Hartsfield's Landing - TWW S3E15

Original airdate: February 27, 2002

Written by: Aaron Sorkin (58)

Directed by: Vincent Misiano (2)

Synopsis

• While playing a dangerous diplomatic game of chess with the Chinese government over a Taiwanese missile test, President Bartlet also plays literal games of chess with Sam and Toby. Josh and Donna work the phones to wring every last vote from a small New Hampshire town kicking off the state's primary election. CJ and Charlie engage in a prank war.

"See the whole board."

In my opinion, this is one of the most elegantly constructed scripts of television you're ever going to see. Aaron Sorkin rather masterfully conjoins President Bartlet's literal games of chess with a geopolitical chess match in the waters off the coast of China. He also uses those actual chess games to not only lay the groundwork for Sam's potential future, but also to bring Jed and Toby to common ground over their recent conflicts. And just when you think that's the point of the episode, we suddenly realize it's not really about chess or geopolitics or Jed's father at all - it's really been all about democracy, the voice of the people, and the sanctity of the vote.

That's a lot to unpack! But as I said, Sorkin knocks it out of the park with this one. Martin Sheen and Richard Schiff do some outstanding work here (Schiff actually earned his third consecutive nomination for a supporting actor Emmy in part for this episode), and that structure of the chess games playing out alongside the President's delicate move/countermove with the Chinese is done so very well.

We begin with the President returning from a visit to India. He's brought back some chess sets, gifts from the Prime Minister, and he plans to hand them out to members of his staff as his gifts to them. Upon his return, we discover a crisis is brewing in Taiwan - the government there is planning a test of US-made Patriot anti-missile batteries, but China is not pleased with that show of Taiwanese military strength and is rattling its saber with an unprecedented military exercise of its own. A discussion ensues in the Situation Room about fleet readiness and availability, and whether the President should order Navy ships into the Taiwan Strait. The chess connection kicks off with President Bartlet ordering the ships to start heading that way:

President: "That's our next move."

McNally: "After that?"

President (pause): "After our next move comes their next move."

It's exactly like chess, although with much higher stakes. One nation makes a move, which forces a countermove by another, and then a response to that move ... and as President Bartlet keeps telling Sam, it's key to "see the whole board." One cannot focus on just the immediate response to the prodding by the other; to win, to succeed, you have to plan many moves ahead and have your goal firmly in mind.

Eventually it turns out that the President had a final checkmate move up his sleeve the entire time. The United States had announced an arms deal with Taiwan that included four Aegis destroyers, high-tech warships with extremely advanced radar systems. Bartlet was able to use those ships as pawns, removing them from the deal in order for China's agreement to back down on their war games - but as he later reveals, he never had any intention to actually sell those ships to Taiwan in the first place.

Bartlet's chess game with Sam serves the viewer as a pure reflection of the Taiwan crisis. Sam picks the President's brain about how things are developing, and the President in turn guides Sam down the path of looking ahead, planning your moves, anticipating your opponent ... and therefore being ready at the endgame for the real stakes your opponent is after. It's a nice showcase for Sam's intelligence and his readiness to take on a more personal role in governance - he's able to figure out all the pieces the President is playing with in his match of wits with the Chinese, and comes to the conclusion of the crisis on his own. Bartlet sees the wisdom and drive in Sam and gives him some high praise:

Sam: "I don't know how you ... I don't know the word. I ... don't know how you do it."

President: "You have a lot of help. You listen to everybody and then you call the play. Sam. You're gonna run for President one day. Don't be scared. You can do it. I believe in you." 

Meanwhile, the President's other game, with Toby, serves as a continuation of the tense battle of wills the two have had ever since Bartlet evaded Toby's desire to publicly defend affirmative action in The Two Bartlets. After that, Toby called the President out on his willingness to take the easy path, the likeable path, the less righteous and less divisive path in his campaign for re-election; and when Toby focused on Jed's unfulfilled need to be liked by his father as the impetus for the wishy-washyness, the President took umbrage. He also realized there was something to the criticism, which was covered to some degree in his conversation with Stanley Keyworth in Night Five. Here Jed pulls out the chessboard to use as a reset, of sorts, with his old campaign companion and to defend his position of being a more personable candidate ... but it doesn't quite go the way he planned:

President: "If a guy is a good neighbor, if he puts in a day, if every once in a while he laughs, if every once in a while he thinks about somebody else and, above all else, if he can find his way to compassion and tolerance, then he's my brother, I don't give a damn if he didn't get past finger-painting. What I can't stomach are people who are out to convince people that the educated are soft and privileged and out to make them feel like they're less than, you know, 'he may be educated, but I'm plain-spoken, just like you!' Especially when we know that education can be a silver bullet, it can be the silver bullet, Toby! For crime, poverty, unemployment, drugs, hate ..."

Toby: "Who are you trying to convince?"

President: "I'm saying I don't watch the pitch go by."

Toby (makes move): "Check."

President: "And if I do, it's not because my father -"

Toby: "Was an idiot."

President (sputtering): "Can we talk about ... God! Can we talk about, please, can we talk about my father with some respect? The man's gone, can we ... he's my father, he wasn't a Dickens character!" 

With that the President relentlessly chases Toby's king into check, again, and again, and again, using his chess prowess to try to make a point about power and responsibility and to teach Toby a lesson.

But Toby, to his credit, does not back down. He ends up encapsulating the essence of the campaign Bartlet needs to run, especially against a folksy, amiable, less-intelligent-seeming Republican opponent like the inevitable Governor Ritchie. Bartlet shouldn't lower himself to the level of that aw-shucks everyman, Toby says; he needs to stake out the difference between the two and illustrate to Americans why it's important:

Toby: "You're a good father, you don't have to act like it. You're the President, you don't have to act like it. You're a good man, you don't have to act like it. You're not just folks, you're not plain-spoken. Do not ... do not ... do not act like it."

President: "I don't want to be killed."

Toby: "Then make this election about smart, and not. Make it about engaged, and not. Qualified, and not. Make it about a heavyweight. You're a heavyweight. And you've been holding me up for too many rounds." 

At last, after all the emotional angst over his father and the anger at Toby calling him out about it, the President realizes Toby is still there on his side. He just wants Bartlet to be who he is, to show the nation why it's important to have intelligence and smarts and qualifications instead of an easygoing guy that you'd like to hang out with. And yes, I realize in the Trump era, this is a lesson that too many Americans failed to pay attention to in 2016.

So while we're distracted with Sorkin's rather elegant cross-connection between chess and geopolitics, I think the real crux of the episode actually develops in New Hampshire. It's the night before the New Hampshire primary, and the little town of Hartsfield's Landing is getting ready for their traditional midnight vote. While the administration as a whole recognizes the general political advantage of doing well in that first primary vote, Josh is particularly hung up on winning the night as a key spark to revving up the re-election campaign as a whole. He enlists Donna to call a family in the town that had worked with them in the previous campaign, and when it turns out they may not be supporting Bartlet this time, he pulls out all the stops to try to get their votes.

A lot of this storyline is played for humor - Josh starts thinking about changing administration policy goals just to address this one family's concerns, and the issue of Oregon salmon being tied into this New Hampshire family is pretty funny - but it really, truly pays off at the end. You see, the entire Taiwan crisis isn't just about military exercises; their government is preparing to announce the first free and open elections in the island's history, and President Bartlet knows that's the real issue of concern to the Chinese. CJ has almost a throwaway speech that in retrospect may indeed be the point of the entire episode:

CJ: "I think it's democracy at its purest. They all gather at once -"

Josh: "At a gas station."

CJ: "It's not a gas station, it's nice. There's a registrar of voters, the names are called in the alphabetical order, they put a folded piece of paper into a box. See, this is the difference between you and me."

Josh: "You're a sap?"

CJ: "Those 42 people are teaching us something about ourselves: that freedom is the glory of God, that democracy is its birthright, and that our vote matters."

We need to see the whole board. Forget the chess; it's about democracy, it's about open elections, it's about the free will of voters choosing their representatives - not just here, not just in New Hampshire, but in Taiwan and everywhere that democracy doesn't exist yet. Sorkin has kind of faked us out, with his well-constructed script and chess-related storylines - it's personal choice and free will at the ballot box that lies at the foundation of this episode.

And Josh has been trying to circumvent that, with his negotiations and pandering to the Flender family of Hartsfield's Landing. He finally figures out, in connection with the might of the US military and the nimble moves and countermoves of the President to safeguard the emergence of democracy in Taiwan, that there are things more important than making deals to get every potential primary vote. He heads out into the cold night to rescue Donna from her quest to convince the Flenders:

Donna: "You know, I've kind of had it now, too: they're shocked and appalled and disappointed, but really, they're none of those things, they just wish they were. So, never miss an opportunity to feel morally superior ... I don't know. What do you want me to do now?"

Josh: "Let them vote."

Donna: "What does that mean?"

Josh: "I came out here to tell you to let them vote. (takes phone from Donna) Yeah, this is Josh Lyman. We just wanted to call and thank you again for all your hard work and remind you that the polls in Hartsfield's Landing open in fourteen minutes. Got the chains in the truck, Mack? Okay, listen, tell your sister in Oregon I'm gonna try to learn something about salmon. Right now, all I know is they're good on a bagel. Good night."

 And as the episode draws to a close, we see the staff in the West Wing hard at work late into the night, doing the things that need to be done to try to make the country a better place, juxtaposed with images on televisions of that first vote of the primary campaign season - that first expression of democracy, of citizens making their voices heard, and casting their ballots in a free and open society.

Sure, it's hokey. Sure, it ignores the ugly reality of politics and business and the underside of American life - but The West Wing is supposed to reflect a better version of ourselves, and this is a great example of that.

I can't get out of here without mentioning the CJ/Charlie prank war, even though it's the lightest of light subplots. After copies of the President's daily schedule turn up in the press briefing room, Charlie has instituted a sign-out procedure to more tightly control the document. CJ is offended by the increased oversight, and she hides Charlie's personal copy of the schedule as a prank. This, it turns out, was a mistake. Charlie responds by gluing CJ's phone handset to the base:

He somehow switches keycards with her, so when she comes back into the White House after picking up pizzas alarm sirens blare and security officers accost her; and finally, after they both are chewed out by Leo ("All right, I think it's fine that people blow off a little steam, but now it's done, and it's time for one of you to be mature," to which Charlie replies, "Well, God knows CJ's a lot more mature than I am"), CJ tosses a binder on her desk and discovers Charlie has sawed through the legs:

At which point CJ weakly asks, "So, how long do you usually make people your bitch?" Don't mess with Charlie.

This has been a good solid run of almost entirely solo Sorkin-written scripts, and he's really firing on all cylinders with this one. From the reflections of chess in military and diplomatic moves, to the declaration of what the campaign needs to be about, to the celebration of democracy and the power of the citizen in a free society, this ties a lot of important strings together. There's a few more episodes left before we go full-bore into the windup of Season 3 - just as Season 1 wrapped up with the chaos at Rosslyn and Season 2 finished with some of the greatest TV episodes of all time, this season is also going to climax in a terrific finale. Stay tuned.




Tales Of Interest!

- The Prime Minister of India has changed since Lord John Marbury. In that episode, dealing with a potential nuclear crisis between India and Pakistan, the Indian Prime Minister is referred to as "Ricky" Nohamid. President Bartlet refers to the Prime Minister as a woman multiple times in this episode.

- The fictional Hartsfield's Landing and its midnight voting is a direct reference to the real-life Dixville Notch, New Hampshire. However, Dixville Notch could not be said to be predictive of presidential winners since William Howard Taft like CJ claims, as their first-to-vote tradition only started in 1960. The candidate receiving the most votes there did win the eventual Republican nomination every year between 1968 and 2012. Also, while Josh mentions the 42 voters in Hartsfield's Landing, Dixville Notch had just 26 registered voters in 2004, and only five for the 2020 primary election.

- Josh and Donna's efforts to change Mackey Flender's vote from the Republican Ritchie to the Democrat Bartlet on voting day could actually be possible for the New Hampshire primary, as long as Flender was registered as "undeclared." While some states have closed primaries (only voters registered for a party can vote in that party's primary) or open primaries (voters can choose whichever party's primary they wish to vote in), New Hampshire is kind of a hybrid - while voters registered for a particular party can only vote for that party's candidates, "undeclared" voters can choose a party to vote in at the polling place.

- The President's assertions about chess openings are, as you might guess, mainly designed to rattle Sam. The "Fibonacci opening" he claims Sam is using does not exist, nor does the "Balducci opening" he tells Sam that Toby is using. With Toby, however, who appears to be a more experienced chess player, President Bartlet mentions the Evans gambit, as a variation on the Giuoco Piano opening. Those do exist (and while Toby scoffs about the Evans gambit being a real thing, as the President says it was indeed invented by a sea captain in the 1820s), although to be honest, there's no way Jed could have known that was Toby's opening from the first move alone.

- We do get a closeup of Gail's fishbowl as CJ feeds her, but we can't really see what's in there. It looks like a gold giftbox, so perhaps it's a reference to the chess set gifts the President is handing out.

- The trademark West Wing shot of the camera spinning around the characters shows up in the scene where CJ is stopped by security after she uses Charlie's key pass to enter the White House with the pizzas.

- As I mentioned, Richard Schiff was nominated for the third straight year for a Supporting Actor Emmy award (for this episode and the previous Night Five); Dulé Hill was also nominated in that category for his work here as well as in the upcoming Enemies, Foreign And Domestic. John Spencer would end up taking that Emmy award. 


Quotes    

President: "Wanna play?"

Sam: "You?"

President: "Yeah."

Sam: "I'll get killed."

President: "Why?"

Sam: "You're a Grand Wizard, or a grandmaster, or something."

President: "No, I'm none of those things. I'm just grand." 

-----

CJ: "Think you're going to want to talk nicer to me than that, because when a reporter finds it, they're going to come to me, and that thing is stamped D12, and you signed out D12, and rules are rules."

Charlie: "Funny."

CJ: "What?"

Charlie: "I never said it was D12."

CJ: "How about that? You'll find it in your filing cabinet under 'A' for 'anal.'"

(Ed and Larry exchange a look as Charlie and CJ move away)

Larry: "I don't really want to know what he's going to find in his filing cabinet, do you?" 

Ed: "Nooooo." 

-----

Josh: "How'd it go?"

Donna: "I told them about the trade adjustment assistance."

Josh: "And?"

Donna: "They're not wild about the Canadian pulp thing but their real problem is the tax policy. They want to go from an income tax to a sales tax."

Josh: "Is this gonna end up with Mackey Flender as Fed chair?"

-----

President: "Let me tell you, you're really showing me something tonight. A lot of spunk, a lot of pluck, and this game isn't all about size, you know. There's a little thing called heart, and you've got it, my friend."

Toby (looking over the chess board): "You know what, old man? The very minute they swear in the next guy, you and I are going round and round." 

-----

President: "Let's go ahead and say the Republicans nominate Ritchie."

Toby: "They will."

President: "First of all, I'd stop for a moment and say, you know, 'why?'. I mean they got some serious guys in the field. Kalmbach, Daniel, Weston."

Toby: "Democrats had a lot of serious guys in the field, and they nominated you." 

-----

Leo: "I don't think you let the pitch go by."

President: "I don't."

Leo: "I think you foul it off."

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

• National Security Advisor Nancy McNally is back. It's always welcome to see Anna Deavere Smith in this role. There's once again talk of Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Admiral Fitzwallace (last mentioned in Two Cathedrals, but we actually haven't seen him onscreen since the end of Season 1).

• The Chinese ambassador is played by well-known character actor James Hong (Big Trouble In Little China, Kung-Fu Panda). He previously appeared in the same role in Lord John Marbury.

• The President congratulates Sam over his work on the State of the Union (seen in 100,000 Airplanes); the President tells Toby about seeing Dr. Keyworth after not being able to sleep for several nights (Night Five); the entire discussion with Bartlet and Toby focuses on the conflict they've had since The Two Bartlets.

• While Donna is on the phone with Mackey Flender it's obvious the topic of the President deceiving the nation about his medical condition comes up (Donna says, "Well, he didn't lie. He didn't lie, Mackey, and I'll ... I'll tell you what else, the man just accepted a Congressional censure"). That coverup storyline was addressed throughout the final episodes of Season 2, with the public revelation in Two Cathedrals and the fallout throughout Season 3. The actual censure was seen at the end of H. CON-172.

• While the President insists Sam is going to run for President one day, that doesn't actually turn into foreshadowing (yet - a lot of people are still hoping for a West Wing revival with President Seaborn). We will see Sam take a turn towards running for office next season.

• The President's fondness for chess is a callback to Five Votes Down, when Congressman Wick asked for a game of golf with the President in order to ensure his vote for a bill and Josh told him Bartlet doesn't play golf, he plays chess.

DC location shots    

• We get two two scenes filmed at the northwest gate of the White House grounds. This is the same gate used in Noël when Josh and Donna exit the White House while the bell choir is performing on Pennsylvania Avenue. That Season 2 episode was filmed with the cooperation of the Clinton administration in 2000, but big props to the George W. Bush administration giving the show access to the White House gate even after the heightened security stance following 9/11.

Here's one of the shots of that gate from Noël:

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

• The Situation Room conversation about warships in the Pacific names several actual aircraft carriers (although the Constellation was in service at the time of this episode, the Independence was decommissioned in 1998). The Nimitz and the Carl Vinson were named after real people (Admiral Chester Nimitz and Georgia Congressman Carl Vinson).

• CJ references President William Howard Taft and songwriters Jack Norworth and Albert Von Tilzer in her comments about baseball and Take Me Out To The Ball Game. While Norworth and his wife are credited with writing Shine On Harvest Moon, Von Tilzer doesn't have any connection with that song.

• The Shanghai Communiqué brought up by the Chinese ambassador is a 1972 agreement between the United States and the People's Republic of China. It does indeed acknowledge the "One-China policy" that asserts there are not two separate nations using the name "China," but only one nation including both the mainland and the island of Taiwan. The agreement also allows some ambiguity for the US in their dealings with Taiwan.

• President Bartlet's note to Toby called him "Sigmund," as in Freud - a reference to Toby's "psychoanalyzing" of the President in The Two Bartlets.

• Some of the historical figures Bartlet mentions in his digressions about chess include Lord Mountbatten, former Indian Prime Minister Nehru, and Charlemagne.

• We can see former CNN anchor Jack Cafferty on a TV screen in Josh's office:

• President Bartlet demands some respect for his father, saying he's not a Dickens character.

• Sweden's King Gustaf appears in the story Toby tells about Bartlet receiving his Nobel Prize.

• Sorkin likes his Broadway musical references: We hear CJ call Charlie "Marian the librarian" (a character and a song from The Music Man) when they are both yelling at Leo about who's responsible for the prank war.

• President Eisenhower and his actions during the 1958 crisis over the islands of Quemoy and Matsu get a mention.

• Products - CJ says Charlie "Krazy Glued" her phone; Krazy Glue is a trademarked name. We also see her bringing in Pizza Hut pizzas to the West Wing (maybe an odd choice, considering DC must have a bunch of good local pizzerias - but since this was actually filmed in Los Angeles, you go with something recognizable, I guess - and I wouldn't be surprised if the production got some free Pizza Hut pizzas out of this product placement):

End credits freeze frame: The President and Toby squaring off over the chess board.