Walking And Talking And Yelling At Clouds: 17 People

Original airdate: April 4, 2001

Written by: Aaron Sorkin (39)

Directed by: Alex Graves (4)

Synopsis

After doggedly following Vice President Hoynes' trail of bread crumbs, Toby is stunned when the President reveals his multiple sclerosis. Meanwhile, President Bartlet must also deal with a potential terrorist threat crossing the Canadian border. As the rest of the staff work to "bring the funny" to the President's Correspondents' Dinner speech, Ainsley and Sam face off over the Equal Rights Amendment. Donna opens up to Josh about why she came back to work for him three years ago.

"You knew. We weren't counting you. It's 17 people."

Ba-THUMP pock.

Ba-THUMP pock.

Ba-THUMP pock.

The relentless metronome of Toby's rubber ball, bouncing off his office wall again and again, like a heartbeat ticking away the seconds ... it's the first sound (and also the last) we hear in what is one of the very best episodes of The West Wing ever. Secrets are laid bare, emotions are rubbed raw, and the Bartlet legacy is thrown into doubt as the first cracks in the wall of silence over Jed's multiple sclerosis appear. Aaron Sorkin was tasked by the network and the studio with bringing them a less expensive episode, to make up for cost overruns earlier in Season 2; his response was to write a stage play, with no guest stars, using only a few rooms on the White House set, telling a gripping tale that will resonate throughout Season 2.

Let's begin with the opening pre-credits sequence. It covers six days in a finely crafted 3 minutes and 30 seconds, filled with tension, suspense, and outstanding acting from Richard Schiff. We start exactly where we left off that Friday night at the end of The Stackhouse Filibuster, with Toby bouncing his ball against the wall while he ponders Hoynes' motives for adjusting his energy stance and putting out polls on the topic (Toby apparently ditched his planned trip to Telluride for the weekend).

Two nights later (Sunday) he's filling a wastebasket with paper as he tries to work through the situation by writing things out.

Two nights after that (Tuesday) as he's tapping away on his laptop, he notices Leo working late in his office as well.

He goes to Leo; one of Toby's thoughts is that perhaps there's been talk of dropping Hoynes from the ticket in the upcoming campaign, which might explain the Vice President's actions to set up a competing run. Leo denies any discussion of that. The next night (Wednesday), back to the bouncing ball.

By the next morning (Thursday), Toby sits in Leo's office, in the dark, waiting for him to arrive.

He asks again why Hoynes would be polling six years prior to a possible Presidential run. Leo tells him not to worry about it. That night, Toby returns. He has more information - the Vice President has scheduled a speech about clean-air technology (an odd choice for a Texas oil industry guy), and he's giving it in New Hampshire (the first primary state). Leo shrugs it off. No politician would be obvious enough to start campaigning in such a way without concocting some kind of cover story to explain why he's in New Hampshire in the first place.

Leo: "Toby, nobody, and particularly not Hoynes would be naive enough - what I mean to say is if he's going to New Hampshire for the reason you're thinking he would mask it with something. It wouldn't be an official trip. He'd make up a benign excuse to be up there."

Toby: "I know."

Leo: "So why are you concerned about the speech?"

Toby: "Because it comes in the middle of a three-day camping trip to Killington."

Toby: "What's going on, Leo?"

And off we go (as the President himself says a few minutes later). Leo, of course, knows about the President's medical condition, and that he's wrestling with the deal he made with Abbey to only serve one term. He also shook hands with Toby a few months ago, essentially establishing the President's re-election committee, so he's caught in the middle here. His only choice is to go to President Bartlet and tell him he has to bring Toby in on the secret, because he's figuring things out on his own and the rest of the staff is smart enough to do that, too. It's time to start evaluating how people are going to react to the news.

President: "The staff's reaction will be what?"

Leo: "I don't know. Shock. Betrayal. Confusion about our future."

The episode-long sequences of the President revealing the news (while at the same time dealing with a possible threat of Algerian terrorists crossing the border from Canada) and Toby's reactions are top West Wing moments. Right off the bat, as Toby and Leo wait to enter the Oval Office, Leo tells him, "Take it easy in there." Put yourself in Toby's shoes - all he knows is that Hoynes thinks the President isn't going to run in 2002; he's got to be thinking, what reason would he have to be upset at whatever Jed is going to tell him? And then, when the bombshell drops, after a few questions about the condition, Toby is stunned, unable to stay still, grasping for normality in a sea of unexpected uncertainty (I love the moment where he stands up from the sofa, only after which he asks, "I'd like to stand up. Can I stand?").

For one thing, as we've established, Toby's not only a very smart guy, he's also in many ways the conscience of the administration. We can flash back to the conversation about "better angels" and "a fair fight" that he had with the President in The Crackpots And These Women. He also is much quicker to grasp the implications of this news than Jed and Leo seem to be - the fact that international nuclear incidents were occurring at the same time as his episode a year ago, that there was no real handover of Presidential power while Bartlet was in surgery the previous spring, with this disease making the sudden incapacitation of the President very possible, with the President being treated only by his wife, keeping other medical professionals in the dark about his condition, not to mention the entire "hiding the fact from the voters" angle. Also, as in Crackpots where we saw serious tension between the President and Toby, we see those same flashpoints here, too. Toby (again as the conscience) speaks to the reality of what this deceit has already done to weaken the constitutional framework of the Presidency, and Jed doesn't like being called out on it.

Toby: "The National Security Adviser and Secretary of State didn't know who they were taking their orders from! I wasn't in the Situation Room that night but I'll bet all the money in my pockets against all the money in your pockets that it was Leo - who no one elected! For 90 minutes that night there was a coup d'etat in this country."

[...]

President: "You know your indignation would be a lot more interesting to me if it wasn't quite so covered in crap! [...] Are you pissed because I didn't say anything or are you pissed because there were 15 people who knew before you did? I feel fine, by the way, thanks for asking."

The President understandably takes this as a personal attack. He's the one dealing with a chronic, uncurable medical condition, while Toby appears to be only focusing on the political ramifications, not showing any concern about Bartlet's health or his family (there's going to be a really interesting and revealing contrast between Toby's reaction and Donna's reaction when she learns the news in a later episode).

Toby can't help but think politically, though, and sees the problems the administration is going to have to face, sooner rather than later.

Leo: "What do you think is gonna happen?"

Toby: "Well, I suppose, one of five things. The President can decide not to run, he can run and not win, he can run and win -"

Leo: "And? What are the other two?"

Toby: "Leo ..."

Leo: "You think he's gonna need to resign?"

Toby: "There's going to be hearing upon hearing upon hearing -"

Leo: "He hasn't broken a law."

(Charlie steps out to let them know the President is on his way back, then returns inside)

Toby: "Says you. But you don't have to break the law to get served with articles of impeachment."

Leo: "Toby, it is never going to get that far."

Toby (with a wry little chuckle): "Write down the exact date and time you said that."

A couple of other notes about this storyline: we see President Bartlet actually, physically angry a couple of times here. First, when Leo tells him he's going to have to tell Toby the truth, Jed slams a binder down on his desk:

Perhaps he's more angry at Hoynes' carelessness allowing Toby to follow those bread crumbs, but he's been cruising along keeping this secret for eight years - he's not prepared to open up about it at all after getting away with it for so long. Secondly, when Toby calls him out about the irresponsibility (and illegality) of Leo being in charge while he was under anesthesia, the President angrily hurls a piece of paper across the room:

He knows the walls are closing in, the truth is going to have to be revealed, and that brings a huge sense of uncertainty into his future. The choice of whether or not he'll run again, and whether or not he'll abide by his deal with Abbey, may no longer be up to him. That's a seismic shift in his administration and his term in office, and he doesn't handle it so well at first.

Eventually, though (just as in Crackpots), the two old political pros can find some common ground. After the President tells Toby he has the right to keep some things personal, Toby reminds him that the American people have the right to be fully informed, too.

President: "I have no intention of apologizing to you, Toby."

Toby: "Would you mind if I asked why not?"

President: "Cause you're not the one with MS, a wife, three kids, and airports to close. Not every part of me belongs to you. This was personal. I'm not willing to relinquish that right."

(The President gets up and moves to his desk. Toby and Leo stand.)

Toby: "It will appear to many, if not most, as fraud. It will appear as if you denied the voters an opportunity to decide for themselves. They're generally not willing to relinquish that right, either."

(Toby mentions that it will soon be time to talk to lawyers, and reminds the President that they weren't counting him, that it's 17 people, not 16. The President considers.)

President (sighs): "I don't know. It may have been unbelievably stupid. It may have been unthinkably stupid, I don't know. (to Toby) I'm sorry, I really am."

This entire give-and-take in the Oval Office with the President, Leo, and Toby does a terrific job of spelling out the issues to us, the viewers. While the President initially insists this health issue is a personal one, Toby is able to bring him around to the understanding that, given his office, it must be a public issue, as well - and the implications of revealing that information could drastically change the course of his Presidency. There's much more to come on that track.

Meanwhile ...

Sam and Josh are trying to add some humor to the President's remarks at the upcoming White House Correspondents' Dinner. They enlist Ed and Larry, and eventually Donna and Ainsley, to help them in their late-night workshop. Ainsley takes the opportunity to defend her stance against the Equal Rights Amendment, a position that leaves Sam utterly flabbergasted at how any woman could possibly be against the ERA.

Ainsley: "I am a citizen of this country. I am not a special subset in need of your protection. I do not have to have my rights handed down to me by a bunch of old, white men. The same Article 14 that protects you, protects me. And I went to law school just to make sure. And with that, I'm going back down to the mess, because I thought I may have seen there, a peach."

(She leaves.)

Sam (to Ed and Larry): "I could've countered that, but I'd already moved on to other things in my head."

The main item of interest here, though, is the continuing relationship between Josh and Donna. As we've seen before, we know Donna is utterly devoted to Josh in the workplace environment, and while Josh often treats her rather cavalierly, he also shows signs of how special she is to her. We're left on our own to figure out if this is a healthy workplace relationship (there are oh, so many hints of some romantic feelings on both sides), but I have to say the pure chemistry between Bradley Whitford and Janel Moloney makes this work. And here we get what I think is one of strongest emotional exchanges between the two in the history of the show.

We begin by seeing Donna upset with Josh because he sent her flowers, marking the anniversary of the April date she began working for him. Why would she be upset at that, you ask? Well, she actually started working for him in February, 1998 (as we saw in In The Shadow Of Two Gunmen Part II), so that's the surface reason she's upset. We find out, though, that soon after her stint in New Hampshire that February, she left the campaign to go back to her medical resident boyfriend, but when (we think) he dumps her again, that's when she returns to Josh in April to stay for good.

As the story evolves, we get a better understanding of Donna's problem with the April "anniversary." When she came back, after essentially abandoning and betraying Josh (since she begged to stay on originally to remake herself), Josh didn't criticize her or her ex or make fun of the situation in any way. He simply welcomed her back and put her to work. Donna's upset because she's upset with herself - she feels like she should have had to pay some penance for leaving Josh in the first place, but never had to, and Josh's marking of the April anniversary reminds her of that every year.

Finally she decides to come clean, after three years. As she helps Josh pick up binders he's spilled all over his office, she reveals she misled him about her return back in 1998. She had explained at the time that a bandage on her leg was the result of a slip and fall on the ice before her ex-boyfriend left her. The truth, though, is she was in a minor car accident (the shock and concern Josh shows at this news is really touching). Her boyfriend, though, after hearing about the accident, stopped to have a beer with some friends on his way to the hospital. That caused her to rethink her life, and she dumped him to return to Josh and the campaign. That's why she felt guilty about the April date; she had badly misjudged the men in her life, and yes, Josh (despite all his warts and flaws) is indeed a better man than her ex-boyfriend, taking her back unconditionally and without criticism. And that brings us to that epic moment in the show:

Josh: "I'm just saying, if you were in an accident, I wouldn't stop for a beer."

Donna: "If you were in an accident, I wouldn't stop for red lights."

Every single time, that moment chokes me up. It just does.

How often do you get two epic, foundational moments in one little episode of a series? You get the sweet, emotional hit to the gut of Donna pledging her complete and utter loyalty to Josh, and we also get the dam breaking with the release of Jed's health secret to Toby. It's no wonder this goes up towards the top of the list of all-time West Wing episodes.

Sorkin and director Alex Graves wind up the episode by bringing the two stories together. Toby comes out of the Oval Office and joins the staffers, who are laughing and jovial as they come up with jokes for the Correspondents' Dinner speech. While everything is normal and happy for them, Toby holds a terrible secret knowledge - he's aware that things have changed forever in that evening, yet here he is, trying to give his input as his friends try to make him laugh. The half-frozen look on his face is top-notch Richard Schiff acting.

And as the Oval Office door closes behind him, a final sound.

Ka-THUMP pock.

Tales Of Interest!

- This is a great example of what's referred to as a "bottle episode." Featuring no guest stars or location shots, simply using the regular cast on the already-built sets, it's a less-costly episode to produce. Sorkin mentioned at the time that since The West Wing was a particularly expensive series, and they had spent a lot on the first two episodes of Season 2, the studio demanded a cheaper episode at this point in the season. He basically wrote a play, and turned in one of the best episodes of the entire series.

- I want to mention a couple of things about Alex Graves' direction here. Pay attention in the Oval Office scenes, and you'll see multiple examples of President Bartlet being juxtaposed with the portrait of George Washington on the wall. Just look:

You could say this is pounding you over the head, or you could say it's subtle (I frankly didn't take note of it until watching it closely for this blog entry) - but there's something meaningful about Jed coming clean about his health secret in front of a portrait of a President who was fabled to "never tell a lie."

Also, I really love this shot going into a commercial break, after Leo and Toby have a tense discussion about medical professionals and if any of them were asked to lie, we get this view from behind Toby of Leo and the President looking at him ("What are you guys talking about?"):

Another nice directorial choice is the change of the positioning of the characters throughout the Oval Office scenes. While Leo and the President are often seen paired up against Toby in the early scenes, by the end Leo shifts to appear in shots together with Toby, showing Jed's growing isolation on the subject of keeping his condition secret. It's fine, almost unnoticed work.

And also, that final sequence - we know from the layout of the White House set that you can't see from the Roosevelt Room into the Oval Office that way. Here we see Toby walk out of the Oval (into what would be Mrs. Landingham's/Charlie's office) and directly into the Roosevelt Room, then see Leo close the door (very similar to the final scene of The Godfather, by the way).

The building's layout doesn't actually work that way, but Graves uses some camera tricks to make the visual point. It works to show Toby stepping from one reality instantly into another, into a world where nobody else knows the things he now knows. It's cool, in a way, but when you know it's not physically possible, it's a bit distracting.

- Let's add up as many of the 17 people aware of Bartlet's MS as we can. We can count Toby (1), Leo (2), and the President (3). We learn from Leo's conversation with Toby to add Abbey (4), the Bartlet daughters (5, 6, and 7), the diagnosing doctor (8), a radiologist (9), and a specialist (10). In The Shadow Of Two Gunmen Part I revealed that Vice President Hoynes (11) and Admiral Fitzwallis (12) know the secret, and Abbey told the anesthesiologist for Jed's surgery as well (13). Those are the only ones we are aware of at the present, which leaves four other people.

- The events of the series are hereby placed firmly in 2001, given Toby's comment about the upcoming election:

Toby: "Leo, has there been a discussion in some room, someplace - anywhere, on any level, about Hoynes being dropped from the ticket in 2002?"

- We also are clearly in April (which is when the episode first aired), with references to Donna's "anniversary" with Josh. These events also take place on a Thursday (six days after The Stackhouse Filibuster ended, which was a Friday night), with the President referring to a "holiday weekend." The only holiday that can possibly happen in April is Easter, which was on April 15 in 2001. However, if the events of The Stackhouse Filibuster came during baseball spring training (which is where Josh was trying to get to for that weekend, remember, to get a "Dude!" from Mike Piazza in Port St. Lucie), that would have had to have been in March (as the regular season started on Sunday, April 1) ... and with this episode happening just the week after the previous one, the upcoming weekend would have to be April 7-8, making Josh's "anniversary" of Donna coming back to work for him on April 5.

- Since we're talking timelines: You may recall my pointing out that the description of Josh's recovery (and the President's) described in The Midterms placed the Rosslyn shooting in August, even though What Kind Of Day Has It Been aired in May (and mentioned college softball going on at the time, to boot). Here Toby clears things up by explicitly stating it happened in May:

President: "The Vice President was elected. He has the constitutional authority to assume my office -"

Toby: "Not last May, he didn't, he didn't last May when you were under general anesthesia."

So the events described in The Midterms had to be, for lack of a better term ... wrong.

- Another impossible date quirk - Toby says it's "seven and half months" to the Iowa caucuses. With this being early to mid April, that establishes the Iowa caucuses in early December, when in reality they happen in January.

- Not only do we not see Gail's fishbowl in this episode, we don't see CJ. At all. Allison Janney was shooting The Hours in London at the time this episode was filmed.

- Ainsley's reference to "Article 14" of the Constitution is interesting, because it's wrong. There is no Article 14; she obviously meant the 14th Amendment, which guarantees "equal protection of the laws" for all citizens. It's an odd mistake for a constitutional expert like her to make, since she "went to law school just to make sure." Since she earlier correctly referred to the "14th Amendment" this is an odd slip.

- Researching some things for this entry, I came across a fun little website devoted solely to this episode: seventeenpeople.com. The website creator obviously adores this episode, calling it the "best non-Dire-Straits-featuring" edition of The West Wing (that reference will become clear at the end of the season). Go check it out - he's got cute cartoon drawings of the cast, a set layout, timelines of Toby figuring things out, and more. (He also includes his list of who the 17 people are; in addition to the 13 I have listed above, he includes Jed's brother John - who I suppose would know, naturally, but I don't think we've been explicitly told that - and three other random doctors, whom we also don't actually know about yet.)

- Richard Schiff (who won the Emmy for Outstanding Performance by a Supporting Actor in a Drama Series last season) was nominated in that category again, for his work in this episode and The Leadership Breakfast. He was absolutely outstanding here, but lost out on this year's award to castmate Bradley Whitford.

Quotes

Josh: "You know why I sent them?"

Donna: "I know why you think you sent them."

Josh: "It's our anniversary."

Donna: "No, it's not."

Josh: "I'm the sort of guy who remembers those things."

Donna: "No, you're the sort of guy who sends a woman flowers to be mean, you're really the only person I've ever met who can do that."

Josh: "I'm quite something."

-----

Josh: "Donna doesn't like to talk about it."

Donna: "I really don't."

Ainsley: "Okay."

Sam: "A few years ago, Donna's boyfriend broke up with her so she started working for Josh. But then, the boyfriend told her to come back, and she did. And then they broke up, and Donna came back to work."

(Donna stares at Sam, throwing her hands up in exasperation)

Sam: "I thought you meant you didn't want to talk about it. (beat) I'm a spokesman. It's in my blood."

-----

Toby: "Do you receive medication?"

President: "I get injections of betaseron."

Toby: "From whom?"

President (tersely): "From a doctor."

Toby: "None of your current doctors are aware of your condition. Mr. President ... is your wife medicating you?"

President: "I think it'd be best, while temperatures are running a little high, that you refer to my wife as Mrs. Bartlet or the First Lady."

-----

Toby: "So I'm led to wonder, given your condition and its lack of predictability, why there isn't simply a signed letter sitting in a file ... someplace, and the answer, of course, is that if there was a signed letter sitting in a file someplace, somebody would ask why."

-----

Sam: "We need jokes about the staff."

Ainsley: "Let's start with you."

Sam: "Problem is there aren't many jokes you can make about me."

Donna: "How about this? Um, knock knock. Who's there? Sam and his prostitute friend."

-----

Sam: "There any coffee left?"

Ed: "In the mess."

Sam: "Anybody want anything?"

Ainsley: "You think they have cheesecake down there?"

Sam: "It's a quarter after midnight, the pastry chef usually stays on til dawn."

Ainsley: "I'll go see if there is."

(later, in the deserted mess, Ainsley looks around)

Ainsley: "The all-night pastry chef, you were just kidding about that, right?"

Sam: "Yeah."

(Ainsley thrusts the tray of coffee cups at Sam and leaves)

-----

Toby: "I have no kind of investigative mind. Zero. It took me six days and 23 minutes to figure it out."

-----

Ed: "What the hell took so long?"

Sam: "We got the coffee but then I spilled it, coming up the stairs, you know, the first couple of times. Where's Josh?"

Donna: "You sent him to get the thing."

Sam: "For how long? I've had time to spill coffee, you know, a lot."

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

We've got a ton of callbacks here. The prickliness and intensity of the Jed/Toby relationship, which comes full-bore in their Oval Office discussions, can be traced to The Crackpots And These Women.

Obviously, Toby goes back to He Shall, From Time To Time ... in recalling the India/Pakistan crisis occurring about the time of President Bartlet's MS episode.

When Toby brings up the F-117 pilot being shot down in Iraq, that refers to events in What Kind Of Day Has It Been, while his references to the President being under anesthesia, the manhunt for the Rosslyn shooter, the troop movements in Iran, and the murkiness of who was in charge are from In The Shadow Of Two Gunmen, Part I.

Donna's proposal for a joke about the room not being so quiet since they lost the signal from Galileo comes from, of course, Galileo. Her "knock-knock" joke about "Sam and his prostitute friend" is a callback to Laurie in Season 1, who we first saw in Pilot (and last saw in Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics).

When Toby and Leo are hashing things out on the portico about the uncertainty of President Bartlet running again, Toby mentions their handshake to establish the Committee to Re-elect the President that we saw in The Leadership Breakfast.

Remember how Josh liked to tap the top of Leo's doorframe in The Lame Duck Congress and Shibboleth? He kind of does the same thing here in Donna's work area.

We saw Donna simply showing up in New Hampshire and working for Josh out of the blue in In The Shadow Of Two Gunmen Part II, so that would have been in February of 1998. After insisting she come along to South Carolina with the campaign, sometime after that she left to go back to her boyfriend, before ditching him and returning in April.

DC location shots

This is a bottle episode, so, none.

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

When Toby is wondering about the possibility of dropping Hoynes from the ticket, he mentions an "Eisenhower/Nixon thing."

The women appearing at the forum at Smith College mentioned by Ainsley include Rebecca Walker, Gloria Steinem, Ann Coulter, and Naomi Wolf.

Comedian Bill Maher is named as the host of the Correspondents' Dinner.

Sam compares Ainsley and her stance on the ERA to Phyllis Schlafly.

One of the jokes Ed proposes for the speech involves a John Wayne impression (and a sock puppet).

Josh calls Donna "Ado Annie," a character from the musical Oklahoma!

There's a shot of a TV showing Jay Leno (host of NBC's Tonight Show at the time) doing his monologue while Toby and Leo wait to enter the Oval Office (which helps establish the time of day, sometime after 11:35 pm Eastern).

Sam refers to the joke about "getting stuck with the bill" in the speech as if the President is "playing Grossinger's," a former resort in the Catskills. Grossinger's was part of the Borscht Belt, featuring comics known for broad, stereotypically Jewish humor.

Charlie is reading The Cornel West Reader while Josh is bothering him outside the Oval Office (and not, as a person posting on the IMDB site for this episode claims, a biography of Francis Ford Coppola).

Product placement: We see Ainsley at her desk using a Dell laptop:

In the speech brainstorming session we first see Donna's Diet Pepsi can along with lots of bottles of Keeper Springs water (we saw that brand in the previous episode, as well):

A bit later we see a Pepsi branded cup, as well as a can of Coca-Cola. Additionally there's an obvious bottle of Corona beer, although the label has been modified (it looks like it reads "Cerveza," which is just Spanish for "beer":

Later we see bottles of Michelob beer, as well as bottles and cans that look like Budweiser (again, close examination appears to show those labels have been edited). There's also a can of what looks like Fisher nuts: