The California 47th - TWW S4E16

 

Original airdate: February 19, 2003

Teleplay by: Aaron Sorkin (78)
Story by: Lauren Schmidt (2) & Paula Yoo (2)

Directed by: Vincent Misiano (3)

Synopsis

• A Presidential trip to help Sam in his special election goes awry, from clashes with his campaign staff to traffic tieups to slurs against the French to meetings with California Communists. The genocide in Kundu accelerates as the ruling party tries to finish the job before the American deadline, and the capture of three American soldiers heats up the situation even more. Will gets a new writing staff made up of interns. Toby and Charlie end up in jail after a scuffle over Andy at a hotel bar.
  

"If I'm going to lose, I'd like to lose doing something."

There's a lot going on here. And I'm just not sure it all lands very successfully.

I know hectic, events-driven episodes can be a hallmark of The West Wing; I've even praised Aaron Sorkin in the past for crafting well-balanced, satisfying stories out of the administration keeping multiple plot-related plates spinning while barely keeping its head above water as the hold on current events slips away. He's good at it. I just don't think he's very good at it here. To be honest, his hands are tied a little bit with the special election timeline and the Equatorial Kundu story and Will's writing staff (and Andy's pregnancy!) all meant to take multiple episodes to resolve, but ... that's still on Sorkin, right? These are his stories!

It's not just that there are multiple main plotlines, it's that every one of them seems to have expanding tendrils that make them more complicated and take more of our mental time dealing with them. The trip to California to help Sam campaign, that's a major plot, and you can include Scott Holcomb's handling of the campaign and the traffic issues and even the slam against the French in the "major" part; but then you add on the back-and-forth about when to announce the tax plan (which could be a major plotline on its own) and Donna's unwitting meeting with a Communist ... that's a lot. The episode opens with the ongoing storyline of the situation in Kundu, with American military forces taking over the airport in the capital; but that gets complex with the Kundunese president's demands and the escalating pace of the genocide to try to beat the American deadline and then - then - the capture of three American soldiers. Will's storyline with his writing staff quitting and his attempts to corral four interns into helping him write presidential comments is another episode plot - and I haven't even gotten to the bar scuffle that gets Toby and Charlie arrested, or the fact that Jean-Paul is along on this trip for some reason.

So, yeah. Not sure this goes high on the pantheon.

Let's begin with Sam's campaign. To recap, last fall Will ran a campaign for a Democratic House candidate in a heavily Republican district in California. The candidate, Horton Wilde, ended up dying before the election. Sam, knowing a Democrat (especially a dead one) would have zero chance to win, promised Wilde's widow he'd step in as the candidate if there was a special election. Will's campaign was strong enough (and enough factors coincided in the right way) that Wilde ended up winning, Sam kept his promise, and about 90 days later, here we are.

The Will-Wilde Democratic magic isn't holding up, though. As President Bartlet and his advisors make a trip out to Orange County to campaign for their old compatriot, Sam finds himself eight or nine points behind with about a week to go. Scott Holcomb, the big-time campaign manager sent out by the national party (and vouched for by Will in Game On, remember), is having Sam cozy up to business interests instead of the Democratic working-class base. Those tactics aren't appreciated by Will or the rest of Sam's friends:

CJ: "I think Holcomb's been making bad mistakes with you, Sam. I think Josh has been right."

Toby: "I know Josh has been right and if you think that's easy for me to say -"

Josh: "He's got you with business."

Sam: "He says it's how a Democrat wins Orange County."

Josh: "Has a Democrat ever won Orange County?"

The answer, of course, is YES! Just three months ago! A Democrat won an election in Orange County! Yes, he happened to be dead, and yes, the campaign got the unlikely and never-to-be-repeated trifecta of bad weather on Election Night/a presidential race decided early in the day/an overconfident Republican Party not spending any time on the race ... but for Holcomb to claim the only way a Democrat can win the district is by ignoring everything Will did the previous year and by sucking up to Republican-leaning business owners (who gladly checked the box for Chuck Webb the previous seven elections and will happily do it again) seems ... I don't know, disqualifying as a Democratic Party operative? 

Sam knows it's not a good situation, but his hands are tied. Toby is begging him to let him take over the campaign for the final week, but Sam can't do it. He can't really fire Holcomb, who is the best the DNC has to offer in a race that's the only one going on in the nation at the time. Not even when Holcomb encourages Sam to separate himself from the President on this trip, and not even when Holcomb finds out the administration is delaying the announcement of their tax plan in an effort to help (or at least, not hurt) Sam, and then he tells Sam to come out against it. That tax plan for deductible college tuition, you'll remember, Sam played a key role in developing after the events of 20 Hours In America, Part 2 and College Kids. Even then, he still doesn't really have the power to fire him.

But someone else does - the leader of the Democratic Party, one Josiah Bartlet, President of the United States. And when Holcomb basically admits he's not in this race to win it, but just to pad his own resume, the decision is swift:

President: "Scott?"

Holcomb: "Yes, sir?"

President: "Why are you putting Sam next to business?"

Holcomb: "Sir ..."

President: "No, I'm just curious."

Holcomb: "You read numbers as well as anyone, sir. Webb's going to win here. That's not a surprise. So why burn the DNC's bridges -"

President (cutting him off): "Josh?"

Josh: "Yes, sir?"

President: "Tell Toby to take over the campaign."

Luckily, Toby is available for a while, because as Josh says, "Toby probably can't leave the state anyway." Toby and Charlie were arrested for assault in a hotel bar, after an outspokenly rude patron insulted Andy, Toby's ex-wife Congressperson who is pregnant with Toby's twins (it's a long story, hopefully you've been along for the ride).

These two - who first accost Andy with "Those kids you got in there deserve a father," I mean, who says that? - are a real couple of peaches. Obviously meant to represent the "typical" conservative Republican Orange Countian, things get real weird when Toby stands up to force the guy to give Andy some space, and then when Charlie comes in to help, the wife says, "This is the one who was with the daughter." Racist much?

Unseen by us, we're later told the guy slipped, there was some contact, Charlie threw a punch, and Toby and Charlie wind up in the local hoosegow.

(Andy being along on the trip to support Sam is a hoot, especially the scene where Toby discovers she's on Air Force One - and how did he not realize that until the aircraft was over Arizona?

Toby: "Oh, my god. Have you been on the plane the whole time?"

Andy: "No, I hopped on board when you guys were over the Great Lakes.")

So that makes it rather convenient for Toby (and Charlie) to hang around southern California for a bit longer and help out Sam.

Continuing with Sam and the tax plan, we learn at the beginning of the episode that the administration is still waiting on final scoring of their plan before they can officially announce it. The Republicans jump on the chance to gain the initiative, rolling out their plan first (as the President is on his way to California). That plan, naturally, cuts taxes drastically, fifteen percent across the board plus a 50 percent cut on capital gains. That's a huge contrast to the Bartlet proposal, which raises tax rates one percent on the top one percent of incomes in order to pay for the full deductibility of college tuition.

The President and his advisors know making that plan public while they are on the campaign trip will sink Sam in Orange County, making it easy for the Republicans to tie Sam directly to higher taxes and the administration (which won't play well in a district that has a lot of those top-one-percent of incomes). So they decide to hold off on the announcement, not even telling Sam about their play.

When Sam finds out, he is not pleased. He doesn't want to run away from the President and his accomplishments and his proposals; he wants to embrace them (and he's been prevented from doing that by his campaign staff).

Sam: "You are missing news cycle after news cycle after news cycle, but you didn't announce 'cause you didn't want to do it from Orange County."

Josh: "Would you?"

Sam: "Yes! I say to hell with the election! There's a guy in St. Louis making $55,000 a year trying to send his kid to Notre Dame."

[...]

Sam: "If I'm going to lose, I'd like to lose doing something." 

Oh, and a guy who represents agricultural workers wants to meet with somebody in the administration. Josh sends Donna, just to make sure the guy is legit, and he seems to be (although Donna is distracted by somebody taking a picture of them meeting), and only later do they all discover Izzy Perez ran for Governor of California on the Communist Party ticket.

Reporter: "How do you think the picture of Donna and Mr. Perez is going to play in Orange County?"

CJ: "Really, really well."

And another thing, the President insults the French (or, perhaps, hairdressers), loudly, while waiting for his cue to come up and speak in support of Sam. Not to mention the traffic issues and Interstate closures that end up trapping crying children trying to get home from Disneyland. I said there was a lot going on, I meant it!

Turning our attention to Will, before the trip Toby directs him to utilize his staff to include comments supporting the tax plan with every public administration pronouncement the following Tuesday. Will, who has been unsuccessfully trying to curry favor with his staff through the use of Rice Krispies Treats, decides to meet with them all to get things situated. But when the meeting time arrives, there are no speechwriters there - only interns.

On the phone from California, Toby clears things up.

Will: "I was just starting the staff meeting, and there's no staff."

Toby: "Yeah, I fired some of them."

Will: "How many of them?"

Toby: "All of them."

[...]

Will: "Okay. The speechwriting staff - you didn't fire them, they quit, right?"

Toby: "Yeah."

Will: "Because of me, right?"

Toby: "Yeah."

Toby encourages Will to just tell the interns what he wants, and then expect it. The interns are, eventually, game for the task - but the fact their names are "Lauren, Lauren, Cassie, and Lauren" make it complicated for Will. He turns to numbers instead of names, handing out Washington Redskins football jerseys so he can refer to each intern by a number.

And they try to live up to Will's expectations, as he explains how they need to provide defenses of the administration's tax plan on these previously written remarks. Oh, do they try. But their speechwriting skills still need some work.

Toby (on phone): "Read me what you've got for the swearing in of the ambassador."

Will (reading what one of the interns has written): "'Ambassador Stannis will help to build and sustain a new era of cooperation between the United States and Hungary. And let's please all remember that cutting capital gains taxes is a bad idea.'"

Toby (beat): "Okay, you're going to polish that up?"

The situation in Equatorial Kundu continues to deteriorate. You'll recall in both the Inauguration episodes the ruling Arkutu had begun mass killings of the minority Induye. President Bartlet felt a moral urge to do something, but couldn't find a clear diplomatic path without overriding Kundunese sovereignty - let alone the political, financial, and human costs of a military option. Eventually, with the push of some frank talk from Will, Bartlet decided to craft a bold new foreign policy to use American power anywhere in the world where human rights are being violated.

At the close of Inauguration: Over There the President told his staff that he was ordering military forces into Kundu (remember how he told them, on the night of the inaugural balls, "I'm sorry, everyone, but this is a work night"). At the open of this episode we find Bartlet, Leo and Fitz in the Situation Room awaiting word on the 82nd Airborne taking over the airport in Bitanga, which they do quickly and uneventfully. The President sees the ambassador from Kundu in the Oval Office, and in no-nonsense terms tells him what's up:

President (interrupting Ambassador Tiki's protest): "I've just taken your airport - clearing the way for the 101st Air Assault to take the capital. Seven thousand troops, 25 battle tanks, 15 Apache attack helicopters, and three destroyers. Strictly speaking, I conquered your country without the paperwork."

He then issues a deadline: 36 hours for President Nzele to order his troops to turn over their weapons to the Americans and stop the slaughter of the Induye, or the American military will take over the capital city.

This leads to some pretty bold bargaining by Nzele. His opening offer: he wants $500 million in undirected aid (straight to his pockets, in other words), immunity from war crimes, and an assurance he will stay in power. Leo practically laughs the Kundunese diplomats out of his office, but then aerial surveillance shows a sobering turn. Fitz has the pictures:

Leo: "Are we seeing any pictures of the Arkutu getting ready to surrender?"

Fitz: "No. Here's what we're seeing. These are 3,200 Induye being marched down a road toward Mutsato. These are cranes and bulldozers at work, and twice as many smokestacks burning as of an hour ago. So this is the mass gravesite that the 3,200 Induye are being marched to."

Leo: "How many more in the next 20 hours?"

Fitz: "We think about 20,000."

Leo: "So why not talk about blowing off the deadline?"

Fitz: "'Cause we'd need 55 more aircraft off the USS Colonnade and 3rd Infantry."

Leo: "He's trying to finish the job before the deadline."

The administration is trapped. They're using the U.S. military to put pressure on Nzele to end the genocide, but they can't actually force him to stop until all the pieces are in place - and before that happens, Nzele is working to kill tens of thousands more Induye.

And then, a final thunderbolt. Everything has been going smoothly for the military, as they hold the airport and consolidate their forces in preparation for the deadline. Until it doesn't go smoothly.

Leo (on the phone): "Two Marine Lance Corporals and a PFC have been taken."

President: "What do you mean they've been taken?"

Leo: "Patrolling Bitanga Airport in a Humvee. Fifty guys came out of nowhere."

President: "We secured the airport."

Leo: "They came out of nowhere."

(I share the President's disbelief here. After being told "The airport is secure," to have fifty soldiers appear and kidnap three Americans is, well, mind-boggling. Not to mention, "they came out of nowhere" is hardly the foolproof excuse the commanders seem to think it is.)

With this news, everything changes. The President is going to cut his Sam-support trip short and head back to Washington, knowing he now has American lives in serious jeopardy and the prospect of many more troops about to put their lives on the line. As he waits to go on stage to speak, he notices an Army lieutenant, a military liaison there as part of the Presidential traveling party.

President: "Lieutenant."

Lt. Smith: "Yes, sir."

President: "How old are you?"

Lt. Smith: "I'm 22 years old, sir."

President Bartlet knows what he's asking these young men and women to do, and he knows he carries the responsibility - yet it's also clear he's committed to furthering his Bartlet Doctrine to try to make life better for more people around the world.

And that's the end of the episode ... with Sam's electoral race, the kidnapped soldiers in Kundu, Toby and Charlie facing assault charges, and Will teaching his interns how to write all storylines still in progress. That's part of what makes this episode less successful, for me ... there's no conclusion on anything, it's all left for the future, which really isn't satisfying at all, I don't think. 

Tales Of Interest!

- After five episodes without Sam, we get Rob Lowe back. He'll be in the next episode, too, but after that he departs the series (Sam does return at the tail end of Season 7). I've talked about the issues around Lowe's departure before, and I'll go over that again in the next post.

- According to Will (Game On), after the deceased Horton Wilde won the general election contest for the seat in the California 47th, "a special election will be held after no more than 90 days." Since the 2002 election was on November 5, 90 days from that puts us at February 3, 2003. That was a Monday. This Presidential visit is over a weekend, and it's explicitly stated it's already February, which could only be the 1st and 2nd with the election the following day - but it's clearly about a week prior to the election. So that 90-day thing Will told us doesn't fit the calendar The West Wing is using.

- Just a pondering on the military timelines, we know President Bartlet gave the order to send in American forces to Equatorial Kundu on the night of the inauguration (which, constitutionally, is January 20). We're now in early February, perhaps the 1st (as that was a Saturday in 2003), and the forces are just landing in that country. It makes total sense for such an operation to take 10-plus days, so that's all accurate, I suppose.

- The California 47th congressional district does cover parts of Orange County, and as mentioned in this episode, Orange County was for many years and remains a stronghold of Republican politics. A Republican held this seat in the House from the creation of the district before the 1992 election until the midterms of 2002 (which in The West Wing universe was a Presidential election year). The district boundaries were adjusted with the results of the 2000 census, which brought more of Los Angeles County into the district. In that 2002 election (which in real life happened just three months before the events of this episode) the seat was won by the Democrats and has been a Democratic seat since. Several of the cities/locations mentioned in this episode as campaign sites, such as Newport Beach, were not actually in the 47th district.

- Gail's fishbowl is apparently missing! There's a quick scene in CJ's office where we can see her entire desk, and there's no fishbowl there.

- While I've made my case on my opinion of the overstuffed plots in this episode already, I do have to say I appreciate some of the structuring in the script (and the direction by Vincent Misiano) to carry us from place to place and from plotline to plotline. The telephone conversations between Will and Toby are used quite expertly to transport us from a scene in Washington with the interns, to the Will/Toby discussion, directly into California and what's going on there. That stuff is quite well done.

Quotes    

(Josh, Toby, and CJ at the door of the Oval Office as the President has a frustrating talk with Jean-Paul as Zoey listens) 

Josh: "Sir, we didn't know you were busy, we'll wait outside."

President: "No, that's all right. What do you need?"

Josh: "The three of you should bond."

President: "Come here."

(The President pulls Josh aside)

President (whispering): "If you leave, I'll kill you." 

-----

Toby: "Get over the dress, would you?"

CJ: "It was a suit and they hit me with an avocado."

Toby: "It could've been worse."

CJ: "How?"

Toby: "They could have hit me." 

-----

Holcomb: "Sam, while they're here this weekend, you're going to need to work at avoiding the appearance you're sitting in his lap, he's reading you a bedtime story."

Sam: "I'm going to need to work hard to avoid that appearance?"

Holcomb: "Yeah, you are."

Sam: "Well, let me ask you, what do we have planned that might be mistaken -"

Holcomb: "You stand next to him, you're aide-de-camp. You're a waterboy."

Staffer: "Second banana."

Sam: "Did you not think I knew what he meant?"

Holcomb: "This went fast in an ugly direction." 

-----

Toby: "And I told you you couldn't fly."

Andy: "And Dr. Salmi said I could fly through the 32nd week, and I thought since he's my doctor, and you're really dumb, I'd join the congressional delegation and help out Sam. Isn't it great?"

Toby: "Listen to me. We've got all kinds of atmospheric cabin pressure up here. We're a little late, so the Colonel's got the hammer down in a 747. You've got windshear, downdraft, massive turbulence, not to mention four giant engines burning jet fuel at galactic temperatures. We're standing in a giant death tube!"

(Donna, Ed, and Larry stare at Toby)

Toby: "No, not the rest of you. It's just my family. It's ... it's fine."

-----

President: "I'm not an economist, but - no, wait, I am an economist. So, their plan will do what, CJ?"

CJ: "Explode --"

President: "Explode the deficit. Will it stimulate the economy, Josh?"

Josh: "It will stimulate the Swiss economy."

President: "Josh gets extra credit for being funny and right at the same time, and how long do I have to stay quiet, Toby?"

Toby: "You're the leader of the free world, sir. You can speak any time you like."

President: "And not kill Sam?"

Toby: "No, for that you have to shut up for 50 hours."

----- 

Cassie: "Will, we're interns. Do you think we have a clue as to how to write a tax policy speech?"

Will: "Well, I'm sure you had to write in college in the many, many government and poli-sci and economics classes you took while attending ... ?"

Cassie: "The London School of Ballet."

Will: "What the hell are you doing here?"

Cassie: "I'm changing direction."

 -----

Toby (as he's being booked): "Excuse me, officer, ballpark ... how long do you think this is going to be?"

Police officer: "Assault - six to twenty months."

Charlie: "It wasn't assault. He slipped on a thing."

Police officer: "Yeah, one of the guys says you hit him."

Charlie: "Well, that was different. That part may have been assault." 

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

• We first heard Scott Holcomb's name in Swiss Diplomacy, when Will told the press about Sam's new campaign staff (he's supposed to be the best the DNC has to offer for this special election, the only game in the nation at this point). Now we meet Holcomb, played by the familiar actor Matthew Glave (The Wedding Singer, ER, Argo, Army Wives).

• Cassie, the intern, is played by Claire Coffee (a long run on General Hospital, Grimm, Franklin & Bash).

• The estimates of Induye deaths at the hands of the Arkutu in Equatorial Kundu were at 25,000 in the previous episode. Now Leo tells the Kundunese ambassador that 115,000 have been killed. 

• Leo tells the President he has a meeting about salmon runs in Oregon - when Josh and Donna were trying to get the Flender family to vote for President Bartlet in the New Hampshire primary in Hartsfield's Landing the topic of salmon and some of the Flenders' relatives in Oregon was a key issue.

• We see a Senator Alan Broderick (R-FL) on television, identified as "GOP Leader." I don't think that necessarily makes him the Senate Majority Leader, a person who's been talked about but never identified by name in the past (remember Ann Stark was the Majority Leader's chief of staff, setting up his apparent Presidential run in The Leadership Breakfast, which was never heard about again, for one example). There was a Broderick mentioned in Enemies, as one of the congressmen behind the land-use rider attached to the banking reform bill, but that person was in the House at the time (perhaps he's moved on to the Senate since 1999).

• You recall Andy is due with the twins in May. With this being early February, she's about six months along (or about a month shy of the 32 weeks her doctor said was still okay to fly). Toby apparently thinks this is the size of a minivan ("I saw him first, girls").

• Toby's rant to Andy about flying and his knowledge of windshear and turbulence and jet fuel reminds us of his very first scene in Pilot, when he lists off the details of the Lockheed L-1011 he's sitting in as he tries to convince the flight attendants to let him keep talking on his phone.

• It's an ongoing joke to mix up Ed and Larry, who always seem to appear to together. In addition, President Bartlet's weakness at remembering names is actually based on Martin Sheen's same issue. So here's a reference to both things:

Larry: "Plus, it's worse than we thought."

Ed: "It is."

President: "Sing it, Larry!"

Ed: "Uh, Ed." 

• The Charlie/Zoey/Jean-Paul triangle continues, with a direct reference to Charlie and Zoey dating from the wife at the hotel bar. Charlie and Zoey were a couple in Season 1, first meeting in The Crackpots And These Women, with their relationship turning out to be the driving force behind the assassination attempt in What Kind Of Day Has It Been. Zoey just up and disappeared after The Midterms in Season 2 (they were still a couple then), then reappeared in this season's Holy Night with her new French royalty boyfriend. Charlie's been dedicated to try to win her back from Jean-Paul ever since.

• When Sam tells Josh off for waiting on announcing the tax plan, he says, "There's a guy in St. Louis making $55,000 a year trying to send his kid to Notre Dame!" We saw that guy, Matt Kelly, talking with Josh and Toby in a hotel bar in Indianapolis in 20 Hours In America Part 2, a conversation that inspired the administration's plan to provide a tax break for college tuition in College Kids.

• There's Nancy, making the trip to California. Nancy is played by Renee Estevez, Martin Sheen's daughter.

DC location shots    

• None.

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

• Several warships are mentioned, both real and fictional, including a list of them right at the start of the episode. The USS Harpers Ferry is a landing ship dock, used to transport and launch landing ships and amphibious vehicles, commissioned in 1995 and still a US Navy ship today. The USS Cleveland was a similar type of ship, an amphibious transport dock, and was indeed in service at the time of the episode. That ship was decommissioned in 2011. The USS Boxer is, as we hear, designated LHD-4, an amphibious assault ship in service with the Navy since 1995. Fitz tells the President that the general on the video call may be talking to the captain of the Tallahassee - the only Navy ship with that name was a submarine tender during World War I. Later on Fitz tells Leo they'd need "55 more aircraft off the USS Colonnade" in order to move up the attack deadline ... there hasn't been any Navy ship with that name, let alone an aircraft carrier.

• Leo makes a joking comment about "The same reason Willie Sutton robbed banks," the reason of course being that's where the money was. Willie Sutton was a famous bank robber in the 1920s and 30s.

• There's some kind of proclamation on the wall by Charlie's desk that pretty obviously features photos of Bill Clinton and Al Gore. While they served as President and Vice President in reality between 1993 and 2000, they did not in The West Wing universe, so ... why are they there? I've actually noticed nearly identical displays around the West Wing in earlier episodes, some of them featuring photographs of President George H. W. Bush and Vice President Dan Quayle.

• Debbie uses a Mac laptop, and we see another being used by Cassie in Will's intern group. You'll notice the one Cassie is using is actually an older model, with the Apple logo appearing upside-down when the laptop is open.

• Debbie sarcastically calls the President's wit "Noel Coward-esque."

• CJ complains about her DKNY outfit being ruined by vegetables thrown at her during an earlier trip to California.

• Will made Rice Krispies treats for his staff, which didn't prevent them all from quitting (and while the common phrase would be to call them "Rice Krispie treats," since the name of the cereal is actually Rice Krispies, Will's usage is correct).

• There's a couple of products visible in the Air Force One galley, including Coffeemate and a can of Diet Coke.

• Will calls his interns the "Robert Palmer girls," a reference to the music video for Addicted To Love.

• We hear the Stray Cats song Rock This Town playing at the rally before Sam introduces the President. Sam also says the traffic tieups caused by the Presidential visit trapped families trying to get home from Disney's California Adventure.

• Will uses Washington Redskins football jerseys to try to keep Lauren, Lauren, Cassie, and Lauren straight in his head.

• There's a news broadcast from KKOC in the background as CJ, Toby, Sam, and Josh go over the morning headlines. That's apparently a fictional TV station, as I've found no evidence of a station using those call letters.

• Speaking of fictional news outlets, the New York World newspaper dropped on the table is also fictional (there was a New York World newspaper at one time, but it stopped publishing in 1931). The Los Angeles Times and Washington Post papers, of course, do exist.

• Charlie is drinking a Heineken as he plays pool with Jean-Paul.

• Charlie is concerned about Zoey getting her picture taken with Jean-Paul at the Versace runway show.

• The President wonders why "every time we come to Southern California we are absolutely the Clampetts," a reference to the TV show The Beverly Hillbillies.

End credits freeze frame: The President, Fitz, and Leo in the Situation Room awaiting word from the operation to take the Bitanga airport.

Previous episode: Inauguration: Over There

Next episode: Red Haven's On Fire