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.