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