Tuesday, April 14, 2020

Dead Irish Writers - TWW S3E16






Original airdate: March 6, 2002

Teleplay by: Aaron Sorkin (59)
Story by: Paul Redford (8)

Directed by: Alex Graves (9)

Synopsis
  • It's Abbey's birthday party, but her enjoyment is tempered by a looming career-altering decision. British ambassador Lord John Marbury debates Toby over an Irish politician's invitation to the White House. Sam (and his college physics professor) defend a funding request for a big scientific project, Josh and Amy have differing opinions on candidates for a campaign post, and Donna discovers to her surprise she might actually be Canadian.


"I mean women talk about their husbands overshadowing their careers. Mine got eaten."
"Your husband got eaten?"




It's fitting, I think, that an episode that begins with a witty sparring session between husband and wife closes with an expression of deep love and sacrifice with that same couple. That these old married folks just happen to be the President and First Lady of the United States adds some dimension to the situation, but it's a tale of human connection and devotion that plays out in countless homes across this world of ours. The stakes are higher, perhaps, but the humanity is what draws us in.

It's, in a way, a final conclusion to the family drama that's been playing out ever since Bartlet's Third State Of The Union and The War At Home. That's where we first discovered President Bartlet had made a deal with his wife, Abbey, that in exchange for not disclosing his multiple sclerosis to the nation, he would only serve one term as President. In those episodes we saw Jed unilaterally reconsidering that deal, a consideration which in a very real sense was a betrayal of his promise to Abbey. And by the time Bartlet made his decision to run again in Two Cathedrals he knew he's put many, many people (Abbey in particular) into uncomfortable, even emotionally and financially painful, positions; and we saw the strain on the Bartlets' relationship come close to a breaking point in Manchester. While the congressional censure the President accepted in H. CON-172 gave him some measure of closure, Abbey is still facing discipline from the New Hampshire board of medicine for her role in treating Jed's condition behind closed doors.

And to make things worse, it's her birthday party. While she's trying to put a happy face on for her friends, she knows she might be facing up to a one-year suspension of her medical license the very next day. Word arrives that the swing vote on the board, someone who worked with Abbey for 20 years and was appointed to the board by Jed, is going to recuse himself from the decision. That makes the worst-case almost certain and hits Abbey pretty hard.
CJ: "Abbey, the Union Leader's got sources saying Dr. Nolan's going to recuse himself from the case."
(A pause as Abbey considers the news)
Abbey: "Claudia Jean?"
CJ: "Yes, ma'am?"
Abbey: "Let's get drunk."
This leads to a wine-fueled girls-only party with Abbey, CJ, Amy, and eventually Donna where the role of women and wives in a male-dominated world is the topic. Well, that, and CJ's inability to open a bottle of wine.



Abbey is insistent that giving up her license, even temporarily, is a lessening of her value as a person:
Amy: "Well, if the most they can give you is a year's suspension, is it ...?"
Abbey: "That big a deal?"
Amy: "Yes."
Abbey: "Yes. I'm a doctor. It's not like changing your major. You of all people should - I mean women talk about their husbands overshadowing their careers. Mine got eaten."
The other women try to refute that point of view, arguing that Abbey's position as a First Lady with an M.D. has led to tremendous progress in government-administered health programs, but it's Donna who kind of hits the nail on the head, accidentally:
Abbey: "That's not the point."
Amy: "What's the point?"
Abbey: "I'm a doctor."
Donna (breezily): "Oh, Mrs. Bartlet, for crying out loud, you were also a doctor when your husband said, 'Give me drugs and don't tell anybody,' and you said, 'Okay.'"
(The room falls silent)


Donna (horrified): "Oh my God. You switched back to First Lady." 


We don't quite realize it yet, but Donna's comment struck Abbey with the deeper truth - she was wrong when she treated her husband on her own, her identification as a doctor really does need to take a back seat to her identification as First Lady and her role as wife and partner to the President of the United States (earlier after Abbey complains about the President's censure having no tangible penalty, yet she is facing the loss of her medical license for a year, CJ responds with "That's different ... because it is, and you know it."). As CJ and Amy and Donna assure her, she still has an important part to play in the administration, and she can still help the lives of many American women with her influence on policy, even if she's not actually practicing medicine.

Which takes us back to the party. The President has been trying to come up with a worthy birthday toast for his wife - he's feeling guilty about the position he's put her in, about going back on his word to her, about the price she's paying for his decisions, and he's hoping any little comfort he can give can help express his love for her. Abbey pulls him aside:
Abbey: "I'm going to voluntarily forfeit my license for the duration of our stay in the White House."
(A long pause. Jed, emotionally struck, is at a loss for words)
Jed: "Okay. I'm gonna do a toast and everything in a minute, and I'll tell the ditch story, but I wanted to say that I love you very much."

Abbey: "I love you, too, Jethro."

Jed: "Don't call me that."
Abbey: "I think I will."  
It's a true measure of sacrifice for Abbey. Jed knows it, and he deeply appreciates it, understanding how much she's giving up for him, his campaign, and his Presidential legacy.

Meanwhile, our title storyline has the return of British ambassador Lord John Marbury. He's here to help Abbey with her birthday celebration, but more importantly, he brings word from the Queen that an Irish politician with ties to the Irish Republican Army must not be invited to the White House for an upcoming St. Patrick's Day commemoration. Leo (or "Gerald") hands him off to Toby for that discussion, and the two head off to a neighborhood bar in search of Lagavulin.



These two intelligent minds have a great discussion about the history of conflict, how nations can and should work together, and the definition of terrorists and the benefits or drawbacks of negotiating with them. Toby and Marbury take turns quoting Irish writers' opinions on the past and whether it always repeats or if we might break out of those cycles. Marbury insists, again, that Brendan McGann cannot come to the White House, but Toby makes the argument that we must talk to our adversaries:
Toby: "So wouldn't you say we were doing you a favor?"
Marbury: "By intervening?"
Toby: "That's the act of a friend. What is left to do but talk? What could be better for that wounded place than sitting down and talking, what is better than sitting down and talking?"
Marbury: "Not to talk to Brendan McGann."
Toby: "We can't choose who."
Marbury: "No, of course you can't."
Toby: "Then - what can we do but talk to him?" 
And then Marbury changes tactics, quite suddenly and unexpectedly, and Toby - after a moment - realizes what's actually going on.
Marbury: "Nothing. You must talk to him."
Toby (taken aback): "What?" 
Marbury: "Toby, despite appearances I do have lucid ... moments. And I know that England is running out of time to this, particular ... well, sir, as ambassador for Her Majesty's government I must tell you that -"
Toby: "Brendan McGann cannot come to the White House."
Marbury: "Yes."
(Toby and Marbury exchange a look)
Toby: "Understood, Mr. Ambassador."
The British government must express its position that McGann cannot come to the White House, for it must be its position regarding Sinn Fein and the IRA ... but Marbury knows nothing will change if nobody is able to talk to one another. He's letting Toby know that the British government disapproves of this meeting, but personally he believes this discussion has to take place, and the United States is in a much better position to spark change on this front than the British.

Sam's old college physics professor is trying to get funding for a superconducting supercollider, a project that has the site all picked out but no funding appropriated for actual construction. Sam is willing to take on pushing for that project because one of the main opponents, a Senator from Illinois, is an old adversary of Sam's - and once Sam figures out that Senator is responsible for an anonymous hold on the funding bill, he's ready to unleash some payback.

There's really not much to this plot line (again, Sam gets shunted off to a less-important one-off of a story), but Hector Elizondo is brilliant as Dr. Millgate. He's so quick and bitingly witty with his review of Sam's performance back in college:
Sam: "So, did I disappoint you when I didn't go into physics?"
Dr. Millgate: "No."
Sam: "Why?"
Dr. Millgate: "You were bad at it."
Sam: "No, I wasn't."
Dr. Millgate: "Yeah."
Sam: "I just needed a little encouragement."
Dr. Millgate: "No."
And eventually, when Sam and Senator Enlow face off in a nasty little exchange where the Senator insists there needs to be a demonstrable benefit in order for the government to fund this extravagance, Dr. Millgate and Sam tell him there is no payoff - that we know of, anyway:
Sen. Enlow: "If we can only say what benefit this thing has. No one's been able to do that."
Dr. Millgate: "That's because great achievement has no road map. But the X-ray's pretty good. So is penicillin. Neither were discovered with a practical objective in mind. I mean, when the electron was discovered in 1897 it was useless, and now we have an entire world run by electronics. Haydn and Mozart never studied the classics. They couldn't, they invented them. "
Sam: "Discovery."
Dr. Millgate: "What?"
Sam: "That's the thing that you were ... discovery is what ... that's what this is used for. It's for discovery." 
Senator Enlow agrees to lift his hold and allow debate on the bill, but we're left with the knowledge there's little chance of Congress agreeing to fund the project. Not to mention, we get the sobering revelation that Dr. Millgate is suffering from cancer and may not have a lot of time to see his hopes for the supercollider come to fruition.

One of a couple of humorous storylines involves Josh's short list to fill a position in the re-election campaign being sabotaged by Amy, with help from the First Lady. Josh, naturally, has a couple of men in mind for the post, but Amy wonders why he's not considering any women:
Amy: "Women are gonna be 60% of the vote. Don't you think they should make up, I don't know, 40% of the campaign staff?"
Josh: "Let me tell you why this is a dangerous area. Because I can't make decisions based on the fact that I like your smooth skin."
Amy: "You're right."
Josh: "Don't try and trick me."
Amy: "No, you're really right. This should be off limits for us."
Josh: "Yes."
Amy: "I apologize."
Josh: "You're trying to trick me."
Amy: "No."
Josh: "I'm gonna be scared for the rest of the night."
And well he should be, as he discovers later when he encounters Abbey and she hands him a piece of paper:
Abbey: "Yeah. I'd like you to add these names."
Josh: "I can't help noticing these are all women."
Abbey: "Women are 60% of our vote, Josh. Don't you think they should make up at least 40% of our campaign staff?"
Ha ha, Josh. Busted!

And then there's Donna. I'll talk about the realities of the situation later, but her admission into the party is delayed because, well ... she's apparently not an American citizen. The border between Minnesota and Manitoba has been adjusted due to a surveying error, and her birthplace turns out to actually be in Canada. So it's a whole thing, with jokes about Canadian pennies and national anthems, and it all pays off with Abbey getting the band at the party to break into a rendition of O Canada, with maple leaf flags and all:



(Also impressive that all these attendees at Abbey's birthday party know the lyrics to O Canada.)

Of course that serves to set up the moment when the President and Charlie return from their toast-making powwow outside, so he can splutter:
President: "What the hell is going on?"
Abbey: "Shhh."
President: "I was gone for 45 minutes. They were all American when I left!"
Another West Wing combination of drama and family emotion, political and literary deliberation, and broad Canada-related humor. It's a fine line to walk, but Aaron Sorkin is pretty good at it. This episode does serve as a fitting conclusion to the Jed-Abbey conflict that's been simmering for over a year, while solidifying their deep-felt love and connection that can only serve them both well for what lies ahead. Plus quality Lagavulin, magnificent breasts, and deputy communications directors who can really wear tuxedos - what more could we ask for?




Tales Of Interest!

- Director Alex Graves has some smooth moves here. His use of windows, shooting through them and moving through them, is a definite theme of the episode - perhaps meant as a way to make the viewer feel they are eavesdropping on private moments? We first see it right at the opening, as the camera peers into the private quarters of the First Couple:



Later, as Abbey, CJ, and Amy sneak off to drink wine in a sitting room (later joined by Donna), we again push into the scene through the exterior window:



And as that scene ends with the ladies heading back to the party, the camera once more looks through the window as it pulls back and pans down to the President and Charlie outside on the portico:



Another more typical West Wing device is having the camera spin around the characters, something we see a couple of times in this episode. The early scene with Josh and Amy greeting the President and Abbey at the party is a great example; I particularly enjoy a moment after Lord John Marbury appears, because even though Josh and Amy aren't really included in the conversation at the time, you get to see Mary-Louise Parker's facial expression react to Marbury's comment about Abbey's breasts as the camera twirls around the actors:



- I've mentioned before Martin Sheen's shoulder injury at birth that resulted in his unique method of putting on a jacket. Here's another example of the Bartlet jacket flip:



- Oh, boy, let's delve into Donna's problem, shall we? First of all, could she lose her American citizenship retroactively because of a surveying error? That's hard to believe, although I can't really find any hard evidence either way - a legal website has examples of how naturalized citizens could lose their status, or how an American could voluntarily decide to give up citizenship, but there's nothing about a natural-born American being stripped of citizenship involuntarily. However, one could make the argument that Donna was never a "natural-born" American if her birthplace was actually in Canada. It just seems to me that if you're ever going to "grandfather" something retroactively, it would be the citizenship of people who were born in what was considered the United States at the time and only later found that spot to actually lie in a different country. I mean, that spot was understood to be part of the United States at the time she was born, so "discovering" it was actually in Canada in 2002 shouldn't have any effect on Donna's status. I am not a citizenship lawyer, though, so don't use my argument in court.

Let's look specifically at Warroad, Minnesota. The border between Minnesota and Manitoba is just under seven miles from the only health clinic in Warroad, so that's further than the "four mile" error Donna mentions. Of course, if she was born at a home outside of town, north of Warroad, that could easily fall within that four miles. On the other hand, that particular border has been set along the 49th parallel since 1818, and it's pretty hard to believe a four-mile surveying error of a line of latitude would have gone unnoticed until 2002 (and since it was an error pertaining to latitude, that same four-mile mistake would extend all the way to the Pacific, wouldn't it? That would be a pretty newsworthy deal, don't you think?).

Of course the entire situation is played for humor by Sorkin, but there's a kernel of inspiration in the neighborhood. The Northwest Angle, an odd protuberance of Minnesota extending into Ontario (not Manitoba) that is not accessible from the United States by land, was actually created in that same 1818 survey, which corrected an earlier border-drawing mistake made in 1783. That area is just northeast of Warroad, across a part of the Lake of the Woods. I gather Sorkin used that example of redrawing the Minnesota-Canada border a couple of centuries ago and applied it to his characters.

- Stockard Channing won the Emmy for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a drama for her performance here and in Gone Quiet. Her performance really is quite remarkable, ranging from irritation at Jed, to engaging bafflement with Marbury, to anger with Leo, to a range of emotions with the other women, to that extraordinary emotional moment with her husband at the end of the episode. Heck, I might have given the award to her just for the way she called President Bartlet "Jethro."



Quotes    
Jed (to Abbey, working on a crossword): "It's your birthday week. It's a week of festivities, like Mardi Gras. Or Lent. Three letters. 'It may be bitter.' Tea, right?"
Abbey: "'It may be bitter'?"
Jed: "Yeah."
Abbey: "Why tea?"
Jed: "Cause 'woman' doesn't fit."
-----
Marbury (to Abbey): "Your breasts are magnificent!"
President: "All right."
Abbey: "Oh - umm, thank you ... John."
Marbury: "May I inquire, Mr. President, the first thing that attracted you to Abigail, was it her magnificent breasts?" 
Abbey: "It was."
President: "You know, John, there are places in the world where it might be considered rude to talk about the physical attributes of another man's wife."
Marbury: "My god! Really?"
-----
President: "Look, obviously we knew this was gonna be a thing, but it doesn't have to be tonight, right?"
Marbury: "No, absolutely not, I shall take it up with Gerald."
Abbey: "Who's Gerald?"
President: "Pretty sure he means Leo."
Marbury (takes a drink of wine): "You have a new chief of staff?"
President: "No."
Marbury: "Then Gerald it is."
-----
CJ: "I'll say this about you, you can wear a tuxedo."
Sam: "I know."
CJ (turning to exit): "I know you know."
-----
Amy: "'About the thing'? You guys pulling a heist?"
Josh: "No."
Amy: "Come onnnn ... let me in on the action. I can be a dame. I won't blow the whistle, get you cheesed."
-----
Sam: "He was asking me about the supercollider, and I didn't have any answers, and -"
Sen. Enlow: "It's dead."
Sam: "It is?"
Sen. Enlow: "As a Greek poet."
Sam: "Well, I'm sure there's some poets alive in Greece someplace. Can you tell me how it died?"
-----

 (After Donna tells the women about her citizenship problem)
Amy: "You seem pretty calm about it."
Donna: "No, I'm very upset. I don't know the words to my national anthem, I've been throwing out Canadian pennies my whole life, I've been making fun of the Queen, I ... we don't do that."



Story threads, callbacks, and familiar faces (Hey, it's that guy!)
  • Amy Gardner has been missing for a few episodes, but she's back (played by Mary-Louise Parker), and officially dating Josh now.

  • And a welcome return for Lord John Marbury (Roger Rees), last seen in The Drop In when he was named British ambassador to the United States.

  • The well-known Hector Elizondo (Pretty Woman, The Princess Diaries, Chicago Hope, Last Man Standing) appears as Sam's college physics professor Dr. Dalton Millgate. We aren't told which college, but we do know from And It's Surely To Their Credit that Sam was recording secretary of the Princeton Gilbert & Sullivan Society for two years, before later going to Duke Law School.

  • This is what I mean by a "it's that guy!" appearance. Chuck Kane, the fellow lobbying Josh for a job in the campaign, is played by Jerry Lambert. Lambert is a guy you know you've seen before, mostly in commercials but also appearing in TV shows like Sons & Daughters, Modern Family, Everybody Loves Raymond, and American Housewife.

  • Marbury makes a direct reference to the President's United Nations speech and Toby's role in writing it, which we saw discussed in Night Five ("They'll like us when we win!").


DC location shots    
  • The scene with the President, Leo, and CJ talking outside the White House was shot at one of The West Wing's favorite DC locations, the DAR headquarters on C Street NW (just southwest of the White House). We saw the building in 20 Hours In L.A. with Leo meeting Vice President Hoynes on the sidewalk, and the DAR library was used as George Washington University's law school library (where Laurie was studying) in Lies, Damn Lies And Statistics. 
The architecture of the building with its two-story fluted columns, tall arched windows, and curved portico make it a good stand-in for the actual White House. 

This is a Google Street View of the area they filmed in; the south side of the building, in the 1700 block of C Street NW.

You can see in a later scene with the President musing over toasts with Charlie - which I believe is meant to make the viewer think it's in the same or similar place as the above scene - we are back to the regular studio set of the portico outside the Oval Office (the columns are smooth, not fluted, and the doors/windows are not the same).


They Do Exist! It's The Real Person, or Thing    
  • Chuck Kane mentions the CNN show Crossfire, even though he's confused about which administration official was on it.
  • Marbury's favorite Scotch is Lagavulin, a 16-year-old Islay single malt. You may also know Lagavulin as the preferred choice of Ron Swanson in Parks And Recreation.
  • The Manchester Union Leader, which has the story about Dr. Nolan recusing himself from the decision on Abbey's medical license, was an influential voice in New Hampshire politics. While the newspaper still exists, it changed its name to the New Hampshire Union Leader in 2005.
  • Dr. Millgate compares Sam's past issues with Senator Enlow to someone eating another person's Froot Loops.
  • While it's not specifically named in the episode, the neon sign in the window of the bar Toby and Marbury are sharing a drink in reads "HAWK 'n'" something. That's a clear reference to the Hawk 'n' Dove bar, a dive bar watering hole favored by Democratic politicians like Bella Abzug and Tip O'Neill over the years. That bar was actually located east of the Capitol at 329 Pennsylvania Avenue SE, which would have been quite a walk for Toby and Marbury to take from Abbey's White House party (Toby says "Let's go down the street," but from the White House to the Hawk 'n' Dove would have been almost a 2 1/2 mile walk).
While there is still a Hawk 'n' Dove bar in the same area, it's a more upscale place with new owners and a different location since 2011.

  • Abbey says her bottle of old vine zinfandel was originally owned by King Baudouin of Belgium. I can't quite catch the name of the winery (Hog Cellars? Odd Cellars? Ogg Cellars? - none of those turn up anything).
  • Sam asks if the Sloan Kettering cancer center can do anything for Dr. Millgate's disease.


End credits freeze frame: The women (and Josh) watching the band play O, Canada to honor Donna.





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