Walking And Talking And Yelling At Clouds: 7A WF 83429

Original airdate: September 24, 2003

Written by: John Wells (1)

Directed by: Alex Graves (15)

Synopsis

The search for Zoey continues, and fears grow for her safety when President Walken orders attacks on Qumar. Walken's visible comfort with his growing control over the executive branch causes dismay among President Bartlet's staff. News of President Bartlet's order last year to kill Shareef, possibly leading to Zoey's abduction, shatters relationships in the Bartlet family.

"Find Zoey Bartlet and find her fast, but so help me, if she turns up dead, I'm gonna blow the hell out of something and God only knows what."

We enter a dark period in the history of The West Wing. No, no, I don't mean the series gets terrible or anything - although it definitely doesn't measure up to the excellence of the past four seasons. No, I'm not really talking about the themes - although yeah, there's a lot of sadness and exhaustion and depressing elements going in here.

I mean it's dark: literally dark. Devoid of light. Starved of illumination.

This is a conscious decision by director Alex Graves and director of photography Thomas Del Ruth, as Graves expounds upon in the DVD commentary. He wanted to evoke impressions of early morning/late evening, to bring in more contrast in the lighting of scenes, to make things look different than a typical West Wing episode since Jed Bartlet has removed himself from power and his daughter is missing and the possibility of a military attack could have dire consequences for her safety. It does all that, for sure - but it's really hard to see some of what's going on here.

We jump right in pretty much immediately on the heels of the ending of Season 4 and Twenty Five. As that episode ended with President Bartlet leaving the Oval Office and Speaker Walken taking the oath as acting President, this edition starts with the press conference bringing the news to the world. A dizzying presentation of fuzzy TV screens, the camera angle dashing this way and that, the overlapping voices of reporters frantically describing the extraordinary scene - it's designed to throw us off-balance and make us feel the disorientation of the characters, and it works.

As we continue through the day - and all this is just one day, with Zoey going missing around 11:00 pm on Saturday night and this episode covering the following Sunday - some things settle down a little, other things are stirred up, and no one feels satisfied or comfortable by the time late Sunday night comes around. And the divide between Jed and Abbey, caused by word of Jed's order to kill Abdul Shareef, may be permanent.

Let's go into that first. With John Wells (ER) taking over for Aaron Sorkin as showrunner (and as writer of this episode), there was concern by some viewers that the show would veer away from political maneuvering into more, shall we say, soap-opera-y relationship-oriented storylines. While Wells claimed that wasn't his intention, this element of the Season 5 opener doesn't do much to allay the concern. Jed, stuck in the White House residence staring out the large arched window, seems lost and sinking into depression. Abbey, holding back tears, spends her time consoling friends who call to console her. When the Bartlet children and grandchildren arrive, there's a moment of comfort and an opportunity for a little smile, but mostly it's a reminder that Zoey is still being held captive somewhere, her absence the entire reason for this family gathering.

And then ... after President Walken is informed that Danny Concannon is going public with his story that President Bartlet ordered the assassination of Abdul Shareef, he orders the administration to release the story first, confirming the facts while denying Danny the scoop. The connections perhaps linking the killing of Shareef to Zoey's abduction are evident. Abbey finds out by watching television with her daughters.

Her stoic reaction as she leaves the room leads Elizabeth to recognize that her mother was blindsided by the news, and she goes to her solitarily distracted father to ask, "Dad? Did Mom know?" And that leads us to a tense, uncomfortable familial conflict in the kitchen - and let's be frank, is there anything less West Wing-y than a family drama playing out in their kitchen? Abbey tries to deflect Jed's weak attempts at an apology, or at least an explanation, and it's clear she remains silently furious at her husband.

Jed: "It was a difficult decision!"

Abbey: "Made by you, not us."

Jed: "I did what I thought was necessary,"

Abbey (walking out of the room): "Your decisions, Jed, not ours."

All of this playing out right in front of Elizabeth and Ellie, uncomfortably put in the middle of their parents' conflict - it's stressful and hard to watch! Elizabeth goes with her mother, while Ellie stays behind for a moment to hug her father.

(I'll just say, while this particular family drama is grounded in a realistic way as to how a mother might react if she knew her husband's decisions had put their children in danger, it's a bit of a different situation when the husband is the freaking President of the United States. Of course your children are going to be in danger, it comes with the job, some consideration for a specific decision he makes in defense of the nation should be a little bit understandable. But we're talking about emotion, not logic, and that makes sense - plus I think there's little doubt that deep down Abbey still holds resentment for Jed going back on his one-term promise he made to her that we saw in Bartlet's Third State Of The Union/The War At Home - if he had not been re-elected to a second term, this Shareef/Qumar situation might never have been a factor for the Bartlet family.)

The Walken decision to pre-empt Danny and the Washington Post hits CJ and her relationship with the press. She had promised to give Danny an exclusive on the five missing Ba'ji sleeper agents, a scoop taken away when Agent Mike Casper announces that fact to the press corps (again, that's gotta be an understandable move considering the President's daughter has been kidnapped). Then, she and Leo convinced Danny to wait three days before publishing his story on the administration ordering the killing of Shareef, and then that news gets released by the administration first. CJ, who already got into a shouting match with Danny after the first press conference, gets left in a terrible position.

President Walken: "Release it before Concannon has a chance to file the story."

CJ: "Sir, we convinced Danny to hold the story several days ago. Undercutting him would be going back on our agreement."

President Walken: "Your agreement. Release it."

So, CJ makes a decision to undercut Walken instead. When she brings Danny into her office to tell him the White House will have no comment on his story, she stops him as he leaves:

CJ: "Post the story now. (emphatically) Right now."

Walken is no dummy. As he heads into a press conference to deal with questions over the assassination story published online by Danny and the Post, he brings CJ in close to fix his tie ... then pointedly muses as to how Danny could have possibly known to get his story out ahead of the administration release.

Even so, the acting President and the Press Secretary end up coming to a sort of cautious understanding.

President Walken: "You know I'm not the enemy. The things that unite us are far greater than things that divide us. We both believe in democracy, preservation of American values, protection of our citizens in a sometimes hostile world."

CJ: "Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness?"

President Walken: "Yeah."

CJ: "That's what's in your statement?"

President Walken: "Something like that."

Josh remains convinced that this is all a horrible mistake, that the Bartlet administration has shot itself in the foot by giving up power (even temporarily), and that the Republicans stand to make huge political gains with Walken in the Oval Office. I think his attitude reflects that of many of the viewers (this storyline actually caused me to stop watching the series entirely for almost all of Season 5), an attitude that gets reflected with this scene with Leo walking into the Oval asking to see "Mr. President," only to have this great reveal of Walken and not Bartlet as his staff moves out of the camera's way:

Again, this is all the very first day of the handover, just hours after Walken was sworn in in the midst of a massive governmental crisis, but Josh simply can't help himself. It doesn't make it any easier when Walken's staff starts moving furniture out of the West Wing right away.

And when they bring the Republican leadership into the building to talk about naming a new Speaker of the House, it's just about enough to make Josh lose his mind.

Josh: "Is that Duke?"

Donna: "Yeah?"

Josh: "Oh, please don't let it be Duke. He hates me."

Will: "Tomlinson?"

Josh: "He hates me, too."

Ed: "Jim Arkin?"

Josh: "Arkin really hates me."

Donna: "Are you detecting a pattern here?"

Josh's ongoing frustration with the Republican leadership will really inform the first part of Season 5.

The biggest shoe to drop in the episode involves Leo, President Walken, and the U.S. military response to Zoey's kidnapping. Admiral Fitzwallis and other military leaders have drawn a direct connection between Zoey's abduction and the missing Ba'ji agents, which leads them straight to Qumar. Fitzwallis wants an immediate military strike. Nancy McNally, as well as Leo, urge caution, with Leo particularly worried about how military action might spur Zoey's kidnappers to do something unthinkable.

President Walken is willing to hold off, at least until something else happens. And then it does. A suicide bombing at a movie theatre in Turkey kills dozens, including American sailors from a US Navy ship. The Ba'ji terrorist group claims responsibility, and Walken is forced to respond. Leo's desperate attempt to consider Zoey's safety gets a numbing reply:

Nancy: "So, a bombing and an invasion?"

Fitzwallis: "We'll be in and out in three days."

Leo (with an outburst): "We bomb Qumar and they kill her!"

(The room falls quiet)

President Walken (calmly, not looking at Leo): "They're going to kill her anyway. (pause) When do you want to go, Admiral?"

These Situation Room scenes confirm the wisdom of President Bartlet's momentous decision to walk away from the Presidency for the time being. Leo, his nerves on edge, his emotions on a hair trigger with exhaustion, is still thinking like a Bartlet friend and family stand-in. His immediate concern is for the safety of Jed's daughter. President Walken knows there are higher, more important responsibilities for the security of the country, and personal considerations have to take a back seat. It's the kind of choice no one should ever expect a father to make, and I think Leo finally gets his head around that, in some way, at least, with this scene. It really does drive the point home that Jed did the only thing he could do for the good of the country by stepping away.

The episode ends with the Bartlet family at a private Mass, praying for Zoey's safety, for guidance, for protection, and for solace. The might of the U.S. military is on the move, with the attack slated for early the next morning. Zoey's whereabouts remain unknown, and Jed and Abbey remain at odds.

Donna pulls Josh away from his office for a moment, to see the public outpouring of support for Zoey and the Bartlet family along the White House fence.

And we are left to ponder what the new day might bring. Hopefully a little sunlight.

Tales Of Interest!

- The Season 5 opening credits appear to be exactly the same as the last half of Season 4. I don't think there are any changes at all, even the photos/video clips appear to be the same. Stockard Channing appears in the credits, as she's featured in this episode.

- The events of Commencement and Twenty Five all took place over the day and night of May 7. We know this because of Charlie's note, with the date he and Zoey set to dig up the champagne buried at the arboretum confirming her graduation day was May 7. This episode covers the events of the next day, from early in the morning until the night of May 8 (which is a Sunday here, although the actual May 8 in 2003 was a Thursday).

- Even though we have new writers and showrunners, we still have multiple-time West Wing director Alex Graves behind the camera. That gives us plenty of series trademarks, like seeing characters through video screens, and multiple instances of the camera point-of-view spinning around characters.

- We also get some shuddering, blurred-motion camera shots to indicate stress and uncertainty and shakiness (Graves mentions in the DVD commentary that he learned the technique from seeing it in the film Mad Max), and very, very strong use of bold colors in the lighting.

- Speaking of bold lighting choices, this episode may be one of the darkest-lit in series history. Here's some samples of really, really dark scenes (Graves says in the DVD commentary he wanted the early morning scenes to look like early morning, but I mean ... this is after the sun came up!).

Abbey and Jed on Sunday morning. Note: it's about 6:30 am. Sunrise was around 6:00. It shouldn't be this dark!

A very dark Roosevelt Room

The pressroom, darker than we've ever seen it before.

Leo's office, darker than dark

Jed and Leo, again at the window (this time at night)

Donna's office area - where are all the lights?

- Leo gets off an elevator leading to the residence. We've never seen that before - in fact, the only other time a White House elevator was ever seen in the series was the one that carried Sam and Toby to their secret meetings in the lower levels in 18th and Potomac.

- Also for the first time we see the kitchen in the Presidential residence.

- Elizabeth and Doug arrive with two children, a girl and a boy. We learned in Pilot Elizabeth had a girl named Annie (who was 12 years old in that episode and would be at least 15 now); but also in Game On we saw two young girls go up on stage to greet Jed after his debate with Gov. Ritchie. We are left to assume those girls were grandchildren, but if there is only one granddaughter ... why were there two? And was either one of them actually Annie, as seen here?

Annie

The as-yet-unnamed grandson

Girls joining President Bartlet onstage at the debate - is either one of them Annie? And who is the other?

- There's just a quick glimpse of Gail's fishbowl on CJ's desk; while there's some online debate that it might be a white van (because of Zoey's abduction), to me it just looks like rocks. We also saw the fishbowl completely empty of any decoration in Commencement (which was literally just the previous day, and CJ hasn't really had time to play around with decorating it with the crises going on. Maybe Carol did it ...).

- Stockard Channing received an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Performance by a Supporting Actress in a Drama (for this episode along with No Exit) - the award went to Drea de Matteo for The Sopranos.

Quotes

Leo: "What are all these people doing here?"

Margaret: "They work here."

Leo: "It's 5:30 in the morning."

Margaret: "I'll make sure they know."

-----

Josh: "Lincoln and Kennedy had children who died. They didn't take a sabbatical."

Toby: "Who's been calling?"

Josh: "Congressional leadership."

Toby: "Lincoln never got a ransom note from Jefferson Davis. He's putting country before family. I'd carpet bomb Mecca to get my kids back."

-----

President Walken: "Get your people in place, Admiral. We don't go today unless we're provoked. Find Zoey Bartlet and find her fast, but so help me, if she turns up dead, I'm gonna blow the hell out of something and God only knows what."

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

Our favorite news anchor Ivan Allen appears again. Remember, he had just showed up in Twenty Five on a TV news program in the background, with the CND network logo and being called "Keith Nantz". Now we see him on MSNBC - which is weird, since these two telecasts must have aired within an hour or two of each other (we begin this episode the exact same time as Twenty Five ends). This is actually his 13th credited role on The West Wing since A Proportional Response, where we've seen him bouncing between local TV news stations and the CND/MSNBC cable networks.

Finally we meet the oldest Bartlet daughter, Elizabeth, played by Annabeth Gish (Mystic Pizza, The X-Files, Halt And Catch Fire). Her appearance marks the end of the longest reveal in West Wing history, as she was mentioned (along with her daughter, Annie) in Pilot.

Elizabeth's husband Doug Westin is played by Steven Eckholdt (Melrose Place, L.A. Law, Friends). While Doug doesn't do much in this episode (except for asking Jed "How are you holding up?") we'll see plenty of him in the future.

The Bartlet's middle daughter Ellie returns as well, played by Nina Siemaszko. We met her in Ellie.

President Walken's chief of staff Steve Atwood is played by well-known character actor Zeljko Îvanek (Oz, Homicide: Life On The Street, Madam Secretary, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri).

Debbie Fiderer is back after missing for a few episodes, last seen playing poker in Evidence Of Things Not Seen; we also have the return of Assistant Secretary of State Bob Slattery (Thomas Kopache, last seen in Red Haven's On Fire).

Senate Minority Leader Triplehorn, played by Geoff Pierson, appears in the meeting with Democratic congressional leaders. That's the same guy who was upset about Hoynes apparently locking up all the best precinct workers for the 2006 campaign in Swiss Diplomacy.

All the familiar reporters are seen, well, almost. While we (dimly) see Mark, Steve, and Chris in the early press conference scene, and Danny several times, there's no sign of Katie in this episode.

I've been keeping track of President Bartlet's glass paperweight collection over the course of the series (seeing it move from one side of his desk to the other, or even disappear once in a while). I guess it's comforting to see that, even though furniture is getting moved out of the building on Walken's first day, those paperweights remain.

Although Walken did waste no time bringing his dog, Bess, into the Oval Office.

Look, there's Ed and Larry! Haven't seen them since the poker game in Evidence Of Things Not Seen.

Also, Ed and Larry's discussion of the faltering economy and the word "recession" reminds us of something:

Larry: "If the economy is heading into a recession --"

Josh: "No, no, no! We don't ever use that word around here!"

Larry: "What word, recession?"

Josh: "No!"

Will: "If we say it, it gives it credence."

Larry: "What should we call it?"

Josh: "I don't care. Call it a boat show or a beer garden, or a bagel."

Ed: "So if it is a ... bagel, the Fed thinks it's going to be a mild bagel."

There was a similar attitude about that word in Swiss Diplomacy:

Margaret: "Ways to fight a possible recession."

Leo: "What did we say?"

Margaret: "Don't say 'recession' in this building."

Leo: "You just did it again!"

Margaret: "What am I supposed to call the meeting?"

Leo: "The 'robust economy' meeting."

Toby is asked about the twins a couple of times, and there's mention of Andy calling. Remember, the twins were literally born a few hours before this episode takes place.

We have seen tension between the First Couple before. In Bartlet's Third State Of The Union/The War At Home, we discovered Jed had promised Abbey to only serve one term as President, as the probability of his MS worsening in a second term was significant (and, as she said, his one-term promise was supposed to make up for him hiding his disease from the voting public). The disquiet between husband and wife continued up to the events of Manchester, when Abbey finally told Jed, "I'm leaning toward voting for you." I have a feeling this time, it's going to be more serious - putting his children in jeopardy by secretly assassinating an official of a country known for terrorism against the United States may very well be unforgivable in Abbey's mind.

Leo asks Margaret to get him in touch with Angela Blake ("in New York?" she responds). That's someone else that's going to be very significant really soon.

We hear the names "Mitchell" and "Haffley" as potential GOP candidates for the new Speaker of the House. One of those names is going to be playing a huge role in upcoming episodes (spoiler alert: it's the one Josh calls a fascist).

By the way, we've seen a lot of other GOP House bigwigs in the past (just to name a few: Randall Thomas, who took the lead at the podium to sandbag the administration after The Leadership Breakfast, and was also the initial leader of the oversight committee looking into President Bartlet's coverup of his MS in Ways And Means; Henry Shallick [Corbin Bernson], deputy majority whip in The Leadership Breakfast and Capital Beat guest in Bartlet's Third State Of The Union; Peter Bruno, who chewed out Sam and Josh over the White House drug investigation in Take Out The Trash Day, and actually ended up chairing the investigative committee questioning Leo in Bartlet For America). In reality, you'd think one of those names might be mentioned in the new Speaker discussion.

The long-term story threads of Abdul Shareef's assassination (which began in Enemies Foreign And Domestic) and President Bartlet's multiple sclerosis (revealed in He Shall, From Time To Time ...) continue. Also, the fact there's no Vice President in office (after Hoynes' resignation in Life On Mars) continues to be important, with Josh looking for candidates and Walken saying if there's no progress by Tuesday (in two days) he's going to start getting involved in naming a new VP.

As we saw in Twenty Five, Nancy continues to argue caution about attacking Qumar, including telling President Walken any attack on the nation "would be the first time in our history that we have violated the foreign soil of an ally." Now, I have my doubts about that fact (we've seen military operations in Syria [A Proportional Response], Colombia [The War At Home], and Haiti [Two Cathedrals/Manchester], not to mention sending troops into Equatorial Kundu in The California 47th, although perhaps none of those nations were considered allies? It's a tough argument to make, particularly with Colombia). Also, if you go back to 20 Hours In America, Part Two, when Nancy was first made aware of Qumar's involvement in planned terrorist attacks inside the United States, she flat-out recommended a nuclear strike on the country ("I am, however, beginning to lean towards reducing our nuclear arsenal one at a time, if you know what I mean"). So her stance has evolved, I guess we'd say.

We get some more good looks of the map of Qumar, a fictional country located in what is actually southern Iran, along the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz. Our first look at a map of the nation was seen in College Kids.

Here's an actual map of the area in southern Iran, with my hand-drawn rough guesstimate of the borders the show used for Qumar.

DC location shots

The scene showing the public display of signs/candles/flowers for Zoey was filmed along the sidewalk outside the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on 17th Street NW, just west of White House. That area has been used in The West Wing many times, as far back as Enemies.

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

We see plenty of news network logos, particularly MSNBC and C-SPAN logos. There are also several mentions of CNN, and even an on-screen shot of their logo (which was rarely, if ever seen over the past four seasons). Other real-life media outlets that are referred to include Fox [News] (which as far as I can tell has been mentioned just once before, in Inauguration: Over There) and Al Jazeera. No sign of the fictional CND network we've seen so many times over the past four seasons.

CNN logo

C-SPAN logo

Presidents Lincoln and Kennedy are specifically named. Josh's referral to both of them losing children while in office is factual: Lincoln's 11-year-old son Willie died in the White House in 1862, while Kennedy's son Patrick was born prematurely in 1963 and died less than two days later.

We also have mentions of Confederate President Jefferson Davis, President Truman, and his friend and former Speaker of the House Sam Rayburn.

Businesses mentioned include Kinko's (which was bought by FedEx in 2004 and saw the name retired in 2008), Xerox paper, and Bekins moving company.

Fitzwallis' statement "bombing Tripoli stopped Libya" refers to an actual 1986 attack on the country, in retaliation for a terrorist bombing of a discotheque in West Berlin. His claim has a couple of errors: first, in trying to correct Nancy's argument about attacking allies, Libya (led by Muammar Gaddafi) wasn't really an ally of the United States at the time; also, the attack only had a limited impact on Libya's ongoing terrorist activities.

Toby compares Walken's staff taking over rooms in the West Wing to the Visigoths, who sacked Rome in the 5th century.

President Bartlet quotes Shakespeare with the words, "Cry 'Havoc!' And let slip the dogs of war" from the play Julius Caesar. The Dogs Of War is the title of the next episode.

One of Josh's candidates for Vice President is compared to Norman Thomas, who ran for President six times on the Socialist Party ticket.

The Presidential Succession Act of 1947 does exist, and it actually was President Truman's idea to move the Speaker of the House and the Senate president pro tem up in the line of succession ahead of Cabinet members.

Here's a splashy front page of The Washington Post, which of course is an actual newspaper.

We see a Notre Dame alumni mug in the kitchen. Martin Sheen insisted that President Bartlet be a graduate of Notre Dame.

The sort of "choosing sides" or at least the Bartlet daughters choosing whom to comfort is interesting in light of what we know about the daughters already. In Ellie we saw both Jed and Ellie feeling like they'd always been unable to connect with each other, with Ellie feeling like she couldn't make her father happy and Jed flustered at why he couldn't fully act like a dad with her. So it's telling that Ellie is the one to stay with Jed and give him a hug after the fight with Abbey, as well as Ellie being the one to walk into the church hand-in-hand with her father.

Donna's throwaway line "Elvis is in the building" (referring to Haffley) tells us Elvis Presley existed in this timeline.

Here's an interesting little gem - as the Republicans gather in the Roosevelt Room to discuss naming a new Speaker, we hear this:

Josh: "Do we have any hidden cameras or tape recorders or something in there?"

Will: "Not since the mid '70s."

That certainly seems to be a sly little reference to secret White House recording devices that became public as part of the Watergate scandal in 1973-74. That event has never been mentioned in the series before, and President Nixon - who was forced to resign as a result of that scandal - has only seen his name come up twice in passing, neither time specifically in regards to his being President (there was a reference to Nixon and getting pandas from China in Six Meetings Before Lunch, and a "Nixon-Eisenhower thing" [meaning Vice President Nixon] in 17 People).

While we're told sailors from the USS Raleigh were killed in the movie theatre bombing in Turkey, the last of four Navy ships bearing the name Raleigh was decommissioned in 1991.

Something new the show is doing: in the past I've taken note of the various logos we see on the laptops being used by the characters. We've seen Gateway, Apple, and HP logos in the past. Looks like the producers of the series are no longer interested in providing computer makers free advertising, as both CJ and Toby are using laptops that have a White House seal or something placed over the company logo on the laptop cover.