Tuesday, January 24, 2023

No Exit - TWW S5E20








Original airdate: April 28, 2004

Teleplay by: Carol Flint (3) & Debora Cahn (7) 
Story by: Carol Flint & Mark Goffman (5) 

Directed by: Julie Hébert (2)

Synopsis
  • With the West Wing in lockdown because of a suspected airborne contaminant, close quarters bring up uncomfortable discussions: Will and Toby fight over their responsibility to the future of the Presidency, Leo and Abbey spar over clinic work and Xanax, CJ and Donna lay bare some wounds over their personal attachments ... and Josh can't figure out Kate Harper.


"Hell is other people." 



Smart, well-spoken people with quick wits are often good at handling conflict by avoiding it - dropping a clever turn of phrase or a disarming quip and then vanishing from the room. This series is full of smart, well-spoken people with quick wits ... but what happens when they end up trapped in a small room with conflicts brewing and no way to vanish?

Here is where we find out. The backdrop for the episode's framework comes from early 2000s/post-9/11 paranoia, with the fear of anthrax attacks, ongoing military operations in Iraq following the 2003 invasion with military contractors being ambushed and killed there, congressional investigations into the 9/11 attacks continuing ... the nation continues to be on-edge and seeing threats around every corner. A potential airborne toxin attack on the White House fits right in with the national mood, and also serves as a way to trap our characters and force them to face some uncomfortable truths.

Our episode begins rather oddly, as the camera focuses on seemingly unimportant matter-of-fact things - a tissue box being handed off, a hand taking a cigarette, flowers being passed from person to person, an envelope opened. When a Secret Service monitoring station (and isn't that monitoring station rather spacious and advanced; I'm guessing, being a government technical operation squeezed into a White House last rebuilt in the 1950s, the real-life air-monitoring system is a few computer monitors packed into a small windowless office somewhere) reports a spike in some unknown airborne contaminant, the West Wing is locked down and the President, Debbie, and Charlie are whisked to an underground bunker for a medical examination. And the area surrounding the Oval Office gets sealed by men in hazmat suits.



Most of the conflicts we're concerned about don't rest in the bunker. Except for the President and Charlie complaining about an increased level of false alarms with the air testing system, those three get along just fine - Charlie does feel personally responsible when he's told the contaminant came into the building inside some personal mail he brought from home, which already seems like maybe he shouldn't do that. But the President is always going to be on Charlie's side. No, our conflicts are spread throughout the rest of the West Wing.

Josh is trapped in his office with Kate Harper, the new NSA deputy assigned to the White House. Kate had nixed a joke Josh added into the President's speech at the dinner, and he asked to talk to her to find out why. Once they're stuck in the lockdown, Josh quickly figures out that Kate is a tough nut to crack - she's not going to give away much of anything, least of all why an NSA deputy would pull an innocuous joke about Panama out of an inconsequential speech.
Josh: "What possible threat to national security --"

Kate: "No threat."

Josh: "No?"

Kate: "It wasn't funny."

They pass the time with Josh asking questions and Kate typing away on her laptop without actually answering them, until she eventually loosens up a little bit. Once they're released, she explains that a Navy submarine is passing through the Panama Canal, and national security required that Panama not be given any unnecessary attention on the evening.

But that's not a whole lot of conflict ... so let's turn our attention to CJ and Donna. CJ is trying to get out of the building to escape on a camping and fishing trip with her beau Ben (the park ranger). Donna discovers that the assignment Josh gave her in the last episode, to be attached to the upcoming congressional delegation to the Middle East, something he told her was an important upgrade to her responsibilities, is actually just as a member of the congressional press detail, taking the one and only spot available for the White House. In fact, she's kicking off Jack Sosa, an assistant press secretary who we saw working for CJ in Access.

Let's add a whooooole lot of background here. Josh and Donna ... well, it's complicated. There's no doubt that Bradley Whitford and Janel Moloney have oodles of chemistry together as actors; it's also a fact that Moloney's actor's choice from the beginning was to play the subtext as Donna being hopelessly in love with Josh.

The writers caught on, of course, and we've seen all kinds of hints of the deep connection between Josh and Donna: her comment that he comes over to her place to drunkenly yell at her roommate's cats when he's stressed in The Short List; the note he wrote in her ski book gift in In Excelsis Deo; his concern about her long-ago car accident and her line "I wouldn't stop for red lights" in 17 People; his dedication to helping her fix her perjured testimony about her diary in War Crimes; his trip to her apartment to make things up to her in Inauguration: Over There; her efforts to help him through the experience of being benched by Leo in Disaster Relief. Heck, we had Amy flat-out asking her "Are you in love with Josh?" in Commencement ... a direction that was dropped entirely when a new showrunning crew came along to replace Aaron Sorkin after Season 4. But we've also seen Josh taking her for granted the majority of the time, depending on her for making so much of his job easier while at the same time helping torpedo her romantic life (making her leave her date early so she can sit around while he meets with Congressman Skinner in The Portland Trip, trying to keep her from going off on a romantic weekend with Jack Reese in Holy Night, bragging to Sam about sabotaging her dates in The War At Home). So yeah, it really is an unhealthy relationship in a lot of ways, but darn it the chemistry between Whitford and Moloney makes us root for them regardless.

So there's that. In addition, Donna (an extremely capable and intelligent person, who would be successful in a position far above her assistant post) has been asking Josh for quite some time to get some additional duties and responsibilities, to start growing into a career that doesn't involve being his Girl Friday. I'll be honest here, Josh has actually come through several times (her trip to North Dakota in We Killed Yamamoto, putting her on the find-Senator-Hardin trail in Guns Not Butter, being Josh's representative to meet with a California agriculture union leader in The California 47th, assigned research on Air Force One maintenance in Angel Maintenance, having the responsibility to work off-the-books and thereby finding an issue with Social Security payments in Shutdown, working on the pardon list in The Benign Prerogative) - but most of that is less-important busy work and, more tellingly, none of it is designed to help her move out of her assistant post.

So why is Donna still there, still responding to Josh's shouts of "Donna!" from his office, still frustrated with the lack of professional advancement? As the two are trapped in CJ's office, CJ thinks she's figured it out, after Donna still praises Josh for getting her on the trip to the Middle East without fully explaining what her role would be:

CJ: "If he was giving you every opportunity, you would have grown out of this job three years ago. You can't blame him. He's never going to find anybody else as capable as you, I wouldn't let you go either."

[...]

Donna: "You know, you can't blame Josh, it's not his job to --"

CJ: "I don't blame Josh, it takes two of you. You choose to stay."

Donna: "It's the White House ..."

CJ: "It's not the White House, it's him." 

Donna is taken aback by CJ's frankness. The Josh-Donna connection, at least in the framework of the West Wing staffers, has never been addressed out in the open - so this is laying things pretty bare. Donna hits back by using CJ's rather quick decision to bail on her camping trip as a criticism of CJ's own commitment to a guy:

CJ: "Why didn't you get a drink with the guy from the Post-Intelligencer? You knew what was on your desk, you knew what was on Josh's desk. It wouldn't wait until Monday?"

Donna: "Why did you cancel your camping trip? We're going to be out of here in a few minutes, you're going home to a rerun of Letterman."

The tension is high. And it doesn't let up before the all-clear is sounded, with Donna rushing out of the office without even a "goodnight" to CJ, until CJ stops her to say "goodnight" herself.

There's more tension in the residence, where Leo and Abbey are apparently trapped (the President is told "the residence is clear" when he's taken to the bunker, yet Abbey has to call to the clinic to tell them she can't leave the White House, so I don't know what's up with that). Leo is a bit surprised to discover Abbey's practice-medicine-at-the-clinic role has expanded from the "vaccinating needy children" angle we saw in Eppur si Muove to now working the wee hours of Sunday mornings, helping with needle exchanges and crisis pregnancies. Abbey is not going to put up with Leo's concerns about how it all looks.

Leo: "The clinic was one thing - volunteering, children's health - I think we sold that. But all-nighters, Saturday nights?"

Abbey: "Not negotiable. Since I came back, since Zoey, this is the only deal I've had with myself. Follow my gut."

Leo also sees Abbey taking some pills from her purse.


As a former alcoholic and drug addict himself, Leo can spot potential issues in that area. Abbey assures him, as a medical doctor, she's using that Xanax responsibly and only "as needed." Well, I guess we'll see ... there's a whole lot going on there that is generally left unresolved.

For our final conflict, Toby and Will are thrown together in Will's old (now unused) office, with Toby drilling Will about Vice President Russell and his reaction to the President's speech. There are a lot of old tensions and resentments between these two, and it's so uncomfortable Toby insists he's not staying in that room - but the Secret Service has a different opinion on that.




Sorry, Toby, you're stuck here. And all the festering resentment he's held in about Will leaving his deputy communications director post in Constituency Of One, all the anger that's been building over Congress forcing the administration to take a weak cipher like Russell for VP in Jefferson Lives, all the frustration he has over a final-term agenda that may end stymied by circumstances - that all comes out, directed at Will. He blames Will for a lot of it; Will, whom Sam sent along with a note saying "he's one of us" in Arctic Radar, Will, who earned the trust of the President and Toby with his work on the inaugural address, Will, who committed to working for Toby and President only to turn his back on them for what Toby sees as crass political career advantage - he bears the brunt of Toby's frustration.

Will can give back pretty good, though. He reminds Toby that he's only had one win in his entire career as a campaign strategist, and suggests Toby doesn't have the energy or the inspiration to do it again. Will insists working with Russell is the best possible way under the current circumstances to continue the promise of a Democratic administration after Bartlet is done, and if Toby doesn't think Russell can be that guy, he needs to go find that guy somewhere else.

We eventually come to see Toby resents Will for giving the Vice President a serious, policy-driven speech instead of the humorous jokey one President Bartlet delivered. Toby knows the President should have given that type of speech instead, and not only does he feel a bit ashamed he didn't write it, he's angry that Will put his talents toward writing it for Russell instead of Bartlet.
Toby: "That's the speech the President should have given. A flailing economy, tribal rivalries exploding all over the world, the West Wing crashed four times this year, and we're running around playing dress-up, like a bunch of bad Dean Martin impersonators. That's the speech the President should have given. And you should have wrote it for him."
It's unpleasant, it's tense, and it's rooted in what they both see as a kind of betrayal. Toby thinks Will has betrayed the President, the administration, Toby himself, and - worst of all - Will's potential; Will sees Toby's dismissal of Russell as a useless lightweight being a betrayal of the future of the party, and based on a lazy satisfaction with things as they are instead of working to make things better.

What's really interesting about the conflicts and arguments and laying bare of emotions of this episode is how things aren't wrapped up neatly when we get to the all-clear, and everyone is allowed to leave. Abbey is still ticked at Leo trying to be holier-than-thou about her medical work; Toby and Will remain upset with each other; Donna and CJ haven't solved anything, romantically or career-related. Although before Donna leaves the building, she does make the choice to ignore Josh's demands for her attention, quietly making her way out of the building in an effort to assert her independence in one small, unconfrontational way.

"DONNA!"

As for that "all clear" and the airborne contaminant crisis, Ron Butterfield briefs the President, Charlie, and Debbie by saying it was all a drill. A live drill, one where only a very few high-level Secret Service officials knew it wasn't actually a real biological attack on the White House. So okay - just a test. Or was it? After Debbie and Charlie leave, Ron has more to say with the President, which leaves me, at least, confused ... was it a drill? Or was it actually something real, and Ron was covering that up? 
Butterfield: "They didn't question it."

President: "I'm not surprised."

Butterfield: "You didn't know it would be tonight, sir."

If it was indeed a drill, using a harmless fake "bacteria," why does Ron tell the President, "Tularemia won't get through again"? What is that again supposed to mean? I guess we're supposed to get that the FBI is tracking some serious biological threats against the White House, which explains the constant tests/"false alarms"/drills ... but that word "again" is doing a whole lot of confusing heavy lifting here. And if it were all a test, and if it had been based on a contaminant spread from an envelope Charlie opened in the outer office, what exactly would be the FBI/Secret Service reaction to tularemia being sent to Charlie at his home address? I mean, someone doing that would have no reason to think they'd necessarily get that bacterium into the White House by sending it to Charlie (except, I guess, by infecting Charlie and using him as the vector to infect the rest of the West Wing). Even so, that seems to bring up a whole lot of other security issues (Charlie bringing his personal mail to work) that are simply not addressed at all. And if the concern was the contaminant being released in Charlie's office rather than the mysterious substance sprayed on Debbie's face at the dinner, then why is the Presidential limousine still cordoned off and being deep cleaned even after the building lockdown is lifted?



Anyway, some nice writing and some nice character studies here, even if the episode as a whole is somewhat of a confusing mess. Now we roll into the Season 5 wrapup, with a lot of high-stakes action and emotional baggage to carry us into Season 6 (with the next episode actually bringing me back to the series during its original run, after I had bailed on the telecasts of almost the entirety of Season 5).


 

Tales Of Interest!

- The opening scene in the motorcade has the President, Debbie, and Leo on their way back to the White House after the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner. The actual event that year was held on May 1, 2004 - the very week this episode aired. Debbie's mention about "guests of Leno's" is interesting, as comedian Jay Leno actually was the host of the 2004 dinner. It's also interesting that the opening shot showed the motorcade traveling over a bridge; the WHCA affair is traditionally held at the Washington Hilton, and there's no river or bridge between the hotel and the White House.


- With the connection to the WHCA dinner (held in late April or early May) and the President's mention of seeing the springtime cherry blossoms while on the phone with the Japanese Defense Minister, we obviously are still on the path of the series' calendar matching up with when the episode airs. With a few exceptions (Jefferson Lives, for example, or The Midterms), it's stayed pretty close to the actual calendar ever since debuting in the fall of 1999 - but that is going to change. I thought it happened during this season, but since the season finale is called Memorial Day I guess the shift doesn't occur until Season 6.

- Why does Leo get a pass and not have to be locked down with the rest? He was riding in the limo with Debbie and the President; when Debbie reports being sprayed with something at the dinner Dr. Gordon scrambles into a higher-level lockdown until they can determine where the contaminant actually came from - seems like Leo would be smack-dab in the middle of a suspected contagion. Now, after Ron Butterfield says they narrowed it down to the envelope in the outer office of the Oval, that would exclude Leo - but not before then, not before the President, Charlie, and Debbie all had to take showers. Also ... was it really just something in that office? Why is the limo still cordoned off and being deep-cleaned even after the all-clear?

- The office formerly used by Sam and Will (apparently dedicated to the Deputy Communications Director) is still unused, some seven months after Will left for the job with the Vice President. Sam left to run for Congress in the California special election in December 2002, and Will used the office to work on the inaugural speech since Christmas week of that year, so it was only empty for a few weeks then. Now it's been over half a year.

- When Donna shows up with the fishing gear, CJ's reaction is "Oh, sweet Lord, what have I gotten myself into." We saw CJ out fishing with her father in The Long Goodbye, it's not like she's never gone fishing before ... in fact, in a later scene she tells Donna about some times she'd been on the lake fishing with her dad.

- Gail's fishbowl appears to be a vacation theme, with a palm tree and a sign that I think reads "No Fishing" - which ties into CJ's planned camping trip and all her fishing gear.

- CJ seems to think Josh wasn't being upfront with Donna about what her role on the Middle East trip will be, and by extension she seems to think Josh is not being serious about trying to help Donna grow in her career. Yet, CJ herself tells Donna the White House only gets one representative on the trip, as Donna is bouncing Jack Sosa off the list. If there's only one spot available, and Josh is making sure Donna gets it, doesn't that mean that Josh really is going out of his way to give Donna an opportunity? I mean, yeah, she has to do a lot of press detail work and send faxes, but it's not like there was a different position she could have been assigned. There was one spot, Josh got her into it. Why is that seen as less-than-gracious?

- We get the feeling a great deal of time passes by here, especially in the bunker; there's a decontamination shower, Charlie and the President play chess, after which Charlie breaks out the Risk game, then Debbie gets all "nested" before the all-clear is given - plus Josh and Kate go through, like, a case of Dasani. Yet the episode actually plays out in something close to real time, with Ron Butterfield telling the President it was 43 minutes from the initial alarm to the all-clear signal.

- The triggering event for this episode is some kind of airborne contaminant possibly being spread in the White House - Kate runs down the possibilities for Josh:
Josh: "So, what kind of substance are we talking about?"

Kate: "Could be anthrax, smallpox, botulism, though it's hard to aerosolize, so it's probably not botulism. Sarin and VX kill you within minutes, so we can rule them out. Mustard's unlikely 'cause we'd smell it, and there'd be blistering --"

Josh: "Okay. (drops his head on his desk). Thanks. How'd you know the air's off?"

Kate (looks at Josh like he's an idiot): "Cause it's hot."

In the still post-9/11-paranoia era of 2004, this all makes sense to be afraid of. Looking at it in the COVID era of 2023, there are other iconic moments that pull up a reaction to a general pandemic instead ... the surgical masks, the divvying up of personal space, and most uncomfortably to those of us who went through it with COVID testing, the nasal swabbing.


- Both Janel Moloney and Stockard Channing were nominated for Emmy Awards for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series for this episode. Channing's nomination was coupled with her performance in 7A WF 83429, while Moloney's was paired with the upcoming Gaza. They would see the Emmy in that category go to Drea de Matteo from The Sopranos.

- Why'd They Come Up With No Exit?
Will makes the comparison of their situation to a line by Jean-Paul Sartre, whose play No Exit contains the line "Hell is other people." The play is about three people spending eternity damned to be locked in a room with each other - which relates to the situation of our characters here being locked in rooms together and forced to contend with those differing personalities without a way out ... hence, "No Exit."



Quotes    
Leo: "What are you doing at this hour?"

Abbey: "I'm at the clinic one night a week - midnight to 8 a.m."

Leo: "Graveyard?"

Abbey: "We try not to call it that in front of the patients." 

-----

Toby: "From now on, any joint POTUS/VPOTUS appearance, I clear his speech."

Will: "First of all, no. Second, you're mad he didn't use any of your jokes."

Toby: "Okay. (laughs) The problem with Bob Russell jokes is he doesn't think they're funny and no one else thinks they're jokes." 

----- 

Toby: "He's a featherweight who only looks like a lightweight because he's got you propping him up."

Will: "He's the heir apparent."

Toby: "Don't say heir apparent when we've got men in moon suits hermetically sealing the Oval. This is Russell's only shot, by the way. A night like this. You're comfortable with that?"

Will: "Perfectly. Thank you."

Toby: "Well, great."

Will: "Only shot."

Toby: "This and voter fraud, another option."

Will: "Yeah, I see."

Toby: "Or a mob hit would also work." 

-----

President (to Debbie and Charlie): "If I'm ever looking at this in the face, I hope I've got folks beside me like the two of you." 



Story threads, callbacks, and familiar faces (Hey, it's that guy!)
  • We've seen Reed Diamond, the actor playing Dr. Gordon, in lots of things over the years. He's perhaps best known for Homicide: Life On The Street, but has also had runs on Franklin & Bash, Judging Amy, Designated Survivor, and worked with Clark Gregg (FBI Agent Mike Casper) on Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D.

  • CJ's assistant Jack Sosa (Wilson Cruz) pops up again, after we saw him briefly in Access. Cruz first became known for his role in My So-Called Life, and currently has a featured role on Star Trek: Discovery.

  • It's always enjoyable to see Michael O'Neill as Secret Service agent Ron Butterfield.

  • In the empty office formerly used by Sam and Will, there's a lonely Seaborn for Congress bumper sticker. This reminds us not only of Sam's departure to run for Congress in The California 47th, but also the pranking of Will by placarding the office with Seaborn campaign paraphernalia in Holy Night.

  • Also in that office there's a telephone handset and a necktie hanging on the wall. I'm not sure what the handset is for, but the tie is a callback to Sam and Will trading ties in Game On.

  • Speaking of ties, while Josh has a full bow tie that one ties and unties (remember Donna rather sexily tying that bow tie in episodes like On The Day Before?), Toby wears a clip-on with his tux. Which is absolutely right for the character.

  • President Bartlet sneaking cigarettes behind Abbey's back - often borrowing them from Secret Service agents - has been a longtime occurrence in the show, perhaps most famously in Posse Comitatus ("'Crime, boy, I don't know' is when I decided to kick your ass").
  • Josh asks Kate Harper if she was at the embassy in Haiti. That's a reference to the attempted military coup in Haiti trying to overthrow the newly elected president that we saw play out at the end of Season 2 (starting in 18th And Potomac) and beginning of Season 3 (Manchester).
  • Will reminds Toby that he's run only one successful campaign in his career, with Bartlet's first election in 1998. This was first referenced in In The Shadow Of Two Gunmen, Part I when Toby was steeling himself to be fired from the Bartlet team, telling a woman at the bar that he's been on the losing side of at least six prior campaigns.
  • Abbey's decision to take up volunteer work at a medical clinic was first mentioned in An Khe, where she told CJ she would be giving vaccinations to kids. That was promoted with the Muppets in Eppur si Muove - so naturally her decision to work overnights on weekends raises Leo's eyebrow, since she won't be giving out many kids' vaccinations at that hour. Remember, Abbey decided to voluntarily give up her medical license in Dead Irish Writers, as it was about to be suspended because of her ethics violations in treating Jed for his multiple sclerosis (first revealed to us in He Shall, From Time To Time ...). Abbey's concern about Jed's blood pressure in the bunker and the physical effects of stress on the body also connects with his MS.
  • Abbey also says, about her medical volunteering, "Not negotiable. Since I came back, since Zoey, this is the only deal I've had with myself. Follow my gut." That's a recall of Zoey's kidnapping and rescue (Commencement through The Dogs Of War), Abbey's leaving the White House for New Hampshire in Jefferson Lives, and her return in Shutdown.
  • Abbey's concern about Leo's health and his blood pressure is a call-forward to something we'll see next season.
  • Abbey and Leo's back-and-forth about the judicious use of Xanax and the fact "that's not a course of action that's available to" Leo goes back to his admission of abusing alcohol and pills and his time in rehab in 1993 (first discussed in The Short List).
  • CJ is trying to get away for a camping trip with her once-old-now-new-again beau Ben. Their past college-era relationship was first mentioned in Constituency Of One, and they've sorta-kinda been an item since Eppur si Muove - although the time demands of CJ's job (and her reluctance to truly commit to a relationship) have certainly caused stress for the two of them.
  • CJ refers to "Congressman DeSantos." Oddly enough, a Congressman named "Santos" will play a hugely important role in Seasons 6 and 7 of the series.
  • When CJ is urging Donna to move on from Josh, telling her to go on dates with "what's-his-name from the Solicitor General's office," I wonder if that's supposed to mean Cliff Calley, whom Donna dated a couple of times starting in Ways And Means. Calley was an attorney attached to committees in the House of Representatives, and stood up to defend Leo's privacy in Bartlet For America. It's possible he might have moved to the Solicitor General's office at this point, maybe? Or perhaps I'm reaching too much for a connection to this little throwaway line.
  • Debbie's hankering for a deck of cards reminds us of her background as a professional gambler (from Posse Comitatus) and her skill at taking everyone else's money during the West Wing poker game in Evidence Of Things Not Seen.


DC location shots    
  • The opening shot of the motorcade on a bridge is most likely on the Arlington Memorial Bridge, which runs over the Potomac directly between Arlington Cemetery and the Lincoln Memorial. The show has shot scenes on that bridge several times in the past, from the the jogging conversation between Josh and Vice President Hoynes in What Kind Of Day Has It Been to the events around the Rosslyn shooting in In The Shadow Of Two Gunmen, Part I. 



They Do Exist! It's The Real Person, or Thing    
  • The President talks about the Gridiron Club, the Alfalfa Club, and the Def Comedy circuit in the limo after the Correspondents' Dinner. Def Comedy Jam concert tours grew out of the Def Comedy Jam HBO specials that originally ran in the 1990s, then were rebooted on HBO in 2006.
  • Josh refers to Commander Harper as "Colonel Klink," a character in the TV show Hogan's Heroes. Another pop culture reference is Agent Broder's remark "we're talking Nemo" for his daughter's sleepover, referring to 2003's Finding Nemo. Debbie makes a couple of mentions of "Leno's people," meaning comedian and Tonight Show host Jay Leno, who actually was the host of the 2004 White House Correspondent's Association Dinner. And Donna tries to get at CJ by saying she's skipping the camping trip with Ben only to watch a rerun of Letterman (meaning The Late Show With David Letterman) - although as this is a Saturday night, there would be no Late Show rerun actually being broadcast.
  • CJ says Donna was planning to get drinks with a reporter from the "Post-Intelligencer." That would probably mean the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.
  • Josh and Kate are drinking bottles of Dasani water.

  • As Charlie is looking through the games in the medical bunker, he talks about Scrabble, Boggle, and Parcheesi, and later pulls out the board game Risk. We can see boxes for Boggle and Risk here; also there's the Pokemon Master Trainer board game (which my son had decades ago), a Big Ben puzzle, what appears to be Go For It!, and something that could be The 70s Game.

  • Leo's conversation with Abbey includes consideration of what might happen if Fox News finds out about the First Lady's overnight clinic work, and a "Valley Of The Dolls" drug-abuse cautionary-tale reference. 
  • Debbie name-drops the fragance Chanel; Charlie mentions Fort Detrick, in Maryland not far from the White House, which is one of the centers for the country's biological defense program.  



End credits freeze frame: The final shot as Debbie walks away, with the Presidential limousine getting a thorough cleaning.





Previous episode: Talking Points
Next episode: Gaza


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Monday, January 16, 2023

Talking Points - TWW S5E19

 






Original airdate: April 21, 2004

Written by: Eli Attie (11) 

Directed by: Richard Schiff (1)

Synopsis
  • Josh is conflicted after a trade deal he brokered ends up with American jobs moving overseas. CJ tries to get the press corps to report on a media consolidation story. And we meet a new NSC deputy who speaks frankly to the President.


"What I did wrong wasn't breaking my word. It was making a promise I couldn't keep in the first place." 



File this one under the series' post-Aaron-Sorkin attempts at explaining a big complicated issue by talking it to death. Globalization and free trade and job migration and the loss of union jobs (even technical jobs!) is the subject here, with wonky details from both the liberal and conservative sides being thrown at the viewer in an attempt to not offend anybody from either side, but finally just boring everyone out of their wits. Plus it makes us wonder why people like Josh are presented as so brilliant and conniving and yet can't see the inevitable consequences of some of the policies they help put into place.

It's not that the show didn't try to take on complicated economic subjects before. The Mexico bailout in Bad Moon Rising is one example that comes to mind, but that's also an example that illustrates the different approach between Season 2 and the post-Sorkin team. It may have seemed a bit too wispy and lacking in detail, but Josh and Donna's competing made-up phone messages about the "pay back the budget surplus to Americans"/"we have a responsibility to not let our allies collapse" sides of the issue served as a quick (and humorous!) way to argue the point. Now we get Schumpeter's theories and tech firms working on the economy of scale and media market ownership to the hundredth of a percent ... I felt like I was drowning under the wonk of it all. And the fact that President Bartlet is a Nobel Prize-winning economist in his own right didn't help.

The real center of the episode is Josh, and the guilt he feels about what he sees as the betrayal of a promise given to union workers during President Bartlet's first campaign (in fact, the original title of the episode was The Promise, until it was changed during production). Josh and the campaign promised the Communication Workers of America that they'd do everything they could to protect their jobs, in return getting the CWA's endorsement that helped boost Bartlet in the early primaries. Now Josh has played a key role in crafting a global free-trade agreement soon to be sealed by the President's trip to Brussels to sign the documents, an agreement he's proud to have closed the deal on ... but then he discovers a major computer programming firm is going to use the framework of that deal to move millions of jobs to India.

It's key to our understanding of the episode to watch Josh ping-pong between his initial elation at the deal ("Free trade creates better, higher-paying jobs!") and his dismay when he hears of JCN's plans to ship jobs overseas ("You're handing out pink slips when we're popping champagne corks and Brussels sprouts"). And when the head of the CWA drops two programmers who will be losing their jobs in Josh's office, leaving them there until Josh can come up with an explanation, he's completely trapped. And that's where the wonkiness comes in, from the President bringing up Schumpeter and the theory of "creative destruction" to the notion that the protesting Belgian farmers may just have to get jobs that involve wearing neckties to the President and Josh going over free trade and starving children in India and the underlying thought of "a rising tide lifts all boats," on a global scale. It's a lot to comprehend, and not only is it maybe too much to bite off for a West Wing episode, it's made even tougher by the producers' efforts to be even-handed, to not take a too "liberal" view of free trade, but instead try to paint a picture that economic conservatives can be happy with, too.

The most biting part of the entire complication for Josh comes in the meeting with House Republicans and Speaker Haffley. Josh is convinced that word of JCN moving thousands of jobs to India will doom the trade deal in Congress, and he's thinking he's going to have to press Haffley for his assistance. Well, he's wrong about that ...
Josh: "No one is more concerned about the dislocation than me, so if you've got some issues, we should --"

Haffley: "Let's get right to my issues."

Josh: "Sure."

Haffley: "I have no issues."

Josh: "Meaning?"

Haffley: "Meaning you're home, Josh."

Not only do the Republicans not need any extra convincing to support the deal, they're thrilled. The provisions on free trade are a boon to the corporations that are the traditional Republican constituents, while the side agreements the White House put in to protect the unions and the working class are "not even enforceable," according to Haffley. Josh worked hard to put together an agreement on behalf of the White House that turns out to be everything the Republicans could ever want, and the Speaker twists the knife a little on his way out of the meeting:

Haffley: "India can have our programming jobs. We'll give them up like we gave up horses and buggies. They can't take away what's great about the American spirit."

Josh: "That's ... that's it?"

Haffley: "Unless I can interest you in running for Congress as a Republican." 

Then Ryan piles on to add insult to injury. It's finally his last day as Josh's intern - a celebratory day for Josh, it would appear - but, surprise! Ryan resurfaces as legislative director for a congressman. That means he'll continue to be a pain in Josh's neck (just for other reasons), but after he makes it clear what he learned working for Josh, Josh has to reconsider what the day and the trade deal has brought him.

Ryan: "If you taught me anything, it's that my view doesn't matter anyway. You take your bosses' position - lock, stock, and sound bite - and you get what you came for. Am I right?"

Josh is devastated that he can't do anything to help out the programmers represented by the two union members sitting in his office. And he's devastated by the fact he and the campaign promised they would protect them, but then basically gave their jobs away for the "greater good." He does come clean with that, telling the workers that while he can't keep that promise, he can try his best to do whatever he can to help them get through the disruption.

CJ, meanwhile, is baffled by an FCC decision on the allowable percentage of media stations any one corporation can own in a media market. When Will lays out the details, the numbers don't make sense to her:

CJ: "So, what's the compromise?"

Will: "Instead of letting one company own stations reaching 45% of all the viewers, the FCC's agreed they can only reach 39.37%."

CJ: "39.37%?"

Will: "These things can be very scientific."

CJ: "I'm going to need a slide rule during my briefing. 39.37%?"

After a bit of research, CJ discovers that percentage wasn't reached randomly - it happens to be the concentration of ownership in a media market that one big corporation holds already, so this "compromise" by the FCC merely locks in place the stations Mertmedia already owns. This seems like a big deal to CJ - diversity of thought and ownership in news media ought to be important - but she can't get the White House press corps to give it any attention.

After Leo tells her the administration isn't going to press the issue either, but she can use her briefing room to talk about it if she wants, CJ decides she'll use the briefing room in another way. She brings in a remodeling team to yank out most of the seats for the reporters - instead of each media outlet getting a chair, she's consolidating the seats so that there's just a chair for each corporate owner, which takes the room down to about seven seats. Of course the reporters throw a fit, and of course CJ immediately retracts her statement and puts the chairs back, but her point is made.

Apparently this stunt impresses Leo so much he offers to pay for the carpentry work. This doesn't seem at all like something Leo would do ... he knows the reality of corporate media, he knows CJ's gambit wouldn't have any impact on anything at all, in fact he'd probably be a little upset at her angering the press corps for no real reason ... but okay, there it is anyway.

Speaking of CJ, Ben is still a thing, and she's still trying to show everyone that she doesn't need the attention of a man to make her a complete person, although ...

CJ: "I'm sorry, I can't do this right now."

Ben: "Do what?"

CJ: "This leaving-on-a-jet-plane-can't-bear-to-be-without-you-for-36-hours bit." 

Ben: "Okay."

CJ: "I've got labor leaders frothing at the mouth making unverified claims, a media conspiracy run amok, I can't need to see you every 37 seconds to achieve completion as a human being."

Ben: "Fine."

CJ: "Are we clear on this?"

Ben: "Sure."

CJ: "Good."

Ben: "Can I say something?"

CJ: "Go right ahead."

Ben (handing CJ some items): "You left your passport at my house. You left your wallet at my house. You left your driver's license and all your credit cards at my house. Have a safe flight."

This makes CJ feel terrible, so she convinces Ben to stay for an apologetic late lunch in her office. As I've said before, I can't see what the point is of this entire Ranger Ben/CJ storyline, except that John Wells is bringing in more personal-relationship soap-opera-y types of storylines to the show. I don't know if I can see a future in it the way things are going ... I mean, CJ pretty much blew Ben off (even after deciding to pledge to try to make a go of it with him) because of the requirements and pace of her job in Eppur si Muove, and here she's doing the same thing ("I'm so busy and important as a self-sufficient independent woman, don't you dare try to think your attachment to me makes a difference in my own life") ... why would Ben put up with this? I guess CJ's assertion from Galileo that she's "great in bed" must be true, huh?

We meet a new character: Kate Harper, Nancy McNally's deputy on the National Security Council. Kate will be with us throughout the rest of the run of the series, and we get a taste of her, well, tactless situational approach, maybe is the way to put it? First she chastises Debbie for having the Secret Service locator device screen visible to Oval Office visitors; then when President Bartlet asks for her opinion on a situation with France holding prisoners they're refusing to extradite to the United States, she sort of takes the administration to task for stepping on the rights of the French government (although admittedly, she thinks she sees a danger in speaking frankly to the President).

Kate: "That's one way of looking at it, sir."

President: "You've got another way."

Kate: "That's not really my job, Mr. President."

President: "I'm asking you."

Kate: "There's a French side and an American side."

President: "I want your argument."

Kate: "Officially, I don't have an argument."

President: "Yet we're having one right now." 

What Kate doesn't know, but what we the viewers have seen in past episodes, is that President Bartlet loves it when his advisers are frank and open in their discussions with him. Even though he seems brusque and irritated by an opposing viewpoint, he actually values those who feel comfortable with bringing them up in the Oval Office (Will's failure to stand up for himself with the fake problem planted in the speech in Holy Night serves as a perfect example of the opposite). We the viewers are observant enough and smart enough to know the President really digs a contrary point of view like the one Kate gives him, even if she doesn't know it. 

Finally, Donna continues to stand up for herself and demand that Josh give her more responsibility and more growth in her career, rather than just filing and typing and getting charts for him. She's been indispensable to Josh from the beginning, and we've seen her do plenty of great, valuable things to support him (trying to track down Senator Hardin in Guns Not Butter, had a save of the Social Security payment issue in Shutdown, did key work on the pardons in The Benign Prerogative, was the rock of support by his side with the "what a shame" folder when he got benched by Leo in Disaster Relief) and has been Josh's conscience in a lot of ways (her setting Josh and Toby straight in 20 Hours In America Part 2 played a key part in inspiring the college-loan-deduction plank of the campaign). We also know how important they are to each other, even though Josh has some pretty poor ways of showing it [Donna's devotion to him was best expressed in 17 People, when Josh said (about her ex-boyfriend), "I'm just saying, if you were in an accident, I wouldn't stop for a beer" and Donna replied, "If you were in an accident, I wouldn't stop for red lights"].

In Angel Maintenance, it was perhaps the first time we saw Donna specifically asking Josh for more responsibility. In that episode he gave her the job of looking up the background of maintenance on Air Force One. She's still looking for more, to not just be Josh's assistant but to grow into a real career:

Donna: "I just want to grow in my job, do something meaningful, do more than earn a paycheck until I die."

Josh: "Why are you saying that?"

Donna: "I only have one career, and I want it to matter, or I might as well be a soda jerk."

In this specific case she wants to be included on the trip to Brussels for the trade mission meeting, but Josh had let that opportunity slip by. But he has been listening, and after she's been (rightfully) angry at him through the episode for his seeming disinterest in her professional growth, he offers her a diplomatic passport:


Not for Brussels, not for the trade meeting, but for the upcoming congressional delegation to the Middle East, the one Toby's ex-wife Congresswoman Wyatt is on, the one that's come up over the past couple of episodes as a trip that could cause troubles for the administration if these legislators decide to try to negotiate with Palestinians or Israeli settlers. Josh wants Donna to be his eyes and ears on this trip and report back to him and Toby. It's a pretty big deal for her ... and we will find out this trip will turn out to be meaningful on a lot of levels we can't even imagine right now.

The trip is also a big enough deal that President Bartlet asks Admiral Fitzwallis, the recently retired Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to tag along as the administration's representative. His inclusion on the trip is also going to reverberate down the road into Season 6.

So that turned out to be a long missive on this episode from me - which I guess is fitting, given the complicated wonkiness of the plot in the first place. It's only right I should get complicatedly wonky in my essay on it, right? Anyway, we're heading into the home stretch of the end-of-the-season wrapup and the somewhat tradition season-ending "cliffhanger" of sorts ... but next, an odd little bottle episode off-ramp of a story that might leave us all scratching our heads.



Tales Of Interest!

- Toby directs a West Wing episode! Schiff's role here is the first time a cast member has dipped his or her toes into directing the show. We will get some more examples of cast members getting involved with behind-the-scenes production or writing as the years go on. Schiff will direct another episode in Season 7 as well as a 2009 episode of the HBO series In Treatment.

- Can I just ask why Will is spending so much time hanging out in the West Wing? His character was originally brought on to the show as a sort of replacement for Sam Seaborn, and his appointment to what was Sam's post as Deputy Communications Director in Inauguration: Over There was a big deal. After Sorkin left and the new showrunners took over in Season 5, they engineered a dispute between Toby and Will over the direction of the Communications Department which led Will to leave the White House, becoming Vice President Russell's chief advisor in Constituency Of One. Yet he's still around, talking up CJ and Josh on topics barely connected to the Vice President at all. If the show still needed Will as a character, why did they move him out in the first place? I really don't know.

- As far as that goes with Toby, whatever happened with his "new role" as chief policy maker? Sure, he came up with the overall direction of the State of the Union address in The Benign Prerogative, and tried to cook up a backdoor save of Social Security in Slow News Day, but we haven't really seen him taking off on this bold new direction, the one that caused Will to bail on his job in the first place.

- And what's happened to Rena? First Ginger disappeared, now Rena? And yes, it's true, The Supremes was her last appearance on the show (although we're not completely done with Ginger yet). Is the population of Mandyville growing out of control?

- Jace Computer Networks was a back-construction of JCN, which is simply one letter off from the real computer maker IBM (International Business Machines). It's generally thought the HAL-9000 computer in the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey got its name in the same way, by moving one letter earlier in the alphabet from IBM; The West Wing does the same thing by moving one letter later in the alphabet, resulting in JCN.

- When we first met Greg Brock in Full Disclosure, much was made of his position as the new White House correspondent for the New York Times. Now we see him working in a cubicle labeled "GAZETTE."



- Speaking of those cubicles, this new reporters' workroom is a new part of the West Wing set, one we first saw in last week's Access during the documentary about CJ. Looks like it's here to stay for a bit.



- Say farewell to Ryan Pierce, supposed great-great (or is it great-great-great?) grandson of President Franklin Pierce and thorn in Josh's side as his intern. This is the last appearance of Jesse Bradford as Ryan - although his move to be the legislative director for a congressman (and thereby a continued thorn in Josh's side) is kinda funny, in an ironic-funny sort of way.



- Why'd They Come Up With Talking Points?
Josh asks the President if he's read the talking points, the sound-bite notes the administration wants to use to sell the media on the trade deal.



Quotes    
Josh: "That's not the message."

Ed: "Protecting intellectual property through international copyright enforcement."

Josh: "Okay - I know what you're talking about, and I have no idea what you're talking about."

Larry: "Isn't that what we --"

Josh: "Free trade creates jobs. It creates better, higher paying jobs. We still have to pass this through Congress, let's not outsmart ourselves as if that were, you know, possible." 

-----

Josh: "Sir, have you read the talking points?"

President: "I'm an economist, some would say half-decent. I don't need a primer on this."

Charlie: "Due respect, sir, your answers on economic issues can be a bit --"

President: "Polysyllabic?"

CJ: "Academic."

Leo: "I was going to go with incomprehensible." 

----- 

CJ: "I can't become one of those women who wait by the phone, eyes a-fluttering."

Toby: "Eyes a-fluttering?"

CJ: "You know, parasol's a-twirling." 

-----

Josh: "Do you ever wonder if we forget the human face of free trade, the blood and muscle?"

Will: "You have to go with what grows the economy for everyone. There's blood and muscle in India, too."

-----

Leo: "We'll give them transition assistance."

Josh: "They call it burial insurance."

Leo: "Well, it's all burial insurance, isn't it?"

-----

Josh: "We can't save your jobs. We are going to create more in the long run, but we can't save your jobs. It's the short run we gotta figure out. The world's moving faster, we can't stop it. I wish we could. We are going to do more to prepare you. We have to."

Union member: "Is that a promise?"

Josh: "No, but we're gonna try." 

 


Story threads, callbacks, and familiar faces (Hey, it's that guy!)
  • It's our first meeting with Nancy McNally's new National Security Council deputy, Kate Harper (Mary McCormack, seen in Murder One, In Plain Sight, Private Parts, the late, lamented The Kids Are Alright. She's also part of the ER/West Wing pipeline). Kate will eventually become a series regular, and actually one of my favorite characters on the show.

  • The lobbyist for JCN is played by Daniel Hugh Kelly (Ryan's Hope, Hardcastle and McCormick, I Married Dora, Star Trek: Insurrection).

  • Speaker of the House Jeff Haffley is back, played by Steven Culp (Thirteen Days, JAG, Desperate Housewives). I don't believe we've seen the smug, self-assured Haffley since he got embarrassed by the White House in Shutdown.

  • Admiral Fitzwallace (John Amos), the retired chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, stops by as President Bartlet asks him to be part of the upcoming congressional delegation to the Middle East.

  • Ben's relationship with CJ was first brought up in Constituency Of One, where we heard they had lived together for six months (this was later fleshed out as a thing that happened after they had graduated from Cal-Berkeley). Ben, a national park ranger in Alaska, was consistently calling CJ on the phone at that point. We learned later he had been married, but was now separated, and was taking a job in the Washington DC area and was just hoping to reconnect with his old flame. They've reconnected now, it seems (with CJ leaving her personal documents and things at Ben's house overnight).

  • The continuing cast of reporters that are seen in this episode are Chris and Greg Brock.


DC location shots    
  • None.

They Do Exist! It's The Real Person, or Thing    
  • Josh's mention of a "giant sucking sound" of job losses reminds us of presidential candidate Ross Perot, who used the same phrase in his opposition to the North American Free Trade Agreement during the 1992 campaign.
  • Josh mentions the movie The Exorcist, and the folk singer Woody Guthrie; CJ uses the phrase "something's rotten in the state of Denmark" which comes from Shakespeare's play Hamlet. CJ also talks about decoder rings and a jar of Ovaltine, which could be a reference to the movie A Christmas Story.

  • The MSNBC logo is shown prominently.

  • Will brings up shopping at WalMart in his free trade discussion with Josh.
  • CJ tells Leo, "This is the biggest media conspiracy since William Randolph Hearst was starting wars and crushing filmmakers." Hearst's newspapers were some of the key instigators in goading the United States into the Spanish-American War, and he famously retaliated against Orson Welles for the film Citizen Kane, regarded as a thinly-disguised portrait of Hearst's life.


End credits freeze frame: The President and Josh talking in the Oval Office.






Previous episode: Access
Next episode: No Exit


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