Gaza - TWW S5E21

 

Original airdate: May 12, 2004

Written by: Peter Noah (3)  

Directed by: Christopher Misiano (19)

Synopsis

• After an explosion in Gaza kills two congressmen and Admiral Fitzwallace while seriously injuring Donna, tensions grow over an inevitable military response and the prospect of more violence in the Middle East. In flashbacks we see Donna get insights from both Israelis and Palestinians, and watch her grow close to an Irish photojournalist. Josh shows his devotion to Donna by flying to her side overseas.

"After 50 years of strife and futility, there's no dishonor in failure. The only dishonor might be not to try." 

With nearly five full seasons under its belt, The West Wing has settled into a fully realized, matured TV series, and in doing that it's developed some traditions of its own. One of those is ending seasons with a cliffhanger and/or a story arc covering several episodes. Season 1 ended with the Rosslyn shooting of What Kind Of Day Has It Been, and we had to wait until Season 2 to find out who'd actually been shot. Season 2 ended with maybe the greatest run of episodes in any dramatic TV series ever: the epic six-episode arc covering President Bartlet's health revelations and the "will-he-or-won't-he-run" plotline, although if you were paying attention Two Cathedrals wasn't really a cliffhanger in that respect. Well, the resolution of the attempted coup in Haiti didn't come until the next season, but that was hardly the main point. Season 3 had the arc of the death threats/Secret Service protection for CJ starting with Enemies Foreign And Domestic, Abdul Shareef's terrorist plot first revealed in The Black Vera Wang, and culminated with the Bermuda assassination of Shareef in Posse Comitatus. Not much cliffhanger there, either, except for how and when the killing of Shareef might be uncovered and what that would mean for the administration. Season 4, of course, had Commencement and Twenty Five - Aaron Sorkin's final episodes depicting the kidnapping of Zoey and President Bartlet stepping away from the Presidency, which were not just a cliffhanger, but quite the "here you go, guys, hope you can figure it out" that Sorkin dropped in the lap of the writers on his way out the door.

 

We are down to two episodes left in Season 5, and we're off and running again. The congressional delegation to the Middle East, to talk with both Palestinian and Israeli groups not necessarily connected with their respective governments, was first mentioned in The Supremes. It held no real significance until we discovered Josh was sending Donna on the trip in Talking Points, which certainly made us think this trip was probably going to turn out to be meaningful plot-wise. And right off the bat, we see congresspeople and Admiral Fitzwallace in the Gaza heat talking about Arab-Israeli tensions, Donna batting her eyes at a cute photographer, and suddenly:

As the photographer fights through his emotions, he snaps some pictures of a gravely injured, bloody Donna in the vehicle:

And we realize, yep, we're in season-ending cliffhanger territory again, what with the prospect of America getting involved militarily against the Palestinians and what's going to happen with Donna.

It's a combination of the "big issue" - working toward peace in the Middle East when it seems every hand reached out ends up getting blown off - and the "personal" - what's going to happen to Donna and how will Josh deal with his unspoken feelings for her. Frankly ... maybe not the best approach for the series to take. The West Wing is a political animal, always has been and needs to be, considering its very genesis; but it's not always very effective when it tries to take on huge real-life geopolitical issues. The conflict between Arabs and Israelis has been intractable since 1948; I don't think some TV-show writers in Los Angeles in 2004 are going to come up with the magic solution that's evaded diplomats and politicians for over 50 years. And the personal, soap-opera-y "relationship" approach to characters that has been successful for John Wells in shows like ER doesn't fit very well in this show, at least not for me. Sure, Sorkin had some relationships built into his stories in the day: Josh and Amy, CJ and Simon, even Donna and Jack Reese. But they just feel different now under the new showrunners. Maybe it's just me.

Anyway, we're back to an episode structure that plays with time. After the explosion in Gaza, we see a quick shot of Josh on an airplane, then we go back in time at the White House, where Josh is complaining about the long e-mails Donna has been sending that he doesn't have time to read, and Toby is complaining that Andy keeps nagging him to see his kids. It doesn't take long for word of the explosion to arrive, as beepers go off all over the building, fatalities are reported but nobody knows who, exactly. Toby, with the fate of his ex-wife and mother of their two children unknown, is as emotional as we've ever seen him.

Josh, urgently watching TV coverage and hoping for some word on Donna, gets a supportive squeeze of his arm from CJ.

(It's really awesome to catch little things like this that show us how these characters feel about each other.)

Bouncing around in time some more, Josh (sitting in that airplane) opens up the e-mails from Donna that he hadn't read before.

 

 

This gives us a chance to see Donna's impressions of the delegation's trip, her growing connection to the Irish photojournalist Colin Ayres, and his help getting her in touch with some of those dealing with the day-to-day challenges of life in Gaza. There's the Palestinian electrician who can't work when Israel shuts down the border checkpoints, who knows others in his position who turn to terrorism to get money for their families:

There's the Israeli settler family in Gaza, dealing with mortar attacks on their homes and willing to shoot every Palestinian they see:

Colin shows Donna a videotape statement from a young Palestinian suicide bomber, who didn't even tell her husband her plans and left behind two young children. And they talk with a young Israeli soldier working at the checkpoint, who has seen the ugliness and atrocities committed by both sides:

Each visit gives Donna additional background that she includes in her e-mails that Josh is finally reading on the plane; and each time we see Donna in Gaza Colin is there, getting closer and more intimate, and finally we see him in Donna's bed as she types up her last report to Josh.

This is designed to give us, the viewer, more background and information about the conflict between Arabs and Israelis - but it's not very deep, doesn't provide a lot of understanding, and only serves to try to elicit some surface sympathy for all sides. Again, this show isn't going to solve a "tribal" problem (as Toby calls it) like this that's existed for a very long time, not in 43 minutes, so I give the writers a break on that front. At least they're trying to be a little bit balanced in their approach - suicide bombers aren't "heroes," but here's some background about their desperation and why they might think it's their only option; Israelis may be trying to protect their very existence, but they're also building homes on land that isn't theirs and shooting Palestinian children in revenge for attacks.

Okay, I'm not going to solve peace in the Middle East either (and this storyline actually is part of the season-ending cliffhanger, as President Bartlet grabs the issue by the horns to kick off Season 6). It's all a framework to build around the IED attack on the congressional delegation that kills two congressmen and Admiral Fitzwallace while seriously injuring Donna. The unprecedented attack on American lawmakers brings calls on the administration to retaliate, to get payback for the killing of congressmen - President Bartlet doesn't want to just go striking back blindly, he demands some evidence of who is responsible ... but also informs his military advisers to get an attack plan ready.

The staffers have a debate over the issue as well, as they wait to see the President in the Oval. Kate Harper actually tries to take a clear-eyed, pragmatic look at things, while Will is much less even-keeled:

Kate: "I'm not sure any credible Arab leader truly expects Israel's demise anymore, not even the Chairman."

Leo: "Don't be so sure."

Kate: "Well, there's a view that --"

Will: "Don't keep saying 'some argue' and 'there's a view.' Can we restrict it to your view?"

Kate: "Okay. Palestinians are no longer fighting to destroy the Jewish state. They're fighting for a state of their own, a revolutionary struggle against an occupying force, and revolutionaries will outlast and out-die occupiers every time."

Will: "I don't know if that's more simplistic or naive."

This discussion triggers Josh, but there's a lot more on his mind than conflict between Jews and Arabs.

Kate: "Or we use this as an opportunity. Employ the moral authority to re-engage in aggressively pressing both sides for peace."

Josh (with an outburst): "We need to kill them. We need to find them and kill them. We kill them. Then we find out who sent them and we kill them too."

Leo: "Josh ..."

Josh: "You kill the people who did it. You kill the people who planned it. Then you kill everyone who is happy about it ..."

(Charlie tells the group they can go into the Oval)

Leo: "Josh."

(Leo takes Josh into the Mural Room)

Josh: "An opportunity?"

Leo knows Josh very well. And he knows what's really taking up all the space in Josh's head.

Leo: "Where's Donna now?"

Josh: "She's being medevaced to Ramstein then transferred to Landestuhl for further treatment."

Leo: "An operation?"

Josh: "I don't know."

Leo: "We've got excellent people in Germany. (pause) If there is some place you'd rather be, everyone would understand."

Josh: "I'm fine."

Josh: "Thanks."

(Josh rushes out)

 And that's why Josh is on the plane, flying overseas to be at Donna's side - Donna, his loyal assistant, Donna, who's been a key part of his life since showing up at the New Hampshire campaign office in In The Shadow Of Two Gunmen Part II, Donna, who he's pestered and overworked and underappreciated, yet he's been there when it counted every time. And he's going to be there for her now.

He gets to the hospital in Germany, and is told her injuries are severe but not life-threatening (a compound fracture of the femur and a collapsed lung). He goes into her room.

And he settles in, by Donna's side, as we prepare for the season finale.

 

Tales Of Interest!

- I've mentioned before how the change in the direction and writing of the series at the beginning of Season 5 turned me off so much that I stopped watching the show in 2003. While I had been a dedicated West Wing fan from early on in Season 1, either making time to watch every Wednesday night or recording it on my trusty VCR, seeing President Bartlet turn over his office to Speaker Walken in Twenty Five basically did me in. I think I started watching the Season 5 premiere of 7A WF 83429, but the moody, sullen Bartlet and the continued presence of Walken in the Oval did nothing to keep me interested ... so I quit. I saw nothing else of Season 5 during its original run, not Shutdown, not The Stormy Present, not Full Disclosure, not The Supremes, not Access ... none of it. Not even the one with the Muppets! I spent the 2003-04 TV season watching other stuff, like The Drew Carey Show and Will & Grace and Frasier. Actually, looking back on what was on television that season, I didn't watch that much network TV at all, I guess, as nothing much rings a bell. (I was kind of busy at the time with kids getting into middle school activities and my air traffic control career, so ...)

I still remember the exact visual that brought me back.

I saw the NBC promo on TV for this episode, which featured this explosion of the motorcade. That spurred my interest enough to tune back in, and so I stayed with the series for the rest of the run. Even so, those episodes of Season 5 that I missed in 2003-04 remained unseen by me until I did a full rewatch of the entire series more than ten years later, so it wasn't until the summer of 2016 that I finally got to see them. And now even with this blogging rewatch you are following along with, it makes a total of just two or three times I've seen Season 5 (with the first four seasons, I've probably seen most of those episodes a half-dozen times at least, and the campaign episodes of Seasons 6 and 7 almost that many).

- In The Dogs Of War, Admiral Fitzwallace says he promised "Laura" a month on a boat for their honeymoon when they were married 32 years ago, a promise he wants to keep now as he retires. In this episode President Bartlet calls Fitzwallace's widow "Gail."

 

- It's not exactly funny given the circumstances, but what a great acting choice by Richard Schiff. After Andy gets in touch on his cell phone, and then she appears on the MSNBC television coverage, she waves at the camera, knowing Toby and the others are seeing her on the screen. Toby instinctively waves back a little, then, embarrassed,  moves his hand to his head as he realizes she can't see him. 

 

- There's a yellow school bus seen in the background of one of the Gaza scenes; those don't really exist in that part of the world.

- Janel Moloney was nominated for an Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series Emmy award for her performance here and in No Exit. The Emmy would end up going to Drea de Matteo for The Sopranos.

- Why'd They Come Up With Gaza?

The Congressional delegation trip is to an area called Gaza, a Palestinian enclave in Israel that borders Egypt, which has been a focal point of Israeli/Palestinian conflict for over 50 years. At the time of this episode, the area was governed by the Fatah-controlled Palestinian Authority, with the rival Hamas party fighting for power. There were Israeli settlements in Gaza at that time; however in the fall of 2005 Israel unilaterally withdrew its settlers and its armed forces from Gaza (a process initially agreed to by the Israeli Knesset in February 2005, not quite a year after this episode aired).

Quotes    

Donna: "Black cars? Good choice for this climate."

Fitzwallace: "Everybody's this angry now, what must it have been like before air conditioning?" 

-----

Josh: "You hear from Andy?"

Toby: "Concision's not her problem. Every day the same three little words: 'see your children.' Before e-mail it was a lot harder for your ex-wife to hock you from 6000 miles away."

Josh: "Are the kids with Andy's mom?"

Toby: "The very definition of an approach-avoidance situation." 

----- 

Toby: "Maglie from the DNC, wants to talk about who to run for the two vacant House seats."

Will: "You're joking."

Toby: "They're still picking up pieces of these guys over there, he's talking about DeSantos' poachable district."

Will: "What's he calling you for?"

Toby: "He thought Josh'd be upset about Donna being in the car. I guess he figured since my ex-wife was only almost blown up that I'd only be almost upset." 

-----

Will: "President giving an address?"

Toby: "Tonight."

Will: "The Vice President would like to see an advance copy."

Toby: "To check my spelling, correct errors in syntax? Noted grammarian that he is."

-----

President: "Charlie, when your mother was killed, you got one of these calls?"

Charlie: "Yes, sir. Her captain."

President: "It make you feel any better?"

Charlie: "Not really, sir. Nothing makes you feel better. But it did make me feel proud."

-----

 (Donna and Colin are watching the VHS tape statement of a Palestinian suicide bomber. He shows her photos of the bomber's two small children)

Colin: "Families of suicide bombers get showered with gifts. It's customary at the funeral to hand out sweets."

Donna: "It's unimaginable."

Colin: "Well, you don't have to imagine it, do you? It's real."

 

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

• There's a few scenes with Rep. Andy Wyatt, the congressperson from Maryland who was once married to Toby. The pair had twins together, newborns in Twenty Five, and their existence gets a bit of a mention here (Toby: "Every day the same three little words - see your children").

 

 

• Speaking of the twins, we saw Toby in Twenty Five give a heartfelt speech pledging his life and his loyalty to those newborns. Well, as Season 5 has rolled along, the writers have tended to forget Toby even had kids, unless they brought Andy in to take him to task (as in The Supremes, where she noted he'd never asked where the children might be during the two weeks she was in the Middle East, saying, "You say you want to be involved, it doesn't come with an embossed invitation. You involve yourself or you don't"). Seeing Toby's reluctance to brave the wrath of Andy's mother, even to check on his own kids, seems like quite a character switch from the end of Season 4.
  

• This is our final look at Admiral Fitzwallace (John Amos), President Bartlet's friend and guide through the thickets of military tradition as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He retired from that post earlier in Season 5, and was personally asked by the President to tag along on this trip.
  

 

 

• Jason Isaacs (the Harry Potter films, The Patriot, The Death Of Stalin, a surprising amount of voiceover work for video games and animated projects) is seen as Colin Ayres, the Irish photojournalist who takes a shine to Donna and shepherds her around to see both the Israeli and Palestinian points of view in Gaza. He also winds up in her bed, I suppose as she takes CJ's advice from No Exit to heart ("have one-night stands with reporters from the Post-Intelligencer").

• The usual suspects are seen in the Situation Room, including new Chairman of the Joint Chiefs General Alexander (Terry O'Quinn), Undersecretary of State Ted Barrow (Ron Canada, first seen admonishing CJ in Han), Secretary of Defense Miles Hutchinson (Steve Ryan), and CIA Director George Sliger (Ryan Cutrona, who first appeared in the role of CIA director in Lord John Marbury but didn't have another speaking role in the show until The Stormy Present).

General Alexander

Ted Barrow

Hutchinson and Sliger

• We still see beepers being used by White House staffers. Beepers were generally falling into disuse by the early 2000s given the rise in cell phone availability - though in some instances requiring extra security, beepers were still seen as useful. Apparently the West Wing is one of those instances.

• The reporter Gordon is seen in the press room. You should remember Gordon from Slow News Day, who was questioning CJ about the Bartlets possibly planning to adopt a child, and CJ responded by intimating that she wanted Gordon to help her have a child of her own before kicking him out of her office. Now in the midst of dead congressmen and violence in the Middle East he's asking about FDA regulation of Canadian drugs.
  

• Our usual reporters Katie and Steve are seen.

• The President asks Charlie if official condolence calls made him feel better after his mother was killed. We learned in A Proportional Response that Charlie's mother was a police officer killed in the line of duty in the spring of 1999.

• Josh's outburst in reaction to Kate's analysis calling for a push for peace ("you kill everyone who is happy about it") is somewhat reminiscent of his blowup in the Oval Office in Noël ("you have to listen to me!"). In both cases he's kind of out of his mind, in Noël from his PTSD from being shot in In The Shadow Of Two Gunmen and here because of his distress about Donna's condition and his deep feelings for her.
  

• I mentioned the connections we've seen grow between Josh and Donna over the past five years. Donna, who had been asking Josh to give her more responsibility so she could grow in her career, was included in this Middle East trip only because Josh put her on it in Talking Points, giving him an additional edge of guilt as the reason why she was there to be hurt in the first place.
  

• Also, Admiral Fitzwallace was personally asked by the President to go along on the trip in Talking Points, to try to keep the congresspeople from going too far afield from the administration's position on Israeli-Palestinian issues. That hits Bartlet pretty hard, knowing it was his request that ended up in Fitz' death.
  

• The Jed Bartlet jacket flip makes another appearance. Martin Sheen's left arm was injured during birth, making him unable to lift the arm above the shoulder. He developed this move of flipping the jacket over his head in order to put on a jacket or coat.

 

DC location shots    

• None. The Gaza scenes were filmed near the Salton Sea/Indio areas of California, in the deserts southeast of Los Angeles (and not far from where the Coachella music festival is held).

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

• Colin quotes the 1974 song Same Old Song And Dance, leading Donna to say she didn't expect to meet many Aerosmith fans in Gaza.

• The MSNBC logo gets a lot of screen time in this episode. It took the NBC network until the very end of Season 1 to figure out they could use their own 24-hour cable news channel synergistically on a fictional show being aired on their network. I think they've got that all straightened out by now.
  

• Toby mentions the Hatfields and McCoys, a symbol of unending conflict and resentment between families that came from an actual family feud in the 1800s.

• Chevy Suburbans are seen (and referred to) as the typically used vehicles for official American visits to the Middle East.

• Toby quotes the former Israeli diplomat and politician Abba Eban, who said in 1973 that the Palestinians "never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity" when it comes to a peace agreement.

End credits freeze frame: President Bartlet and Katie Harper meeting with Mrs. Fitzwallace (either Laura or Gail, whichever).

Previous episode: No Exit

Next episode: Memorial Day