Walking And Talking And Yelling At Clouds: Posse Comitatus

Original airdate: May 22, 2002

Written by: Aaron Sorkin (65)

Directed by: Alex Graves (9)

Synopsis

As the President attends the charity fundraiser at a Broadway theatre, his moral core weighs heavy as he makes the call on whether a terrorist lives or dies. CJ's stalker is caught, but nonetheless a tragedy can't be forestalled. The battle between Josh and Amy over the welfare bill is settled, but at a cost. Charlie thinks he has the perfect candidate for Bartlet's executive secretary.

"In the future, if you're wondering, 'Crime, boy, I don't know' is when I decided to kick your ass."

Damn you, Aaron Sorkin. Damn you for yet another season finale that causes my feelings to catch in my throat, that makes my eyes well with tears, that features yet another moving musical montage (last year Dire Straits, this year Jeff Buckley), that once again brings us death and sorrow (the body count over the years: two people [the attempted assassins] died in the Season 1 finale; Mrs. Landingham died in the episode prior to the Season 2 finale, which featured her funeral; and here we have four deaths, Shareef and his bodyguards plus poor Simon Donovan).

It's becoming a thing, Aaron. Your season-ending shows are getting to be classic television that grabs us by the emotional throat and doesn't let go ... even if you do keep going back to the same wells over and over.

I'm going to run down the storylines in reverse order of prominence. You may not agree with my order, but in the grand scheme of things I think government-supported terrorism and a President's willful violation of international law might hold just a little more weight story-wise than CJ kissing a guy who then almost immediately ends up dead - even if it is Mark Harmon.

I guess we start with Debbie DiLaguardia ... er, Fiderer. In the previous episode, President Bartlet told Charlie to start the process of finding an executive secretary to replace Mrs. Landingham. Charlie thinks he's found the perfect candidate, and he has to go to her house because she keeps hanging up on his phone calls.

Debbie Fiderer: "Yes, I ... we weren't getting disconnected. I was hanging up on you."

Charlie: "Why?"

Debbie: "I wasn't interested in the job."

Charlie: "Why didn't you just say so?"

Debbie: "You would have asked why."

Charlie: "Yeah."

Debbie: "My way was faster."

(She closes the door in Charlie's face)

Charlie eventually convinces her to come talk with the President. Unfortunately, though, she was so nervous about the meeting that she took a few too many pills to relax her inhibitions, so she has no trouble at all being very direct.

President: "Why did you leave the White House?"

Debbie: "Well, Mr. President, if you want to talk about getting screwed with your pants on ..."

President: "Charlie!"

Debbie: "I guess I ... I got pretty ... pretty well doinked."

The President is not inclined to enjoy this repartee (understandable, given what's on his mind) and he takes Charlie to task for what he thinks must be a gag. Later on, we discover that Debbie had been the person who recommended Charlie for his post in the President's office (from A Proportional Response, where we first heard the name Debbie DiLaguardia. She took Charlie's application for a messenger job and forwarded it to Josh for the President's body man). She was actually fired from the White House Personnel Office because of that (why would recommending Charlie cause her to be fired? We don't know - he certainly worked out okay). Naturally this makes the President more agreeable to talk with her again in the future.

The best thing about this is the introduction of the wonderful Lily Tomlin to the cast. She'll remain as the President's secretary all the way to the end of the series. I mean, once she gets hired (spoiler alert!).

Let's move on to Josh and Amy. In We Killed Yamamoto we saw a pending welfare reauthorization bill driving a wedge between these two lovebirds. Congress is willing to pass the bill, with even more funding than the administration expected, in exchange for some marriage incentives that feminist groups - like Amy's - are vehemently opposed to. She's working her side, pulling votes away from the bill by threatening to pull support from some congressmen, while Josh is forced to give even more concessions to conservatives and Republicans to gain votes on that side.

Amy seems to think this is just part of how Washington works, and it shouldn't be a real problem with their relationship. She keeps saying to Josh, "We should be able to talk about this." Josh, though, we've always seen as the political animal who lives and dies by his victories and defeats - he can't separate the work he does politically from the life he lives. He tries, sort of, but he knows he can't let his emotions limit the tactics he has to use.

And it is tactics, after all. Josh and Amy are on the same side, mostly. They both want progressive legislation, they want more rights for women and minorities, they want more power to individuals and less to corporations, their strategic goals are similiar - but tactically they have far different approaches, with Amy unable to accept a compromise that will hurt some women in exchange for more welfare funding.

An opportunity arises when a Republican offers five votes for the bill if the President walks into the New York charity theatre event with Governor Ritchie, the Republican candidate, but that's a nonstarter. Josh comes up with another gambit - he offers Amy's boss at the Women's Leadership Coalition a spot on the Democratic platform committee if she'll let congressmen know she's okay with the bill. This ensures passage of the bill (Donna later asks an exhausted Josh "You're not gonna stick around for the vote?" and he replies, "We won by eight.") ... but Amy's legs have been taken right out from under her.

Josh has been insistent to Amy through this entire fight that he knows he's going to win. It's just too important for the administration's goals, and too important to Josh. Amy keeps bleeding votes away and urging him to consider fighting more for progressive causes. When he goes to her apartment after he knows the vote is settled, a full-fledged fight is brewing - Amy's pissed that Josh didn't take the offer to have Bartlet and Ritchie meet in order to save the bill ("I'm not a dating service," Josh retorts), and because he instead got her boss to reverse Amy's policy intiative, she has had to resign from the Women's Leadership Coalition. That fight is cut short by some tragic news, but I have a feeling their relationship is at a turning point.

Those two stories fill in around the edges of the big two plotlines of the episode. CJ has been dealing with Secret Service protection ever since receiving emailed death threats (first in Enemies Foreign And Domestic). While she first bristled at the idea of having a bodyguard, she's softened considerably over the past couple of weeks - it doesn't hurt that it's Mark Harmon playing Simon Donovan, of course. She first started to thaw when she learned Simon had been there at Rosslyn, helping with the protection of the Presidential party during the assassination attempt (What Kind Of Day Has It Been). Her feelings continued to grow as he helped her at the Secret Service firing range, leading to a near-kiss outside her apartment in We Killed Yamamoto. But of course this can't happen - Simon's job is to protect CJ, he can't do that if he's emotionally involved, this isn't a Kevin Costner movie! But jeepers, when CJ finds out Simon is also a Big Brother to an African-American high schooler, you practically see her heart melt, what's she supposed to do?

Luck intervenes in New York. As Simon and CJ discuss feelings and responsibilities, with the biggest sappy look on CJ's face you're ever going to see:

Simon: "I got to say, there are times when it seems like you like me."

CJ: "I do like you."

Simon: "Then you just walk off to stick it to me, and forget the personalities. It's just stupid!"

CJ: "I said I do like you."

Simon: "I meant the other way."

CJ: "So did I. I tried to kiss you."

Simon: "You said you didn't!"

CJ: "I was lying, you idiot."

Then Simon gets a call. The stalker has been apprehended. The job is over, Simon is no longer tasked with protecting CJ. She thanks him, sincerely, with a peck on the cheek that turns into something much more.

They agree to meet for a drink after the charity show is over. They're both giddy with new love and the prospects of spending more time together .... yes, I know, it's heavy-handed and you can tell where this is going, as if the Big Brother reveal didn't already clue you in. Time for a patented Sorkin emotional gut-punch ...

The buoyantly happy Simon stops into a convenience store. He needs a Milky Way ... and he'll get a flower for CJ, too. The shopkeeper is oddly stiff and quiet. "We don't have that here," he whispers, as Simon holds the candy bar in his hand.

Simon's a smart guy. He sees the empty cash register, and realizes he walked into a robbery in progress. He wheels, draws a gun on the young man behind him, disarms him and cuffs him on the floor. As he radios in the arrest and happily heads back to the counter ...

(I mean, come on, Mr. Shopkeeper - you could have clued him on the second gunman! This is on you, man.)

Just as Sorkin used Brothers In Arms last season, a somber song begins to play. It's Hallelujah by Jeff Buckley. Ron comes to pull CJ out of the theatre:

He gives her the terrible news on the sidewalk outside. The camera pushes in slowly, inexorably:

(I personally think part of this scene misses the mark. I believe it would have been even more impactful and emotional if we didn't hear any of CJ's dialogue. Her words don't add anything at all to the story, and we totally get CJ's reaction just by watching her - I just think, if I were planning this scene, I would have left it silent except for Buckley's tune).

A shattered CJ wanders tearfully through Times Square, finally collapsing in tears on a bench:

Damn you, Aaron Sorkin. Damn you for making us care.

But guess what? That's not even the most climactic story in this episode! As Sorkin says in the DVD commentary, it's West Wing Christmas episodes and season finales where "we get dangerous" ...

The President starts off in the Situation Room, in an oddly good-natured mood while the final preparations are being made for dealing with Shareef:

Adviser: "Mr. President, we wanted to lay out some of the rules."

President (wryly): "There are rules for these things?"

Adviser: "Uh, yes, sir. The first one being the National Security Act, which says basically that only the President can trigger a covert action. This isn't a situation where you need to know as little as possible. The law requires that you know everything."

President: "Doesn't the law also require that I not assassinate someone?"

As much as this decision was obviously weighing on Bartlet in We Killed Yamamoto, with his lashing out at Josh over his handling of the welfare bill vote, he's starting to come to some terms with it - but he hasn't had to actually make that final, irreversible, fatal call yet.

Let me also say Martin Sheen's performance in this episode is superb. Sheen was nominated for an Emmy Award six times for his work on The West Wing, including this season, but never won. He's just outstanding here; in my opinion an even greater performance than his work on Two Cathedrals in the Season 2 finale. Every moment, every soul-searching decision, every look in his eyes is nothing less than perfect. It's absolutely terrific.

Shareef visits the President in the Oval Office, a meeting set up before Bartlet was aware of his connections with terror attacks on Americans, but one Fitz and the other advisers insisted he couldn't cancel, because it was the only way to get any kind of access to Shareef. Leo also sees the face-to-face visit as a potential problem - if Bartlet actually sees Shareef as a real human, an actual person, Leo thinks it'll be much harder for him to order his killing, much as Leo's daughter Mallory (yay, a Mallory mention!) naming the lobsters in the tank at the seafood restaurant prevents Leo from ordering a lobster meal.

Gifts and pleasantries are exchanged, and Leo's face reveals his trepidation when the President asks about Shareef's companions:

President: "Who are these men?"

Shareef (through an interpreter): "Bodyguards."

President: "Okay."

Two more people who are going to have to be killed, through no fault of their own. More moral weight on Jed's shoulders. Then Shareef offers his hand in a show of friendship.

Bartlet is frozen. He knows he's going to have to have this man killed, and he can't bring himself to exchange a handshake with him. His eyes tell the story.

"Not in the Oval Office," he murmurs, and as he instructs the interpreter to apologize for having a rash on his hands, Shareef's eyes narrow in suspicion and uncertainty:

With the meeting out of the way, Shareef departs for home and the President and his staff depart for New York, for The Wars Of The Roses event for Catholic Charities. Bartlet insists he's going to wait to the last possible moment to make his decision, to give himself more time to consider if he really must make the decision to take this man's life.

And just to make things more interesting, Gov. Ritchie is also planning to attend the show, although the administration is taking steps to make sure there's no joint appearance or meeting of the Presidential candidates. First, though, Ritchie's got to make a show of proving his interests are aligned not with wealthy theatre snobs who like Shakespeare (liberals and Democrats, of course), but with real Americans - so he goes to a baseball game at Yankee Stadium first, intending to arrive at the theatre at intermission. Sam and Toby come up with a devious plan to send Ritchie's motorcade into traffic, delaying his arrival at the theatre even more, and giving Sam a great opportunity to deliver this dig at Ritchie to the press at intermission:

Sam: "What Toby means to say is that if 90 percent of success is showing up, we're just happy that someone's standing up for the other ten."

Jed and Leo talk in the mezzanine lobby. By now they're aware that Simon has been killed at the bodega - one person already dead on this fateful night. Must Jed make the call to end three more lives? He fights against the decision - he wants a trial, he knows he can't get one, why is this the only path forward? Leo is there to guide him:

President: "It's just wrong. It's absolutely wrong."

Leo: "I know. But you have to do it anyway."

President: "Why?"

Leo: "Because you won."

And then the final, momentous decision. "Take him," the President tells Leo, then walks away.

Bartlet is drained, both mentally and morally. As he sneaks a cigarette at the bottom of a stairwell, a figure emerges from the restroom in the background.

It's none other than Gov. Ritchie himself. Despite all the staff's work and maneuvering, the two candidates meet after all. Bartlet tries to offer some advice to his opponent - apologize to the Cardinal for arriving late, maybe do as Bartlet did four years ago and cram on foreign policy - but the President is also, understandably, distracted. He can at least tell Ritchie about one of the reasons why:

President: "Something horrible happened about an hour ago. CJ Cregg was getting death threats so we put an agent on her. He's a good guy. He was on my detail for a while, and he was in Rosslyn. He walked into the middle of an armed robbery, and was shot and killed after detaining one of the suspects."

Ritchie (grasping for a response): "Oh. Crime. Boy, I don't know."

Bartlet has a visceral reaction to that reply.

As Bartlet continues to try to offer advice, Ritchie responds with petulant anger and disdain. "How many different ways you think you're gonna find to call me dumb?" he snaps. Bartlet tries to politely respond:

President: "I wasn't, Rob. But you've turned being unengaged into a Zen-like thing, and you shouldn't enjoy it so much, is all. And if it appears at times as if I don't like you, that's the reason why."

Ritchie: "You're what my friends call a superior sumbitch. You're an academic elitist and a snob. You're, uh, Hollywood, you're weak, you're liberal, and you can't be trusted. And if it appears from time to time as if I don't like you, well, those are just a few of the many reasons why."

As the music swells inside the theatre, Bartlet gets up to return to the show. He turns and delivers one of the trademark lines of the entire series.

President: "In the future, if you're wondering, 'Crime, boy, I don't know' is when I decided to kick your ass."

He heads up the stairs, and cooler than ice, flips his cigarette lighter to the waiting Secret Service agent.

And then ... another montage! This time in Bermuda, with special agents handing out weapons:

They watch Shareef's jet taxi in to park:

And once Shareef and his bodyguards step out of the plane, they open fire:

The episode concludes with Leo getting the call from Fitz, catching the President's eye, then giving him the word that the operation is done. And this tremendous final image, the President of the United States, stoic and stone-faced, in shadow, veiled by a curtain, hiding the messy, dirty underbelly of the choices a nation's leader must face:

Wow. It's an incredible episode, wonderfully filmed and tremendously acted. I guess we'll have to wait another year to find out if Sorkin's season-ending themes of death and musical montages will return (spoiler alert: at least one of them absolutely does).

Tales Of Interest!

-The title is explained a couple of times in the episode. Fitz reminds the President of the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, which prohibits the military from acting in a civilian law enforcement role. Later in the episode as Fitz and Leo are briefing the Gang of Eight, questions are raised about why the FBI or the military couldn't be involved in apprehending Shareef, causing Senator Max Lobell to exclaim, "Posse Comitatus. You're killing Shareef?"

- In the DVD commentary for this episode, Sorkin mentions that they actually filmed a different teaser scene, which in the original script would have opened the episode. It showed President Bartlet shaving, distracting himself from the weight of the Shareef decision by singing the "victorious in war, made glorious in peace" song. He then cuts himself with the razor, and there's a quick shot of blood on a towel with the Presidential seal. Foreshadowing! Spooky! Bloody! The scene was cut for time, resulting in the teaser we see with CJ briefing the press, but there's a little leftover mention of that scene when Jed says to Dr. Keyworth, "I was just singing it this morning."

- Another scene cut for time that we're told about in the commentary had Simon complaining about a diet he trying to stick to, griping about how he's always hungry and really craves a Milky Way. Again, there's a little remnant of that scene in the bodega, where he's desperate to get that candy bar.

- The commentary (with Sorkin, Graves, and Executive Producer Thomas Schlamme) also mentions the overall path of Season 3. The attacks of 9/11 occurred just before the season began, and even though that attack didn't happen in The West Wing universe, its impact on American life and politics was bubbling under throughout the entire year. And, of course, the season ends with the killing of a terrorist.

- We get some typical West Wing style camera-spinning-around-the-actors scenes in this episode, as well as the often-seen dual onscreen shots (like these with CJ in the briefing room). What is unusual about this particular scene is the shaky, handheld approach to filming it - that's not often seen in this series.

- We get a neat overhead shot of the Gang of Eight being given the intelligence about Shareef - this is also a return to the basement meeting room we saw multiple times during the coordination of the President's revelation of his multiple sclerosis in Season 2, and last saw in Enemies Foreign And Domestic when the staff was dealing with the VHS tape of the opposition ad.

- We've seen in previous years that showrunners often take advantage of season finales to get some of the behind-the-scenes personnel on camera for a bit. That looks like it's happening here, as well. The briefing room is particularly crowded with more reporters than we usually see:

There's also an unusually large crowd of extras milling around the lobby when Simon and his Little Brother arrive:

Also, check this out. See these two extras next to CJ in the briefing room?

That's the same actress here in the lobby:

And the same two actors crossing in the background here:

(Back in Season 1, you'd occasionally see the lead characters like CJ or Toby or Donna in the background of a scene, which really added to the realism and immersion of the series - of course by now, Allison Janney and Richard Schiff and the rest aren't interested in working as "realistic set decoration" in the background of scenes they're not involved in.)

- I think Alex Graves does a tremendous job of visual storytelling throughout this entire episode - I love this transition, where we go from the President tossing Shareef's gift to Fitz then suddenly smash-cutting to Toby's Spaldeen bouncing against Sam's window:

And just look at these dramatically composed shots of Jed and Leo as they debate making the final decision to take out Shareef:

- In We Killed Yamamoto, Bartlet says of Shareef, "He's coming here on his own. He's delivering himself on a Learjet." In this episode, Fitz says, "He's flying back tonight in his Gulfstream." I may just be an old retired air traffic controller, but I'll be damned if this doesn't look like a Learjet.

- Let me also mention, look up an aerial/satellite view of Bermuda on Google Maps sometime. Fitz talks about setting down the jet at a "remote RAF airstrip in Bermuda. It's really not much more than a road in the grass." Now tell me where you think a "remote" airstrip could exist on the island. It's jam-packed with buildings! There's only one "airstrip" visible, and that's the main airport. I don't think in reality you could land a Learjet in Bermuda and gun down the passengers without anyone noticing.

- And another thing about Fitz' plan: the defense minister of Qumar is flying home in his private jet, yet the American intelligence community somehow gets their guy inside - to be the pilot? And then use Bermuda, an island with barely a yard of undeveloped space, to land that plane on and shoot three guys with machine guns, without alerting anybody? And then, what, dump the plane and the bodies into the Atlantic as if the plane just crashed? It's no surprise Jed says to Leo, "They're gonna find out it's us. We could make it look like the plane went down, but they're gonna find out it's us, and I'm gonna be running for reelection while we're fighting a war against Qumar."

- Toby tells the Congressman from Florida that the President will walk into the theatre with his wife and the president of China. We see President Bartlet get out of his limousine outside the theatre, as well as sitting in his box watching the play. There's no sign of either Abbey or the president of China at any time. The real-world reason, of course, is that the show wasn't able to get Stockard Channing lined up for this episode.

- Nancy, played by Martin Sheen's daughter Renee Estevez, gets to say a line as Charlie and Debbie wait to see the President.

- There's consistent thematic imagery of roses, which makes sense with The Wars Of The Roses as a climactic part of the episode, but they're also symbolic representations of Bartlet, Shareef, and death. They first appear as the President is talking to Dr. Keyworth:

We see them again at the bodega, just before Simon is killed:

And then those are knocked to the floor and strewn around his body:

And finally the roses reappear as the President and Gov. Ritchie talk. In the DVD commentary the show runners mention in one theme they thought they might connect the red roses to Bartlet - if you note here, the bouquet on Ritchie's side is basically white, while the one on Bartlet's side is more red:

- Graves earned a well-deserved Emmy nomination for this episode for directing in a drama series (Alan Ball took the prize for Six Feet Under) and Sorkin earned another nomination for writing the episode (24 took that award, going to Robert Cochran and Joel Surnow). Mark Harmon was also nominated for a Guest Actor in a Drama Emmy award, for his four-episode arc. Charles S. Dutton won that trophy for The Practice.

Quotes

President: "Assume for a second I say yes. How do we do it? Fitz walks up to him with a gun?"

Fitzwallis: "No, it can't be military."

President: "Why?"

Fitzwallis: "The Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 prohibits the military from civilian law enforcement, and it can't happen on American soil."

President: "The things we choose to care about."

-----

(Amy orders an egg-white omelet and badly burned toast)

Josh: "That doesn't give you cancer?"

Amy: "Burnt toast?"

Josh: "Yeah."

Amy: "They're not sure. That's why I have the egg-white omelet."

-----

Keyworth: "What's on your mind, Mr. President?"

President: "I can't tell you."

Keyworth: "Yeah, but you can."

(Long pause. Bartlet looks away, thinking)

President: "No, I really can't."

-----

Charlie: "You seem a little better than you were before."

Debbie: "I took a pill."

Charlie: "Why?"

Debbie: "Because I was a little nervous about coming back to the White House."

Charlie: "You took a pill?"

Debbie: "I took a couple."

-----

Toby: "He's at the Yankee game right now?"

Sam: "Local news covered it. He said this was how ordinary Americans got their entertainment."

Toby: "I've been to 441 baseball games in Yankee Stadium. There's not a single person there who's ordinary."

Sam: "I know."

(beat)

Toby: "You making fun of the Yankees?"

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

Kurt Fuller and Glenn Morshower return as Situation Room advisers:

I should also mention Thomas Kopache, who has appeared a few times since On The Day Before as Assistant Secretary of State Bob Slatterly. He's been seen in the Situation Room in the two episodes prior to this.

It's Lily Tomlin's debut as Debbie Fiderer. She'll remain a part of the cast for the rest of the series. Her character was actually referenced in A Proportional Response, when she (as Debbie DiLaguardia) recommended Charlie to Josh for the job as the President's body man:

Adam Arkin returns as Dr. Stanley Keyworth. He previously helped both Josh and President Bartlet talk through their issues (Noël, Night Five).

Armin Shimerman gets named in the opening credits, but I'm not sure we ever see him. Apparently he played Richard III in the version of The Wars Of The Roses that the show producers put together to be the onstage production, but I don't know if he ever actually appears during the episode. Shimerman is most well-known for playing the Ferengi Quark in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.

It's not often that we get to see the same actors return for small, one-scene roles in a later episode of The West Wing. Getting schedules to work out or even having actors interested in coming back for a short scene isn't always possible - so it's nice to see David Huddleston reprise his role as Senator Max Lobell. He's part of the "Gang of Eight" being informed of the intelligence against Shareef. Sen. Lobell was also seen in Lies, Damn Lies And Statistics as the self-proclaimed "gun-totin', redneck son of a bitch" who agreed to help get Bartlet's candidates on the Federal Election Commission in order to promote campaign finance reform.

The always great Michael O'Neill is back as Ron Butterfield, here mainly to handle the tragic Simon Donovan plotline.

It's the reveal of James Brolin as Rob Ritchie, the Florida governor and Republican candidate for President.

Naturally, since this episode deals with storylines going back to CJ's stalker/death threat emails from Enemies Foreign And Domestic and the link between Shareef and the attempted attack on the Golden Gate Bridge in The Black Vera Wang, we get plenty of references to events from the past three episodes.

Shareef thanks Bartlet for the renewal of the lease on the airbase in Qumar - that was a key plot point in The Women Of Qumar.

Toby's rubber Spaldeen, the bouncing ball he tosses around his office to help him think through problems, makes a return appearance. It was most famously seen in 17 People.

Kevin Kahn is mentioned as the PR battles over Bartlet and Ritchie possibly meeting at the theatre rage - he's Sam's old friend who used him to make political hay over the attack ad video in Enemies Foreign And Domestic.

In addition Kahn's gambit - publicly announcing the meeting between the President and Gov. Ritchie before it's actually been set up - recalls Toby's trick in Ellie of announcing Seth Gillette's agreement to join the entitlement reform commission without actually asking him. Oh how the tables have turned, Toby ...

Leo mentions his daughter Mallory as someone who names all the lobsters in the tank at seafood restaurants so he can't eat them. She's appeared several times since Pilot, but not since Galileo.

DC location shots

Nothing shot in DC as far as I know, but plenty of location filming in New York. We see Times Square with police motorcade vehicles, and again later with a grieving CJ:

The Booth Theatre is the site of The Wars Of The Roses performance (note the marquee artwork developed for this episode, along with the review quotes and the Playbills). Obviously there wasn't an actual Broadway show in the theatre at the time, although they were preparing a revival of I'm Not Rappaport that opened in July 2002. Also somewhat interesting, Lily Tomlin revived her 1985 show The Search For Signs Of Intelligent Life In The Universe at the Booth in 2000, just a couple of years before this episode was filmed. In the DVD commentary the producers mention seeing Tomlin onstage spurred them to think about her for a role on The West Wing ... I don't know if it was her performance here at the Booth that they were talking about or not.

The scene between Simon and CJ when they learn her stalker has been captured and they kiss was filmed in Shubert Alley, considered the center of the Broadway theatre district between the Booth and Shubert theatres (photos in the They Do Exist! section). I believe the bodega where Simon is shot was also in New York, but I'm not positive about that one.

The interior theatre scenes - the onstage performance, the talks between Toby and Sam, Jed and Leo, and the meeting between Jed and Ritchie - were shot at the Orpheum Theater in Los Angeles. According to the DVD commentary, they completed all of that shooting in one day.

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

When Charlie talks about Debbie's previous jobs, he mentions the Gannett newspaper group and Washington Redskins owner Jack Kent Cooke.

Simon is a volunteer for Big Brothers/Big Sisters.

As President Bartlet recalls that old "victorious in war, made glorious in peace" song to Dr. Keyworth, he mentions Christ's College, Cambridge. (Also that song isn't so ancient, being written for a stage musical in the early 1980s).

Debbie's disastrous meeting with the President results in references to Bally's casino (most likely the one in Atlantic City) and The Swingle Singers.

The scene with Simon and CJ in Shubert Alley reveals posters of several Broadway shows. For a theatre person like myself ... wow, 2002 had a TON of fantastic shows running all at the same time! First we can see posters for Thoroughly Modern Millie (which had just opened in April of 2002, ran to 2004), Sweet Smell Of Success (which had also just opened in April, and closed that June), 42nd Street (revival opened in 2001, ran for over four years), and Chicago (revival opened in 1996, and was still running when Broadway shut down in March 2020).

As they continue to walk, posters appear for The Full Monty (opened in 2000, closed in September 2002) and The Producers (opened a year before this episode, ran until 2007).

We also see posters for Mamma Mia! (which opened the previous fall, in 2001, and ran to 2015) and Rent (ran from 1996 to 2008).

There's also a poster for the Off-Broadway show Tony and Tina's Wedding, an audience-participation favorite that had been running for 14 years already (and would continue for another eight).

President Bartlet tells Ritchie that the Yankees' center fielder is a classically trained guitarist, and why can't people appreciate both books and baseball. The actual centerfielder for the Yankees at the time, Bernie Williams, is indeed a classical guitarist who was nominated for a Latin Grammy in 2009.

The song we hear in Wars of the Roses during the assassination montage is called Patriotic Song, actually written for a 9-hour Royal Shakespeare Company production of The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby in 1983.

And as mentioned in the previous two episode recaps, The Wars Of The Roses is loosely based on an actual stage production from 1963 melding together parts of several of Shakespeare's plays. The musical version presented in The West Wing isn't that show at all (it didn't have "all the Henrys," for example, nor music) - but the two snippets of Shakespeare that we hear performed in this episode are from Henry VI Part 1 and Henry VI Part 3.

We see Josh and Amy at a Tully's coffee shop, which was probably filmed in Los Angeles (I don't think we got any DC location scenes with Mary-Louise Parker). Tully's was once known for their aggressive tactic of opening shops near existing Starbucks. The chain filed for bankruptcy in 2012 and closed for good in 2018. Keurig now owns the brand.