20 Hours In America, Part Two - TWW S4E2

Original airdate: September 25, 2002

Written by: Aaron Sorkin (67)

Directed by: Christopher Misiano (10)

Synopsis

• While Josh, Toby, and Donna continue their quest to return to DC from Indiana, a chance encounter in a hotel bar sparks a new way to look at the Bartlet campaign and its policy initiatives. A terrorist attack on a midwestern university prompts a moment of Presidential eloquence. Qumar continues to press the issue of their missing defense minister. Bartlet finally makes a decision on a new secretary, Charlie steps up on several fronts, and Sam gets a visit from an old flame. 

"It should be hard. I like that it's hard. ... But it should be a little easier. Just a little easier. Cause in that difference is ... everything."

Politicians can sometimes get too wrapped up in the "inside baseball" part of things, the little bits of tactical advantage you can gain from a statement or the minor edge you might grab from your stance on an obscure policy. It's easy to focus on those small things that you think add up to a campaign, perhaps, or a national political presence. But when that happens, you may just lose sight of the ultimate role of government - helping and protecting the citizens of your country, giving them support to overcome obstacles that aren't of their making, making things ... "a little easier. Just a little easier."

Having Josh, Toby, and Donna spend a day and a night in middle America, far from the "inside baseball" of DC, proves to be Aaron Sorkin's way of knocking a little bit of sense into them - well, Josh and Toby, at least. While a truly down-to-earth Donna (a native of Minnesota who grew up in Wisconsin herself) isn't completely successful in making them realize it's the people and not the electoral tactics that matter, a chance hotel bar conversation with a guy on a college visit with his daughter actually sinks in.

Sorkin begins this episode, though, with a moment that literally made me burst out laughing. We saw in Part One that the financial markets are falling throughout the day, thanks to a major hedge fund filing for bankruptcy. As the President prepares for a photo op with a fellow who's shaken hands with every President since Herbert Hoover, he's taken aback when the man tells Bartlet his meeting with Hoover came the day before the Black Thursday market crash of 1929 that led to the Great Depression. Given the current market situation, a superstitious Bartlet pulls Charlie aside to reconsider.

President: "There's a lot of science in economics to be sure but like a lot of things, a lot depends on the user. I need the Nikkei Index to do what I need it to do tonight and I've got Hoover's good luck charm over here. But now, while I'm talking about it, I feel like it's ridiculous that someone like me would consider canceling a photo op ..."

Charlie: "I can't believe you're considering doing it, sir."

President: "I'm not, it's momentary."

Charlie: "No, I mean I can't believe you're considering doing it."

President: "Really?"

Charlie: "Tokyo opens in three hours and you're going to drape your arm around the Mayor of Shantytown."

Which leads to the moment where I literally laughed out loud, as Charlie tells Mr. Keith they're going to have to reschedule and when he asks why, Charlie replies, "You're spooking the hell out of the President."

Anyway, back to Indiana, where our three intrepid staffers are riding in Tyler's jeep in an effort to get to a train station as the next step in their journey back to Washington. Josh and Toby continue to bicker over campaign strategy, as they did in the previous episode - Toby wants to keep going after Ritchie as not a smart fellow, while Josh wants to stick to promoting the President's agenda. It's all going to work out fine as they reach the train station, even as Toby still reluctantly keeps up his end of losing the rock-throwing bet to Josh, spending the rest of the day adding "I work at the White House" every time he says his name:

Tyler: "Mr. Lyman. Mr. Ziegler."

Josh: "Call me Josh."

(Josh looks at Toby, as Toby recalls their bet) 

Toby: "Toby. I work at the White House."

Tyler: "Yeah, can I tell you something? People are going to think you're a lot cooler if you don't say that yourself, but rather let them find out on their own."

Toby: "Yeah."

But they made the train, and are some 98 miles away from Indianapolis and a flight that will take them home. Tyler triumphantly points the way:

As the train begins heading the opposite direction down the tracks:

Womp-womp.

The campaign debate continues on the train, as Toby brings up Ritchie quote after Ritchie quote to show how ill-informed he is ("a rising tide sinks all boats?") but Josh can't go along with his plan.

Josh: "I don't know what gave you the impression that I had to be convinced, but I want to win. You want to beat him, and that's a problem for me, because I want to win."

Donna is sick of the bickering. She just wants the guys to approve her plan to get them turned around and back on a flight to DC.

A flight that ends up being delayed by weather anyhow. The three find shelter from the rain in an airport hotel, in an attempt to dry out for a few minutes - where Donna finally has had it, and unloads on Josh and Toby. They've spent the entire day squabbling about campaign tactics while they've ignored every bit of what the ordinary midwestern Americans they encountered were trying to tell them.

Donna: "I can't remember the last time I heard you two talk about anything other than how the campaign was playing in Washington. Cathy needed to take a second job so her dad could be covered by her insurance. She tried to tell you how bad things were for family farmers. You told her we already lost Indiana. You made fun of the fair but you didn't see they have livestock exhibitions and give prizes for the biggest tomato and the best heirloom apple. They're proud of what they grow. Eight modes of transportation, the kindness of six strangers, random conversations with twelve more, and nobody brought up Bartlet versus Ritchie but you."

Chastened, the guys retreat to the hotel bar. Toby gets pulled into a conversation with a random fellow there - he's also waiting out the weather, his flight delayed. He's visiting Indiana with his daughter, on a college visit to Notre Dame. He's just a guy, an everyday, middle-class guy, trying to get by and do the best for his family and make things a little better for his kids.

Kelley: "It should be hard. I like that it's hard. Putting your daughter through college, that's ... that's a man's job. A man's accomplishment. But it should be a little easier. Just a little easier. Cause in that difference is ... everything."

The guy reaches out to Toby, introducing himself as Matt Kelley. 

Toby responds, and as Josh signals to him that the bet is off, he doesn't have to add to the folly of their travels by trumpeting his workplace, for the first time today Toby makes a real connection and tries to make a real difference:

Toby: "I'm Toby Ziegler. I work at the White House. Have a minute to talk? We'd, uh ... like to buy you a beer."

College financial aid and making paying for education "just a little easier" is going to become a policy emphasis for the administration as the series moves on. And it's all thanks to this chance encounter with Matt Kelley in an Indianapolis hotel bar. As our weary travelers finally make it back to DC, they ditch the airport shuttle a couple of miles from the White House, wanting to walk through the streets of Washington in the early morning light, as Josh and Toby agree on a reset on what the campaign needs to be about:

Toby: "Instead of telling people who's the most qualified, instead of telling people who's got the better ideas, let's make it obvious. It's going to be hard."

Josh: "Then we'll do what's hard." 

Also looming over the events of the day is a Midwestern tragedy. Word comes in at the end of CJ's afternoon press briefing of a pipe bomb attack at a university swim meet in Iowa. Forty-some people are killed, another hundred injured, and as she tries to brief the press while listening in to a live feed in her earpiece, the rest of the administration and the nation reacts. An emotional moment, filmed expertly by Christopher Misiano, hits us in Indianapolis as Josh, Toby, and Donna see the news report in the hotel lobby:

And President Bartlet, speaking at a fundraiser that evening, expresses the eloquence and compassion of a true American leader in memorable fashion. Something we in 2020 can only dream about with our current leadership ...

President: "We did not seek nor did we provoke an assault on our freedom and our way of life. We did not expect nor did we invite a confrontation with evil. Yet the true measure of a people's strength is how they rise to master that moment when it does arrive. Forty four people were killed a couple of hours ago at Kennison State University. Three swimmers from the mens' team were killed and two others are in critical condition. When, after having heard the explosion from their practice facility, they ran into the fire to help get people out. Ran into the fire. The streets of heaven are too crowded with angels tonight. They're our students and our teachers and our parents and our friends. The streets of heaven are too crowded with angels, but every time we think we have measured our capacity to meet a challenge, we look up and we're reminded that that capacity may well be limitless. This is a time for American heroes. We will do what is hard. We will achieve what is great. This is a time for American heroes and we reach for the stars. God bless their memory, God bless you, and God bless the United States of America."

Looking on, an impressed Bruno asks an emotional Sam when he wrote that last part, given the bombing had only occurred mere hours before the speech.

Sam: "In the car."

Bruno: "Freak." 

The President's quest to find a new executive secretary finally comes to an end, but not without some drama and unexpected twists and turns. In the previous episode we saw Bartlet interviewing a couple of candidates on Air Force One, but he wasn't happy with either one - they were either not capable of being impressed, or not able to appreciate Jed's sense of humor. So Debbie Fiderer returns for another interview, to make up for her first one that flopped when she took too many pills to prepare for it. This one doesn't go great, either, as she stubbornly refuses to tell the President why she was fired from her personnel job at the White House:

Debbie: "Chronic lateness."

President: "I don't believe you."

Debbie: "It's true."

President: "No, it's not."

Debbie: "You call me a liar to my face?"

President: "Yes."

Debbie: "Okay."

President: "Charlie said it was because of him."

Debbie: "He did?"

President: "He said you hired him and that's why you got fired."

Debbie: "Charlie makes things up."

President: "No, he doesn't!"

Debbie: "He's a bad seed. I knew it the moment I saw him." 

She refuses to tell him more, but as she's dismissed from the interview she encounters Donald McKittridge in the outer office He's the head of the White House Office of Personnel who actually fired her, and he chastises Charlie for even bringing her in for an interview. Bartlet emerges from the Oval Office, putting two and two together and realizing Debbie had chosen Charlie for the job over the son of a big contributor to the campaign of the congressman brother of McKittridge. He still doesn't make a decision, though, until Sam steps into the office and asks, "Was she funny?"

The President races down the hallways to catch Debbie at the checkpoint at the door. He asks her to recall information about the status of the dollar, an update that was given during their interview (a secretary's memory skills will prove to be essential for a President suffering from MS, who might have some lapses in short-term memory as the disease progresses). She remembers the numbers. And with a gesture to Charlie, she's hired.

Speaking of Charlie, remember that previously on Air Force One CJ asked if he could take over as Big Brother for Anthony, whom Simon Donovan had been mentoring before his death in Posse Comitatus. Charlie demurred, leading CJ to ask Sam about it earlier in this episode even though she knows his schedule couldn't possibly allow it (Sam's response: "Maybe he'd enjoy sitting and watching me work. I could narrate what I was doing for him.").

After the fundraiser, Anthony is waiting in the West Wing for CJ, who tries to explain that she's still searching for another Big Brother for him. Anthony glumly resents CJ, in part because he connects her to Simon's death, and his resentment becomes evident as he rudely insults her:

CJ: "I'll take you home now."

Anthony (mumbling): "I don't need a babysitter."

CJ: "I'm sorry?"

Anthony: "I said I don't need a babysitter, bitch. Are you deaf?"

Charlie happens to be walking by, and his response is, well, epic.

Charlie: "This is Ms. Cregg. She's the White House press secretary and senior counsel to the President. And if she wasn't, she would still be Ms. Cregg. I don't mind you not respecting people. I mind you doing it out loud. I mind you doing it in this building. You wanna be a punk, fine, but I don't think you've got the size for it. You wanna go to juvey, get out, deal, and kill cops? Okay, but every time you do a crime, you get caught, so I think you're gonna have to do something else. Nine o'clock on Saturday mornings, I eat breakfast at Cosmo's on Delaware. I come here for an hour and do office work, and then I go to St. Jude's for an hour to play basketball. You can go to juvey, or you can be at Cosmo's at 9:00 on Saturday morning. It's entirely up to you."

So I guess Charlie is willing to take on the Big Brother role after all. 

In a sweet moment later, Charlie finds a gift on his desk. He unwraps it as CJ comes to the doorway - she's given him a framed photograph of Charlie as a boy with his police officer mother, who was shot and killed in the line of duty three years ago. Charlie earlier mentioned to the President that he didn't have any photographs on his desk, for his own reasons - but he proudly places this photo right there.

Then there's Qumar. In the arc we saw at the end of Season 3, Qumar's defense minister Shareef was connected to several terrorist attacks against American targets, and faced with the impossibility of bringing him to justice in the courts, President Bartlet reluctantly agreed with Leo and Admiral Fitzwallis on a plan to assassinate Shareef in Bermuda and make it appear his plane went down over the Atlantic. Now Qumar is still investigating, trying to bait the United States into giving up information about the incident (first they claim they have a recording of a phone call from Shareef on the plane, which Fitzwallis knows is impossible since his phone was disabled before takeoff; next they say they found wreckage with evidence proving it was the Israelis who killed him).

Nancy McNally, the National Security Adviser, has had enough, and she's ready to start "reducing our nuclear arsenal one at a time, if you know what I mean, sir." But the trio of Bartlet, Fitzwallis, and McNally know they're going to have to confront the situation in some meaningful way, as the Israelis aren't going to stand for being falsely accused. Fitzwallis wants to let Qumar know yes, we did it, but while insulating President Bartlet from the decision. Jed isn't having it:

President: "And you talked Leo into Shareef and he talked me into it. It was my order and you executed it flawlessly and I stand by it. I stand by it till I die. Plus, I'm going to need some cell mates in Holland. So, what do we do now?"

A President standing by his decisions, no matter the fallout - administration staffers listening to concerns of everyday Americans, and trying to make their lives better - people like Charlie and Debbie just doing the best they can, supporting those around them and doing their best every day - that's an administration that can lead, an administration that can inspire, an administration that can truly make America great.

Yeah, I know ...

 

Tales Of Interest!

- Timeline: Sam specifically says he's worked for the administration for three years and eight months. With Bartlet's inauguration in January 1999, that works out exactly to September 2002.

- Tyler says the troubles of the lost White House staffers will end "98 miles right down that track." In Part One Josh said they were going to catch "the metro" in Connersville. Connersville is actually about 55 miles from Indianapolis. Once the train starts heading in the wrong direction, Donna says they can get off in Bedford and backtrack - but Bedford is actually 113 miles southwest of Connersville, and to get there you'd start in the same direction as you would for Indianapolis.

 

- The fictional Kennison State University is said to have "Hawkeyes" as their nickname and is a member of the Big Ten conference. CJ remarks she's listening in to "Cedar Rapids police and fire" during the press briefing. In reality, the University of Iowa, located in Iowa City, some 27 miles south of Cedar Rapids, is a member of the Big Ten and has the "Hawkeyes" nickname.

- "The streets of heaven are too crowded with angels" is a line stolen from Tom Hanks' Oscar acceptance speech at the Academy Awards in 1994. Hanks won the award for his role as an AIDS-stricken attorney in Philadelphia, and used his speech to pay tribute to those who died of AIDS. As Sam tells Mallory in this episode (in a line written by Sorkin, who knows very well what he did and which not only self-deprecates his theft of the line but also refers to himself as a "great writer"), "Good writers borrow from other writers. Great writers steal from them outright." 

Interestingly enough, that same speech - where Hanks also gave a shout out to his high school drama teacher - was the inspiration for the opening scenes of the 1997 Kevin Kline film In & Out.

- Also, Sam's line to Mallory about "I've got to get back in there. That's where it's happening" was another inspiration for Lin-Manuel Miranda and his writing of Hamilton, specifically the song title The Room Where It Happens.

- Stockard Channing appears in the opening credits for the first time this season, but during the episode her only appearance is in the audience during the President's fundraiser speech. She doesn't even have any lines! Oddly, the website I use to get transcripts of West Wing episodes includes a scene from this episode that's not on the DVD or Netflix versions. This scene occurs between the hiring of Debbie Fiderer and the fundraiser speech, and is a conversation between Jed and Abbey in the residence where some more context/resolution of the "aprons and rolling pins" protest against her is given - a plotline that otherwise is just dropped out of the story.

 - Matt Kelley's salary of $55,000 in 2002 equates to about $78,800 in 2020 dollars, while their family income of $80,000 would be about $115,000 today.

- Bradley Whitford was nominated for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama for this episode and Evidence Of Things Not Seen. The award went to Joey Pantoliano for The Sopranos. This would be Whitford's third straight Emmy nomination (with a win for In The Shadow Of Two Gunmen and Noël in Season 2).

Quotes

McNally: "Leo. Yeoman Fitzwallis." 

Fitzwallace: "Dr. McNally." 

McNally: "Let's attack."

Fitzwallis: "Who?" 

McNally: "Qumar. Let's recommend to the President that we attack." 

Leo: "Why?" 

McNally: "Cause I've had it." 

Fitzwallis: "I don't think the UN is going to let us do it for that reason." 

McNally: "That's cause you're a sissy." 

-----

President: "Hey, do we have a GPS reading out on Josh and Toby? Have they been sighted?" 

Sam: "I talked to them a little while ago, they're on their way." 

President: "Three hundred IQ points between them, they can't find their way home. I swear to God, if Donna wasn't there, they'd have to buy a house." 

-----

Sam: "I had one good moment talking about the global ripple effect of a budget deficit, but that was it. The rest of the day was just keeping up. And this was a pretty light day." 

Mallory: "One good moment is good." 

Sam: "Oh, I'm not complaining. I'm saying one good moment is great. It's a golf shot. I've got to get back in there. That's where it's happening."

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

• National Security Adviser Nancy McNally (Anna Deavere Smith) returns, this time ready to nuke Qumar (her offhand greeting to the admiral serving as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff as "Yeoman Fitzwallis" is hilarious).

• Lily Tomlin is back as Debbie Fiderer, now joining the staff (and the cast) as President Bartlet's executive secretary.

• Martin Sheen's daughter Renee Estevez pops up in the background of this scene. As Nancy, she's apparently one of the President's five secretaries (as Charlie tells Debbie, in addition to the executive secretary there are two research secretaries, a social secretary, and a scheduler).

• Allison Smith is back as Mallory O' Brien, Leo's daughter and ongoing flirt with Sam (ever since they met in Pilot; she nearly took him to the opera as her date in Enemies and she kissed him after seeing his defense of her father in He Shall, From Time To Time ... ). Mallory was last seen in Galileo, when she told Sam she was dating the hockey player Richard Andreychuk. Now he's been traded to Chicago and they've broken up, which Sam is, well, less than broken-up about, if you know what I mean.

 

• President Bartlet mentions his granddaughter as he's talking with Muriel Keith. We first heard about her in Pilot, when Bartlet referred to his granddaughter Annie as being 12 (while taking Rev. Al Caldwell to task for not renouncing an anti-abortion extremist group that had sent her a doll with a knife). While we've met Jed's daughters Zoey and Ellie, we've yet to meet this granddaughter's mother.

• The issue of Jed's failing memory and having a secretary who can keep facts and figures readily at hand is directly related to his multiple sclerosis, which was first revealed in He Shall, From Time To Time ... and had a significant story arc in Season 2.

• The Shareef assassination/Qumar story line is extended from the episodes at the end of Season 3 (from Enemies Foreign And Domestic through Posse Comitatus).

• The hiring of Charlie (with Debbie DiLaguardia - now Fiderer - forwarding his name to Josh) was originally seen in A Proportional Response.

• CJ's search for a Big Brother replacement for Anthony ties in with Simon Donovan's death in Posse Comitatus and the quick scene of Simon hanging out with Anthony in that episode.

• In Part One Donna brought up the Boomtown Rats song I Don't Like Mondays (apparently this entire episode takes place over a Monday in September). During the montage of news of the KSU pipe bombing and President Bartlet's "streets of heaven" speech, we hear Tori Amo's version of the song.

• The photograph of Charlie's police officer mother reminds us of her death in the line of duty, first revealed by Charlie in A Proportional Response.

• President Bartlet's conversation with Fitzwallis near the end of the episode is a callback to "Post Hoc, Ergo Propter Hoc" where Bartlet mused over the Joint Chiefs' lack of respect for him as a Commander-In-Chief who had never served in the military.

As Morris Tolliver told him in that Season 1 episode, "Let the Chiefs get to know you, Mr. President. ... They may not like your resume, but they'll like you personally if you give it time. You have a once in a generation mind, sir. Ultimately, they'll respect that."

And in this episode: 

President: "You just hated my living guts when I got this job, didn't you?"

Fitzwallis: "No, sir."

President: "Yeah, you did. I didn't know anything and I didn't have any respect for the Chiefs. You became my counselor and you wrangled the Chiefs and you brought them to me." 

 

 DC location shots

• The Arlington Memorial Bridge, which crosses the Potomac between Arlington Cemetery and the Lincoln Memorial, is seen in the closing shot of the episode. It's over a two-mile walk to the White House from here. The series likes to use that bridge, which was previously a location for multiple scenes in In The Shadow Of Two Gunmen.

Here's a current Google Street view:

• The spot where they get off the shuttle van is actually right at the Arlington Cemetery Blue Line Metro station (there's an escalator to the Metro station on that corner). Directly behind them you can see the entrance to Arlington Cemetery. 

And a current view of that intersection:

• The scenes of Tyler driving the wayward staffers to the train station (supposedly Connersville, Indiana) were actually filmed in Bridgeville, Pennsylvania. 

View down the street in Bridgeville:

Pulling up to the train station (at the time, the Bridgeville Public Library; the show's producers rented the tracks and a six-car train just to shoot these scenes and the following train ride): 

The building is now the Bridgeville Area Historical Society - the caboose is still there: 

And the reverse shot of Railroad Street in Bridgeville as they park:

Not a lot has changed since 2002: 

 

 

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

• President Bartlet says, "It's a proud day for Alfred Nobel" as he watches the stock market fall, referring to his status as a Nobel Prize winner in economics. In reality, there isn't a true Nobel Prize in economics at all, although there is a related prize administered by the Nobel Foundation since 1968.

• In the discussion between Bartlet and Muriel Keith we hear mentions of Presidents Truman and Hoover, as well as the Great Depression beginning with Black Thursday in October 1929.

• Toby's rants about Ritchie bring up references to Act V of Hamlet, Batman villains, and British prime ministers Benjamin Disraeli and Neville Chamberlain.

• The Big Ten athletic conference comes up in connection with the bombing of the swim meet at Kennison State; Illinois, Michigan, and Minnesota are specifically named, and those state universities are indeed part of the Big Ten.

• Mallory and Sam talk about her hockey player ex-boyfriend getting traded to the Chicago Blackhawks. Sam also brings up the musical Camelot as a source from which he stole one of his speech lines.

• It's a Comfort Inn hotel where Josh, Toby, and Donna seek refuge from the rain (supposedly near the Indianapolis airport, in reality probably filmed somewhere in Pennsylvania - but maybe in California, I don't know).

• Donna is wearing an Indiana State University sweatshirt that she must have purchased near the hotel, just to have dry clothes. The giant Indianapolis Colts banner also puts our setting right in Indianapolis. 

• Matt Kelley mentions he and his daughter were visiting Notre Dame; we know that's President Bartlet's alma mater, as he reminds us with this sweatshirt early on Tuesday morning: 

• Toby orders a Jack Daniel's (we've heard him make that order before). It appears Kelley is drinking Rolling Rock, a beer brand founded in western Pennsylvania near the locations the show filmed at for this episode.

• Nancy McNally's eagerness to drop nuclear weapons on Qumar leads Fitzwallis to refer to her as Dr. Strangelove, a character played by Peter Sellers in Stanley Kubrick's 1964 film.

• Josh wonders why they couldn't just use Kikkoman soy sauce from a Chinese restaurant to refuel the soy diesel truck they had been originally stranded with in Part One.

Josh: "You're telling me, we couldn't have just gone to the nearest Chinese restaurant, picked up some Kikkoman and poured it into the soy diesel thing?"

Donna: "I don't think it works like that. Plus, how close do you think the nearest Chinese restaurant was?" 

• Capital City Limousine is still in business in Washington, DC. I believe that telephone number is still a good one for them, too.

 

End credits freeze frame: Toby, Josh, and Donna walking toward the Arlington Memorial Bridge with the Lincoln Memorial in the distance.

Previous episode: 20 Hours In America, Part One

Next episode: College Kids