-----
CJ: "And what are you doing here?"
Josh: "I'm kind of in charge of morale."
CJ: "Josh- "
Josh: "The calls are going great."
CJ: "I'm trying to meet a deadline, Josh, I've got a 48-hour window and you can't stand here distracting the female callers."
Josh (calling out to the phone banks): "Have I been distracting the female callers?"
Chorus of callers: "No." "No."
CJ: "Josh - "
Josh: "Not even a little bit?"
-----
President: "It's nice when we can do something for prostitutes once in a while, isn't it?"
Story threads, callbacks, and familiar faces (Hey, it's that guy!)
- Barry Haskell, the FEC member getting the full-court press from Leo and Bartlet, is played by Austin Pendleton, an actor and playwright who has appeared in dozens of movies and TV series dating back to 1968. (A really nice acting choice - when Haskell is brought into the Oval Office and realizes he's meeting the President, Pendleton quickly wipes his right hand on his suit jacket, as if his palms are sweaty and he needs to dry them before shaking hands.)
- When Haskell is ushered into the Oval Office, President Bartlet introduces him to the men he's talking with, including Attorney General Dan Larson. In A Proportional Response the Attorney General was referred to as an African-American; Dan Larson is definitely not African-American.
- Ken Cochran, current ambassador to Bulgaria and future employee of Ted Mitchell, is played by character actor Lawrence Pressman, who has been seen in many, many TV series, including a major turn on Doogie Howser, M.D. In another political acting role, he also played H.R. Haldeman (alongside Martin Sheen as John Dean) in the 1979 miniseries Blind Ambition, about the Watergate scandal.
- Senator Max Lobell is played by David Huddleston, another well-known character actor perhaps best remembered for Blazing Saddles and The Big Lebowski.
- Gail's fishbowl features a telephone, in line with the episode's focus on getting poll numbers from a phone bank.
- CJ mentions she's been an expert on polling models since 1993, or some five years or so before the Bartlet campaign started. At the beginning of Season Two we're going to see how this staff came together to run that campaign, and I don't know if CJ's background there is really going to have polling models as an area of expertise. I guess we'll see!
- WHAT'S NEXT MOMENT - After the polling numbers are revealed, President Bartlet gets the discussion moving into the future by saying, "Okay. What's next?"
DC location shots
- The scene with Laurie and Janeane studying, supposedly in the GWU Law School library, was actually shot in that favorite location of The West Wing, the DAR Headquarters building. Here's how it looked in the episode:
And here's what the DAR library looks like on their web page:
- The street scene with Sam and Laurie outside Janeane's apartment (along with the renegade photographer) was probably in the 3400 block of O Street NW in Georgetown. I was able to narrow that down, as the only places where streetcar rails remain in the streets around DC are the 3200-3400 blocks of O and P streets in Georgetown. Using Google Street View, I think I found the right location. Here's what we see in the episode:
And here's the Street View look at about 3414 O Street NW:
(I'm fairly sure that's even the same tree in the left of both photos.)
References to real people
- We get a reference to dictionary publishers Funk & Wagnalls right out of the box.
- Sam says the Federated States of Micronesia sounds like something out of the Marx Brothers.
- Charlie Rose is mentioned as the host of one show the administration has been promoting their drug reforms on over the past three weeks. We also see CNN personality Larry King on a television in the background of Leo's office, as well as Peter Arnett on a TV in the communications office.
- When the President and Sam are discussing briefcases there are references to Coach (specifically the Beekman in British tan; link goes to eBay, so I don't know how long it might stay relevant), Andare (searching for Andare now appears to only bring up luggage), and Trieste.
End credits freeze frame: The President and his staff getting back to work after the poll results come in at the end of the episode.
