Game On - TWW S4E6

 

Original airdate: October 30, 2002

Written by: Aaron Sorkin (70) & Paul Redford (10)

Directed by: Alex Graves (10)

Synopsis

• Debate night arrives, and President Bartlet overcomes a last-second tie emergency to land a punishing blow on the Ritchie campaign. Leo and Jordon meet with the Qumari UN ambassador to try to stop the Qumari ship carrying arms for Ba'hi terrorists. Sam tries to end the "embarrassing" congressional campaign for a deceased candidate, but the fellow running the campaign ends up changing Sam's mind.

"There's no such thing as too smart."

This episode is all about neckties.

Okay, not really. Neckties do play a prominent role (we'll get to those details later), but the real meat of this episode is the election campaign, and the conclusion of the clash between Toby's "make it about smart, and not" and the others' concerns about Ritchie's plain-spoken appeal to the common man. As you can probably figure out by the quote I pulled out above, it is indeed the more complex approach of the Nobel Prize-winning economist and intelligence and just knowing stuff that takes more than ten words to explain that takes the day.

The battle between the two approaches goes all the way back to The Two Bartlets, when the President took the bait of Ritchie's comments on affirmative action to make a rather noncommittal statement on the subject, which first raised Toby's ire about "Uncle Fluffy." Aaron Sorkin has used this fictional campaign to express his views on the real-life 2000 election between George W. Bush and Al Gore - the easygoing Texan who talks in small words and keeps things simple for the "little guy" against the policy wonk who tries to explain his approaches to problems while recognizing all the possible complications. Simple vs complicated, "aw shucks" vs arrogance - Sorkin puts Ritchie in the Bush role and Bartlet, of course, in the position of the smart Nobel Prize-winning guy whom many see as "out of touch" to the common man.

Toby has pushed the President to lean into his advantages, to use his knowledge and experience and intellect as a plus, to "make it about smart, and not" as he said in Hartsfield's Landing. Others in the campaign, though, feel that Ritchie's approach is bringing him more votes, making him more popular because he boils issues down into simple slogans, and they want the President to try to pivot to that as well. It's been an internal struggle in the campaign we've seen since the middle of Season 3.

Now the debate is here, the one single debate agreed upon before the election, and the West Wing is on edge. Josh has been tasked with coming up with "ten words" - short, quippy, easily disgestible statements the President can use to sound folksy and down-home, like Ritchie. Meanwhile, Leo tells Toby the President has gotten too much "in his head," that he's botching his responses, and that the staffers need to just let him ride through it without calling him out on it during their morning practice questions. Toby tries - but when Bartlet stammers through about six different approaches to an answer on a death penalty question, he can't hold back any more and snaps back about how that question should be answered.

And then everyone else in the Oval Office bursts into laughter. Toby has been the victim of a prank - the President is not off his game, in fact he's so confident and ready that he came up with the idea of betting the others that Toby couldn't stay quiet if he messed up his answer. Toby's face when he realizes:

And as they depart the Oval Office, Toby has two words for Josh: "He's ready."

Let's talk about some of the ties now. Superstitious Jed has a favorite debate tie - at the last debate of the first campaign, he accidentally set his tie on fire while sneaking a cigarette. He borrowed Josh's tie, won the debate, and then the election, so that's the tie he needs for this debate. Problem is, as Charlie says, the dry cleaners have ruined it using a solvent "we probably shouldn't use any more."

A team of advisors are working to select the perfect tie for television presentation:

And Charlie has taken the tie of the Deputy Secretary of Labor because he thinks it might fool the President into thinking it's his old tie. But Bartlet brushes that off, at least outwardly, telling Charlie it's only a tie and all will be well. You can tell he doesn't really mean it, though.

Abbey to the rescue. With seconds to go before Jed takes the debate stage, as Abbey gives him her final pep talk, she whips out a pair of scissors

and snips his tie right off.

Which causes Bartlet to react in horror as Abbey chuckles in devilish delight.

The entire staff races down the corridor, and once again it's Josh who has to offer his tie to the President as a replacement.

It's a close thing, but Bartlet gets the tie on just before taking the stage, finishing with a quick slap on Abbey's butt.

And then he proceeds to kick Ritchie's butt, responding to the Governor's first statement about keeping the federal government out of the states' business with this epic response:

President: "Well, first of all, let's clear up a couple of things. 'Unfunded mandate' is two words, not one big word. There are times when we're fifty states and there are times when we're one country, and have national needs. And the way I know this is that Florida didn't fight Germany in World War II or establish civil rights. You think states should do the governing wall-to-wall. That's a perfectly valid opinion. But your state of Florida got $12.6 billion in federal money last year - from Nebraskans, and Virginians, and New Yorkers, and Alaskans, with their Eskimo poetry. 12.6 out of a state budget of $50 billion, and I'm supposed to be using this time for a question, so here it is: 

"Can we have it back, please?"

And as the debate continues, the evisceration does, too. Ritchie answers a question about whether this is the time for more tax cuts with, "You bet it is. We need to cut taxes for one reason - the American people know how to spend their money better than the federal government does."

The President pauses. That's the patented Ritchie ten-word answer, simple, uncomplicated, appealing to the lowest common denominator. But that's not the kind of leader President Bartlet is:

President: "That's the ten-word answer my staff's been looking for for two weeks. There it is. Ten-word answers can kill you in political campaigns. They're the tip of the sword. Here's my question: What are the next ten words of your answer? Your taxes are too high? So are mine. Give me the next ten words. How are we going to do it? Give me ten after that, I'll drop out of the race right now."

The staff is exhilarated. CJ gathers them in the spin room and tells them they shouldn't provide spin to the reporters gathered there, they should just leave and let the President's performance speak for itself. As the debate wraps up and Ritchie and Bartlet shake hands, the Governor recognizes what this all means:

Ritchie: "It's over."

So even though the election is yet to come, this debate has given us the inevitable outcome. 

A quick mention of Albie Duncan, who we saw in Gone Quiet as the Assistant Secretary of State, a grumpy old State Department veteran who was dismissive of Bartlet's foreign policy and military experience. Here he's brought in as a Republican to spin for the President at the debate (as a response to a North Carolina Democrat doing the same for Ritchie). Duncan has a couple of very sweet moments with CJ ("I like you. You're the one I like"), especially when CJ steps in in front of reporters and assures Duncan it's okay to have complicated, complex answers rather than simple, surface ones ("You're the one I like, too").

(We'll just skip over the fact that Duncan currently serves in Bartlet's own State Department, even if he is a Republican, and it really shouldn't be surprising as to why he'd be on hand to support the President at the debate ... I think Sorkin forgot exactly what position he had Duncan holding in Season 3.)

In other tie-related stories, Sam makes a quick side trip to Los Angeles before the debate in San Diego. As we've learned in the past couple of episodes, Sam has taken an interest in the congressional campaign of Horton Wilde, a Democrat running in heavily Republican Orange County, developing the notion that the party needs to find better candidates and make better races even in lost causes. And this cause is more lost than usual, as Wilde died of a heart attack about a week ago.

But the campaign goes on, as California election law says Wilde's name will stay on the ballot. Sam meets with the campaign manager, Will Bailey, in an effort to shut the campaign down as it's an embarrassment for the party. Bailey continues to charge forward:

Will: "Nothing I can do about California election laws. The man's name stays on the ballot." 

Sam: "Yes, but you can't keep campaigning without a candidate." 

Will: "It's a campaign of ideas." 

Sam: "The candidate died." 

Will: "But not the ideas. The metaphor alone knocks me down." 

He's not about to give up, even arguing with a staffer about the notion of wearing a bow tie for a press conference.

After finding a different tie and dealing with the reporters, Sam meets Will on the beach. He still wants the campaign to stop, but he sees something in this plucky, energetic young guy:

Sam: "What are you doing?" 

Will: "Sam, I swear to God I'm trying to win an election. I think you of all people would be able to recognize it when you saw it."

Will says Wilde's widow wants to find another Democrat to run in Wilde's place should the campaign pull out an extremely unlikely win, but she can't find anyone willing to be that sacrificial lamb.

This is where Sam ends up offering his own tie to Will, because the one he grabbed to replace his bow tie "doesn't go."

After the debate, when Sam returns to LA to turn in his rental car, he meets Will and his staff again in a bar. Talk in political circles has been buzzing about a speech given by the governor of California, and Sam knows (after watching his performance with the press) that Will is the author. As they talk about the future of the Wilde campaign and what politics is even all about, Sam makes a surprising admission:

Sam: "Listen, if you can't find a Democrat, tell Mrs. Wilde ... tell Kay that I'll do it."

Will: "Are you kidding?"

Sam: "Tell her I'm a magna cum laude graduate of Princeton and editor of the Duke Law Review. Tell her I've worked for congressmen and the DCCC. I have seven years at Gage Whitney, and for the last four I've served as Deputy Communications Director and Senior Counsel. Tell her I grew up two streets from here."

(As I mentioned at the beginning of Season 4, Sorkin has been setting up Rob Lowe's exit from the show ever since 20 Hours In America, by showing Sam's increased interest in actually being "in the room" and getting politics done instead of just being a speechwriter. Lowe, as I said, had been disappointed in his lack of a salary increase and reduced story lines, even as the rest of the cast got considerable pay bumps, and told the studio he wanted to leave the show. So now we see the way out for Sam ... and in a symbolic passing of the torch, Sam leaves his tie with Will when it's offered back.)

Those are the two big storylines here. What else? Well, Leo continues to take a stand against Qumar and their support of Ba'hi terrorists in the Middle East. I mentioned in recent episode recaps that I was somewhat surprised by Leo's anger and determination to strike back against Qumar, that it didn't seem to fit the same character who held the President back when he wanted to blow Syria off the face of the earth in A Proportional Response - but I totally forgot the personal connection here. Just as the President was angered by the loss of Dr. Morris Tolliver when Syria shot down his plane, Leo had just received an award from his friend Ben Yosef, the Israeli Foreign Minister ... who ended up killed when Ba'hi terrorists shot his plane down over Lebanon in The Red Mass.

That, of course, is the real reason Leo is so hellbent on not letting Qumar get away with the Mastico supplying weapons to terrorist camps. He and Jordon (brought in to give the administration legal cover in the situation) sit down with Qumar's United Nations ambassador and give him an ultimatum - turn the ship around or else. The ambassador continues to blame Israel for the loss of Sharif as well as its bombing of Ba'hi camps in Qumar. Jordon urges Leo to make a deal - give Qumar something so they'll turn the ship around, instead of threatening them. But the ambassador goes a step too far:

Nissir: "Mr. McGarry, I think we are both men, and we both know there is a charade being enacted here. I understand Western politics, and I understand President Bartlet is unable to admit Israel's complicity in the death of the Sultan's brother during a close election. So perhaps we could --"

(Leo starts to laugh)

Nissir: "Did I say something funny?"

Leo: "You think the President's afraid that if he admitted complicity in Sharif's death, he would lose votes in this country? To sweep all fifty states, the President would only need to do two things - blow the Sultan's brains out in Times Square, then walk across the street to Nathan's and buy a hot dog. Mr. Ambassador, you are going to turn the Mastico around. You are going to cease and desist any disinformation campaign that links the death of Sharif to Israel. And sometime next year, the Sultan is going to propose a Middle East peace plan - the Qumar plan - and win the Nobel Peace Prize. Make your phone call. I'll be waiting."

So that seems to wrap up most of the Qumar situation that was kicked off in The Black Vera Wang. Leo doesn't care if Qumar finds out the Bartlet administration killed Sharif - he wants them to stop supporting terrorism against America and he won't let up until they do.

We've also got a quick mention of Toby and Andy and their situation - they're having twins, but Andy is refusing to remarry Toby, despite his entreaties:

Toby: "Let's make it interesting. Let's add incentive. The President wins the debate tomorrow night and you marry me again." 

Andy: "How about the President wins the debate tomorrow night, he gets elected President again?" 

Toby: "See, that's the difference between you and me. You're small time. And that's why the twins are gonna need their father around full-time. Cause your thing would be a terrible trait. A terrible family trait to pass on to little ... Beatrice and Bluto." 

Andy: "I'm going to name them Beatrice and Bluto now. I don't care if they're boys or girls."

That's really all we get on that storyline in this episode. In the DVD commentary Sorkin mentions the original script ran about six minutes long, and one of the things that got cut was another Toby/Andy scene that involved flowers of some kind.

In general, when I think on top-notch West Wing episodes, this isn't one that immediately comes to mind - but every time I see it, I remember how good this one is. It really is an excellent overall offering of the series, well-written and well-played, with real moments of heart and feeling. So yeah, this one should go on the list. I need to stop forgetting about this one!

Tales Of Interest!

- Much like the previous episode (directed by Paris Barclay), we get a lot of handheld shaky camera work during this one. It's not a directorial tactic we've seen from Alex Graves before. In the DVD commentary Graves talks about the choice, saying Aaron Sorkin told him from the beginning this episode would be the real election episode, making the outcome clear even though the actual election is yet to come. Graves decided to go with the hand-held method to heighten tension and give the episode a different feel from the typical West Wing (although, coming right after Barclay's hand-held offering, it just made it two in a row).

- I will give credit, though, for some imaginative camera shots during the debate scenes. I thought this one (with the debate moderator seen through the camera eyepiece) was particularly good:

- And we also get the West Wing trademark technique of the camera spinning around characters, here as the staff decides to abandon the spin room and let the President's performance speak for itself (and yes, I get the meta-ness of a spinning camera in the spin room):

- Timeline: Leo tells Jordon that the Mastico was stopped "about a week ago" - that action occurred during the previous episode, Debate Camp. The debate also takes place on a Wednesday night, which is the night of the week The West Wing aired at the time, so we might say that debate actually occurred on October 30, 2002 ... less than a week before the election.

- In a world before smartphones and GPS, we get to see Sam fighting to fold a paper map in the wind as he gets out of his rental car outside the Mattress World in Newport Beach.

- Sorkin goes a little nuts with the characters saying "Game on" ...

* Leo says it to the President when he tells him he can't be too smart

* Sam says it as the group is leaving the President's staging room before the debate

* Abbey says, "Game on, boyfriend! Let's go!" just before she slices Jed's tie

* Josh exults "Game on!" after the President slams Ritchie with the "Can we have it back, please?" line

- The practice question from Toby that the President uses to rile him up - "If your youngest daughter, Zoey, was raped and murdered, would you not want to see the man responsible put to death?" - is an almost exact copy of a question asked to Michael Dukakis about his wife during a 1988 Presidential debate ("Governor, if Kitty Dukakis were raped and murdered, would you favor an irrevocable death penalty for the killer?"). President Bartlet's bloodless, overly logical answer also mirrored Dukakis' response ("No, I don't, Bernard, and I think you know I've opposed the death penalty during all of my life.").

Quotes    

Toby: "He's ready."

-----

Sam: "I'm Sam Seaborn. I'm here to see William Bailey. He's expecting me." 

Elsie: "Okay." 

Sam: "Hey ... William Bailey. Bill Bailey. I just got that." 

Elsie: "You should definitely mention that cause he's probably never heard that reference before." 

Sam: "Okay." 

Elsie: "It's Will." 

Sam (imitating Jimmy Stewart): "Merry Christmas, you old Building and Loan." 

Elsie: "That's George Bailey." 

----- 

CJ: "Look at me. He's not a little bit crazy?" 

Toby: "Albie Duncan?" 

CJ: "Yeah." 

Toby: "No ... no ... no ... a little bit." 

-----

Will: "Sixty percent is six of ten in a focus group. You change one mind, it's a dead heat. We change two, it's a landslide. This campaign's a mechanism of persuasion. We're not asking for a show of hands."

-----

(Will lists problems with current Representative Chuck Webb, his fistfights on the floor of Congress, his support for expansive gun rights, his protests frightening pregnant women)

Reporter: "What's your point?" 

Will: "There are worse things in the world than no longer being alive."

-----

Donna: "You know what? I think maybe you and the President are obsessing on the tie. I'm going to throw this notion out on the stoop and see if the cat licks it up. I think the President's performance in the debate had actually very little to do with the tie." 

Charlie: "Okay. You heard me say it was his game tie, right?"

----- 

Toby: "What do you think?" 

CJ: "I think it depends who shows up. If it's Uncle Fluffy, we've got problems. If it's the President, in his last campaign, his last debate, for the last job he'll ever have ... if the President shows up, I think it's going to be a sight to see, I mean a sight to see. What do you think?" 

Toby: "I think you're going to enjoy yourself tonight."

-----

(The President asks for a moment alone with Abbey before the debate begins. Everyone leaves except Toby, munching a carrot)

 

 Toby: "I just assumed you wanted to include me."

-----

Toby (watching the President eviscerate Ritchie in the debate): "I'm not sure I can watch any more. No, wait. I can. I can."

-----

President: "I'm the President of the United States, not the President of the people who agree with me."

-----

Will: "I thought he was going to have to fall all over himself trying to be genial." 

Sam: "So did we. But then we were convinced by polling that said he was going to be seen as arrogant no matter what performance he gave in the debates. And then, that morning at 3:10 my phone rings, and it's Toby Ziegler. He says, 'Don't you get it? It's a gift that they're irreversibly convinced that he's arrogant cause now he can be.'"

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

• The first appearance of Will Bailey, played by Joshua Malina (Scandal, The Big Bang Theory, Sports Night). Malina, a longtime collaborator with Sorkin (A Few Good Men on Broadway as well as the film, and Sorkin's earlier project Sports Night) is going to join the regular cast as Rob Lowe departs. 

• Danica McKellar (The Wonder Years) appears as Bailey's campaign staffer Elsie Snuffin (really, Sorkin, that's the name you're going with?), in what appears to possibly be a long-term role connected with Will Bailey. It doesn't work out that way, though.

 

• The return of Albie Duncan (Hal Holbrook), first seen in Gone Quiet; we also get the mention of Schweppe's Bitter Lemon, which Duncan said was his chosen beverage in that episode. In Gone Quiet, we learned Duncan was the Assistant Secretary of State, and had worked in the State Department since Truman (a Democrat); in this episode, we're told Duncan served in the State Department under Eisenhower (who came after Truman) and is a lifelong Republican, and the press might be surprised to see him speaking in support of a Democratic president after the debate. Well, if he's actually part of the Bartlet administration, why would that be a surprise?

 

• The Qumari ambassador to the United Nations, Ali Nissir, is played by familiar character actor Tony Amendola (The Mask Of Zorro, Stargate SG-1). 

• CJ's reference to the President's less assured, more easygoing side as "Uncle Fluffy" is a callback to The Two Bartlets, when Toby argued "He was Uncle Fluffy. It's Dr. Jekyll and Uncle Fluffy all over again" after the President gave a lukewarm answer on affirmative action at a campaign stop in Iowa.

• On Air Force One there's a quick shot of a TV screen showing Ritchie campaigning in North Carolina, with references to Ritchie's AMA speech shunning a needle exchange program - we saw that storyline playing out in The Red Mass. 

• Minnesota Senator Howard Stackhouse (George Coe) is seen in the background of the debate prep room getting a photograph taken with Abbey. He first appeared in The Stackhouse Filibuster and played a major part in the events of The Red Mass. 

• There's also a quick glimpse of Vice President Hoynes (Tim Matheson) hanging out in the debate prep room. In the DVD commentary Graves and Sorkin mention how much it helped the reality of the scene to have these two actors show up merely to be background extras.

 

• We haven't seen Debbie Fiderer since College Kids. Her absence is acknowledged when CJ asks, "When is Debbie actually starting?" and Leo answers by saying she's getting a "crash course in everything" at the Maxwell School. 

• We know Leo's marriage fell apart in Five Votes Down and his divorce papers were served in The Portland Trip ... but, much like the divorced Toby, he still wears his wedding band.

• In the mad dash down the hallway, we see Toby and then CJ trip through a doorway. Our introduction to CJ in Pilot was seeing her falling off a treadmill as she looked at her pager; later we saw her fall into her pool when Toby was meeting with her to have her join the campaign in In The Shadow Of Two Gunmen Part II.

• There's mention of the Bartlet daughters attending the debate, with Abbey specifically saying Ellie put on makeup for the event. We know there are three Bartlet daughters, but so far we have only met Zoey and Ellie and not the oldest (Elizabeth). We do see two younger women join Abbey to greet the President onstage after the event, but they are clearly not the daughters we've met - they must be granddaughters.

• Speaking of Ellie, in her first appearance in early 2001 (Ellie), she was described as being 24 years old. Now, in October 2002, Abbey says she's 27. That math does not add up.  

• Jordon also mentions Leo's daughter Mallory, who we last saw in 20 Hours In America Part Two.

• The debate moderator, Alexander Thompson, is played by John Aniston, recognizable for his long-running role in the daytime drama Days Of Our Lives. He's also the father of Jennifer Aniston of Friends fame. 

• Sam gives us more background on himself; he graduated magna cum laude from Princeton, was editor of the Duke Law Review (there's actually no such thing, it's called the Duke Law Journal), and worked at Gage Whitney for seven years. We saw him leave that firm in what would have been early 1998 in In The Shadow Of Two Gunmen. 

• Story threads from previous episodes include the tension between Toby and the President over how smart to appear in the campaign (since The Two Bartlets); Sam's itch to get involved more on the political elected-office side (since 20 Hours In America); the issue of Qumar sponsoring terrorism and the Bartlet-ordered assassination of Sharif (since the end of The Black Vera Wang); and the relationship between Toby and Andy, with her pregnancy and Toby's repeated pleas for her to marry him again (the fact they were previously married was revealed in Mandatory Minimums, while the pregnancy storyline began in Debate Camp).

DC location shots 

• None.

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

• Leo says Debbie is getting a crash course at the Maxwell School, probably meaning the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs which is located in Syracuse, New York. Sorkin has mentioned the school before - it's where Stephanie Gault teaches international relations in Somebody's Going To Emergency, Somebody's Going To Jail and the school's program in Diplomacy and International Relations was also mentioned as a place Jordon Kendall attended in College Kids.

• In the discussion about ties and which one will look best on television, the advisers say "they're broadcasting in HD digital now and with the pixels." The first HD broadcasts in the United States were in 1998, and were extremely limited for the next few years. Cable and satellite programmers didn't start carrying HD content until 2003 (a year after this episode aired), and the full transition to digital TV broadcasts did not happen until 2009.

• The Eisenhower administration gets a mention, as Toby says Albie Duncan was part of that State Department (in Gone Quiet it was said he'd worked in the State Department since Truman).

• Will makes a joke about Wendell Willkie being their candidate - Willkie ran against Franklin Roosevelt in the 1940 presidential election.

• When Will rants about Chuck Webb and his support of the NRA and various weapons, he clearly mentions AK-57s. There's no such thing - the AK-47 is, of course, a famous military rifle developed by Soviet weapons maker Mikhail Kalishnikov. 

• Sam says Will should offer Winston Churchill as his candidate should the Wilde campaign win the election.

• The USS Austin was indeed, as Leo says, an LPD (landing platform, dock) vessel in the US Navy. In 2002 the Austin actually was in the Mediterranean supporting operations in Kosovo and in Africa. It was not, however, a San Antonio-class vessel - that class was originated in 2000 (the Austin entered service in 1965). The ship was decommissioned in 2006 and sold for scrap in 2009.

• Jordon mentions the Boland Amendment, an 1980s-era law limiting the ability of the US government to assist groups trying to overthrow foreign governments. This would have a direct application to Bartlet's ordering of the assassination of Qumari Defense Minister Sharif in Posse Comitatus.

• Jordon also brings up Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizarro.

• We clearly see both MSNBC and CSPAN logos in coverage of the debate. NBC has used their own cable news network in The West Wing before (first in What Kind Of Day Has It Been) which makes plenty of sense in a synergistic way, but the cable news operations we see in the background aren't always MSNBC, so it's notable when it is. 

• The President says Florida didn't fight Germany in World War II.

• CJ uses the example of fighters Muhammad Ali and George Foreman when she comes up with her "no-spin" strategy ("It's the punch Ali never gave Foreman when he was going down").

• We hear The Grass Roots' song Midnight Confessions as Sam meets Will at the bar.

• Heineken is Sam's beer at that bar (it looks like Will might be drinking a Corona).

End credits freeze frame: An odd choice, as no one is facing the camera - a shot of the President and Governor Ritchie during the debate.

Previous episode: Debate Camp

Next episode: Election Night

Debate Camp - TWW S4E5

 

Original airdate: October 16, 2002

Teleplay by: Aaron Sorkin (69)
Story by: William Sind (1)  & Michael Oates Palmer (1)

Directed by: Paris Barclay (3)

Synopsis

• Debate preparations force the staffers and the President to re-live a botched Attorney General nomination, bringing us flashbacks to the early days of the administration trying to find their way around the West Wing. President Bartlet considers how to react to a Qumari ship on its way to arm terrorists. Amy and Josh continue their flirtation over policy wording, and Toby drops a bombshell.

"Well, we may as well get used to having meetings in the corridors from now on. It may be our only hope."

How we react to mistakes in our past can tell us a lot about ourselves. Do we obsess over them, constantly berating ourselves in our minds about what we did or should have done? Or do we take time to consider the factors around the misstep, and try to learn from them and improve ourselves going forward?

We viewers have already seen Aaron Sorkin and the Bartlet administration deal with the, frankly, massive "mistake" of Jed's failure to reveal his health status during his run for President, and we've seen both approaches being taken at various times. I would argue the trend for President Bartlet - eventually, anyway - bends more towards learning from the situation than obsessing over it. Well, here we go again, with a much less pivotal issue than Jed's MS, but one that the staff argues must be addressed as the campaign's lone debate looms.

As "debate camp" proceeds at an actual camping resort in North Carolina, Sam (playing the part of Governor Ritchie) brings up the fiasco of Bartlet nominating an Attorney General who wasn't quite what Jed thought he was. President Bartlet snaps at Sam for bringing it up - "Because bite me, that's why" - as he's still sore at Sam for being right about it in the first place. The topic brings us ... flashbacks! Going back in time, just like In The Shadow Of Two Gunmen or Bartlet For America, and we can tell these are flashbacks because once again CJ has her frizzy hairstyle that she wore when she joined the campaign:

As we go back in the mists of time, back to the transition period of January 1999, we see most of the staff are excited that Cornell Rooker, an up-and-coming African-American US attorney, agreed to accept Bartlet's nomination for Attorney General. Sam might be the one exception, concerned a bit about Rooker's attitude towards privacy issues, but then ... CJ's chance encounter with a Christian conservative who enthusiastically backs Rooker over his opinion on racial profiling opens a can of worms. Turns out Rooker has said that he thinks racial profiling - using race as grounds to suspect someone of committing a crime - is an important tool for law enforcement. This is not a part of the Democratic Party platform, nor is it an opinion shared by President Bartlet.

Toby, Josh, and CJ work furiously through the early days after inauguration to address the backlash to Rooker. Josh comes up with the buzzword:

Josh: "Here it is. 'Take a thorough look at Cornell Rooker's record, you'll see -"

Toby: "Yes."

Josh: " - he's fought for justice his entire career. If you take a thorough look at Cornell Rooker's record, you'll see he's fought for justice his entire career.'"

Toby: "I don't want to be able to turn my head tomorrow without reading that quote."

In very Sorkin-esque hubristic fashion, naturally this blows up in their faces:

CJ: "Well, I did a one-on-one with Danny Concannon a few days ago on Rooker."

Toby: "Did you say, 'If you take a thorough look at Cornell Rooker's record ... ?"

CJ: "Yes, as a matter of fact."

Toby: "And?"

CJ: "He did."

Toby: "Oh, man."

It turns out Rooker had a DUI ticket fixed in law school, so the background check obviously hadn't been done very well for this choice. Rooker's name is withdrawn, the fledging Bartlet administration gets spanked for getting ahead of itself, and Leo reads the depressing results of the public opinion polls:

Leo: "Our report card for our first two weeks in office. The President's approval has gone from 61% during the transition - when, I suppose, there's nothing to approve - to 49% once there was. Forty-seven percent see him as a strong leader - a result of bungling the Rooker nomination - and African-American support, which basically elected him, has gone from 92 to 78."

Back in the present, as President Bartlet has had a chance to reflect on the issue while the staff tries to come up with a good answer for the debate, he and Sam have a little heart-to-heart.

President: "You pay for these things for such a long time. Too long, don't you think?"

Sam: "I absolutely do - and I don't know why we struggle with it."

President: "We made a mistake, I corrected it. I'll make more."

Sam: : "Yes. Humans can't rebut that. It's prevent defense and it has the added merit of being true."

President Bartlet is also dealing with military issues at this debate sleepaway camp. A Qumari ship bearing some fairly high-tech munitions has been spotted in the Mediterranean, undoubtedly bound for Ba'hi terrorist camps. Bartlet is willing to negotiate, to give Qumar something in order to turn the ship around, but Leo expresses a surprisingly hard line:

President: "Well, for the moment, they haven't stood up, but in the meantime let's think of something we can give them when they do."

Leo: "That's what we should do in the meantime?"

President: "Leo ..."

Leo: "We should think of something we can give them?"

President: "Honey, if we're going to have this fight, can we not do it in front of the Joint Chiefs? It just scares the hell out of them."

Eventually, though, Leo's point carries the day (with help from Admiral Fitzwallis and Nancy, of course). Instead of making a deal with Qumar, President Bartlet makes plans for the Navy to stop and board the ship. This is less a matter of learning from a past mistake as it is President Bartlet listening to his advisers instead of taking the easy way out (and it's also a diametrically opposite reaction of the characters of Jed and Leo compared to the end of  "Post Hoc, Ergo Propter Hoc" when Jed was ready to blow Syria off the face of the earth before Leo pulled him back). 

You know who else is dealing with a mistake in the past? Well, just about everybody in this episode, but let's mention Josh first. You recall from Posse Comitatus that right when Josh and Amy's budding relationship was going great guns, their opposing stances on a welfare reform bill eventually caused Josh to undercut Amy's position at the Womens' Leadership Council, costing her her job. While they've bumped into each other in recent episodes (with Amy advising Senator Stackhouse on his quixotic campaign), they still haven't really addressed what happened at the end of last season. We know Amy's still yearning (her whispered "I miss you"s from College Kids made that obvious), and here we see Josh, in his own weird, arrogant, braggadocio-filled way, show he's still thinking about her, too. 

CJ asks Josh to call Amy to get some material for the debate about support for families, without making it seem anti-feminist. Josh calls her, multiple times, tossing in just enough little comments to show there's still something going on - from mentioning her "date" for the evening is still married, to telling her (during her dinner with the married guy!) he's going to call her again "at a really bad time," to saying "you'll never lose me" when she's getting ready to go back into her apartment. Amy has just the right thing to say for the President, of course, and the future of these two kooky lovebirds may still be up in the air - but Amy's face after Josh says he'll call her back after 1:00 am tells us a lot:

"Good."

Donna also makes a mistake, in the flashback, falling for an outlandish story about nuclear missiles under the White House, a story told her by her predecessor in order to make her look foolish in a magazine story. It works, causing Josh to react with his typical overblown arrogant confidence since he would never fall for such a ploy:

Josh: "This is just like when I played the lead in Li'l Abner in eighth grade and rehearsals are going fine. All of a sudden there's sets and lights and costumes, and everyone's tripping all over themselves except me. You guys all walked into the building and got freaked by the lights. I walked in and, you know, something else happened."

Donna gets the last laugh, convincing another staffer to pretend to be an NSA official coming to Josh to tell him that Donna's interview may have revealed more secrets than she realized. Josh freaks out, which gives Donna a much-needed win as the administration just gets started. 

Then we have Toby. We found out in Mandatory Minimums that he was divorced, and his ex-wife, Andy Wyatt, was a Congresswoman with whom he still had at least a professional relationship with. But we didn't get any background into that family life, not then, anyway. But what about now?

First, in the present, Rep. Wyatt is part of the team helping the President with debate prep. We see her and Toby playfully spar a bit, as Toby is pressing her on something important:

Toby: "I need you to look at a couple of answers on defense readiness. I need concrete examples of waste in Pentagon procurement. We need two more members of the IRC for post spin. I need you to fill out this marriage license and paperwork for a joint checking account and review this 60-second answer on Rwanda."

Andy: "Okay, okay, okay, and, um, under no circumstances, and sure." 

We flash back to the transition in 1999. The couple are having issues with conceiving, we discover - we find out they're apparently trying in-vitro fertilization, and a later flashback scene informs us that Andy's immune system is making it difficult for her to get pregnant (and she needs Toby's white-blood cells to help). In both cases, Toby missteps with his responses - first, when Andy is saying the fertility clinic needs more contributions from him, he asks if it can "wait five days" until the inauguration, which brings this reaction from Andy:

And in the midst of the discussion about white-blood cells and immune systems, Toby steps right in it.

Toby: "You don't have to sell me. It sounds like something we should try ... but let me ask you something, and bear in mind that I'm happy, I'm ... eager to go to as many doctors as there are - but should we talk about a stop date?"

Andy: "You mean talk about adoption?"

Toby: "Yeah, we can talk about adopting."

Andy: "You meant a stop date stop date."

Toby: "I meant adopting. I meant surrogacy. And yes, I love kids and I want them and I don't have to have them -"

Andy: "I want them."

Which gives us this look from Andy:

And now, maybe, we start to realize the issues that caused these two to break up. In some ways it's a reminder of how Leo's marriage went belly-up in Five Votes Down - the job of working in the White House becomes all-consuming, leaving no time for a wife or children or any kind of family life. But why is Toby anxious to get back together now? Why is he after Andy to remarry him?

Charlie, Josh, and Sam recognize there's heat between the two during the debate sessions, so they put together a "Team Toby" to support him in his efforts to win Andy back - efforts which are only redoubled when Toby drops a huge bombshell on everyone, viewers included:

Josh: "Why don't you do your job as a man and get that nice girl pregnant?"

Toby: "I did."

 Josh (pause): "Wait, what?"

CJ: "What?"

Toby: "Andy's pregnant."

Josh: "Toby ... Andy's pregnant?"

Toby: "With twins."

 Sam: "This is incredible."

Josh: "And they're yours?"

Toby: "Yeah."

Josh: "Both of them?" 

Toby recognizes his mistakes from 3 1/2 years ago, and now he's trying to make up for them - Andy is pregnant, and he's wanting to re-assemble that family unit that he let go awry in 1999.

Mistakes of the past - they can keep eating away at us eternally, or we can use them as examples to make us better, more productive, more essential members of humanity. I guess I leave it to you to see which way Sorkin wants us to see our characters here. 

 

Tales Of Interest!

- Paris Barclay goes a little nuts with the shaky, hand-held camera style in this episode. I believe that's become a much more common television technique in recent years (along with the faux-documentary style of The Office, Modern Family, and the like), but it was probably slightly unusual for 2002, and, in my opinion, doesn't really fit the "vibe" of The West Wing. Certain, hectic, active scenes with a time-crunch element, that might work, but just normal conversations in Leo's office? I did not care for it. Barclay used camera motion a bit in his first time directing for the show, The Portland Trip, but it was more subtle and worked well there, I thought. The scenes shot through glass showing a reflection in that glass? Also used in that episode as well as this one.

The Portland Trip:

This episode:

- There is no Saybrook Institute for Public Policy. There is, however, a Faith, North Carolina, a small town of fewer than 1000 people between Charlotte and Winston-Salem.

- Another look at where Qumar is located, hidden away on a monitor in the background. As we've seen before, in The West Wing world Qumar is along the Straits of Hormuz in what is in reality southern Iran, with Dubai and the United Arab Emirates on that peninsula jutting northward.

- That's an interesting look at Joey's electoral map. From what I can see, it shows Bartlet with California, Minnesota, Illinois, New York, Maryland, Delaware, Vermont, and Hawaii, and a total of 178 electoral votes. After taking Ohio out of Ritchie's column and moving New Hampshire into it, Ritchie has 189 EVs, with 170 still up for grabs. A quick bit of math shows that's only 537 total electoral votes when there are actually 538, and have been since DC was awarded 3 EVs in 1964. Perhaps the show runners looked at the results of the 2000 presidential election, when only 537 EVs were cast (because one DC elector abstained as a protest against DC's lack of any other federal representation). 

Anyway, it's a really close race with a lot of states up-for-grabs considering it's less than a month to the election.

Also, check out the toss-ups and how different things are almost 20 years later. The evergreens we're familiar with - Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, Florida, Pennsylvania - but also some states that haven't been close to toss-ups in years: Tennessee? West Virginia? Arkansas? Washington? West Virginia is a special case; once a dedicated Democratic stronghold (only going Republican in three elections between 1932 and 1996), that state has gone hard right with over 60% of the vote going to Republicans in 2012 and 2016.

Also - New England? Maine, New Hampshire - New Hampshire, Bartlet's home state? I know they make a big deal about how embarrassing it would be for him to lose New Hampshire, but how would that even be possible? Not enough support for the salmon industry, maybe, Josh?

- It's kind of interesting (and probably fun for the set decorating staff) to see the emptiness of the Oval Office and President Bartlet's desk immediately after taking office. No paperweights, no family photographs, fewer decorations on the side tables.

Quotes    

(Sam and the President are practicing the debate) 

Sam (as Ritchie): "I don't know how you can talk about providing opportunity, while at the same time supporting racial profiling."

President: "What the hell is -- I don't support racial profiling." 

Sam: "Your nominee for Attorney General did. Can you tell us why you nominated him?"

President: "Why?"

Sam: "Yes."

President: "Cause bite me, that's why."  

-----

President: "I agreed to be locked up with you people for 48 hours. How much time do I have left?"

Leo: "47 hours, 41 minutes." 

----- 

Toby: "Let's line up people for IP, the mornings ... 'Cornell Rooker has an exceptional record as a US Attorney ... a leader in fighting unemployment discrimination ... was college chair of ... he's tough on crime, he's fair on justice.' That's the line. Say that. (beat) Do not say that.  What the hell was that? 'He's tough on crime, he's fair on justice'? Sings a song, has a mustache? What is that supposed to -?"

CJ: "Toby's gone to the zoo."

Leo: "Yeah, I think we may have killed these two guys with inauguration."

-----

President: "What are we doing right now?"

Mrs. Landingham: "We're choosing pictures from the collection at the National Gallery."

President: "They'll loan stuff?"

Mrs. Landingham: "Anything you want in the National Gallery or the whole Smithsonian."

President: "Really?"

Mrs. Landingham: "Yeah."

President: "I want Apollo 11."

Mrs. Landingham: "Well, you can't have that."

President: "Then don't bother me." 

----- 

CJ: "Six hundred thousand evangelicals are praying for me, so ... we have that going for us."

Leo: "What the hell are you talking about?"

CJ: "It's true - a guy gave me this card. '365 In Media.'"

Sam: "Who are the others?"

CJ: I don't know, let's see ... Hugh Hefner, Don Imus, Howard Stern, all the late-night guys. This is ... one, two, three ... the editorial board of the New York Times. (realizing) This isn't a good list, this is a list of people who are going to hell!"

Toby: "Yes."

CJ: "They aren't praying for me because they like me. It's cause I'm doomed to eternal damnation!"

Sam: "Well, if you weren't, it'd be a waste of praying."

CJ: "You're on the list, too, pal."

-----

Josh: "We're gonna do better for you, boss."

Leo: "Do better for him."

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

• Congresswoman Andy Wyatt (Kathleen York), ex-wife of Toby, reappears both in the present and in the flashback scenes. We first saw her in Mandatory Minimums and her most recent appearance came in Night Five. We also learn they were still married and trying to figure out how to conceive in January 1999, although when the series began in the fall of that year the couple was already divorced. Andy is going to stick around for a few episodes here.

• Martin Sheen is well-known for not being able to remember people's names, and Sorkin and the writing staff made that a trait of President Bartlet's as well. Here he can't remember the name of Joey's sign-language interpreter:

President: "How you doing there, Joey? Kippy?"

Josh: "Kenny."

President: "Okay."  

• The names Hutchinson and Berryhill are mentioned as "Secretaries" - they were first referred to in A Proportional Response, and they constantly come up in foreign policy/military frameworks. I think Hutchinson may be the Secretary of Defense; I'm not sure which Cabinet position Berryhill holds.

• Leo also mentions "Peter from State;" we've seen someone named Peter offer foreign policy advice in the Situation Room and the Oval Office in the past (he first appeared in In The Shadow Of Two Gunmen Part I, then was seen regarding the Haiti embassy situation between 18th And Potomac and Manchester, as well as giving info on the Middle East situation in 20 Hours In America Part One). He doesn't actually appear in this episode, but here is Victor McCay as Peter in his most recent appearance. 

• Cornell Rooker, Bartlet's original nominee for Attorney General, is referred to as an African-American US Attorney from Florida. In A Proportional Response we learned the Attorney General at that time was African-American, although it couldn't have been Rooker because his nomination was withdrawn. In Lies, Damn Lies And Statistics we saw the Attorney General, Dan Larson, and he most certainly was not an African-American.

• Sam's concern with Rooker and privacy issues that we see in the flashback ties in nicely with his similar concerns with Bartlet's Supreme Court pick in Season 1:

Sam (talking about the Supreme Court in The Short List): "It's not about abortion. It's about the next twenty years. Twenties and thirties, it was the role of government. Fifties and sixties, it was civil rights. The next two decades, it's gonna be privacy. I'm talking about the Internet. I'm talking about cell phones. I'm talking about health records, and who's gay and who's not."

---- 

Sam (here in a flashback which actually would have been prior to his quote above, referring to Rooker): "I thought there might be more conversations about the more conservative tendencies."

Leo: "Like privacy?"

Sam: "Yes." 

• There's Mrs. Landingham in flashback, helping President Bartlet pick out artwork.

• Sorkin makes a sly reference to the "walk and talk" scenes that this show made famous, giving us a kind of "creation story" in a flashback as to why these staffers spent so much time talking while they were on the move in the corridors:

Josh: "WW-160, you been able to find it?"

Sam: "I don't even know where I am right now."

Josh: "I'm looking on this side again."

Sam: "Do you mind if I talk to you while we walk?"

Josh: "Well, we may as well get used to having meetings in the corridors from now on. It may be our only hope."

(later)

Josh: "I should be sitting at my desk right now. Do I have a desk yet?"

Donna: "No."

Josh: "Then I'll just ... walk around some more. See if I can get into a pickup meeting." 

• Also, when Josh is introducing himself to his staff and asking where WW-160 is, we see Ginger! "I haven't seen it," she mutters as she passes by. So we know she's been here since the beginning (we actually first saw her in A Proportional Response as an aide to Toby, and she first had spoken lines in In Excelsis Deo).

• The producers of the show rebuilt the sets between Seasons 1 and 2. Toby's office in Season 1 had a solid wall next to the doorway, between his office and Sam's. Since Season 2, there's been glass in that wall. 

Here's what Toby's office wall looked like at the end of Season 1 - this would have been after the timeframe of the flashback scenes we see in this episode. Note that it's a solid wall behind where his door opens.

And here we see Toby's office in a flashback scene in this episode, a time prior to the image above ... and there's a window in that same area, just as there is in the "present" time. 

• It's somewhat jarring to see Leo take such a hard line on American military response to Qumar (particularly compared to his standing up to President Bartlet's impulse to blow up Syria in A Proportional Response). His relentless grilling of an innocent suspect after an unspecified terror incident in Isaac And Ishmael, though, seems to be a foreshadowing of his hawkishness towards Qumar and their sponsorship of terrorism here. In truth, he's kind of a stand-in for the attitude of many American people towards terrorism after 9/11.

• The Horton Wilde storyline in the California 47th and Sam's urging for White House support in more congressional districts from The Red Mass continues.

• Danny Concannon gets a mention in the flashback scenes to the administration's early days. We never see him here (he hasn't appeared since The Portland Trip), but it's a nice callback for CJ to specifically mention him as the administration gets started, both in the scene where she's trying to memorize where the reporters sit in the briefing room and also as the guy who actually did "take a thorough look at Cornell Rooker's record" to dig up some dirt in his past.

• Speaking of the briefing room, much like Toby's office that I mentioned above, the briefing room got a big upgrade early in Season 1. This was our first look at the press briefing room in Pilot (and again, this scene would have occurred in the fall of 1999, after the flashback scene of CJ practicing in this episode):

But this is how we see the briefing room in this episode from early 1999. It looks just like it's looked since "Post Hoc, Ergo Propter Hoc":

• Also in that briefing room flashback we see Carol as CJ's aide right after the inauguration. We originally saw Carol working with Toby in Five Votes Down, and didn't see her working with CJ until The Crackpots And These Women. There were a couple of other unnamed staffers seen helping with CJ's briefings before that.

• After the Rooker nomination is withdrawn and Leo goes over the poor poll results after the administration's first two weeks in office, we can see the origin of those approval ratings that were such a sore subject throughout much of Season 1. Leo says President Bartlet's approval ratings went from 61% to 49% after the problem with Rooker's nomination. Throughout Season 1 we hear several times that the administration is stuck with a 48% approval rating.

• Josh and Amy continue their flirtatious re-connection, after they got together late last season and then broke up because Josh's political maneuvers to pass a welfare reform bill got her fired from her job. Even when Amy's on a "date" they're flirting over the phone, over policy wording. What a couple of nerds.

Josh (on the phone): "How you doing?"

Amy: "I'm freezing."

Josh: "Where are you?"

Amy: "I'm at my front door."

Josh: "Well, go inside."

Amy: "I can't, I'll lose you."

Josh: "You'll never lose me, Amy."

Amy (beat): "Please don't say that."

And then the small smile on Amy's face after Josh tells her he'll call her back at 1:00 am and she says, "Good."

 

• After Toby reveals his pregnancy bombshell, Charlie says "Well, we're going to have to step this up now" about Team Toby, to which CJ replies, "Yeah! We're gonna get hats!" That's kind of a reference to something that happens after the twins are born.

• WHAT'S NEXT MOMENT - Josh says "Break's over" as he sends everyone off to work on debate topics, just as President Bartlet told his staff at the end of Pilot.

DC location shots    

• The Bartlet transition office is located at 1900 K Street, as we can see that address both in the building's windows facing the street and on the lobby wall during the tense "sperm donation" scene between Toby and Andy. As you can see from the Street View of that building, this scene was definitely filmed in that lobby at 1900 K Street.

• There are shots of Amy biking near the Jefferson Memorial and the Tidal Basin.

• Amy's date with Peter Harlow was outside the now-closed Signatures restaurant in Market Square near the Navy Memorial, a favorite location for West Wing shots. The fountains behind Harlow are undoubtedly the Navy Memorial fountains we've seen in The Women Of Qumar and other episodes. Interestingly, Signatures was owned by Jack Abramoff, the lobbyist made famous as Casino Jack who used the restaurant to launder funds given by Native American tribes into free meals and drinks for members of Congress.

• When Josh calls Amy after her date, catching her on her apartment stairs, that scene was filmed in the Dupont Circle neighborhood.

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

• Donna is tricked into believing there's a missile silo under the Eisenhower putting green. This does raise the question - is the silo under the green established by Eisenhower in 1954, or the green re-installed in a different location by President Clinton in the 1990s? Or, in The West Wing universe, did the putting green stay in its original position without a Clinton presidency?

• Mrs. Landingham points out paintings by Leonardo Da Vinci ("Madonna and Child with Pomegranate") and Botticelli ("Adoration of the Magi") as suggestions for loan to the White House; both paintings are indeed among the National Gallery of Art archives (although the gallery attributes the first painting to da Vinci's student Lorenzo di Credi). The Smithsonian is also mentioned, to which President Bartlet responds by asking if he can have Apollo 11 at the White House.

• Donna's magazine profile describes her wearing Selia Yang slacks and a DKNY button-down.

• While ragging on Donna for being gullible, Josh quotes the profile calling her "Bambi-esque" and also mentions how he played the lead in Li'l Abner in eighth grade (fun fact: I have also played the lead in Li'l Abner, as a high school junior, singing songs like If I Had My Druthers and Jubilation T. Cornpone).

• CJ refers to the new administration being called the "Capitol Clampetts" by the Washington press, a reference to the TV show The Beverly Hillbillies.

• Joey asks why Sam wants the President to go to districts where the last Democrat won by "railing against Abraham Lincoln."

• Josh brings up Cher and Sonny while talking to Amy on the phone. 

• President Bartlet refers to Star Wars in a discussion about military defense, which brings to mind the 1977 film that was the inspiration for the nickname of the Reagan-era Strategic Defense Initiative.

• As Leo lists the poor poll numbers after the botching of the Rooker nomination, he says if the election were held right now Bartlet would be chair of the economics department at the Phillips Andover Academy instead of President.

• Among the media notables being prayed for by Kingspeak magazine readers (in addition to CJ and Sam) are Hugh Hefner, Don Imus, and Howard Stern.

• There's a can of Sprite on the dinner table at debate camp between Toby and Sam (along with a nice-looking plate of pasta that Toby hasn't even touched yet).

• That's an HP laptop in front of CJ as she begins the practice debate. It's notable that we saw a lot of Apple/Mac products in the first couple of seasons; not so much any more.

End credits freeze frame: Mrs. Landingham going over artwork with President Bartlet.

Previous episode: The Red Mass

Next episode: Game On