Third-Day Story - TWW S6E3

 

Original airdate: November 3, 2004

Written by: Eli Attie (12)

Directed by: Christopher Misiano (21)

Synopsis

• With Leo in the hospital, the administration finds itself unfocused as it tries to patch together an international coalition for Middle East peacekeeping while dealing with a reluctant Congress that wants more tax cuts. Donna returns, and Charlie drags his feet on graduating from Georgetown. A surprising decision is made on the Chief of Staff position.
  

"There's something I need you to do for me."

"What's that?"

"Jump off a cliff."

This one is kinda bizarre, and bizarre in several ways. In the midst of Leo being discovered in the forest at Camp David, suffering from a massive heart attack, and then undergoing life-saving heart surgery, we have:

 

- an ongoing slapstick plotline about CJ trying to dissuade Josh from eating doughnuts and junk food;

 

- a somewhat slapsticky plotline with Josh and Toby screwing up their negotiations with Congress because they apparently can't come up with a cohesive plan by, I don't know, talking to each other;

 

- this plotline continues with Josh putting a cap on the number of kids eligible for the tax credit while Toby agrees to get rid of any cap on the number of children;

 

- and also brings us a Representative who wants to eliminate all governmental recognition of marriages and another who wants to turn the presidency into a monarchy;

 

- Josh's irrational anger at the leader of Turkmenistan trying to sabotage the UN Security Council, leading to Josh prank-sending a bunch of pizzas to the Turkmen delegation;

 

- and then the key point of the entire episode, the naming of a Chief of Staff to replace Leo, turns to someone who is, while not the most unlikely candidate, a very surprising choice for Leo to give as "just one name."

 

It's emotionally jarring to have that much comedic material going on while Leo, one of the most treasured and revered characters in the show - and not just by us, but by the rest of the characters! - is on the brink of death due to his heart attack and surgery.

A review of the episode: our administration members return from Camp David giddy over the success of the summit, pondering how this great leap towards peace in the Middle East might play out for President Bartlet's approval ratings and help his agenda. While they continue to try to reach Leo (who, unbeknownst to them, lies near death on the forest floor), Josh and Toby have to fill in for him at a meeting with the Republican congressional leadership. There they find out in no uncertain terms it will take some concessions before Congress will go along with voting on an American peacekeeping force, without which the entire peace deal will fail.

What do Speaker Haffley and Majority Leader Royce want? They demand commitments from European allies before they'll vote on peacekeepers, plus they want an increased child tax credit - a tax cut, in the middle of increased expenditures for that peacekeeping force, a move that Josh and Toby see will blow up the deficit. Meanwhile, as CJ works to get public commitments from the entire United Nations Security Council, some of those nations push back, asking that Congress approve the peacekeeping force before they'll join in, in a direct contradiction of what Congress is asking for.

(Let me also add that in the world of 2023 it's almost quaint to see Republicans pushing for a child tax credit and Democrats reluctant to make that move - it's like a mirror image of our world today!)

 

All of that strategizing is complicated when word comes about Leo, his discovery in the woods and his emergency surgery at Walter Reed. President Bartlet's face when he hears the news is striking - and knowing what we know, that Jed had fired Leo just before that heart attack, we realize he blames himself.

 

Jed and Abbey head straight to the hospital, dashing back and forth from there to the afternoon ceremony signing the peace agreement and back, leaving the details of working things out with Congress and the UN to Josh, Toby, and CJ. None of which goes all that well, as they can't seem to coordinate anything without Leo to guide them ...

Toby: "Look, we're in the middle of an intersection without a traffic cop. If we want, we can run things through me."

Josh: "If we want?"

Toby: "I'm talking about a process."

Josh: "And if we want to sacrifice livestock in your name?"

Toby: "Fine. A decision-making tree."

CJ: "How about you be the Communications Director, you be the Deputy Chief of Staff, we can use the old barn for a stage." 

This adds to the bizarre nature of this episode, because we've seen these characters be smart, self-sufficient go-getters who don't need a lot of hand-holding to get what they want, and now suddenly just because Leo isn't in the building they're going off half-cocked and unprepared and ending up sabotaging each other. Josh agrees to limit the number of kids eligible for the tax credit, while Toby simultaneously makes a deal to erase any limit; and of course, Toby's meeting in Speaker Haffley's office when he's trying to make a deal by increasing the amount of the tax credit gets interrupted by Josh calling on the phone to make it clear that the White House isn't budging an inch on its position.

Toby when he hears Josh's voice on the phone

Josh and Toby also get mixed up with weird requests from some Democratic representatives, as they try to gain the votes for the tax credit plan that they promised Haffley they'd provide. One congressperson wants support for his bill to ban marriage (a stunt, really, to highlight the lack of recognition of same-sex marriages), while another wants to take executive power away from the President and turn the office into a more ceremonial monarchy. 

We also get the slapstick of CJ trying to stop Josh from eating junk food - ostensibly a reaction to Leo's health problems, but more a reason for attempted laughs, I guess. CJ grabs a doughnut right out of Josh's mouth:

And later, after Josh has promised he can avoid junk food for the entire week, he's caught red-handed with a plate of brownies in the Roosevelt Room:

This is a great reaction by Brad Whitford

None of this really pays off at all, except for Josh's line in the waiting room about "renegade Keebler elves" - in my opinion, while Bradley Whitford's playing of the plotline is pretty funny, it doesn't fit into the seriousness of the situation, especially since we're supposed to be tying this in to Leo's critical heart problems.

CJ, meanwhile, keeps bantering wittily with reporter Greg Brock, who seems to be the only person making any sense in the West Wing. Brock keeps asking who's going to take over for Leo as Chief of Staff, knowing Leo will be in no shape physically for the job for quite some time. CJ insists Leo will be fine (which is also President Bartlet's opinion), but it's a foolish stance to take.

Brock: "Who's the new White House Chief of Staff?"

CJ (in a wisecracking '30s movie comedy tone): "I'll tell ya about him, his name's Leo McGarry, he comes out of Chicago. An unconventional choice, sure, but --"

Brock: "I thought we were off the '30s comedy."

CJ: "Leo just got off the bypass. In a few more hours he could be out of the woods."

Brock: "Hmm, then I guess those woods don't include incisional pain, chronic pain, swelling in both legs because they took grafts from both. I guess they don't include mood swings, loss of short-term memory, loss of blood supply. Because if they do, Leo won't be out of them for three or four months, and I have to ask who's the new White House Chief of Staff?"

In the meantime there's an odd private meeting between Will and the President, which upsets Toby (he still holds a grudge from Will quitting his White House speechwriting job to go work for Vice President Russell, and - like us - is probably flabbergasted that Will still hangs around the West Wing all the time and now gets face time with President Bartlet). It turns out that meeting was not about the Chief of Staff job, as Brock surmised, but was about NATO's reaction to the Middle East peacekeeping plan, as Will's dad used to be Supreme Commander of NATO forces. That little combination of facts leads CJ to the realization that while the Security Council nations are causing problems, the U.S. already has commitments of support from all the NATO countries, so she shifts gears to use that as the PR hook for the day.

We can't forget Donna! Even though Josh said she might be able to fly back "Wednesday" when he was talking to Kate at Camp David, it turns out she returns on that very day (in fact, she may have been in the air or at least on her way to the airport at the exact time Josh was telling Kate she wouldn't be back for several days). And by the next day, she's back at the White House ... not just visiting, but back at work for Josh! Remember, she just had surgery for a lung embolism a few days ago, surgery with complications that were feared to have caused brain damage.

Seems a bit harsh ... and a return to form for Josh, who seems to have forgotten that Colin chastised him only days earlier about taking a special someone for granted, and how that can end up with losing them from your life.

Josh does try, a little. He recognizes her contribution to the peace effort with one of the pens used to sign the agreement - a move that Donna truly does appreciate, even if she feels that getting blown up on the road in Gaza didn't exactly make much of a contribution to the summit.

We also have the Treasury Secretary going on TV to publicly deny the administration is considering any tax cut, Josh ranting about the President of Turkmenistan and sending him prank pizzas, and Charlie's reluctance to take his swimming test to graduate from Georgetown, because he promised the President he'd leave his position once he got his degree.

Let's move on to the big topic of our story. As Leo endures his surgery and hours on the bypass machine afterward, Jed and Abbey have some deep discussions on Leo's role and his future in the administration. What Abbey doesn't know at first, though, is what happened just before Leo suffered that heart attack.

"I fired him." "What?"

But much in the same way Brock recognized from the press room, Abbey knows there's no way Leo can continue in his position, not right now, no matter how much guilt Jed feels.

Abbey: "You think this is your fault. It's not."

Jed: "He's my best friend. I'm not the kind of person who has best friends."

Abbey: "Because your life is your work, and so is his; your work."

Jed: "What are you trying to say?"

Abbey: "You chose this, both of you. You're running a country, for God's sake, not a treehouse."

Jed: "Well, Leo stays in the treehouse if he wants to. We'll work around his recovery; half days, whatever it takes."

Abbey: "He's not going to work half days. He's not going to work around his recovery. He's not going to do whatever it takes."

Jed: "That's his decision."

Abbey: "And we know what that decision is going to be."

Jed: "So I should wake him up and fire him again? Because it worked so well the first time?"

Abbey (forcefully): "Let's talk about this time. You've got to keep him out of that job. He'll kill himself for you if you don't."

After Leo awakens, Jed goes in to see his old friend. He's beside himself with sorrow and guilt, insisting that Leo isn't fired and his job is secure. Leo, like Abbey and Brock, knows better. He recalls how their journey in the Oval Office began, how their story of President and Chief of Staff started.

Leo: "You remember what you told me when you offered me the job?"

Jed: "'I need you to jump off a cliff.'"

Leo: "And I did. And I'd do it again - but you need a new Chief of Staff."

As Jed says he'll need that list of names he asked for that night at Camp David, Leo answers: "Only one name."

Then, as the President invites the other staffers to go in to see Leo, he stops CJ for a moment.

"There's something I need you to do for me ... jump off a cliff."

CJ has no idea what that means.

But we do. For better or worse, disregarding the fact there's an entirely capable Deputy Chief of Staff already devoted to Leo and supporting his agenda, disregarding the fact President Bartlet wanted a list of names to consider ... it's the White House Press Secretary who is being offered one of the most important positions in the administration.

Okay. I guess we'll see how this goes.

 

 

Tales Of Interest!

- The title of the episode is shown over the opening scene, as the staffers return to the White House from Camp David. This is very unusual - there's been only two episodes since Pilot where the title wasn't shown with white type on a black screen: Documentary Special, which didn't actually have a title shown at all, and Twenty Five, which was black type on a white screen.

 

- The question of "when exactly is this all taking place?" is about to get an massive, nonlinear overhaul pretty soon, but for now the episodes can be still be tracked as the days go by. Yes, The West Wing is not so good at being consistent (Season 2's The Midterms tried to convince us the Rosslyn shootings happened in August instead of May, a little trick the writers immediately forgot about), but that's why I'm here - to call out the inconsistencies that shouldn't be that much of an issue if the writers just, you know, looked at a calendar.

 

The real timeline touchstone of this end-of-Season-5/start-of-Season-6 arc is Memorial Day. We know the events of that episode happened on Memorial Day Monday, with President Bartlet ending the episode by throwing out the first pitch at a Baltimore Orioles game that night. So the events of Gaza happened not long before that: we saw Donna spending several days on the CoDel trip, working a couple of nights on emails to Josh (and at least one night working on Colin, ifyouknowwhatImean, nudge nudge wink wink), then the roadside bombing that killed Fitz and three other Americans while seriously wounding Donna. The urgent pace of things through those two episodes - the calls for immediate military strikes, locating Khalil Naisan, the back-and-forth with the Israeli ambassador and Chairman Farad, and Josh's late-night Germany skullduggery with representatives from Prime Minister Mukharat - would all seem to place that bombing no later than the Saturday before Memorial Day, perhaps.

We know what happened on Memorial Day, as President Bartlet is still refusing to authorize a military strike in Gaza and then Farad gets on TV and invites himself to the potential summit. Then we start Season 6 with NSF Thurmont. At one point Kate clearly says to "ignore everything that's happened in the last 24 hours":

Kate: "Yesterday, Farad was cooperating with us, planning to arrest Naisan and the other perpetrators of the CoDel bombing. Then the Israelis surrounded his compound in the West Bank and his people in Gaza refused to arrest Naisan, right?"

Since Farad's encirclement by the Israelis happened before he invited himself to Camp David on Memorial Day, Kate's line indicates this episode can't be any later than the day after his self-invite, which makes this Tuesday. We can also make that same assumption given that Donna was just going into emergency blood-clot surgery on Memorial Day (eastern time), and she's still in surgery during the first part of NSF Thurmont. So how much time passes between the start of that episode and the summit? We can see where a break might appear in the episode, with a dividing line coming between the scene where we find out that Farad has turned over Naisan to the FBI (which came some seven or so hours after the President first called back to Farad after Kate's scene above) and the scenes with Marine One departing for Camp David. Having the summit begin on a Wednesday makes sense, considering what we find out in the next episode. Donna doesn't come out of her post-operation coma until the end of the episode, as the essential figures gather at Camp David, but which Wednesday is that?

Some observers might try to explain that the summit is actually taking place in the fall, at the same time as the episodes are airing. That would mean a four-month gap coming between the scene where FBI Director Arnold told the President about Naisan being turned over to them and the helicopter departure to Camp David, which means 1) four months of Leo being squeezed out of his advisor role, 2) four months of President Bartlet sitting on the intelligence about the terrorist camp in Syria without doing anything about it, and 3) four months of Donna being in a coma with Josh staying in Germany. It's inconceivable that it took that much time for those things ... at most, perhaps a week passed in that gap.

In The Birnam Wood President Bartlet told Farad his granddaughter Annie had just started high school the week before, which seems to be the writers' attempt to push these events four months later into the fall. In this episode we have both Charlie finishing up his graduation requirements at Georgetown (which is typically the spring, but colleges have graduations after the summer terms, too), and Josh mentioning something about "the fall legislative agenda" ... but stick with me here, as I prove there's no way this is happening any later than sometime in June.

Our next timeline signpost comes in The Birnam Wood, where we discover the summit takes place over five days, and day three is a Friday (so, as I mentioned, it's Wednesday when the President orders the attack on the Syrian terrorist camp as he heads to Camp David). If we add in that extra week for Donna to recover from her surgery and the summit arrangements to be made, that would mean Donna awakened and the summit began on Wednesday, June 9, with the shabbat dinner on Friday, June 11. The President fires Leo in the wee hours of Sunday, June 13, after which Leo has his heart attack and Kate comes up with the idea of peacekeepers to solve the Jerusalem problem. An announcement of a press conference/signing is made for 2 pm that Sunday afternoon. (And remember, I'm adding in an extra week here ... if the course of events actually went as we saw onscreen, with Farad turning over Naisan to the FBI on Wednesday, June 2, and Donna awakening later that day as the principals gather at the summit, everything could have actually happened a week earlier.)

And here we are, the very Sunday of that press conference/signing, as the convoys return from Camp David. News of the discovery of Leo in the woods arrives, the President and Abbey make trips to the hospital before and after that 2 pm ceremony, Josh and Toby meet with the Republican leadership. Mainly going by CJ's wardrobe change, it does appear we move from Sunday into Monday during the episode, but the final scenes would have to be on that Monday, June 14. There's really no logical way to make events play out in any different timeline.

- And poor Donna ... in The Birnam Wood, when Josh is talking to Kate early on Sunday morning, he said Donna might be ready to fly home "on Wednesday" (which, as I established above, would have been Wednesday June 16). Now he's leaving the White House to meet her at the airport that very same day, the 13th! (Yes, it's still the Sunday after they returned from Camp David, probably after the signing ceremony, so sometime Sunday afternoon.) When Josh wheels Donna into the White House, it must be Monday (CJ has changed clothes by then), but still ... if Donna awoke from her surgery on the Wednesday the summit was convening (which is what we were shown, remember), she'd only been awake for four days following major surgery, and they're flying her across the ocean? To have Josh make her go back to work? Even under the American health-care system, that's pretty harsh.

- This is a blink-and-you'll-miss-it thing, but as Charlie is talking to Donna about how he doesn't want to finish up at Georgetown, the computer monitor in front of Donna shows something called weatherunit.com with the headline, "Snow Slams The Midwest." As we've made clear here, this is June. What the heck is going on here? I mean, if the writers are still insisting this is November somehow, sure you could have a Midwestern snowstorm ... but there's simply no way this is November without a magical four-month-disappearing black hole hitting DC. I mean, I guess the same time-shattering event hit Washington between May and August 2000, so perhaps it's possible?

 

- I believe this is the first we've heard of Charlie's promise to the President to not stay in the job once he graduates from college. It does make sense, considering what we know of the relationship between the two, but I don't think that particular angle has been discussed before. What we do know is that Charlie started his college career with summer courses in 2001 (he discussed that with Sam in Bad Moon Rising), and Sam even made the comment that those summer classes, coupled with high school AP credits, would have essentially made Charlie a junior in the fall of 2001. At least he's graduating after just three years ... 

 

- Armin Mueller-Stahl (as Israeli Prime Minister Zahavy) and Makram J. Khoury (Chairman Farad) get billing as Special Guest Stars, even though they have no dialogue and only appear in background TV news footage of the signing ceremony.

 

- Gail's fishbowl has a couple of doves, symbols of peace, which ties into the agreement reached at the Camp David summit.

 

 

- I mentioned this in my previous blog entry, but sidelining Leo and replacing him with CJ in the job was the writers' way of giving John Spencer a few months off, as in real life he was facing surgery that was going to keep him from working very much for three or four months. Also, there's no Kate Harper in this episode, or the next. As mentioned before, Mary McCormack was pregnant during filming of the first few episodes of the season, so perhaps that's why she had some time off here.

 

- Stockard Channing earned her sixth Emmy nomination in six seasons for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series, nominated for this episode plus The Wake Up Call. She really is outstanding in this episode, with those scenes in the hospital waiting room hitting hard. Channing, who won the Emmy in this category in Season 3, would see this year's award go to Blythe Danner for the Showtime series Huff.

- Why'd They Come Up With Third-Day Story?

Toby brings up the phrase as he pushes the President over the need to have an interim Chief of Staff to guide the administration's efforts to influence and control press coverage over the course of several days, not just dealing with the immediate reaction.

President: "We're doing fine."

Toby: "Today, sure. And the second-day story is how you pulled it off. But the third-day story is that Congress doesn't want to pay, that our coalition's fraying, that the spokes are coming off the wheels --"

Quotes    

(Josh, Will, and Toby are in the Suburban coming back from Camp David. Toby is on the phone trying to reach Leo)

Josh: "You think the President should address a joint session of Congress?"

Toby (gesturing to his cell): "On the phone."

Josh: "You think he should address them on the phone?"

Toby: "No, I'm on the phone."

(They begin to get out of the vehicle at the White House)

Toby: "Yeah, Signal, try Mr. McGarry again."

Will: "My fellow Americans, please deposit fifty cents for three more paragraphs."

-----

Donna: "You shouldn't wheel me around like this."

Josh: "I want to wheel you around."

Donna: "I feel like one of those Soviet premiers who's secretly been dead for ten years."

Josh: "Your speeches to the Komintern have been a little flat lately."

-----

Donna: "Ban marriage?"

Josh: "If we won't support gay marriage, he wants the government out of it entirely."

Donna: "Who takes an idea like that seriously?"

Josh: "It's a direct-mail bonanza for the other side. Even a fringe bill to ban marriage, they'll be re-enacting Caligula at the Republican National Convention."

Donna: "You'd look cute in a toga and a dog collar."

Josh: "Thank you."

-----

Josh: "It's just that you might face a decision about the fall legislative agenda."

President: "What is that?"

Toby: "Would you prefer a bill to appoint an American monarch --"

Josh: "Or a ban on the institution of marriage, except in casinos and department stores."

  

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

• It's not all that surprising to see Speaker Haffley (Steven Culp) in the White House (he's there all the time), but now we get another visit from the Senate Majority Leader, Robert Royce (H. Richard Greene, known from Mad Men, Boston Legal and The Last Ship). Royce was first seen as a member of the House in On The Day Before, but by the time of Jefferson Lives Royce had moved into the Senate and become leader of the Senate Republicans.

Speaker Haffley

Senator Royce

• Mallory, Leo's daughter played by Broadway's longest-running Annie, Allison Smith, is seen in the hospital waiting room. She gets a Special Guest Star credit, but no lines. Mallory was last seen in The Stormy Present, when she was Leo's date for Ford's Theatre until that trip was canceled because of former President Lassiter's death.

• I thought I recognized Rep. Benoit (Jim Abele) from somewhere, but I actually had him confused with another actor. If you were a fan of Pretty Little Liars, though, you probably saw him there. He's also appeared in a few episodes of 24 and How To Get Away With Murder.
  

• Chris and Greg Brock are the press corps reporters seen in this episode.
  

• Leo's issues with alcohol and pills are brought up by Abbey as she tries to convince Jed his heart attack wasn't a total surprise. We first learned Leo was a recovering alcoholic in Five Votes Down, and in The Short List we discover he also abused pills (later described as Valium) and went through rehab.
  

• Donna mentions Zoey came to see her and let her know Charlie has finished up his studies at Georgetown. Charlie and Zoey have had an on-again, off-again relationship ever since they met in The Crackpots And These Women - they were dating by early 2000 through at least The Midterms. They broke up sometime after that, as Zoey began dating Jean-Paul just before Christmas 2002 (Holy Night), but she and Charlie were trying to work out some sort of relationship as she tried to break up with Jean-Paul just before her kidnapping in spring 2003 (Commencement). By Christmas 2003 (Abu el Banat) it seems maybe they still have something going on, and now Zoey is telling Donna about Charlie's studies, so ... are they back? Or at least working on it?
  

• The President calling Will in to talk about NATO's response to the peacekeeping plan reminds us that Will's father Thomas Bailey was Supreme Commander of NATO Allied Forces, and Will actually grew up in Brussels (from Game On).
  

• The Martin Sheen/Jed Bartlet jacket flip returns. Sheen's left shoulder was injured at birth, making it difficult to lift that arm over the shoulder, so he flips jackets over his head to get them on.

• WHAT'S NEXT - CJ gets a "what's next?" in a walk-and-talk with Carol, as she asks about what's on the schedule while Leo is in surgery.
  

DC location shots    

• None.

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

• More looks at the MSNBC logo, as the NBC network realizes they can promote their own cable news network on their broadcast entertainment shows.

• A bottle of Suave hand lotion is seen on CJ's desk.

• As CJ and Greg Brock trade wisecracks about press coverage Brock remarks he hasn't owned a typewriter "since the Coolidge administration." Brock also later says their 30's comedy back-and-forth makes him break out his imitation of Cary Grant.
  

• Josh calls Turkmenistan "a nation of Labradors run by Zeppo Marx."
  

• Josh also says if Rep. Benoit's marriage ban goes public, the Republican National Convention will be re-enacting Caligula.
  

• An exasperated CJ, responding to the Treasury Secretary's denial of the administration considering expanding the child tax credit, wonders "what in Alexander Hamilton's name were we doing."
  

• Josh describes the array of treats in the hospital waiting room as "like a torture chamber designed by renegade Keebler elves."
  

End credits freeze frame: CJ, Mallory, Josh, Toby, and Will listening to the President in the hospital waiting room.

Previous episode: The Birnam Wood

Next episode: Liftoff

The Birnam Wood - TWW S6E2

 

Original airdate: October 27, 2004

Written by: John Wells (5)

Directed by: Alex Graves (22)

Synopsis

• Arab-Israeli negotiations brokered by President Bartlet appear to hit a dead end, until a half-remembered book and a decision to provide American peacekeeping troops clinches a deal. Jed and Leo continue to clash over the President's decisions, leading to a dramatic turn of events with shattering changes to careers and lives.
  

"I'll need your successor in place before you leave." 

This is all about Jed and Leo.

 

Sure, there are momentous negotiations on a solution to the intractable and unending conflict between Palestinians and Israelis, with bold ideas bringing possible agreements - but all that Camp David stuff is a lot more dry and convoluted and less interesting than the spy-movie drama of Memorial Day or the tense phone-call-negotiations/ignore-the-past-24-hours back-and-forth of NSF Thurmont. The notion of an American President brokering a Middle East peace agreement at Camp David happened in real life already, with President Carter in 1978, and that certainly didn't turn out to bring a permanent peace - why should this fictional story some 25 years later be any different? But the Jed and Leo stuff, that's the real meat of the episode.

As it turns out, the conflict between Jed and Leo leading to Leo's dramatic heart attack in the woods was actually conceived because of John Spencer's real-life health issues. While doing a bit of research, I found that John Spencer was having some unspecified problems with his health that required surgery in the summer of 2004; with his recuperation set to take several months, Wells came up with this story line in order to get Spencer's character some off-screen down time in the early part of Season 6. My thoughts before I dug into the actual reasons ranged from a bold change in the show's character relationships to bring viewers back after the Season 5 falloff to a ploy to get a critically acclaimed audience-favorite actor more dramatic weight and responsibility on the show ...turns out it wasn't nearly that calculated, just Wells trying to work around Spencer's recovery schedule.

Jed and Leo first met in the late 1960s, and have been friends since the early 1990s (as Leo told the House committee in Bartlet For America). It was Leo who convinced Jed to run for President in 1997 in the first place, Leo who put the campaign in place, Leo who brought together the spunky group of young, enthusiastic staffers who thought up the plan that resulted in President Bartlet's election in 1998. As Chief of Staff the two have continued to work as a team over the past six-plus years, through Jed's anger with Leo over the McGarry marriage breaking up in Five Votes Down to to the President's steadfast support of Leo revealing his past addictions and rehab stay and Jed's tearful admission of hiding his multiple sclerosis from Leo in He Shall, From Time To Time ... to Leo's "Watch this" moment in Two Cathedrals, through the delicate balancing act with a wary military leadership in A Proportional Response, through thick and thin. Jed's devotion to his old friend was made most evident in He Shall, From Time To Time ... when he had this exchange with the designated survivor for his State of the Union speech, Secretary of Agriculture Roger Tribby, on what to do should Tribby find himself elevated to the Presidency:

President: "You got a best friend?"

Tribby: "Yes, sir."

President: "Is he smarter than you?"

Tribby: "Yes, sir."

President: "Would you trust him with your life?"

Tribby: "Yes, sir."

President: "There's your Chief of Staff."

Have these two had disagreements in the past? Of course, they must have, although we haven't seen a lot of that. Leo looks at his role as providing the best advice and counsel he can, helping to guide the President through the political thickets of leadership, but knowing the ultimate decision will come from Jed. He even says as much to Kate in the previous episode, after chewing Kate out for just doing her job in the Situation Room and making her feel like she needs to apologize for that. What's kind of strange about this arc that began in Gaza is how Leo seems to think of himself and his advice differently now, somehow. Leo does appear to have everyone else on his side, from the military to Toby to Will to almost all of the other White House advisors, as they press for a strong military response to the terrorist killing of four Americans, including two congressmen and the former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. President Bartlet is reluctant to use force, reluctant to harm innocent civilians, reluctant to fall into what he sees as the trap of an overly aggressive retaliation that would only spur even more terror threats against the United States within its own borders. As Kate Harper steps into the void, following the President's lead to think outside the box and come up with options that don't include a military strike, Leo feels a little bit threatened, I think. He seems to think the President is choosing to ignore his advice, instead of listening, considering, and choosing a different path.

We saw that in Memorial Day, when Jed dismissed Leo in the middle of a sentence, the President's mind made up about trying Makharat's back-channel gambit. We saw it in NSF Thurmont, as Leo and Jed got involved in an Oval Office shouting match, with the President ominously responding "Or what?" to Leo's demand that he give the order for airstrikes. We saw it again as the Oval Office door was shut in Leo's face, the President concerned that his attendance in the meeting with the Israelis might give off mixed signals. We got to see a lot of shocked looks on Leo's face, as if he couldn't comprehend that Jed might decide to go in a different direction than what Leo advised.

I mean - surely that's happened before! Leo even made that point to Kate, more than once, that their role as advisors is to provide as many of the facts and as much of the course they think is prudent as they possibly can, so that the President can make the most informed decision. But now Leo is stuck firmly in the position that the only possible path is military force, and he's adamant that any other course of action is futile and worthless to pursue.

Sorry about that long preamble, but that sets the stage for where we are now. The President's efforts, led mostly by ideas provided by Kate, have led to a summit at Camp David with Israeli Prime Minister Zahavy, Chairman Farad of the Palestinian Authority, and Palestinian Prime Minister Makharat. Tellingly, Leo has been left behind in the White House, not included on the negotiation team and not a part of the group giving the President guidance on the talks. This comes as a surprise to many: CJ was a bit stunned to hear Leo was in his office and not at Camp David, and when Josh returns from caring for Donna in Germany he's similarly taken aback.

The Camp David talks are complicated. The President decides they'll start with four topics: security for Israel after they withdraw from their occupied territories; disposition of the Israeli settlements in Palestinian land; the right of return for Palestinian refugees forced out of their homes; and a requirement for Palestinian leaders to dismantle terrorist groups. The biggest issue, the status of Jerusalem and the Muslim holy sites there, are tabled for the moment - even though no outcome is possible without some kind of agreement on that topic.

Most of the episode is taken up with how these four topics are addressed. Neither the Israelis nor the Palestinians seem willing to budge on any of them, but Kate, Toby, Will, and Josh come up with some daring ideas, and by splitting up Zahavy and his Defense Minister, by using Farad's apparent crush on Kate ("I think he likes me"), and by striking just the right balancing act on the negotiating high wire, they appear to get a framework together on those issues.

We also get a nicely composed, beautifully shot Friday evening montage between the Palestinians praying to Mecca and the Israeli shabbat meal.

Along with some dialogue about how the Jews and the Arabs really aren't all that different.

Kate: "The tragedy is that the Palestinians and the Jews are so much alike."

Charlie: "How's that?"

Kate: "All through history no one's wanted either of them."

But as the negotiating threads start to pull together, it takes Abbey to knock some sense into Jed's head and bring Leo up to join the team.

"Jed ... where's Leo?"

(Very reminiscent of Shutdown, with Abbey returning from her New Hampshire self-exile in the midst of a total breakdown of communication between the White House and Congress, only to ask Jed, "Where's Josh?")

Leo has some good ideas - it was his notion to split up Zahavy and Defense Minister Massar - but it also looks like the stress of the past week or so is really wearing him down. The leftover taquitos he and Will found in the kitchen one night didn't help, but there's something else serious going on with Leo's health.

The Jerusalem issue is the final point, and it's going nowhere. Zahavy emphatically tells President Bartlet that he hasn't been listening, Israel will never agree to give up sovereignty to any part of Jerusalem, and despite the progress they've made on the other topics he's going home. As the White House group gathers in the wee hours of early Sunday morning to draw up a public announcement of their failure, Kate - of course it's Kate - has a brainstorm.

Kate: "It's a search for two freedoms - for Israel, the freedom from terror; for the Palestinians, the freedom from Israel. That's what Efram Nachum called it. His book on the Six-Day War was pretty ..."

(she trails off, a light bulb starting to glow in her mind. Not literally, but this shot makes it look like it is)

Josh: "What? Boring? Overwritten?"

Kate: "Find Toby and Will. I'll meet you at Aspen."

She's remembered that in the aftermath of the Six-Day War in 1967 Israel offered the Palestinians a deal whereby they could have a sort of diplomatic control over Muslim holy sites in Jerusalem in exchange for peacekeeping troops in Palestinian territory. If they were willing then, why not now?

The sticking point, though, is the peacekeeping troops. Israel would never accept the United Nations providing them - the only possible way would be with American troops. Another late-night meeting in the Aspen cabin is convened ... and we see Leo, roused out of bed, looking absolutely terrible as he continues to deal with the stress and his own hidden health concerns.

Once Leo arrives at the meeting, he's struck by the direction they are heading.

Josh: "Is this really our job? Sending American teenagers into that breach?"

Leo (entering): "What are we talking about?"

Will: "About putting an American peacekeeping force in the territories."

Leo: "And we think that's a good idea?"

Again, as we've seen over the past few episodes, President Bartlet takes in the advice and the opinions, and makes a decision.

President: "It shouldn't be our job, but no one else can do it."

Leo is finally at his breaking point over Jed's seeming obsession to achieve a peaceful outcome, no matter the threat to American lives or his political legacy.

Leo: "Can I speak to you privately for a moment?"

Outside, the fateful discussion. The President remains firm in his direction, while Leo continues to push for a less radical, less dangerous option. They are at loggerheads, and for the first time in this relationship, there seems to be no pathway out.

Leo: "My counsel is no longer of use to you. Perhaps it's time --"

President: "So, if I disagree with your advice you have to threaten me."

Leo: "This is your own League of Nations. And it'll ruin you like it ruined Wilson."

(pause)

President: "Okay. I'll need your successor in place before you leave."

Leo dared the President to take his resignation. Jed called his bluff. Leo's time as Chief of Staff is over. 

Josh steps out of the cabin to make sure things are all right. He notices Leo doesn't look so good - unsteady, sweaty, shaken.

Leo brushes Josh off; he just needs some air. He heads off into the woods, alone, adrift ... and dramatically, about to suffer a devastating heart attack.

He collapses to the ground. No one knows he's there.

This leads us to couple of striking images provided by director Alex Graves, images that have stuck in my mind for 20 years. First, after Leo's collapse, a masterful crossfade of images from Leo prostrate in the woods to a pensive, heavy-hearted closeup of President Bartlet, who's basically just fired one of his oldest friends and confidants.

Then, as the wrapup of the summit is concluded, with preparations for an afternoon announcement of the talks' success, everyone from all the delegations packs up to leave Camp David. As Josh climbs into a vehicle, he mentions he hasn't seen Leo, thinking he must have headed back to DC earlier. Josh dials Leo's cell phone. Bringing us that final, memorable image ... as Marine One flies over the woods, President Bartlet on board, the camera pans down to the empty, lonely woods, with the sound of Leo's phone ringing and ringing, unanswered.

 

Tales Of Interest!

- Timeline shenanigans - all the events we see here are following immediately on the heels of what happened at the end of Season 5, with that final episode of that season set on Memorial Day, 2004. The back-and-forth between Farad, Zahavy, and President Bartlet shown in NSF Thurmont just covered a few days after that, as well as Donna's recovery in Germany and her urgent blood-clot surgery. This episode depicts five days at Camp David, with Day Three being a Friday ... that would have to be Friday, June 4, following Memorial Day. (You could stretch that a week to Friday, June 11, I suppose, but that really doesn't align with how the events of Memorial Day and NSF Thurmont are playing out.) Day Five, which was Leo's early-morning heart attack followed by the announcement of a 2:00 pm press conference on the outcome of the peace talks, would then have been Sunday, June 6 (or, again, June 13 at the latest).

 

Despite all that, information on the West Wing Continuity Guide website tells us this episode is set in the fall of 2004, similar to its actual broadcast dates, using the President's reply to Farad saying his granddaughter Annie "started high school last week" as evidence. You know, I'm sorry, but 1) Josh didn't spend three months in Germany looking after Donna; 2) Congress, the American public, and the President's chief military and domestic advisers weren't going to sit by for those three months watching Bartlet dilly-dally over whether or not to strike back after the deaths in Gaza; and 3) the splinter-cell leader Naisan wasn't going to sit in his known location all summer long, nor was Farad going to be held in isolation by Israeli troops for all that time. This all clearly had to take place in a week (at most, two weeks) following Memorial Day.

- That said, why would Annie have "started" high school at the end of May? Well, obviously, she wouldn't have ... West Wing writers have historically been terrible about keeping their timelines consistent between season-ending cliffhangers and season-opening resolution episodes. Remember The Midterms from Season 2, where the shooting at Rosslyn was (temporarily) moved from May to August, Josh was still in the hospital 10 weeks or so after his emergency surgery, and the few weeks of "good feelings" in the polls towards the President after he was shot lasted almost until November? Also, we were told Annie was 12 years old in 1999's Pilot, when the President ripped into the Christian leaders at the White House for not denouncing radical groups that sent her a doll with a knife in its throat; that means in the fall of 2004 Annie would be 17, which seems a bit old to be starting high school. Of course, Annie's little brother Gus also regressed in age several years between his appearances in 7A WF 83429 and Abu el Banat, so maybe there's a magical age-reducing potion going around the Weston household.

- I keep bringing this up, but why the heck is Will always around for presidential stuff? He quit working for Toby and the President in Constituency Of One, remember - he works for Vice President Russell now. Yet he's always roaming around the West Wing, trying to arm-twist the administration into helping Russell's positioning for 2006, and now he's actually included in the Camp David talks, for some reason. We never saw Vice President Hoynes' staffers around the West Wing unless they were there with Hoynes, what's different about Will and his role? Why did the show runners write him out of the Communications Department if they were going to just keep him hanging around anyway?

- Mary McCormack was pregnant during filming of the first few episodes of Season 6, but director Alex Graves did a pretty nice job of camouflaging that fact, using darker clothing, a lot of camera angles from the shoulders up, and strategically placed books, binders, and pillows to hide her baby bump.

 

- Whenever I look up information about John Spencer, I'm always gobsmacked by what I perceive as the dichotomy between his appearance and his actual age. As Season 6 kicks off, the craggy-faced elder statesman Leo's appearance continues to make him look like the mentor for President Bartlet and the entire West Wing staff, as he's looked since the beginning. Turns out John Spencer was 57 years old in 2004; he was just 52 years old at the end of Season 1! I'm 59 at the time of this post, and even though I'm bald I'd like to think I look far younger and less, shall I say, weathered than Spencer did even in his early 50s. Martin Sheen is about seven years older than Spencer - I can't say you'd guess that by looking at them! 

- Why'd They Come Up With The Birnam Wood?

"The Birnam Wood" is a reference from William Shakespeare's Macbeth, as the witches prophesy "Macbeth shall never vanquish'd be until great Birnam Wood to high Dunsinane Hill shall come against him." Macbeth takes this literally, in that a forest could never pull up its roots and move against his castle, thus his rule as king of Scotland will never be overthrown.

As witches' prophecies often turn out, though, they were being intentionally misleading. When the army led by Macduff marches against Macbeth, they cut down tree branches from Birnam Wood to hide their numbers behind the branches as they advance - so Birnam Wood did, indeed, come to Dunsinane.

But why is this the episode title? Which, by the way, is never actually spoken during the episode ... I think pretty much every previous West Wing episode title was heard somewhere in the dialogue of the show, but not this one. Is the phrase illustrating an occurrence that none of our characters could have possibly foreseen, i.e., the dramatic split between President Bartlet and Leo? Or, for another unexpected plot twist, Prime Minister Zahavy and Chairman Farad coming to an actual agreement in the peace talks? Or is it just a literal reference to the forests around Camp David where the episode takes place, and where Leo is left in the woods undiscovered after his heart attack as the others head back to Washington? Maybe it's some of all of that.

Quotes    

CJ: "CNN's got the Speaker on an endless loop like a ... Pink Floyd concert. It's their way of punishing us for cutting off access to Camp David."

Leo: "Natives restless?"

CJ: "There might be a mutiny afoot. I heard a couple of them plotting to throw our Mr. Coffees into the Potomac."

-----

Leo: "We're losing the media war. I want us on the morning shows, Crossfire, Dateline, book This Old House if we can figure out an angle."

CJ: "Who goes?"

Leo: "You, me, the Assistant Deputy Secretary for Fishery Exploitation, I don't care. We've got to get our message out."

CJ: "What is our message?"

Leo: "'Shut up while we're trying to get them to stop killing each other.'"

-----

Massar: "I've always wanted to try skeet shooting. Do you shoot often?"

Toby: "Yeah. You know, once or twice a week, when it's in season."

-----

President: "We may just have our tennis match. (Leo stands silently) You don't think so?"

Leo: "We haven't got to the tough part."

President: "We're making progress."

Leo: "Yes, sir, you are. And that's laudable."

President (scoffing): "Laudable. You make it sound like an honorarium from some two-bit chiropractic college in Arizona." 

-----

(as the staffers head for the Suburbans to drive back to DC)

Will (to Kate): "No round trip on Marine One?"

Kate (who mentioned in the previous episode that she gets airsick in helicopters): "Yeah, it's a shame."

 

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

• As this is really a carryover episode from last week, it's not a big surprise to see Armin Mueller-Stahl back as Israeli Prime Minister Zahavy.

• The President, Josh, Toby, Will, and Charlie playing basketball at Camp David reminds us of The Crackpots And These Women, which opened with the President and his staffers shooting some hoops on Pennsylvania Avenue outside the White House.

• Likewise, the image of Toby being blasted back off his feet by the shotgun is a callback to CJ getting blasted off her feet when she fired Simon Donovan's handgun at the firing range in We Killed Yamamoto.

• We know Toby is a Brooklyn native (particularly from Holy Night) and a New York Yankees fan. He's wearing a Yankees shirt to play basketball.

• Taylor Reid's TV show gets a mention, as Carol tells CJ she's been booked to appear. We saw parts of Reid's show several times between The Warfare Of Genghis Khan and Full Disclosure, with CJ seeming to enjoy her times on the air debating with the conservative TV host Reid (played by Jay Mohr).

• Abbey's comment of "Where's Leo?" to Jed is an echo of her return to the White House from New Hampshire in Shutdown when she asked, "Where's Josh?"
  

• Katie is the only regular White House reporter seen in this episode.
  

• When Josh and Toby are tossing a football around and debating the fate of the Jews trying to flee 1938 Germany as well as the administration going after the Ku Klux Klan today (which was a topic of The Midterms, actually), Toby scoffs at Josh, "What, now suddenly you're Jewish? I don't remember seeing you at temple." In Six Meetings Before Lunch, when Josh was debating slavery reparations with Jeff Breckenridge, we are shown a photograph of Josh's grandfather, who survived being a prisoner at the Birkenau concentration camp during World War II. Even before that, in Pilot, Josh is clearly described as Jewish by Toby, who says to Josh after a snide remark by Mary Marsh, "She meant Jewish. When she said, 'New York sense of humor,' she was talking about you and me." I suppose you could take Toby's comment as a satiric slam at a non-observant Josh, since we have seen in Take This Sabbath Day that observant Toby does indeed go to temple ... but it just doesn't hit right.
  

• If you know, you know ... Leo's heart attack turned out to have a tragic real-life parallel in the future with John Spencer.
  

DC location shots    

• As in the previous episode, the Camp David scenes were set at ThorpeWood, a nonprofit retreat and event center located in Maryland's Catoctin Mountains. It's actually not very far from the real Camp David, so the scenery fits.

• The skeet-shooting scene with Toby and Defense Minister Massar was filmed at Quiet Waters Park, south of Annapolis, at about the same time as the Annapolis scenes of Admiral Fitzwallace's funeral were filmed for NSF Thurmont. This park is actually about 90 miles away from the ThorpeWood/Camp David area.
  

• Here's a couple of maps of the DC/Maryland area.

 

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

• The CNN logo gets on screen.

• Also in all the talk about news coverage we hear mentions of TV shows Crossfire, Dateline, Meet The Press, the Al-Jazeera network, magazines Time and Newsweek, the Washington Post newspaper ... plus This Old House.
  

• As I told you in the previous entry, the USS Abraham Lincoln (named by General Alexander) is a real US Navy aircraft carrier.
  

• CJ compares CNN's obsession with Speaker Haffley to a Pink Floyd concert. She also mentions the game Twister.
  

• The Gallup polling company gets a shout-out in the conversations about how many Palestinians would actually take Israel up on the right to return.
  

• Apparently Kate's quote about "It's a search for two freedoms" from the Efram Nachum book about the Six-Day War was fictional, as was the book and the author. I haven't found any reference to an actual book by an author of that name. That must mean John Wells came up with the Palestinian-authority-over-Muslim-holy-sites-in-Jerusalem gambit.
  

• Leo says the President's use of American peacekeeping troops in the occupied territories will be his League of Nations, and will ruin him like the League ruined President Wilson.
  

End credits freeze frame: The fateful early-morning meeting between Jed and Leo.

Previous episode: NSF Thurmont

Next episode: Third-Day Story