Bad Moon Rising - TWW S2E19

Original airdate: April 25, 2001

Teleplay by: Aaron Sorkin (40)
Story by: Felicia Willson (1)

Directed by: Bill Johnson (1)

Synopsis

• President Bartlet reveals his MS to the new White House Counsel, Oliver Babish, and the ball starts rolling on a public disclosure strategy. Josh works on a loan plan to save the Mexican economy, over Donna's objections. An oil tanker run aground makes Sam recall his private sector days. And Toby goes ballistic over an innocuous leak to the press.

"Toby, we ran for election. We lived through Leo and booze, Sam and prostitutes, India and Pakistan, Colombia and a failed rescue mission. Are there bigger potatoes someplace?"

Coping mechanisms are on full display in Bad Moon Rising, and frankly, these folks really aren't coping all that well. The new White House Counsel copes with learning about President Bartlet's disease coverup by smashing his Dictaphone and getting pissy. Toby copes with keeping the secret he learned in the last episode by blowing up over an innocuous leak and then almost letting CJ in on it, while upsetting her with his obvious lying. Sam tries to deal with guilt over his private-sector work of buying old, outdated oil tankers by proposing to be disbarred. And Josh and Donna deal with differences over international financial policy by ... making up phone messages from imaginary people.

The next, inexorable, inevitable steps in the Bartlet MS story take place as Leo convinces Jed that he's got to get lawyers involved, and that means telling the White House Counsel about it.

Leo: "Let's go see him."

President: "Now?"

Leo: "He's waiting for us."

President: "We really need to see him now?"

Leo: "What better time?"

President: "Well ... later."

Making things even more complicated is that the White House Counsel, Oliver Babish, is brand new (well, three months new). He turns out to be the fifth White House Counsel of Bartlet's administration, following Lionel Tribbey (who we saw in And It's Surely To Their Credit, and was actually referred to as still being on the job in Somebody's Going To Emergency, Somebody's Going To Jail). Naturally one of Babish's first big tasks on the job now is to determine whether or not the President actually committed fraud in keeping his MS secret during his campaign.

He takes to that sorta well, with some in-depth questioning of President Bartlet trying to determine if there had ever been a time he lied under oath about his health. That turns out to have not happened:

President: "Oliver, why are we talking about my great-aunt's will and the meter reader?" 

Babish: "Because if you were asked about your health and lied in a deposition that's the ball game. We're all going home."

(long pause as Bartlet looks at Babish)

Leo: "He never lied."

Babish: "Leo, I'd like to hear the President say that."

(pause)

President: "I never lied." 

But that makes Babish even more concerned:

Leo: "I mean, in the two and a half hours we've been sitting here have you discovered one thing that he's done wrong?"

Babish: "No."

Leo: "So, what's your problem?"

Babish: "That's my problem, Leo. Are you out of your mind? He did everything right. He did everything you do if your intent is to perpetrate fraud." 

Eventually we'll find out he didn't do everything right. Charlie, while filling out his forms to take summer college classes, has the sudden realization that colleges require family health histories as part of the freshman paperwork. With Bartlet daughters Ellie and Zoey both going into college since Jed's diagnosis, if his condition had been left off that paperwork and he (as the parent of a minor) then signed it affirming it was correct, well, that would be essentially the same as lying under oath. And as Babish said above, "That's the ball game. We're all going home."

But, it turns out ... we find wiggle room. President Bartlet did not sign the family health history form for Zoey's admission to Georgetown. It was the First Lady, Abbey, who signed it instead (one, obviously that has implications for Abbey's medical license, since she's now the one who lied on the form; and two, Ellie's forms aren't mentioned again. I suppose we're left to believe Abbey signed those, as well).

So the President and Babish consider where to go from here. Babish insists that Bartlet must do everything the way Babish tells him to, or he's out:

Babish: "Then order the Attorney General to appoint a special prosecutor. Not just any special prosecutor, the most blood-spitting, Bartlet-hating Republican in the bar. He's gonna have an unlimited budget and a staff like an army. The new slogan around here is gonna be, 'Bring It On.' He's gonna have access to every piece of paper you ever touched. If you invoke executive privilege one time, I'm gone. An assistant DA in Ducksworth wants to take a deposition, you're on the next plane. A freshman congressman wants your testimony, you'll sit in his kitchen. They want to drag you to The Hague and charge you with war crimes, what do we say?"

(pause, as the grandfather clock ticks in the background)

President (softly): "Bring it on."  

Elsewhere in the West Wing, Toby learns about a leak to the press from a "senior White House official" indicating the President might be willing to compromise on school vouchers. And he is livid.

He tasks CJ with the job of tracking down the leak, expecting her to interrogate over 1100 White House staffers. This doesn't go well for her, as the staffers only get angry at being accused, compare her questioning to the Salem witch trials, and even falsely confess as a prank (oh, that Donna).

Why does Toby go so ballistic over something that really isn't all that big of a deal?:

CJ: "We're not gonna lose an inch of ground in the negotiation."

Toby: "No, we're not."

CJ: "No, we're not. And you knew that since this morning."

Toby: "Yes, I did."

CJ: "Yeah. So what's this about?"

Of course it's about Toby's terrible knowledge of the President's health secret, his knowledge of the hearings and the trials and the outrage to come, his knowledge that this administration could all come crashing down because of this secret that he's privy to - and the fact that 16 people besides himself know that secret. And that eventually, somebody's going to let something slip, just like somebody let this unimportant tidbit about school vouchers slip. What Toby knows is crushing him, and he can barely hide it from CJ as he can't quite look her in the eye. And now CJ is left suspicious, about what, she doesn't quite know:

CJ: "Why are you lying to me?"

Toby (unconvincingly, clearing his throat): "I'm not."

Sam is also feeling crushed by his past, as news breaks of an oil tanker run aground and leaking off the coast of Delaware. Turns out Sam helped a client purchase that very tanker while he was working for Gage Whitney, just before leaving the firm to join the campaign. And Sam felt very guilty about working on a deal for an old, obviously unsafe, barely seaworthy tanker, even at the time (we saw this play out directly in In The Shadow Of Two Gunmen Part I). He goes to Ainsley for advice on his possibly joining the suit against the tanker's owners, knowing the legal shield he wrote to protect the company can't be broken otherwise. Ainsley sets him straight - he'd be violating the attorney-client privilege from the deal, resulting in his disbarment, and since no judge would allow his testimony anyway, it would all be for nothing.

Josh is working on a desperation plan to guarantee some $30 billion of loans that Mexico is about to default on. Donna doesn't feel like this is a good use of American taxpayer dollars. Those two have an ongoing give-and-take about the issue, with Donna creating an imaginary textile worker from South Carolina who calls to sarcastically thank Josh for sending his tax dollars to Mexico. Josh later responds with a phone message to Donna from "Europe in 1939" begging for American help to survive Nazi aggression, then backs up his side with an eighth-grade social studies textbook describing Franklin Roosevelt's Lend-Lease program, that loaned American arms and material to Britain and Russia with the understanding the US would be repaid after the war was over. Josh ends up swaying Donna's opinion with this succinct description of a liberal view of what foreign aid is for:

Josh: "And he said this, he said, 'If your neighbor's house is on fire, you don't haggle over the cost of your garden hose.' Frank Kelly in South Carolina wouldn't ... There are too many things in the world we can't do. Mexico's on fire. Why help them? Because we can."

As the tide of President Bartlet's secret continues to rise, with more and more people being caught up in it, it's almost quaint in a way to see staffers oblivious to that knowledge continue to do the work of the administration. Sam, Donna, Josh - they just keep on doing what they need to be doing. CJ, meanwhile, has figured out there's something going on with Toby, and that it's somehow significant. Toby, Charlie, Babish, Leo - every move they make from now on is weighted with the knowledge they have, and the potential disaster lurking behind every step.

Next up: Revealing the secret, to the staff and to the world. And deciding what that means for Jed's future.

 
Tales Of Interest!

- Here we finally get the definitive list of the people who know about Jed's multiple sclerosis. We had figured out 13 people for certain in the last episode: Jed, Abbey, and the three Bartlet daughters (5); the diagnosing physician, a radiologist, and a specialist, plus the GW anesthesiologist for the operation after the President was shot (9); Vice President Hoynes (10); Admiral Fitzwallace (11); Leo (12); and Toby (13). The President reveals to Babish there were three other doctors and radiologists (16), plus Jed's brother - that makes the 17 people of the previous episode's title. We also discover that Charlie knows, making him number 18; Zoey had told him the signs to look for so he could inform Abbey if the President seemed to be having an attack.

- Only three episodes ago, in Somebody's Going To Emergency, Somebody's Going To Jail, we knew Lionel Tribbey was still the White House Counsel (Sam mentions Tribbey's office sending over a list of possible pardons). The episodes since then (The Stackhouse Filibuster, 17 People, and this one) take place over essentially a week, yet we're told Oliver Babish has been White House Counsel for three months. This would imply almost three months go by between Emergency/Jail and The Stackhouse Filibuster. Since 17 People is clearly set in April and The Stackhouse Filibuster at the end of March, that puts Emergency/Jail in late December/early January. That's possible - but then we have the issue of Bartlet's Third State Of The Union/The War At Home occurring a couple of episodes prior to Emergency/Jail. The State of the Union address is typically given in late January, so there doesn't seem to be adequate time for Tribbey to still hold the post of White House Counsel in Emergency/Jail yet have Babish replace him three months prior to Bad Moon Rising. Jeepers.

(The real-world reason is that John Larroquette (who played Tribbey) felt that occasional guest-star appearances on The West Wing would hurt his chances at getting a regular role in another TV series. The producers had to turn to another actor to play the White House Counsel. Larroquette's decision didn't exactly work out for him as planned, since except for a few TV movies and two episodes of The Practice, he didn't get a regular series role until the one-season run of Happy Family in 2003-04. While he did get the role of Mike McBride in a series of ten McBride TV movies, his next regular gig on a TV series wasn't until 2007 on Boston Legal.)

- In the opening scene, Babish mentions how his staff's work researching a bill in Congress ignored the implications of the Fourth Amendment while focusing instead on the Third, Seventh, and Eleventh Amendments. The Third Amendment prohibits the quartering of troops in someone's house, which would be an odd focus of a bill pending in Congress. The Seventh (which preserves rights for a jury trial in civil cases brought in federal court) isn't much more applicable today since federal courts generally don't hear civil cases. (The Fourth Amendment deals with unreasonable searches and seizures, and the Eleventh restricts the ability of individuals to bring suits against states in federal court.)

- There's also a model of the Chicago Water Tower on Babish's desk. The glass globe also there may be the Chicago skyline, but it's hard to tell. Little details to help flesh out Babish's background as one of the "men of Chicago."

- Let's take a look at the focus on Zoey's Georgetown forms, and what was recorded as family health history and who had to attest to its accuracy. Charlie makes the point to Leo that if a freshman entering college is a minor, a parent would have to sign that form - meaning that if Jed signed it, and his MS wasn't included in the history, he'd be essentially lying on the document. Here's the thing, though - when we first met Zoey in The Crackpots And These Women we learned she'd be entering Georgetown as a freshman in the spring semester of 2000. In the next episode, Mr. Willis Of Ohio (from November 1999), we discovered she was already 19. Zoey apparently turned 18 in the fall of 1998 at the latest, and we'd assume 1998-99 would have been her senior year of high school. In order for her to have been a minor and require a parent's signature on those health documents, the Bartlets would have had to have filled them out either before or very early during her senior year, about a year and a half prior to her starting college. Unlikely, but possible, I suppose.

- In a nice little touch of tying things in the background to the plot of the episode, there are a couple of examples of TV news footage of an oil tanker spill/cleanup seen behind the action we're focusing on:

- Nice directorial touches: the Chekhovian technique of setting up the gavel/Dictaphone gag. Early on we get a mention of Babish's "big hammer," handed down by Justice Louis Brandeis, immediately followed by talk of the broken Dictaphone that's stuck on record. When the President and Leo come into the office, we get a shot from behind the desk that subtly highlights the two items:

Which is, of course, followed by Babish's smashing of the ever-recording Dictaphone once President Bartlet explains why he's there:

I also appreciated this late shot in the Oval Office, with the President and Babish both in the shot, but separated, as Bartlet decides whether or not to take his advice:

And then they turn and consider each other:

Quotes    

Babish: "I need a Dictaphone."

Staffer 1: "You've got one on your desk."

Babish: "It doesn't work."

Staffer 1: "What's wrong with it?"

Babish: "Doesn't work."

Staffer 2: "He's asking -"

Babish: "It's stuck on record. It won't stop recording things, so it's just what you want lying around the White House Counsel's office because there's never been a problem with that before."

-----

Babish: "Sir, is there something you'd like to, uh ..."

President: "It's really not even - I don't want you to worry that much about it."

Leo: "Sir ..."

President: "I'm easing in."

Leo: "Okay."

President: "Well, Oliver, it really boils down to this: I'm going to tell you a story, and then I need you to tell me whether or not I've engaged 16 people in a massive criminal conspiracy to defraud the public in order to win a presidential election."

Babish: "Okay."

-----

Josh (to CJ): "The number of people whose permission I need before I can do whatever the hell I want ... let me tell you something, there's really a lot to be said for fascism."

----- 

Sam: "I'm less visually observant than others, but I make up for it."

Lt. Lowenbrau: "How?"

Sam: "With cunning and guile."

----- 

CJ (after her first leak-finding interview): "Carol?"

Carol: "Yeah?"

CJ: "How many more of these do I have?"

Carol: "Eleven hundred and thirty-eight."

CJ: "Okay, after five of them, I'm just going to confess."

-----

Ainsley: "Hey, you never know. With the liability shield? Maybe you're not as good as you think."

Sam: "Yeah, I am." 

-----

Babish (to Leo, about the President): "He's acting a little pissy, wouldn't you say?"

Leo: "You're a little pissy too, there, my friend."

Babish: "Yeah, well, I'm pissed."

-----

CJ (to Toby, about the voucher leak, but unwittingly about so much more): "There is no group of people this large in the world that can keep a secret. I find it comforting. It's how I know for sure the government isn't covering up aliens in New Mexico."

-----

President (to Charlie): "I'm confident in your loyalty to me. I'm confident in your love for me. If you lie to protect me, if you lie just once, if you lie just a little, if you lie 'cause you can't stand what's happening to me and the people making it happen, if you ever, ever lie ... you're finished with me, you understand?" 

-----

Charlie: "Is there anything you need?"

President: "I need you to go to law school, and graduate as soon as humanly possible." 

-----

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

• Oliver Platt (Bulworth, Lake Placid, 2012, The Big C) takes over as new White House Counsel Oliver Babish.

• Eric Stonestreet (Modern Family) is seen as one of Babish's staffers. Early next season we'll actually see another favorite Modern Family cast member pop up in a minor role. And Oliver Platt showed up on a couple of Modern Family episodes himself!

• Leo says (about himself and Babish) that they are both "men of Chicago." In The Short List Josh calls Leo a "Boston Irish-Catholic." (Interestingly enough, Lionel Tribbey left his practice in Chicago to become White House Counsel, and has now been replaced by another Chicagoan. More interestingly, Oliver Platt has played a major role on the TV series Chicago P.D., Chicago Fire, Chicago Justice, and Chicago Med. Even more interestingly, Platt himself is a Chicago native ... nope, that's not true, he was born in Canada.)

• We get another classic Martin Sheen jacket flip. His arm was injured at birth, so this is the method he developed to put on a jacket:

• Toby mentions Seth Gillette, the liberal Senator from North Dakota first mentioned in The Drop In who threatened a third-party run and is generally a thorn in President Bartlet's side. We saw him portrayed by Ed Begley, Jr. in The War At Home.

• Gail's fishbowl, first with a pipe and spigot as CJ tries to find the leaker:

And later with some money, possibly in reference to the Mexico bailout:

• Sam thinks back to his days at Gage Whitney, where he engineered the purchase of the very same oil tanker that's now run aground off the coast of Delaware (In The Shadow Of Two Gunmen Part I).

• CJ's talk with Toby about "big potatoes" calls back to Sam and prostitutes (Season 1), India and Pakistan (Lord John Marbury/He Shall, From Time To Time...), and Colombia and a failed rescue mission (Bartlet's Third State Of The Union/The War At Home).

• After Donna pranks CJ by confessing to everything plus the kitchen sink ("I framed Roger Rabbit!"), she tells Josh CJ cut her off before she could get to Whittaker Chambers and the secret pumpkin. That reference to Communist espionage and the Alger Hiss case of 1948 was also made by Sam in Pilot.

DC location shots    

• None.

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

• Babish says his gavel (or "big hammer") was given to his grandfather by Louis Brandeis, who served as Supreme Court justice from 1916 to 1939.

• Ainsley is listening to "Air On A G String," composed by Johann Sebastian Bach.

• Donna "confesses" to kidnapping the Lindbergh baby and Jimmy Hoffa. As mentioned above, she also brings up Whittaker Chambers.

• In his 1939-themed defense of America helping other countries, Josh refers to Charlie Chaplin (or at least his mustache, and indirectly, Adolf Hitler) and Franklin Roosevelt.  

• Cultural references: Donna brings up the 1988 movie Who Framed Roger Rabbit? Another staffer interviewed by CJ accuses her of interrogation like that of the Salem witch trials by invoking Lizzie Proctor, who was convicted of witchcraft in 1692 (best known as a character in the play The Crucible). CJ "confesses" to Toby by declaring, "I am Spartacus." The President refers to Abbey as the Shakespearean character Lady Macbeth.

• Josh makes his third Broadway musical reference in recent weeks. After mentioning Brigadoon a few episodes back and comparing Donna to Oklahoma!s Ado Annie in 17 People, here he sings a snippet of "The Wells Fargo Wagon" from The Music Man.

• Products: Sam watches CJ's press briefing on C-SPAN:

• Keeper Springs water is everywhere (the brand must have had some connection with Warner Brothers studio or something, we've seen this water constantly over the past several episodes):

• Ainsley's desk features a stuffed elephant by Ty (with the elephant being the symbol of the Republican Party, a nice touch). She also has a Smith College cup she uses as a pencil holder; we learned she did her undergraduate studies at Smith in 17 People:

• In previous views of staffers using Apple laptops (Sam, Toby, and Josh), the Apple logo appeared upside down when the laptop was open. Now we see Toby's Mac has the logo right side up. The first Apple model with the flipped logo was the Titanium PowerBook G4, which just came out in January, 2001, three months before this episode aired: 

• You might remember in an earlier entry when I was unsure about which company's logo was on CJ's laptop. Well, you can't miss it now, as "Gateway" is proudly emblazoned under the logo.

End credits freeze frame: The final shot as President Bartlet mulls things over by his desk.