Memorial Day - TWW S5E22

 

Original airdate: May 19, 2004

Written by: John Sacret Young (2) & Josh Singer (2)

Directed by: Christopher Misiano (20)

Synopsis

• As calls for a retributory military strike in Gaza mount on all sides, President Bartlet desperately looks for a peaceful resolution, which frays the relationship between Jed and Leo. A mysterious note to Josh from an unexpected source may offer a path away from a military response. Josh meets Colin, and Donna takes a sudden turn for the worse.
  

"I'm the one in office. I'll be the one who's judged." 

Leo: "You get the best information, you consider all your options, you look at the potential good ... and you do what you think is right."

The problem facing President Bartlet here is that it's not always easy to do what's right - in fact, it's not always easy to even figure out what's right. That's particularly difficult when it comes to the harsh reality of Palestinian-Israeli conflict, which seems to be locked in the unending cycle of death followed by retribution followed by revenge for the retribution, on and on into infinity. As his military officials and closest advisers and Congress and the American people call out for the administration to strike back and answer for the IED attack that killed two Congressmen and the former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, President Bartlet keeps searching for another way, a way that won't result in the deaths of innocents, a way to serve justice on those responsible without harming others who weren't.

 

Unfortunately, almost every direction the President turns is cut off by that unending cycle of violence. The FBI thinks they've located the leader of the Palestinian splinter cell responsible; President Bartlet asks Chairman Farad, head of the Palestinian Authority, to help apprehend him; but Israeli bombs an apartment building in Gaza, killing not only their terrorist target but also children. That inflames Palestinian anger, resulting in a suicide bomb attack on a bus killing at least a dozen Israelis and wounding a hundred more. In turn, that leads to the Israelis surrounding and cutting off Farad, keeping him out of the negotiation loop entirely.

The options presented to the President are limited - an assault on the splinter cell's hideout to capture the leader, which likely would result in many American military deaths; or a missile strike on the apartment building where he's hiding, which would kill dozens of innocent Palestinians. The President keeps demanding limits; he can't accept 50 excess deaths, even 20 or 30 makes him reluctant.

And that's basically where we are early in this episode, which I think is actually a pretty fine entry in Season 5. That may surprise you, given my criticism of how The West Wing usually superficially deals with big geopolitical problems in my entry for Gaza, but this is different. We're not given the whole massive problem of Israeli settlements taking over Palestinian territory and the Palestinians fighting for a state of their own and all the various factions and their points of view and the seemingly intractable problem of how the Israelis and Palestinians can ever coexist ... it boils down to a moral decision by the President, how best to respond to a horrific situation, how many lives ought to be spent, and isn't it somehow worth it to go that extra mile and try to reach for a less violent solution, no matter how unlikely? Then add in the spy-thriller elements of the secret message to Josh in the flowers for Donna leading to an undercover restaurant meeting in Germany, and the whole episode really hangs together well.

That moral issue for Bartlet, by the way, is much more significant than we might first think as he urges the military options to risk fewer and fewer lives in Gaza. He knows missile strikes by the United States in that region are likely to spur terrorist attacks right here at home - it's not just Palestinian lives he's concerned about, it's the protection of American lives as well, and he drives that home after Leo calls him "gun shy":

Leo: "Your priority should be the security of this country. I think you're gun-shy, sir. The most important moment of your Presidency and you're going to blow it because you're human. You're a father who almost lost his --"

President (forcefully): "You think this is about Zoey? You're damn right it's about Zoey, and Ellie, and Elizabeth and Mallory. It's about bombs in Penn Station, in Macy's, in Starbucks. Bombing Gaza could be the most dangerous move this country has made in two centuries."

Leo: "Or not."

President: "In 75 years we'll know whether we're right or wrong, but no one standing here today can tell me that with any certainty. I'm the one in the office. I'll be the one who's judged."

This brings us to what actually is at the heart of the episode, and a theme that's going to carry us right into Season 6. The relationship between Jed and Leo has been the foundation of the administration and of the TV series from the start, with the flashbacks of Bartlet For America showing Leo's inspiration for Jed's Presidential run. Like any long-lasting relationship, things aren't always perfect - but we haven't seen the cracks between them quite like we do here.

John Sacret Young and Josh Singer try to make this growing division sharper by flashing us back to a few days after the election in 1998, when President-elect Bartlet has to deal with a military adventure being left on his plate by the outgoing administration. Leo provides some good counsel there, and Jed's reliance on his advice and opinions prove to make them a great team, so much so that Jed tells Leo, "It should be you, Leo. You, not me" as President.

Leo's reaction then is the first time we see any trace of his desire for higher office. In Bartlet For America when he first brought up the idea of Jed running for President, Jed thought maybe Leo could run for a House seat, knowing his addiction issues would be a problem in a campaign, but Leo never appeared to think about office for himself. Anyway, what these scenes prove is how much Bartlet counts on Leo everyday, for guiding him on decisions big and small.

And now, when the decisions may be the most significant of the entire Presidency, the President isn't so quick to go along with Leo. It all begins with the President's address to the nation, offering his words of solace and resolve after the Gaza attack killed four Americans. Looking over the address at the last minute, Bartlet takes a pen to the script, taking out some of the most inflammatory language.

 

Both Toby (who wrote the address) and Leo are less than enthused with what looks like a weakened response to the bombing of Congressmen.

Later, in the Situation Room Secretary Hutchinson and the military advisers present the options of an attack on the splinter cell leader in Gaza. The President balks at the potential number of "collateral damage" deaths, asking for other options, and Leo takes notice.

As the situation continues to develop and the President is searching for a non-military option (perhaps having the Palestinian Authority help on their end), he begins listening to advice from Kate Harper, the relatively new adviser from the National Security Council who is keeping her mind open on possibilities. Leo doesn't care for that.

"What do you think you're doing?"

What I find interesting about this little chewing-out of Kate is when Leo tells her "we don't push agendas here," he's actually been pushing his own agenda. He truly believes the only possible course of action is a quick military response, showing Congress and the American people that the administration will repay the killing of Americans in Gaza with force. But it's still an agenda, ignoring any other potential directions - and it's also directly in opposition to Leo's 1998 advice, the quote up at the top of this post, the one where Leo tells Jed to take in as much information as he can and then "do what you think is right." Leo doesn't want Jed to do that now, he wants him to do what Leo thinks is right.

 

When another possible direction comes up - a secret message from the Palestinian Prime Minister, a man the administration had always thought of as in Farad's pocket, but who is now offering to go around Farad and provide another avenue to capture the splinter cell leader - Kate thinks there's a small possibility of success. Leo thinks it's a waste of time.

I thought the staging of this scene in the Oval Office was pretty neat; Kate and Leo, framed as if they're on the President's shoulders whispering in his ears, like the trope of the devil and the angel:

The President ponders, fiddling with a baseball. He decides to follow up on Prime Minister Mukharat's offer and delay the military strike. Leo doesn't agree, but Jed dismisses him with a curt "Thank you."

 

This literally may have never happened to Leo before. He's obviously dumbstruck, wondering if his counsel is being heard or if he's being sidelined. Keep on watching, folks, this is a pretty engrossing storyline coming in future episodes.

About that secret message ... let's go to Germany. In Gaza we saw Josh fly across the Atlantic to the hospital where Donna was recovering after being seriously injured in the bomb attack. Now Donna is finally waking up, leading to this response from Josh:

Donna seems to be recovering well, with her collapsed lung repaired and her broken femur healing. She and Josh continue their usual banter, and then ...

Colin arrives, the Irish photographer who grew close to Donna on her trip, guiding her to interview people on all sides of the conflict, and eventually spending the night in her bed. As this is the first Josh is even aware of the fellow, he's a bit taken aback by the affection and the kiss.

Does Josh actually love Donna? Is Donna secretly in love with Josh (a question Amy drunkenly asked in Commencement, but was never answered)? Well, we know what we think ... but Josh and Donna don't seem to know what they think. Colin awkwardly tries to explain that Donna never said anything about another guy, Josh denies it's even an issue, but ... yeah, awkward fits the bill.

Then some flowers arrive with a mysterious note.

It turns out to be a coded message, using terms for the sons of Prime Minister Mukharat, with the Arabic message being a time and a restaurant. It's a back-channel offer to the administration via Josh, as the Prime Minister wants to try to help defuse the tensions in Gaza without the interference of Chairman Farad, who is not only currently isolated incommunicado by the Israelis after the bus bombing but also has never followed through on his promises for peace.

That's the direction the President decides to go with Kate's information, the direction that leaves Leo behind. President Bartlet says reach out to Mukharat, behind the scenes, and see if he might be able to help solve the dilemma. Meanwhile, in Germany, things take a dramatic turn. Josh comes back from his secretive diplomatic mission to find Donna's room an empty mess.

She's developed a blood clot, a serious complication that could be life-threatening, and she's in surgery.

 

And then the potential secretly negotiated route to peace might end in disaster when Chairman Farad gets in front of TV cameras with a statement that could sink the whole thing:

Toby (on phone with Leo): "Chairman Farad, he's on TV, he's thanking us for inviting him and Prime Minister Mukharat to a summit with the Israelis."

Leo (livid): "We didn't invite him! We haven't even formally invited Mukharat!"

There's our Season 5 cliffhanger. Donna's life hangs in the balance, with Josh and Colin both there by her side, and the prospect of bringing the murderer of Americans to justice in Gaza without civilian casualties may be ruined by a power struggle between Palestinian factions. And looming over it all, the growing fracture between Jed and Leo, devoted old friends and political partners, dealing with the potential of it never being the same between them.

Tales Of Interest!

- We roll right into what is Memorial Day Monday (which was May 30 in 2004), which means the bombing in Gaza occurred over the weekend prior. The episode begins where Gaza left off, with the President and Kate leaving Fitzwallace's house after consoling his widow - that had to have been Sunday evening, May 29th. All of the following events take place during the same day, with President Bartlet's appearance at the Orioles game set for that night.

- This does cause us to take a look at the different times between Washington and Germany. They are six hours apart, so the morning scenes in the White House would have been afternoon for Josh and Donna ... then Josh's secret "diplomatic meeting" at the restaurant that evening would have been midday for Kate and the White House. I guess things could have timed out as we see them play out here - it's more unbelievable to think Josh could have gotten to Landstuhl as quickly as he apparently did in Gaza.

- It's understandable that Josh wouldn't have brought flowers when he first appeared at the hospital in Germany - Donna's condition still wasn't known, he was racing the clock to get there - but it goes a little bit deeper to see his reaction to Colin's arrival with an armful of flowers. After his restaurant meeting with a representative from Mukharat's team, Josh returns to the hospital with not just a giant bouquet ... but a giant bouquet of red roses, which could be construed as romantic, perhaps?

- I mentioned this fellow a few entries back, but didn't get a good look at him until this episode. This older gentleman with white hair and a buzz cut has been seen as a background actor in White House scenes throughout the entire course of the series. Once you notice him, you'll see him walking by again and again - he gets a special call-out in the final episode of the series.

 

 

-I'll throw the baseball stuff here in this section. Presidents throwing out the first pitch at major league games has been a thing since Taft in 1910, although it's often been the first pitch of the season's home opener for a Washington baseball team, instead of a Memorial Day first pitch as we see here. Washington, though, hasn't had a baseball team based there since the Senators moved to Texas after the 1971 season, leaving the nearby Baltimore Orioles as the "DC area" team. (That did change in 2005, when the Montreal Expos moved to DC and began play as the Washington Nationals.) 

 

Toby and Charlie (and Josh) all have ideas to help President Bartlet cope with throwing a baseball while wearing a bulletproof vest without looking like he's totally incompetent, and Toby and Charlie insist he practice so he doesn't sail the pitch over the backstop and give the image of not being in command during this time of national tension. So they mark off the distance in a White House hallway.

 

 

 And just as Toby suspected, the President needs the practice - even at a much shorter distance.

 

Everything appears to work out by the time the President offers up his pitch at Camden Yards as the episode ends (we hear a pretty solid thump in a mitt as the pitch lands).

 

- Leo calls out, "Jed!" at the end, after getting Toby's frantic phone call about Farad as the President is heading out to the mound at Camden Yards. Leo never calls the President "Jed," only "Sir" or "Mr. President." You could take this as a symbol of Leo feeling like he's losing his grip on his understanding of Jed, or a reflection of how Farad's announcement is going to ruin this entire delicate balancing act, but I don't think it's that complicated - it's just the writers' way to tie in that scene to the flashback of Leo calling out "Jed!" before that New Hampshire press conference in 1998.

 

- Martin Sheen was nominated for an Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series for his performance in this episode. It was Sheen's fifth nomination (with no wins) for that Emmy in the five seasons of The West Wing. The award ended up going to James Spader for The Practice. John Spencer also got his fifth nomination for an Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series Emmy, for this episode and An Khe. Spencer won the Supporting Actor Emmy in Season 3. The award this year went to Michael Imperioli for The Sopranos.

- Why'd They Come Up With Memorial Day?

Most of the episode takes place on Memorial Day, which in 2004 was on May 30, a week and a half after this episode aired.

Quotes    

(President Bartlet begins making edits on his copy of the address)

CJ: "Sir, Carol's circulating the draft already."

President: "'Tyranny of terror'? 'Death mongers'? What is this, Tolkien?"

Toby: "The stronger your language now, the more leeway --"

President: "I'm not saying it."

-----

Jed: "So you're telling me, with less than three months left in office, the President and Admiral Fitzwallace are going to saddle me with a war in the Philippines."

----- 

Jed (to Leo): "Admiral Fitzwallace ... remind me to fire that guy."

-----

(Donna has just awakened from being unconscious)

Josh: "Hey."

Donna: "What happened to you?"

Josh: "To ... me?"

Donna: "You need to shave."

-----

Toby: "He wants to throw from the mound? Have you ever seen him throw a baseball?"

Charlie: "Yeah."

Toby: "I'm not sure he can throw 60 feet without the vest."

Charlie: "It's actually longer when you factor in the vertical --"

-----

Donna: "How long are you staying?"

Josh: "I don't know, I figured if I hang around long enough one of the nurses is bound to give me a sponge bath."

Donna: "Leo doesn't need you to --"

Josh: "I'm here as long as I need to be here."

-----

Josh (to Kate on the phone): "You want me to have a secret meeting with the Son of the Sword?"

Donna: "I must be high from the morphine."

Josh (on phone): "You know, stealth isn't exactly my strong suit."

Donna: "He's very clumsy."

[...]

Donna: "Is this dangerous?"

Josh (to Donna): "No, it's a diplomatic meeting. It's not dangerous." (thinks - to Kate on the phone) "Donna wants to know if it's dangerous."

Kate: "You flew Lufthansa, you've been wandering the streets alone - if someone wanted to kill you, it would have happened already."

Josh: "Yeah, that's not so reassuring."

  

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

• There's Nancy! She's played by Martin Sheen's daughter Renée Estevez.

• The Israeli ambassador played by Natalija Nogulich (Star Trek: The Next Generation, Days Of Our Lives, Fuller House) appears. Her character will continue into the first few episodes of Season 6.
  

• Gerald McRaney (Simon & Simon, Major Dad, NCIS: Los Angeles) appears via flashback as Air Force General Alan Adamle. There was a passing mention of an "Adamle at the Pentagon" in A Proportional Response, then we met General Adamle (and learned about his Vietnam service as a combat flight controller for pilot Leo) in War Crimes. Now we discover he was advising President-elect Bartlet immediately after the 1998 election.

• The issue of an outgoing President leaving an overseas military adventure for the next President to deal with (as in President-elect Bartlet finding out about 1000 peacekeeping troops on the way to the Philippines) might be something you viewers want to keep in the back of your minds.
  

• Bartlet's discomfort in dealing with the military and his relative inexperience in military matters early in his first term was a big part of episodes like "Post Hoc, Ergo Propter Hoc" and A Proportional Response.
  

• Chris is the only one of the regular White House reporters that we see in this episode.
  

• Speaker of the House Jeff Haffley reappears, urging Leo to get the President to strike back in revenge for the congressmen killed in Gaza.

• Jason Isaacs (the Harry Potter films, The Patriot, The Death Of Stalin) continues his multi-episode arc as Irish photojournalist Colin Ayres, who developed a romantic relationship with Donna during her few days in the Gaza.

 

• I won't stand for this Qumar erasure. That Middle Eastern country (first mentioned in The Women Of Qumar) was a huge part of the storyline from The Black Vera Wang all the way through Season 4 and the beginning of Season 5. Its Defense Minister Abdul Shareef was killed by President Bartlet's order after Shareef organized attempted terror attacks in the United States, and the country was bombed by Acting President Walken in The Dogs Of War after Zoey's kidnapping and the killing of American sailors in Turkey. We saw where Qumar was located during some episodes back then, in what is actually southern Iran right across the Strait of Hormuz from Dubai.

From 7A WF 83429

Well, guess what ... the Situation Room maps completely ignore the existence of Qumar now.

Do you suppose Walken literally bombed it right off the map?

• Charlie brings up Notre Dame, President Bartlet's alma mater, with this quip about preparation for the first pitch at the Orioles game:

Toby: "Mr. President. You'll be on national TV. Millions of Americans will be watching. Given their current state of mind, I'd rather not have you walk into a stadium of 40,000 people and hang a curveball over the backstop."

Charlie: "He's right, sir. Everyone agrees."

President: "Everyone?"

Charlie: "Leo, Josh, your wife, the Notre Dame athletic department ... "

• We get the Bartlet jacket flip, only this time with an overcoat in one of the 1998 flashbacks. Martin Sheen's left arm was injured at birth, making it difficult for him to lift it higher than his shoulder, so he developed this method of putting on coats and jackets.

• In the flashback scenes Jed says to Leo, "I can't do this without you," leading Leo to reply, "You think I'd let you? There's a reason I stayed sober." We discovered Leo's past as an alcoholic and drug abuser who went through rehab in 1993 in The Short List.
  

• Leo brings up the fact that Jed is a father who almost lost his daughter, which refers to Zoey's kidnapping in Commencement. President Bartlet lists the names of all three of his daughters (Zoey, Ellie, and Elizabeth) as well as Leo's own daughter Mallory.
  

• Toby shouldn't have been quite so shocked at Farad's gambit of inviting himself to Camp David; he did essentially the same thing in Ellie when he had CJ announce Seth Gillette had agreed to be on the Blue Ribbon Commission on Social Security ... without actually asking him and giving him a chance to publicly turn the White House down.
  

DC location shots    

• The final scene of President Bartlet throwing out the first pitch at a Baltimore Orioles game was shot at Camden Yards in Baltimore. That was filmed before the Orioles game against the Toronto Blue Jays on April 23. The Orioles were the only Major League Baseball franchise in the Washington, DC, area at the time - the announcement that the Montreal Expos were moving to Washington (eventually becoming the Washington Nationals) came in September of 2004, four months after this episode.

 

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

• The MSNBC cable news network continues to get a lot of exposure, though we also get some looks at the CNN logo as well.

• President Bartlet brings up Tolkien as he complains about the strident tone of his address to the nation.

• Secretary Hutchinson mentions the option of a Tomahawk missile strike from the USS Carney. The Carney is a US Navy guided-missile destroyer commissioned in 1996.
  

• Previous Presidents mentioned include Woodrow Wilson, FDR, Benjamin Harrison, William McKinley, and William Howard Taft (derisively referred to as "Fatty" by Bartlet). President Bartlet connects Wilson to the Treaty of Versailles (which ended World War I but it can be argued the treaty's measures laid the groundwork for World War II); FDR's beaning of a photographer actually happened (sort of; Roosevelt's toss hit the photographer's camera, and it was in 1940 instead of 1937 as Josh said); and Charlie was right, Taft was indeed the first President to throw out the first pitch at a major league game, in 1910.
  

• Toby compares the slow decision-making of President Bartlet to Hamlet. 
  

• Josh says to CJ that Donna is "singing tunes from My Fair Lady" and is doing "a whole Julie Andrews thing" (which would mean he's referring to the Broadway show and not the movie starring Audrey Hepburn); he later tells Donna that Colin is charming in a "bodice-ripping, Heathcliff-on-the-moor, I'm-too-sexy-for-my-camera sort of way."
  

• Former baseball players Cy Young and Stan Musial are mentioned ("I thought Stan Musial was a pediatrician in Abbey's medical school class").
  

End credits freeze frame: President Bartlet getting advice on options in the Situation Room (with Qumar not appearing on that map in the background).

Previous episode: Gaza

Next episode: NSF Thurmont