We Killed Yamamoto - TWW S3E22

Original airdate: May 15, 2002

Written by: Aaron Sorkin (64)

Directed by: Thomas Schlamme (11)

Synopsis

• As the evidence mounts connecting a Qumari government official to a terrorist group, the President and his advisers confront a shrinking list of options to respond. CJ and her Secret Service agent continue to draw closer. Opinions clash over the news that Governor Ritchie also plans to attend the upcoming charity fundraiser in New York. Amy throws a wrench into the administration's deal to pass a welfare reform bill. Sam tries to get off the mat after his screwup with the opposition ad.

"There are moral absolutes."

Are there instances so dire, so imminently dangerous, so important to a nation that the ends justify even the most reprehensible of means? Just how far can a President be willing to go when the nation's citizens are at risk? Under severe enough circumstances, can even a deeply religious leader be convinced to break the limits of decency and humanity? 

Can government-sanctioned murder ever be justified? 

Are there moral absolutes?

This is the kind of discussion I truly appreciate on The West Wing. Aaron Sorkin isn't afraid to go after some big themes, some really interesting and thorny topics - sure, there's plenty of criticism about how well he might handle the debate or how tidily he can tie up loose ends or how easily he might be pleasing the audience, but he's willing to go there, to engage the viewers and make them think a little. Are there lines you can't cross, even when there's a threat to your citizens? What are those lines, and what exactly are the parameters that could make you cross them? What can make you change your mind?

In the previous episode President Bartlet was told there was evidence Abdul Shareef, the defense minister of a friendly Middle Eastern nation, might be behind a planned terrorist attack to blow up the Golden Gate Bridge. As this episode begins, his military advisers in the Situation Room lay out a convincing case, tying bank accounts and monetary outlays from Shareef to not only the Golden Gate plot, but at least two other terrorist attacks against United States embassies and military installations. Bartlet isn't convinced - he wants a rock-solid criminal case against Shareef, something airtight that is certain to get him convicted and locked up:

President: "We want to ask the Justice Department to indict the Qumari Minister of Defense. We're saying he's a terror kingpin. We're saying he's killed I don't know how many civilians and how many of Tommy's Marines. We're saying he's compromised I don't know how many agents throughout the world and we're saying he's done it in the clothing of an ally. This isn't a cave dweller. This is Capone. You haven't got it."

As information continues to come in, the link between Shareef and the Ba'hi terrorists becomes undeniable. A government official from Qumar, the brother of the sultan, from a country ostensibly an ally of the US, is actively funding and directing deadly attacks against Americans overseas, and has tried to strike inside our borders. President Bartlet continues to drive home the legal case - he wants to use the law, the levers of the legal system that are the bedrock of right and wrong in the American ideal, to defend the country and bring Shareef to justice.

But there's a problem. Even once the advisers figure a way around Shareef's diplomatic immunity, all the evidence connecting him to the terrorist attacks is based on information from a Russian prisoner, a Chechnyan whose information came after being tortured. No judge is going to allow that evidence at trial. A disheartened Bartlet tries to think his way through, but ...

President: "We'll come up with a less aggressive way of ... we'll cancel his trip here, obviously, but we'll come up with something that ...

 (defeated)"That's the ball game." 

In a nice little bit of humanizing the President, we see him turn his frustration and powerlessness about this situation against Josh. He angrily confronts Josh about the plan to get him out of the Catholic charity event on Broadway, then bites his head off over trouble with the welfare reform bill:

President (angrily): "True or false, Josh - my life would be better right now if you and your girlfriend switched jobs. Why is it for every good thing you do around here, we've got to endure three screwups?"

Josh: "Well, I'm sorry about the -"

President: "Sorry doesn't get me 218*. It doesn't get me back the ad that slipped through your office any more than it gets back tobacco, which you gave away for lunch money. And why the hell don't you know what Ritchie's commitments are before you get anywhere near my schedule? I've got the presidential box at a cattle call. Win the damn vote."

 

(*218 is the number of votes needed for a majority in the House of Representatives, which has 435 members.)  

He may be upset with Josh, but he's been upset before. Right here he's furious at the events spinning out of his control, trapped in a hopeless position where he knows Shareef is planning to kill Americans and he can't do a damn thing about it. It's not surprising Jed's frustration at his powerlessness causes him to lash out at the first sign of difficulty somewhere - which just happens to be Josh. 

But as the President confronts the hopeless reality of his situation, there's something turning in Admiral Fitzwallis' mind. We can see it behind his stoic face as the legal and diplomatic options to bring Shareef to justice fall apart.

The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is a lifelong soldier. His training and his experience in confronting military threats is to eliminate them, by whatever means he has available. And Shareef is scheduled to visit the United States in just a few days, putting him tantalizingly in reach of Fitz' military.

Fitzwallace: "We measure the success of a mission by two things - was it successful and how few civilians did we hurt. They measure success by how many. Pregnant women are delivering bombs. You're talking to me about international laws? The laws of nature don't even apply here. I've been a soldier for 38 years. And I've found an enemy I can kill. He can't cancel Shareef's trip, Leo. You've got to tell him he can't cancel it." 

 

It's up to Leo to talk to the President. They dance around saying the actual words - "Shareef must die" - that can't be brought up out loud, but it's obvious. Jed doesn't want to embrace the possibility. It's justice he wants, justice through the established legal system, but as the chances of that crumble, Leo is left to argue Fitz' point of the other "means" available, the means justified by the ends of stopping Shareef's attacks on Americans.

Leo: "What are the alternatives? Are we going to attack Qumar?"

President: "Maybe."

Leo: "Now? We can kill all the armed teenagers we want, we still won't have Shareef. Let's get some more intelligence, let's get some more counsel."

President: "More counsel is going to help me violate international law."

Bartlet knows what Leo is proposing. He doesn't want to consider it, he can't consider it - his goal has always been to use the law and the system of justice to get Shareef - but now Leo and Fitz are arguing not only can he not use the law, but he has to violate the law in the service of "justice." 

Leo: "This is justified. This is required."

President: "Says who?"

Leo: "Says me, Mr. President. You want to go ask some more people, they'll say so, too."

President: "Well, a mob mentality is just --"

And then the big one, the huge responsibility that weighs on every President, the responsibility for making those final decisions - just you and you alone:

Leo: "Not a mob. Just you. Right now. This decision. Which, by the way, is one of self-defense. Let Shareef come here and we have options. Cancel the trip and we have none. That's all we're talking about right now." 

President: "There are moral absolutes."

 

Leo's face drops. That's it. There will be no consequences for Shareef's attacks on Americans. There's nothing left to do. And then Jed speaks again. 

"Make the call." 

Let's be clear, though. While Bartlet fights Leo on the "moral absolutes" of going outside the law (and the unspoken result, assassinating a foreign official), there's an earlier quote of his that shows he's already willing to justify some extra-legal action to get Shareef:

President: "Fellas, this guy is going to stand trial in a US court and if we have to stick heroin on his plane to get him there, that's what we're going to do."

So it's already a matter of degree and not absolute morality. Bartlet is willing to stretch the limits of the law, but actual assassination is a bridge he has to be convinced to cross. 

Let's move on to Josh and Amy. We learned in Dead Irish Writers that they were a couple, and now we find out Josh is spending a lot of time at Amy's place. Things seem to be going great - Amy sings and dances around her apartment to Van Morrison tunes, they have plans to spend a Sunday at a foreign film festival, Amy makes stew - but as usual, the grimy nature of politics at work intrudes.

Josh is forced to accept a deal from Congress on a welfare reauthorization bill - it'll pass out of committee with even more funding than the administration expected, but in return the bill will include more money for programs incentivizing marriage. It's a conservative strategy to reduce the number of families with single mothers, but Amy sees a different side to the deal. 

Amy: "Kids are better off if they're raised by parents who love them. Your solution is loveless."

Josh: "It's not my solution."

Amy: "Does my government really believe that the law can create a family? Do these old fat-ass men really believe that if they just pay people to act like Leave It To Beaver everything'll be fine? Did you really think the person in my job is going to sit --? This is about collecting votes from white men."

And Amy is on the phone, rousting her troops and firing up opposition to the bill. As Josh reaches for his phone to try to counter her moves, Amy tosses it into the stew:

 

 

And when he turns to her land-line phone (it's 2002, remember), she brings out the scissors:

We've seen these two on opposite sides of issues before, but not since they've become a couple. And this particular issue at this particular time seems, well, critical to their relationship. As Amy says to Josh as he walks away, "We ought to be able to talk about this."

Since we're on the romantic front, sorta, things are also brewing between CJ and her Secret Service agent. CJ had to accept protection after getting a death threat in Enemies Foreign And Domestic, and she really didn't want it and didn't like it. Her attitude towards her agents was resentful and brusque - but come on, it's Mark Harmon. She can't keep that up ... and she doesn't. We saw a little softening in her attitude in The Black Vera Wang when she found out Simon was at the Rosslyn shooting.

She starts out irritated again, when Simon tells her that her stalker had been there in Barneys watching her and her niece shopping. When CJ says she can't work out at her gym because it's flooded, Simon offers the Secret Service gym:

CJ: "Is it a good gym?"

Simon: "Yes, it's a ... we run alongside moving cars."

CJ's workout apparently puts her into a much better mood, because when she sees a shooting range there, she excitedly asks for the chance to try it out.

CJ: "Tough talk. I like that. Give me your gun."

Simon: "Let me get you a .25 caliber."

CJ: "What's wrong with yours?"

Simon: "It's a .357 magnum."

CJ: "I've heard of that. That's a good brand."

Which leads to comedy:

 

This gets CJ feeling a bit frisky, as she challenges Simon: If he can put three shots in the bullseye, she'll stop giving him a hard time. Simon adds something to the bet - if he does it, she'll also have to say something nice about him. Of course, he puts all five of his shots almost dead center (two of them through the holes left by previous shots), and CJ has to pay up.

CJ: "I like that you're tall."

Simon: "You do?"

CJ: "It makes me feel more feminine."

 

Oooh, sparks are flying! It's a stereotype, I know, the female starting to fall for the rugged handsome guy who's protecting her (and who actually fired shots to protect her and her friends at Rosslyn and also smoothly proved he was an expert shot right in front of her), but I'm not sure we should expect much more from Sorkin. It's not just CJ, though ... look at Simon's slight smile as she heads off to change:

And CJ's lingering gaze back at him:

As they're walking on the street to her apartment later, after Simon once again tells her about taking out one of the Rosslyn shooters, they nearly kiss:

Simon pulls away. Of course they can't! They can't do this, not in a bodyguard-subject situation - this is not a Kevin Costner/Whitney Houston movie! But they really do dig each other. Is it weird, though, that CJ's interest in Simon always seems to be sparked by his tales of being at Rosslyn, where he killed a guy? Will it work out for these two crazy kids in the end?

Believe it or not, there's still more stuffed into this episode. Sam is still gun-shy after being punked by the Ritchie campaign over the opposition ad videotape in The Black Vera Wang. When an idea is brought up to him to use a plan to protect the Everglades as a tool to attack Ritchie, he dismisses it outright without even considering bringing it to Bruno and the campaign staff. Leo and Toby (and even a DNC member at an event in North Dakota) are concerned that Sam may have lost his edge ... but of course it just takes him a couple of days to get his mojo back, as he writes up a memo on the Everglades plan and is prepared to take the battle right to the Republicans.

Donna gets sent to North Dakota as a representative of the White House, as the DNC is holding a platform hearing where the idea of removing "North" from the state's name is being considered. Not much to that, except poking fun at North Dakota and how to get to Bismarck, although we do get the aforementioned DNC official telling Donna to pass on his encouragement to Sam.

And then we finally have the idea of a replacement for Mrs. Landingham. We have a nice scene set at Arlington National Cemetery, as the President and Charlie pay their respects at her grave. It has been almost exactly a year since 18th And Potomac, when that tragic car accident took her life, and Jed is finally ready to think about hiring a new executive secretary. He gives Charlie the job of finding candidates:

President: "So, it's been a year. Why don't you organize the search, you know, for a new executive secretary."

Charlie: "Yes, sir. Absolutely."

President: "I may not like the first couple of candidates. It may take a while."

Charlie: "No, I don't imagine you're going to hire somebody, sir, but this is a step in the right direction."

Charlie takes the task seriously, talking over options with Sam and Josh, and we get this well-framed shot of Mrs. Landingham's still-empty desk:

 

By the end of the episode we know Charlie has the perfect candidate, but we're going to have to wait to find out who that is. Trust me - it's a doozy.

There's a lot of ends-justifying-the-means bubbling through this episode: What kind of political sacrifices are you willing to make to get a piece of legislation through that will help tens of thousands of citizens? Can a program designed to save a part of the environment also be turned into a campaign weapon? If you really, really like your Secret Service agent, is it okay to kiss him?

None of which is intended to make light of the huge sword of Damocles hanging over President Bartlet here. Should a President make the ultimate decision to take a single person's life in retaliation for terrorist plans? Is self-defense of your citizens a valid moral reason to violate international law and assassinate one government official?

It's no mistake that the last sound we hear in this episode is the ticking of the clock.

Tales Of Interest!

- I've mentioned how Aaron Sorkin's near total involvement in practically every episode would prove unsustainable, for him as well as for the network schedule. As the course of each season wore on, the pace of production would bring Sorkin's final drafts of screenplays nearer and nearer to each episode's actual air date. That happens here in Season 3: The scene of CJ and Simon walking along the street to her home was filmed just three days before the episode was broadcast. (That scene was shot in the Greenwich Village section of New York City, standing in for Washington DC, at the same time as other New York-set scenes being filmed for Posse Comitatus - which also means scenes for that episode were being filmed only about a week before they were broadcast.)

- The President's military advisers talk about previous terrorist attacks at the embassy in Tunisia and the Marine barracks in Port Al-Alzoud (apparently a fictional location). Again, while 9/11 did not occur in this universe, the United States in The West Wing is nonetheless dealing with high-stakes tensions concerning the Arab world (note President Bartlet's comparison of Shareef to a "cave dweller," or Toby shouting "They'll like us when we win!" in Night Five). 

- We see a new angle of the Situation Room, showing us a window into an adjoining room with aides and communication equipment.

- There's definitely a running theme of baseball references throughout: We see a baseball game on the TV in the background in Josh's office, 

Josh talks about the Mets playing on national television the next day, and Donna makes a comparison between herself and the starting second baseman for the Yankees. (In case you're wondering, Alfonso Soriano played 155 games at second base for the New York Yankees in 2002.)

Also, President Bartlet says, "That's the ball game" when he finds out there's no way to get Shareef on charges, and Toby tells Sam "It's no time for the starters to be on the bench."

- Neat West Wing-style camera touches are here - the way the camera moves about the room from face to face as Bartlet consults with his advisers, and I really think this shot of Leo and Fitz in the Situation Room is incredible:

- It's 2002 technology, remember ... here's Charlie using some kind of Personal Digital Assistant (remember PDAs?). I can't suss out exactly what it is, but he's using a stylus, so it could be a Palm Pilot or a Compaq brand of PDA.

- Let's face it, there's some pretty lax adherence to safety procedures at the Secret Service gun range. While CJ puts on her eye and ear protection before she fires the gun, Simon isn't wearing any - and CJ takes hers off before Simon rips off his five shots into the bullseye. I did think it was funny when Simon, acting cool after impressing CJ with his shooting skills, spun the revolver on his finger -and then flinched in pain when he stuck the still-hot barrel of the gun into his belt. 

- John Spencer received the Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in Drama Series, with this episode and Bartlet For America being submitted. Mark Harmon was also nominated for the Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series Emmy for his four-episode run (the Emmy went to Charles S. Dutton for his appearances in The Practice).




Quotes    

Leo: "The Qumari defense minister gets to own a bank?"

Chysler: "Leo, I think you're going to find that in a number of ways the Minister of Defense is simply Mr. Shareef's day job."  

-----

Donna: "You want to show North Dakota you care and so you're sending me?"

Josh: "It's really the very most we're willing to do." 

-----

Simon: "Are you going to your gym tonight?"

CJ: "What?"

Simon: "Are you working out?"

CJ: "I thought you said you wanted to have gin tonight."

Simon: "No."

-----

Woman: "We enjoy roughly the same climate as South Dakota. We took in $73.7 million in tourism revenue last year. They took in $1.2 billion. They have the word 'south.'"

Donna: "Also, Mount Rushmore."

-----

Leo: "Josh, is there nothing you can do to tame that woman?"

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

• The Situation Room adviser Mike Chysler (Glenn Morshower) returns. He was last seen in Manchester Part II.

• Speaking of Situation Room advisers, the recognizable Kurt Fuller appears in two meetings with the President. He's been all over TV shows and movies, including Ghostbusters II, Wayne's World, Psych, The Good Wife, and many more.

• Amy Gardner is back! We haven't seen her since Dead Irish Writers, when she and Josh just officially became a thing. Now he's sleeping over at her place.

• The Wars of the Roses Catholic Charities event comes up again, first mentioned in The Black Vera Wang and an important part of the upcoming Posse Comitatus.

• President Bartlet pays a visit to the grave of Mrs. Landingham at Arlington National Cemetery, and recalls that's it been a year since her death (18th And Potomac). He also mentions "seeing a shrink" and that he's been having trouble sleeping (Night Five).

• There's a quick shot of CJ's laptop opened to her email account, which is a callback to the emails from her stalker in Enemies Foreign And Domestic and The Black Vera Wang.

• We remember Josh as a Mets fan from The Stackhouse Filibuster. Here he tells Amy he plans to watch a Mets game on TV.

• Allison Janney loves the physical comedy - her pratfall from the pistol recoil at the shooting range recalls her falling off the treadmill (also in front of a cute guy) in Pilot.

• When Leo and Josh cook up the excuse of a vote on the welfare bill as a reason to keep the President from going to the Wars of the Roses show, it's compared to the idea of using a similar excuse to avoid the Helsinki summit with Chigorin that was contemplated in Enemies Foreign And Domestic.

• We learned in In The Shadow Of Two Gunmen Part I that Toby had run multiple campaigns prior to Bartlet's (specifically a city council election, two congressional runs, a Senate campaign, a gubernatorial race and one other national election), but had never won. Here he tells Sam the first campaign he ran was one for Bronx borough president, where he turned off the air conditioning during a press conference and his candidate fainted. "I don't think I even ended up voting for him," he says. Does that count as the city council run, or no?

• President Bartlet's excoriates Josh over the "ad" (the opposition attack ad seen in The Black Vera Wang) and his botching of the tobacco lawsuit (the arc we saw from The Fall's Gonna Kill You through Manchester Part II). As an aside, why does Jed blame Josh's "office" for the ad thing? That was Sam, from the Communications Office, not Josh from the Chief of Staff's office.

• Simon's role as a Secret Service agent at the Rosslyn shooting from What Kind Of Day Has It Been comes up again. He says he's certain he took out one of the two shooters we saw.

• Leo mentions President Bartlet's status as a Nobel Laureate (first mentioned in "Post Hoc, Ergo Propter Hoc").

DC location shots    

• There's a nice scene filmed at Arlington National Cemetery, as the President and Charlie pay their respects to Mrs. Landingham.

• The scene with Josh meeting Amy at her office building may have been shot in Washington, I'm not certain. It was established in The Women Of Qumar that Amy's office is on Pennsylvania Avenue next to the US Navy Memorial Plaza, but I can't tell if this scene was filmed there or not. Personally, I think the odds of flying Mary-Louise Parker to Washington for one scene are pretty slim - I guess we'll see if she has any DC-set scenes in the next episode.

• The scene with CJ and Simon walking along the street (supposedly in Georgetown? or wherever it is CJ lives) was actually shot in Greenwich Village, New York City.

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

• The title of this episode gets to the heart of its theme: Is a nation justified in targeting a specific person during wartime? As Fitz says to Leo, "And the international laws you're talking about, this is where a lot of them were written. At a time in a place where a person could tell between peacetime and wartime. The idea of targeting one person was ridiculous. It wouldn't have occurred to the French to try to kill William Pitt. That all changed after Pearl Harbor."

The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor that drew the United States into World War II was directed by Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto. Later in the war, American intelligence was able to determine Yamamoto would be on a specific military flight, and where that flight would be - which led to a plan code-named Operation Vengeance, specifically targeting the admiral and killing him by shooting down his plane.

• Other historical events and figures brought up in the conversation between Fitz and Leo include the battle of Agincourt, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and Bonhoeffer's involvement in a plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler.

• The President compares Shareef to Capone, meaning Al Capone. It's an interesting note to realize Capone was finally convicted not on charges of his gangland activities or murders, but merely for tax evasion. Is Jed suggesting his advisers find another way to get Shareef, knowing charges of terrorism are going to be hard to prove? He does suggest planting drugs on his airplane ...

• Josh and Amy have quite a few pop culture references - there's two Van Morrison songs playing in Amy's apartment (Caravan and Moondance), Josh compares Amy's dancing to the movie Flashdance, Amy mentions a Werner Fassbinder festival they were planning to attend, Amy sarcastically refers to Leave It To Beaver while criticizing the marriage incentives in the welfare bill, and Josh says Amy has access to Sherry Lansing's platinum card.

• In Donna's North Dakota plotline we have references to the Iditarod sled race and Mount Rushmore.

• The Wars of the Roses compilation of Shakespeare's Henry plays is based on a real production.

• The President says Shareef is coming to the US in his Learjet.

• CJ calls Simon "Agent 99," which is a reference to the TV show Get Smart.

• While the President and Leo are debating moral absolutes, Jed mentions Il Principe, or The Prince by Machiavelli. The basic premise of the book is that for politicians, the ends (power and survival) justify even the most immoral of means.

• Product placement: We can see both Seattle's Best and Starbucks brand cups during the Roosevelt Room meeting:

• A Ford Excursion vehicle is being used by the Secret Service to pick up Simon in front of CJ's apartment:

End credits freeze frame: The President and his advisers in the Situation Room.

Previous episode: The Black Vera Wang

Next episode: Posse Comitatus

The Black Vera Wang - TWW S3E21

Original airdate: May 8, 2002

Written by: Aaron Sorkin (63)

Directed by: Christopher Misiano (8)

Synopsis

• President Bartlet's military advisers desperately try to track down a credible threat to American bases, including possibly the White House itself. CJ's shopping trip with her niece results in another threat on her life. Sam's attempt to cooperate with a friend in the Ritchie campaign over an anonymous attack ad backfires big time. Toby fights with TV network news directors over coverage of the national convention, and Josh's gift to Donna marking the Helsinki summit gets an intern into hot water.

"Are you telling me the Qumari Defense Minister may have ordered an attack on the Golden Gate Bridge?"

Things are getting serious.

It doesn't seem so serious to start with - everyone is returning to the White House in a good mood after the Helsinki summit with Russian president Chigorin. Sam has brought moose-themed items back as gifts for Ginger and Bonnie, Josh has brought back actual moose meat as a gift for Donna, the President is jovial as he and Leo head down to the Situation Room ... but he's quickly sobered to discover a Chechen prisoner of the Russians has given up credible information about a terrorist threat to an American military base somewhere in the world. And now we are thrown into what eventually becomes a deep moral and ethical dilemma for President Bartlet and his advisers, one that will play out for several episodes.

While Admiral Fitzwallace and the other military advisers are fairly certain of the threat to their bases, they can't narrow down exactly which bases might be targeted. In fact, as more information comes in, they actually expand the list to include installations very near to the White House itself. Leo has to bring up some extremely sensitive topics to Bartlet:

Leo: "Mr. President? I want you to start getting yourself into a mental place where you can order an unidentified plane shot down. We're sealing a one-mile perimeter. Fitz is about to call you and ask you to put the Coast Guard on alert for the Atlantic."

President: "We're leaning on Arab intelligence sources?"

Leo: "They're not what they used to be."

President: "We're leaning on them?"

Leo: "Yes, sir. We have to talk about the bunker."

There's a lot to unpack here. The backdrop of this plotline of a Ba'hi terrorist cell planning a strike against American assets is directly related to what actually happened in real life the previous September. Even though such an attack didn't happen in The West Wing universe (we are supposed to regard Isaac And Ishmael as a morality play not actually included in the show's timeline), it's apparent that something must have happened that heightened security in the US and affected our relationships with the Muslim world (Toby shouting, "They'll like us when we win!" in Night Five, for one instance). For example, the comment about ordering unidentified aircraft shot down comes from the very real possibility that the military had to consider the reality of possibly shooting down a hijacked civilian airliner on 9/11. The remark that Arab intelligence sources favorable to the US aren't what they used to be also relates to 9/11, and how the American military response in Afghanistan and Iraq angered much of the Arab world and ended cooperation with many Middle Eastern sources. But the bunker (which was actually used by Vice President Cheney and other Bush administration members on 9/11) and the possible need to use it to protect the President in case of a terrorist attack on Washington really drives the point home that danger could be right on the doorstep. Eventually President Bartlet makes his opinion about that crystal clear:

President: "I'm not going to the bunker. There are going to be people who aren't going to the bunker, and when I get out I'm not going to be able to tell them what to do any more, and I like doing that. Let's get Abbey to New Hampshire but I'm not going to the bunker. And if you say I have to, I'm walking across the alley with the Chief Justice and I'm handing John Hoynes my resignation. And as soon as he's sworn in I'm telling him to appoint me his Vice President because I'm not going to the bunker. If the agents come, the agents come but tell Ron he'd better bring more than a couple of guys."

 

Things are tense, as the information the military has indicates an attack is imminent, but they can't tell the President where, although bases in the Middle East and along the US East Coast are the most likely. Finally, surprisingly, a Ba'hi operative is caught with explosives ... but not anywhere near where the threat was actually expected to be. A boat was captured in Oakland, California, loaded with ammonium nitrate and diesel fuel - materials similar to those used in the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995. The target was a military one, of a sort - Fort Point, a Civil War-era fortification on San Francisco Bay that had been decommissioned for years. Why that target?

Fitzwallace: "Well, it's military, which is consistent, but decommissioned, which wasn't. It's not a very valuable asset."

President: "So why'd they want it?"

Leo: "Because of what's above it."

President: "The Golden Gate Bridge."

Fitzwallace: "The fort fronts the anchorage and the tiedown of the suspension cables." 

An attack on one of America's most visible symbols, the Golden Gate Bridge. That's enough to stir the President to a swift and strong response ... but, as it turns out, that's not the most important bit of information here. Who was actually behind this terrorist plot?

Fitzwallace: "Well, you know we've been getting a great deal of help from the Russians since Helsinki."

President: "Yeah."

Fitzwallace: "And that they've continued to interrogate the Chechnyan who gave us a target alert in the first place."

President: "Yeah."

Fitzwallace: "The prisoner says he worked with a Ba'hi operative in Grozny who reported -"

President: "To who?"

Fitzwallace: "Abdul Shareef."

President: "Are you telling me the Qumari defense minister may have ordered an attack on the Golden Gate Bridge?"

 

We remember Qumar from The Women Of Qumar, where CJ struggled with the fact that the United States had a close military relationship with the nation as an ally and partner in the Middle East, even while their culture mistreated women. Now the President is presented with the possibility that the country's defense minister is actually behind a plot to destroy the Golden Gate Bridge.

Yes, this is going to have some really serious ramifications down the road.

Speaking of CJ ... she's still got her Secret Service detail, thanks to the email death threats we saw her get in Enemies Foreign And Domestic. She's still not happy about it, particularly when Simon Donovan lets her know they basically dismantled her car's engine so she wouldn't be able to use it to ditch her agents:

But something kind of weird is also going on between CJ and Simon. They have a discussion about her taking her niece shopping, and the protection requirements he's going to require while they're out in public, and she's a little bit ... off her game?

CJ: "That was a strange thing that I just did, I was telling him that I was taking Hogan shopping for a junior prom dress, a few moments later he referred to the prom and I made a point of correcting him. Why would I do that, I felt so unnatural while I was saying it?"

Carol responds with her typical straightforwardness: 

Carol: "You were uncomfortable with the image he had in his head of someone who was old enough to be the aunt of someone who was going to the prom, and you didn't want to be charged for the extra year."

Which causes CJ to counter with an upturned eyebrow:

 

But she has to admit Carol is right - CJ is aware that she wants to depict herself as young, as vibrant, as attractive to Simon. There's something going on here ... I mean, it is Mark Harmon, so who can blame her?

They do go shopping, Simon has a little discussion with Hogan, CJ's niece, about what he looks for while he's protecting someone and what his background is, and then she figures out he was there that chaotic night in Rosslyn when the President and Josh were wounded by assassins' bullets (What Kind Of Day Has It Been/In The Shadow Of Two Gunmen Part I). Meanwhile, CJ gives up on finding Hogan a prom dress and tries on a black Vera Wang number of her own (hence, our title).

That knowledge of Simon being there in Rosslyn that night simmers for a bit, without CJ's knowledge, until she takes him aside and asks him what he and Hogan were talking about while she was in the dressing room. He explains it, and that tidbit of information sinks in with CJ (obviously she was there, she was terrified, she was thrown to the ground just before bullets shattered a car window - knowing this particular Secret Service agent assigned to protect her was there returning fire and protecting the Presidential party that night naturally means a lot to her). Allison Janney's acting is great here, showing oh-so-subtly how CJ's thoughts about Simon are beginning to turn - the realization he was there that night:

And the look she gives him as she goes out the door:

The final moment, though, is a striking one of anger and frustration from Simon. As he goes through CJ's email, there's another pointedly personal threat from the stalker, and a revelation that he was right there in the store with CJ and Simon:

And the final shot is Simon slamming his hand on CJ's desk in utter frustration at missing the opportunity to catch the stalker:

 

Sam is greeted on his return from Finland with a mysterious envelope, containing a VHS tape. He jokes with Ginger about how maybe it's porn, but it turns out to be an attack ad against the President, using his coverup of his health issues and his refusal to sign a "clean campaign" pledge as a way to portray him as secretive and sinister. And those eyes!

 

Sam wants to reach out to a friend of his in the opposing Ritchie campaign, Kevin Kahn, as he thinks cooperation is the best way to keep both campaigns from turning negative. Bruno and the other senior staffers are adamantly opposed.

Sam: "What is the danger? What is the danger, where is the danger of my sitting down with Kevin and telling him someone sent this to us? If it's you, we've got our own in a drawer. If it's someone else, you've got a mole and we don't want anything to do with it. How do we lose, in court, in public, in the voting booth?"

Bruno: "There are only two things here. Either someone's trying to hurt us, or somebody's trying to help us. Just so you know."

The point Bruno is making is that they don't know why the tape got sent. Is it a heads-up, to help the Bartlet campaign get ahead of a potential negative ad? Or is it a threat, pushing the President to get on board with the clean campaign pledge or face this attack? Nobody knows what it is yet.

Sam, though, gets a call from Kahn and jumps on the opportunity to meet with him and give him the tape. Kahn is grateful, claiming the Ritchie campaign didn't know anything about it, and that he appreciates Sam's cooperation. So all is good, right? Right?

Bruno: "He leaked it to the press."

Sam: "What?"

Bruno: "Your lunch."

Sam: "You're wrong."

Bruno: "He leaked it to the press. He's got you in favor of the pledge and you gave him the tape."

Sam: "I didn't -"

Bruno: "This is three, four, I don't know, a dozen news cycles where we're playing politics and we're losing. Let me be clear, the pledge is their idea. Any move we make on it we lose, any move they make they win." 

And then in a tremendously coincidental moment, Bruno turns on all the TVs in the communications bullpen, and of course they're all carrying the story and showing clips from the ad. Free exposure of this anti-Bartlet attack ad, over all the TV news networks.

 

(Isn't it funny how in TV and movies, whenever a character needs to show something important on the television, it just happens to be playing exactly when they turn the TV on?)

Sam is completely stricken, and he should be. 

He got played totally by Kahn, the campaign is going to suffer for it ... and what's worse, he should have known better. Bruno already proved he's four steps ahead of the staff when it comes to campaign politics, back in Manchester Part II, when he chastised Josh for his "triumph" over Big Tobacco when that could have been put to great electoral use in important swing states:

Bruno (to Josh, the previous summer): "You don't want the money. You want the issue. You should have waited until the fall, when the bell rings and then we hammer them with it. [...] Of course you got the money. I'm amazed they didn't send it to you with candy and a stripper. Pennsylvania, Michigan, Ohio - three swing states you could have brought over with that. That's an election."

These guys need to learn that they should listen to Bruno when it comes to campaign tactics, and Bruno points that out to Sam here:

Bruno: "You got played, Sam, and you forgot that all warfare is based on deception. One of these times, you guys are going to listen. Or you're going to find out what the crappy end of Inauguration Day feels like." 

Speaking of TV, Toby is meeting with the four TV network new directors about coverage of the upcoming Democratic National Convention. Toby thinks they just want a schedule of what's going on - but it turns out they have other plans:

News Director: "We're thinking about cutting back on our coverage."

Toby: "You only covered two hours a night last time. How much more can you -"

News Director: "We're talking about an hour."

Toby: "You can't do an hour a night, that's just -"

News Director: "See, you don't understand. We're talking about an hour for each convention. We cover the acceptance speeches, that's it."

Toby is flabbergasted, he can't believe network TV would be so cavalier, but he's convinced they're serious about it. Until Bruno tells him there's no way the four broadcast networks could have agreed individually on their own to each reduce their coverage. It was ... well, collusion. And now Toby has his own threat to hold over their heads.

News Director: "You're accusing us of conspiring to not show money-losing television?"

Toby: "Not me so much as the Justice Department. 15 USC Section 1 - 'Every contract combination or conspiracy in restraint of trade or commerce is declared to be illegal. Every person who shall engage in any combination -'"

Other News Director: "All right, we get it. We all have lawyers that we'll have to talk to."

Toby: "Yes. No, there isn't going to be any horse race to cover, either in New York or San Diego, but we gave you the airwaves for free 70 years ago and 357 days a year you can say who's up and who's down, who won the West and who lost the South, but what's wrong with eight days, not every year but every four years, showing our leaders talking to us. Not a fraction of what they said but what they said. And then the, the balloons."

 And then there's Josh's Finnish sauna-smoked moose meat gift for Donna.

She's not enthused about the gift, and when Josh is told that it ended up being posted on eBay (in violation of White House ethics guidelines), he is not pleased. Donna explains she passed the gift on to an intern, thinking some free food would be welcome for a young man working basically for no pay in the White House. It turns out he's the one who posted it for sale, because he needs the money and not the food. Donna actually ends up being the one who buys it off eBay, asks him for the money back (which he's already spent), and then instead of firing the intern as Josh wanted, reassigns him out of the West Wing. So ... a throwaway plotline about moose meat and interns.

Let's give Aaron Sorkin some credit for continuing to carefully lay down the foundations for ongoing plot lines to take us to the end of the season. While he already did it masterfully last year in Season 2, with the fantastic arc from The Stackhouse Filibuster to Two Cathedrals, here it's a tighter, more restrained path we're going down ... but, I think, really well constructed, with pieces of information coming together bit by bit as we start to arrange them and guess about where they're taking us. CJ's stalker, her Secret Service protection, the discovery of a high-ranking government official of a friendly nation planning a terrorist attack inside the United States ... where are we going with this?

Stay tuned and we'll find out.

Tales Of Interest!

- We find out CJ drives a baby-blue 1965 Mustang convertible, because of course she does. At least, she does when the Secret Service isn't disabling the engine so she can't ditch them.

- CJ says this about Simon:

CJ: "You have been annoying me for six days. You annoyed me here for three days then you annoyed me in Finland."

She says this Sunday night, just after returning from Helsinki. Simon showed up late on the previous Thursday night. If CJ says he annoyed her "here" for three days, that's Thursday/Friday/Saturday - but it was established in Enemies Foreign And Domestic that the Helsinki summit was on Saturday, and the Presidential party surely would have traveled there a day ahead. Also, Thursday-Sunday is four days total, not six, and that's giving a full day's credit to Thursday, when Simon showed up very late Thursday night. I've noted before Sorkin has real trouble with keeping lengths-of-time straight ...

- The map graphic in the Situation Room showing Dover Air Base, Fort Myer, and the White House has the identical latitude/longitude for all three locations - lat/longs which, by the way, actually point to a completely empty location in the Iraqi desert west of Kuwait. The actual location of the White House is 38° 54' North and 77° 02' West (not East). Also, Fort Myer is located west-southwest of the White House, in Virginia next to Arlington National Cemetery, not east of the White House as shown here:

- Toby makes it clear that the Democratic National Convention is set for New York (at the "Garden," Toby says - Madison Square Garden) while the Republican convention will be in San Diego. It's also interesting to note Toby's debate with the network news directors; there are four of them, apparently reflecting the real-life ABC, CBS, NBC, and Fox networks. This storyline is about the broadcast television networks only, not cable news, which makes sense considering Toby's point about giving them the "airwaves" 70 years ago.

- There was never a Barneys on Connecticut Avenue. The only Barneys in the District of Columbia was located in Georgetown - the scene with CJ and Hogan shopping was filmed at the Barneys in Beverly Hills. Barneys declared bankruptcy in late 2019 and closed all its remaining stores in February 2020.

- There's a figurine wearing a ball gown in Gail's fishbowl, although it's not black and most likely not a Vera Wang.

- We get another look at CJ's email in-box, and thanks to the miracle of freeze-frame we can examine the wonderful email addresses created by the production staff: addresses like Bob27@aol.com, mymail@msn.com, johndoe@aol.com, Eric_L@mail.edu, and the msnbc23@msnbc.com address we noticed in the previous episode. There also do not appear to be any more critical emails coming from Saudi email addresses - good thing that's blown over in a week!

CJ's stalker is no longer using the 2ala@mail.sa address we saw previously. Now he's using bill182@aol.com:

- Ron Silver and Mark Harmon were both nominated for an Emmy for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series (Tim Matheson was also up for that award for his work as Vice President Hoynes on the series). Charles S. Dutton took the award for his appearances on The Practice.

Quotes    

Ginger: "What'd you bring me?"

Sam: "I brought you a collector's plate of a moose racing through the woods."

Ginger: "I love moose."

Sam: "I know how you do. Bonnie? You get a hat with a moose on it."

Bonnie: "You like a good hotel gift shop, don't you?"

Sam: "I do."

Ginger: "What do they eat in Helsinki?"

Sam: "They eat moose."

-----

Bruno: "If I wanted to sink the Bartlet campaign, this is exactly the ad I'd run."

Toby: "In May?"

Bruno: "No. But I would show it to the other side to let them know what happens if they hit me first. Every campaign has one in the drawer."

CJ: "We didn't."

Sam, Toby, and Bruno (together): "Yes, we did."

-----

CJ: "Do you have any reason to believe it was stolen?"

Sam: "No."

CJ: "How can he be an accomplice to a crime he had no reason to believe occurred?"

Josh: "You wanna find out?"

CJ: "Nope."

-----

Network news director: "We'll show the acceptance speeches. And the balloons. The balloons aren't news, but it's nice television."

-----

Leo: "I'm trying to tell you that if the time comes they're not gonna give you a choice." 

President: "You're telling me that the Secret Service, you're telling me my own bodyguards are gonna escort me to the bunker?"

Leo: "Your feet may touch the ground a couple of times along the way but I doubt it." 

-----

Toby: "What about corporate sponsorship?"

Bruno: "You think?"

Toby: "Why are people footing the bill for this anyway?"

Bruno: "The Nabisco Democratic National Convention?"

Toby: "It's better than four nights of professional wrestling."

Bruno: "How much better?"

Toby: "I don't know!"

Bruno: "I wouldn't mind hitting some of these people, I can make it look real."

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

• Evan Rachel Wood, who plays CJ's niece Hogan, was 14 years old at the time, but already had worked steadily in Hollywood with appearances on the series American Gothic and Profiler, and was a regular in the cast of Once And Again. As of this post, she currently stars on the HBO series Westworld.

• Martha, the White House protocol staff member tracking where gifts to administration members end up, is played by Ivy Jones. She's been a recognizable character actor on TV shows since the mid-1970s, most recently with a recurring role on Baskets. 

• Bruno Gianelli, head of the Bartlet reelection campaign, returns to the show (last seen in The Indians In The Lobby).

• Speaking of returns, we also revisit the basement office where the secret meetings about the President's MS revelations (with the "Sagittarius" code word) took place last season. This set was a reconstruction of Ainsley Hayes' office in the Steam Pipe Trunk Distribution Venue (which may also explain why we saw her in a different office when she last appeared in The U.S. Poet Laureate). We most recently saw this space in 18th And Potomac. This time it gets a name; Donna tells Josh his meeting is in Basement Office C.

• The President mentions they just finished with "Helsinki and the reactor" - the summit with Russian president Chigorin and the discussion of the Russian-built reactor in Iran were topics in Enemies Foreign And Domestic.

• The President tells Leo and Charlie about the upcoming War of the Roses show, being put on for Catholic charities. A combination of all Shakespeare's Henry plays (as Bartlet puts it "Henry V, three Henry VIs [Shakespeare wrote three parts] and Henry VIII"), we are going to see some of that production onscreen eventually.

• Bruno's confusion with Margaret's name was previously seen in Ways And Means, when he called her Gertrude. In this episode:

Bruno (entering Leo's reception area): "Hey, Stacey."

Margaret: "Margaret."

Bruno: "I thought Margaret was the girl who worked here before."

Margaret: "I'm the girl who worked here before. I'm Margaret."

Bruno: "You changed your hair."

Margaret: "No."

But then, in a sweet gesture, Bruno leaves a box with Margaret as he goes in to see Leo. Inside the box - a necklace with Margaret's name. He knew it all along!

  

• Donovan reveals to Hogan that he was on the Secret Service detail at Rosslyn the night President Bartlet and Josh were shot (What Kind Of Day Has It Been/In The Shadow Of Two Gunmen Part I).

• When Ginger is giving Sam messages she says his father called. We saw that Sam and his dad have a complicated relationship (because of his father's secret mistress) in Somebody's Going To Emergency, Somebody's Going To Jail.

• The President's on-mic recorded "gaffe" about Governor Ritchie's lack of smarts that we saw in The U.S. Poet Laureate is a big part of the argument between Sam and Kevin Kahn.

• Bruno's beatdown of Sam's gullibility at being played by Kahn and the Ritchie campaign over the videotape calls to mind the same kind of evisceration Bruno gave Josh over his tobacco lawsuit gambit in Manchester Part II. In both cases, the White House staffers thought they were making moves to help the administration, but Bruno had to explain to them how what they did caused real damage to the reelection campaign. 

• The discovery that Qumari Defense Minister Abdul Shareef is connected with terrorists trying to strike inside the US is a key plot point for the upcoming episodes. The fictional nation of Qumar was first mentioned in The Women Of Qumar.

DC location shots    

• While the scene of Sam yelling at Kevin Kahn in the rain shows the address of "531 Connecticut" and a "Dupont Tower" building, the scene was clearly shot on a set (you can kind of tell by the rounded shape of the street and the generic signs in the shop windows, I think, not to mention the copious fake rainfall). Plus, that address doesn't even exist - Connecticut Avenue begins at the northwest corner of Lafayette Park, just north of the White House, with the 800 block - there is no "531 Connecticut."

• As I mentioned above, there was no Barneys in DC (except for a small one in Georgetown - there certainly wasn't one on Connecticut Avenue), and the shopping scene was filmed in the Barneys in Beverly Hills.

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

• Sam's comment to Ginger about not eating moose in Finland - "I don't like eating things where the cartoon character can talk, and, you know, hatch a plan" - is a reference to the cartoon character Bullwinkle J. Moose.

• The stage show President Bartlet talks about, with "all the Henrys," is fictional - but it refers to an actual production called The Wars Of The Roses, originally performed in 1963 and adapted from Shakespeare's plays Henry VI Parts 1, 2, and 3 and Richard III. The stage show was not produced again after its original run until 2015, and in that version lasted 9 hours, not the "four or five" Jed told Leo to expect: 

Leo: "How long is it?"

President: "Four or five hours, maybe, you'll be fine."

Leo: "They do all the Henrys?"

President: "They do all the Henrys. They do a thing, call it War of the Roses. I'm told by those who saw it in London it's spectacular. Catholic Charities bought out a Broadway theatre. We're gonna go, we're gonna make some money."

Leo: "Everything was fine except the part where we go."

Reality check: Bartlet includes the Shakespeare plays Henry V and Henry VIII as being part of this show, when those two kings weren't really part of the War of the Roses at all. The actual power struggle between the Houses of York and Lancaster encompassed the reigns of Henry VI, Edward IV, and Richard III - the two houses were united when Henry VII married Elizabeth of York and created the House of Tudor.

Charlie mentions the use of "music and song and other theatrical devices," which wasn't really a part of the actual 1963 play.

• Many real-life military bases are mentioned as being under threat: Jaber Air Base in Kuwait; Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia; Incirlik, Turkey; Seeb North Air Base in Oman;  Dover Air Force Base in Delaware; Fort Myer in Virginia (right next to Arlington National Cemetery and not, as Leo says, in Maryland); and Fort Point in California. The Golden Gate Bridge turns out to be the actual target of the Ba'hi terrorist cell.

• CJ is involved with several real-life references: the Barneys clothing store; the famous designer Vera Wang; and the golfer Ben Hogan, after whom CJ's golf-crazy older brother named his daughter. Here's a gratuitous mention of Vera Wang on the store wall in the background:

• The saga of Josh's sauna-smoked moose meat includes the online selling site eBay and the upscale kitchen store Williams-Sonoma.

• Margaret tells the staffers about the Washington Times' plan to publish their salaries.

• When Kevin Kahn calls Sam and they plan lunch, Sam suggests "Old Ebbitt," meaning the Old Ebbitt Grill, a famous hangout for Washingtonians just across the street from the Treasury Department near the White House. Patrick's, the restaurant Kahn suggests instead, doesn't appear to exist.

• Norah Jones' recording of Don't Know Why is playing at the Barneys as CJ and Hogan are shopping.

• Bruno brings up Andrew Jackson as a defender of Democrats getting government jobs; the presidential campaign between William McKinley and William Jennings Bryan (as well as Bryan's Cross of Gold speech) comes up during Sam and Kahn's lunch meeting. 

• Bruno mentions Nabisco as a possible sponsor of the convention, as well as "Tiny Tim and Miss What's-her-name" (Miss Vicki) as samples of what the TV networks would want to cover.

• Product placement: Sam is using a Dell laptop:

End credits freeze frame: Leo and the President talking about the bunker.

Previous episode: Enemies Foreign And Domestic

Next episode: We Killed Yamamoto