Friday, February 9, 2024

The Ticket - TWW S7E1

 





Original airdate: September 25, 2005

Written by: Debora Cahn (11)
 
Directed by: Christopher Misiano (24)

Synopsis
  • As the presidential campaign revs into high gear after the national convention, questions about Leo start to drag on Matt's momentum, and the White House taking away one of Matt's top policy initiatives doesn't help, either. Oliver Babish settles on a suspect in the military shuttle leak investigation. Josh turns away a friend asking for a job.


"What are they doing?"
"Making plans."



It's the kickoff to Season 7, and (to steal a line from The West Wing Weekly podcast), we start with a scene from the premiere of Season 10! A rather unusual fast-forward three years into the future shows us where some of these characters we've followed for so long will end up, with a graying former President Bartlet, Columbia professor (I guess) Toby Ziegler, Congressman Will Bailey, author Kate Harper, and tanned CJ Cregg (hey, look, she did end up with Danny Concannon!) awaiting the arrival of the current President to the Josiah Bartlet Presidential Library. And Charlie Young is there, too, we just don't know exactly what he's up to at this point.
 
 
I guess this is meant to be kind of a suspenseful moment - ooh, who won, Santos or Vinick? - but I definitely did not get that impression watching this that Sunday evening in 2005. Although the final shot before smashing to the opening title sequence sure looks like they're trying for a tricky kind of tease ...
 
Hey, whose feet are those? Gee, I can't tell!
 
I think this is a very compelling episode, and a good start to the season. Even if it hurts my heart a little to see Leo taking all the shots he takes in this one (the look on his face when Bram brings him the blue shirt ... man, that hits right in the feels), not to mention the emotionally stressful meeting of Josh and Donna, the plot just keeps driving along. It doesn't hurt that we start to see the load Josh is taking on, refusing to delegate pretty much anything, insisting on interviewing anybody who wants a job with the campaign and seeing himself falling behind the unforgiving clock. That unsustainable drive and that unhealthy sense of control Josh wants to have all the time is going to run through this entire season.
 
The main storyline is the Santos/McGarry campaign - we have Matt out on the campaign trail, making the same speech 27 times a day or something, getting his face on the cover of Time magazine; and we get Leo, new to this campaign business, figuring out how to pronounce "Santos" and trying to avoid accepting the premise of questions (and not always succeeding).

It's the tension between Matt and Leo that drives most of the action. As Josh admits, they don't really know each other. Leo isn't a seasoned campaigner, his background as a Bartlet administration insider takes away from Matt's efforts to appear like a fresh outsider everyman type of candidate - and his issues with drug and alcohol abuse and his questions about his health are taking away from Matt's emphasis on his programs and policies. And it's taking Leo a little while to come to grips with exactly what's entailed here; a good example is meeting his new Secret Service detail.


Making things worse than the constant questions are Leo's approval ratings. While Josh and Matt are ecstatic to be only nine points behind Vinick in the first national poll out of the convention, Leo's numbers are considerably worse. And when congresspeople in districts with solid Vinick support start pulling away from appearances with Santos, Matt decides he'll take on all of the calls to get those Democrats back into the fold, rather than lose a little face (and his prospective Presidential clout) by letting Leo do any of it. In fact, Matt tries to take on all the workload that is normally split between the Presidential and Vice Presidential candidates, as he doesn't trust Leo (or his lukewarm approval numbers) to get the job done.

A mini-crisis develops when the Republican Speaker of the House sees an opening to take away one of Santo's prime campaign issues, education, and hurt him in the general election. He reaches out to the White House to offer a proposal to increase teacher pay tied to better teacher performance. As that very policy is a key part of the Santos education plank, President Bartlet and his staff are a bit wary of stepping on toes, but realize they can't give up the opportunity to get an important Democratic point of emphasis done even if it weakens their Presidential candidate.

When Josh and Leo drop by the White House for a visit, Toby and CJ let them in on this upsetting new tidbit - and as you might expect, the reaction is less than positive.

Toby: "The only reason the Speaker is opening the door at all, is because he thinks he may wound your campaign. You think he's gonna walk in here a year from now and offer it to the bright-eyed new President?"

Leo: "Haffley's playing you."

Toby: "No, actually he's screwing you and, for the moment, we are comfortable with that."

(I do have to say that, in the true West Wing reality, I don't think Toby and CJ would be as peeved as they end up acting in this scene. They knew going in that the Santos campaign wasn't going to like it, they never expected the campaign to happily agree with the White House teaming up with Republicans to kneecap the Santos education proposal - getting all snotty because Josh and Leo weren't happy just doesn't ring true. They would have known that would be the reaction, they'd be understanding yet firm, not mean and dismissive. But I digress.)

This sets up another gaffe by Leo. Let's go back to earlier in the episode when Annabeth (who has left the White House Communications department to be Leo's advisor on the Vice Presidential campaign) gives him some helpful advice on dealing with press questions:
Annabeth: "Now remember, you control the conversation. If you don't like what they ask, don't accept the premise of the question."

Leo: "That's my line, you know, you're quoting me."

Annabeth: "I thought it was Toby."

Leo: "Where do you think he got it, I've been rejecting the premises of questions since the Hoover administration."

Leo is pretty sure he's got it, and is actually really good at deflecting questions about his health and former drug abuse issues. But this White House backstabbing on the education program is still fresh when he encounters reporters on the way back into campaign headquarters, and he slips up:

Reporter: "Why is the President working with Haffley if this is the candidate's baby?"

Leo: "Because the Constitution empowers the President to sign bills into law, and it doesn't empower candidates to do anything."

(Annabeth cuts the questioning short and leads Leo into the campaign HQ building)

Leo: "I accepted the premise of the question, didn't I?"

Annabeth: "You sure did."

Now we have yet another reason for Matt to be upset with Leo. Not only is the White House stepping on his primary campaign issue, Leo is out there implying that Presidential candidates are nothing but "a lot of hot air." But then, something kind of miraculous happens. As Leo is apologizing for his mistake with the press, Matt tries to outline why he wants his campaign to be different, to be ready to govern from day one instead of waiting until well into his first term. Leo, who knows how things work, outlines how presidential terms are really just 18 months long, not four years, once election campaigns for Congress and President start interfering with governance. You have a file folder of priorities for the first term? Better edit that down to five pages. Or, better yet, one page.

And the two sit down and start to work together. Working on the future.


Of course, the plotline of the military shuttle leak and the rescue of the astronauts on the International Space Station continues to play out at the White House. You'll remember in Things Fall Apart we learned of an oxygen leak on the ISS that was threatening the lives of the three astronauts onboard. When they were unable to fix the leak, and NASA revealed the two space shuttles they had were undergoing repairs and were not available for a rescue mission, the NASA administrator also let slip the existence of another shuttle, a top secret non-civilian Pentagon shuttle. CJ realized that shuttle could be used to save the astronauts, but its use would also reveal its existence to the world, in violation of treaties and policies protecting the peaceful non-military use of space.

When Greg Brock of The New York Times published a story revealing the existence of this military spacecraft on the front page, the cat was out of the bag. In 2162 Votes President Bartlet furiously demanded an investigation to find out who leaked that top secret information to Brock, an investigation led by Toby and Kate, who brought in the FBI to conduct interviews. At the end of that episode (and the end of Season 6), Kate came to Toby to tell him the FBI had a theory, one Toby wouldn't like. But we never heard what it was.

And now ... Oliver Babish, the White House Counsel, is in CJ's office demanding time to speak with her about the leak. Who else in the White House knew about the shuttle? Who did CJ talk to about it? Does CJ trust Kate Harper? And finally, most intriguingly, Babish zeroes in on Brock and CJ, and why would the White House visitor and phone logs show a reporter having almost daily contact with the White House Chief of Staff?

Babish: "It got personal with Danny, right, now if he's the new Danny --"

CJ: "We're not doing this."

Babish: "You talk to him every day. He drops by more than a guy with a phone in his pocket needs to drop by. And he published code-word classified information on the front page of his newspaper. So this does not fall into the category of things to which I do not need an answer."

CJ instantly surmises what Babish is implying. He has a suspect, he knows who he thinks leaked the information to Greg Brock - and it's her. (This does play along with what the show portrayed to us in Things Fall Apart, with CJ pushing for the military shuttle rescue and several shots of her being contemplative or sitting alone with her thoughts while watching news reports of the ISS crisis - although the DVD commentary in 2162 Votes tells us the show writers had not yet decided, at that time, who they were going to pin the leak on).

Babish's scene in the Oval Office - telling a bewildered President Bartlet that the White House needs to stop their own investigation and instead cooperate with Congress and the Attorney General - is really something, and is setting us up for a roller-coaster ride with this storyline for months to come. CJ's face during all this is incredible: impassive, her head never moving, but her intensely focused eyes shifting back and forth from the President to Babish.

One more thing I want to talk about - and it's a minor thing in the scheme of the episode, but it's important for the overall arc of the series: Josh and Donna. Right from the beginning we saw the chemistry between these two, a spark of energy and attraction that ran from Donna just showing up and starting to answer Josh's phone in New Hampshire in In The Shadow Of Two Gunmen Part II to the look on both of their faces when Donna read Josh's note inside the skiing book in In Excelsis Deo to "If you were in an accident I wouldn't stop for a beer/if you were in an accident I wouldn't stop for red lights" in 17 People to Josh dropping everything and flying to Germany after Donna's Suburban was blown up in Gaza, and many, many, many more moments. True, Josh is a jerk to Donna a lot of the time, and the devotion and commitment he showed in Gaza and Memorial Day evaporated pretty quickly once she returned to work (I swear, if Colin the Irish photographer had happened to drop by the White House in early Season 6 he would have slapped Josh silly) - but there's just something that works between them. I credit the actors, of course, and Janel Moloney has said from the outset she played Donna as if the character was deeply, secretly in love with Josh.

So of course it was quite the swerve for the series to have Donna leave her post as Josh's assistant in Impact Winter, finally fed up with Josh's neverending dropping the ball whenever she asked for more responsibility and the chance for upward mobility in her career. She found a spot in the Bob Russell campaign, working for Will, and proved herself more than capable of being a spokesperson and helping develop strategy. But Russell lost, Matt Santos earned the Democratic nomination, and here comes Donna - I don't want to say crawling back to Josh, but she is there hat-in-hand basically asking for a position as Josh's deputy.

Even though he really needs a deputy, Josh is still harboring some resentment over what Donna did with the Russell campaign, and the things she said on the campaign trail attacking Matt. She knows that's rough, but she was just doing her job, and now she wants to keep doing what she knows she's good at, and do it for the only Democratic campaign that's still alive. Josh isn't having it.



For those of us who got caught up in the Josh/Donna attraction thread over the course of the series, this is almost heart-wrenching. And it doesn't get easier when Josh admits it's not just his professional position that he can't hire Donna - he's got some emotional feelings there, too, and they are strong.

Donna: "It was my job, Josh. (pause) You're not used to me being in a position of authority, I'm sure that's uncomfortable --"

Josh: "We got an airplane hangar out there filled with 500 strangers looking to me for direction, I got a candidate who doesn't trust any of them and, frankly, neither do I, and if you think I don't miss you every day ..."

He offers to make some calls to find her a landing spot, but - embarrassed and humiliated - Donna grabs her things and heads out of the campaign headquarters. Josh comes to his office door and watches her go, still emotionally agitated.


Surely this isn't the end of the Josh/Donna saga?

It's a tasty start to Season 7, even if the whole thing is one long flashback - Matt and Leo find common ground, the shuttle leak story is getting spicy, Josh is so willing to practically kill himself by not delegating he refuses to hire a dedicated longtime friend and co-worker. Things are off and running as we hurtle toward November.
 
 
 

Tales Of Interest!

- Well, here I am, finally to Season 7. And only six years, nine months, and some-ish days after I started this project. My hope was to get through all seven seasons in less time than it took for them to air, and I've already missed that deadline (The West Wing aired for six years and eight months, from September 1999 to May 2006). It's even more humbling and a bit irritating that my inspiration for doing this, The West Wing Weekly podcast, covered all seven seasons in less than four years (March 2016 to January 2020).

- This marks NBC's move of The West Wing from its traditional Wednesday night broadcast slot to Sunday nights, a much less popular viewing night that meant fewer eyes on the program each week. Since the ratings for the show had been fading over the past three years, NBC didn't want to waste a weeknight spot for a show on its last legs. The series' former spot on Wednesday night was taken by the new show E-Ring (which lasted one season) and The Apprentice: Martha Stewart, as the rise of "reality shows" over scripted dramas continued in network television. The West Wing had averaged about 15 million viewers per episode over its first four seasons, but the last two seasons had dropped below 12 million per episode. Season 7 would see the ratings dip to just over 8 million people tuning in each week, with the show ending up 65th in viewership among all shows in the 2005-06 season. In fact, this episode drew 8.9 million viewers, which (to this point) was the fewest ever to watch a West Wing episode - yet it's still the third-highest rated entry in Season 7.
 
- If you're watching along on HBOMax streaming, this episode starts without a "previously on" segment. The DVD episode (which I believe is actually what we would have seen broadcast in 2005) begins with a very long "previously on" section that recaps a great deal of Season 6; not just the convention and the military shuttle leak but all the way back to Josh asking Matt if he wants to run for President.
 
- The pre-credits cold open section begins with "Three Years Later" (later than what, we wonder?), which sets the Presidential Library scene in 2009, three years after the election. That's confirmed when the action of the episode begins with the title "Three Years Earlier," set in 2006. Interestingly, by starting the season this way, the entirety of Season 7 is basically one long flashback. Do we close the loop by checking back in on this scene at the end of the season? I guess we'll have to wait and see.
 
- Three years into the future, here's what we know:
 
* CJ and Danny Concannon are married (I'm guessing, I suppose that's not confirmed, but they are definitely co-habitating), with a baby, and live in Santa Monica
 
* Toby is teaching at Columbia University
 
* Charlie and Zoey must not have ended up together; you'd think there'd be some mention of that between Jed and Charlie in their conversation if they were married/a couple
 
* Kate has written a book
 
* Will is a Congressman
 
- A bit of a spoiler for you, if you don't know Season 7: Leo's absence from that 2009 flash-forward scene turned out to fit in with future tragic events. Let's just say the producers would have had no answer for the timeline confusion had Leo shown up in 2009, given what later actually happened to John Spencer (and Leo). That also gives us a rather sad and unfortunate retrospective on this exchange:

Leo: "If you're having second thoughts - there are options."

Matt: "You trying to quit?"

Leo: "No. Certainly not."

Matt: "You're either trying to quit or you're trying to get me to fire you."

Leo: "Well, it's something to think about."

Matt: "I'm not going to fire you. You want out, you're going to have to drum up another heart attack or something."

Leo: "Thank you, that's a beautiful sentiment."

- The opening credits for Season 7 feature twelve actors; thirteen for episodes with Stockard Channing. Those twelve actors have to be listed in the same 43-second credit sequence that was used in Season 1, when there were just six (or seven) actors in that time frame. Obviously a lot of extra time-filling video footage from Season 1's opening sequence is long gone.

Here's how the credits roll (in alphabetical order, except for Smits and Sheen):
  • Alan Alda
  • Kristen Chenoweth (a new addition to the main cast)
  • Dulé Hill
  • Allison Janney
  • Joshua Malina
  • Mary McCormack
  • Janel Moloney
  • Richard Schiff
  • John Spencer
  • Bradley Whitford
  • with Jimmy Smits
  • and Martin Sheen
- I honestly do not understand why it's so hard for the writers/producers to be more careful with the timeline information they present to us. I mean, seriously ... isn't anybody keeping track?

Here's what I mean:
  • In Things Fall Apart, as everyone is watching the Republican National Convention, Leo's whiteboard countdown to the end of President Bartlet's term and the 2007 inauguration reads 178 days. That means it was July 26, 2006 - 178 days until January 20.
  • The next episode, 2162 Votes, was set at the Democratic National Convention, which had to have been the following week - the week of July 30.
  • Now we are given an onscreen title, with Matt campaigning on the heels of his nomination at that convention (on a day Josh later tells us is four days out from that convention), a title which reads "105 Days Until Election Day."
  • That would put us at July 25, 2006, 105 days before November 7, Election Day ... and the day before the events we saw play out in Things Fall Apart.

According to this, the events of this episode (with the newly nominated Democratic candidates already out on the campaign trail, battling their Republican opponents who had been nominated a week before them) happened before the Republican National Convention had even concluded, or even nominated Vinick as their candidate.

It's not that hard to do math, guys. All you had to do was change the number on the screen to "92 Days" or something like that. Sheesh.

- Also in timelines, in Things Fall Apart, when we first heard of the oxygen leak on the space station, we were told the astronauts had about three weeks of air left. Again, that was during the Republican convention, around July 26. In 2162 Votes - which was one week later, during the Democratic convention - we found out the astronauts had "roughly three days" of oxygen left. There were some events, like a spacewalk to attempt repairs, that could have used up the oxygen faster, but that seems excessive. Anyhow, we are now four days after the Democratic convention, so about August 7, or not quite two weeks after the first news of the oxygen leak - so with less than a week's worth of air left from what we heard in Things Fall Apart but a day after the astronauts should have suffocated, according to what we told in 2162 Votes. They're still alive, though, and the rescue shuttle is about to launch.

- Annabeth has left the White House communications team to help run Leo's vice presidential campaign.

- At the end of 2162 Votes Kate came into Toby's office and told him the FBI had a theory about the military shuttle leak, and he wasn't going to like it. Apparently she said absolutely nothing else, because now Toby accuses Kate of giving up CJ to the Counsel's Office. If CJ had been the "theory" Toby wasn't going to like back in the previous episode, wouldn't these two have talked it over then? Instead of Toby getting miffed at Kate now and Kate getting pissed right back? I mean, actually we don't know what this "theory" the FBI landed on - making CJ the suspect is something Babish came up with. We never have heard exactly what theory Kate was talking about.

- Ah, the mid 'Oughts, back in 2005, when having a campaign blogmaster was the height of cutting-edge tech-savvy outreach to young voters, led by a couple of youngsters with a camera crew following them around.


- Annabeth jumps in to add to Bram's description of the Wizard of Oz cartoon, explaining that Leo is the big head that Matt is cowering to, with President Bartlet pulling the strings from behind the curtain. Kristen Chenoweth very famously originated the role of Glinda in the Broadway show Wicked, a retelling of the Wizard of Oz story. Chenoweth played the role from the show's tryouts in San Francisco in 2003 and then on Broadway from late 2003 to July 2004; The West Wing was actually her next project after leaving Wicked.

(And a bit of a personal connection between Wicked/The West Wing/me - David Garrison, the actor who is seen as the MSNBC talking head on TV in Santos campaign headquarters, played the role of the Wonderful Wizard of Oz in the Chicago production of Wicked that I saw in 2007.)

- Over the years there's been plenty of angst about President Bartlet's approval ratings, and how they're never as good as the West Wing staff expects them to be. Back in Season 1 they were complaining about stuck at 48 percent; in Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics they were thrilled they went up nine points; they were at 51 percent just before the shooting at Rosslyn, after which they went up to 81 percent (The Midterms); after Zoey's kidnapping and rescue they bounced back up into the 70s (in Jefferson Lives we hear Berryhill's approval is in the high 60s, but Bartlet's are higher); but by Constituency Of One they are back down below 50 percent. CJ mentions here that the President's approval rating is 66 percent, giving him the moxie to try to push through an education bill in the final months of his administration ... how did that happen?
 
- CJ puts mustard on her salad? I'm afraid I'm going to have to echo Babish's disbelief at that (but then again, I don't like mustard at all, so ...)


- It looks like perhaps a light bulb in Gail's fishbowl. I'm not sure what that might be a reference to, unless it's a lightbulb over Babish's head going off as he thinks CJ is the leak.


- Why'd They Come Up With The Ticket?
Matt and Leo are the Democratic presidential ticket for 2006, hitting the campaign trail after the national convention. The episode deals with that and some of the conflicts between the two.



Quotes    
Leo: "I'm just saying ... I've been at this for a while, I don't need the babysitting."

Annabeth: "You most certainly do. Just because you've trained a Preakness jockey doesn't mean you know how to sit a horse."

-----

Josh (as he and Matt are heading into the auditorium for Matt's speech, gesturing up a stairway): "There's a bathroom up there."

Matt: "Oh, that's not a bad idea. Excuse me." (He heads up the stairs)

Helen: "Do you think that's micromanaging?"

Josh: "He went, didn't he?"

----- 

Margaret (knocks, comes into CJ's office): "I was going to say White House Counsel would like a moment, but I guess he took care of that."

Babish (stretched out on the couch, waves at Margaret): "Nice to see you."

-----

Joey (through Kenny): "Ask people to describe their impressions of Matt Santos in one word, you get --"

Josh: "Appealing."

Joey (through Kenny): "Right. Followed by 'charming' and 'vital.' Strong, yes, but not in a 'defend our borders' kind of a way. It's more of a, hold me in your arms and stroke my hair while we gaze into the fire, and I run my hands over your biceps."

Josh: "This is the kind of comment you really don't want to hear coming out of Kenny's mouth."

-----

Edith (to Leo): "Any chance Mallory would be willing to bring the baby on the road?"

Bram: "Is it a photogenic baby?"

(Leo looks at him aghast)

Bram: "Hey, not all of them are."



Story threads, callbacks, and familiar faces (Hey, it's that guy!)
  • Danny Concannon shows up, three years in the future! Played by Timothy Busfield (thirtysomething, Revenge Of The Nerds, Field Of Dreams), Danny showed up early in Season 1 as a White House correspondent who had a thing for CJ; he disappeared after The Portland Trip, then reappeared with the Shareef pilot story in Holy Night, only to disappear again after Zoey's kidnapping and the events of 7A WF 83429. Given his appearance in the flash-forward, and his apparent success in finally coupling up with CJ, I imagine we'll see Danny more in this season.

  • White House Counsel Oliver Babish returns (Oliver Platt, from Bulworth, Huff, 2012, Modern Family), digging into the military shuttle leak. We haven't seen Babish around the White House since Gone Quiet, but he's been mentioned as the continuing White House Counsel many times since. You remember he replaced Lionel Tribbey as counsel sometime after Somebody's Going To Emergency, Somebody's Going To Jail, and was a key character in the storyline of revealing President Bartlet's MS coverup at the end of Season 2.

  • Here's Joey Lucas (Marlee Matlin, from Children Of A Lesser God, Picket Fences, CODA) and Kenny. We last saw Joey around the New Hampshire primary in Opposition Research.

  • Our introduction to Edith Ortega, deputy campaign manager for strategic planning, played by Diana Maria Riva (Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip, What Women Want, Dead To Me).

  • The talking head on MSNBC saying Leo is necessary to cover Matt's lack of foreign policy/gravitas is played by David Garrison (Married ... With Children, The Practice, Wicked onstage in Chicago in 2007).

  • The Bartlet Presidential Library is supposed to be in a historic textile mill, as we saw in The Dover Test. The actual library scenes in the flash-forward at the beginning of the episode were filmed on the University of Southern California campus, and don't really look like they were set in a renovated New Hampshire textile mill.
  • Senator Vinick reminds us of the Republican candidate for President as he appears on MSNBC.

  • As Toby, CJ, and the President are discussing competing investigations into the military shuttle leak, Toby says, "He doesn't think the AG's objective," meaning the Attorney General. President Bartlet responds, "The AG hates us, we hate him, it doesn't get more objective than that." We saw Attorney General Alan Fisk in Abu el Banat, getting dressed down by both Leo and President Bartlet for his grandstanding on an assisted suicide case in Oregon. So yeah, there's a lot of friction there.
  • In Drought Conditions we saw Margaret was expecting, with Josh making a remark about her pregnancy. That was right after the New Hampshire primary, so February or March; now we're in July, maybe four months later - there's been no mention about it since, and she's obviously no longer pregnant here (NiCole Robinson gave birth to her first child, a daughter, in 2005, and the show wrote her pregnancy into the script without actually, you know, writing the pregnancy into the script).

Margaret, definitely not pregnant

  • Josh tells Ronna to remind a Colorado congressman that "The Democrats looked like feuding inbreds last week" at the convention, chaos which we saw depicted in 2162 Votes.
  • Leo faces press questions about Alcoholics Anonymous and his cardiologist's thoughts about his campaigning. We've known Leo is a recovering alcoholic and drug abuser since Season 1, seen attending an AA meeting (hosted by Vice President Hoynes) in Five Votes Down. And, of course, Leo suffered a near-fatal heart attack in the woods of Camp David in The Birnam Wood.
  • Babish brings up Nancy McNally as he talks to CJ about how she heard about the military shuttle. Nancy hasn't appeared since Liftoff, and her deputy Kate Harper has taken over the National Security Agency role in the White House.
  • We hear about Leo's daughter Mallory, whom we first met surprising Sam as a teacher bringing her class to the White House in Pilot. And, we discover, Mallory now has a baby! Mallory hasn't been seen since Third-Day Story, and hasn't had lines since The Stormy Present.
  • We see the reporter Chris badgering Leo; she's one of the OG White House reporters.

  • Babish brings up the fact that the White House reporters say CJ played favorites as Press Secretary, and mentions Danny Concannon specifically, as well as Greg Brock currently. We saw plenty of times CJ gave Danny a heads-up or a little inside angle to stories, from Take Out The Trash Day to What Kind Of Day Has It Been and lots more; and with Brock in his first appearance in Full Disclosure he did CJ a favor by giving her an early look as his article on John Hoynes, so there definitely is a bit of favoritism going on there.


DC location shots    
  • The scene in the Bartlet Presidential Library lobby has a university seal over the entrance. A little digging indicates this is the seal of the University of Southern California, so that's where they filmed that scene.


A full view of that actual seal

  • In any event, it doesn't appear as if the interior setting of the Josiah Bartlet Presidential Library actually matches the "historic Amoskeag Mills" as we were shown in The Dover Test.

The library mockup as seen in The Dover Test

  • The IMDB page lists UCLA as a filming location for this episode, but it does not list USC. The seal, obviously, places the presidential library scene at USC; the "Brayburn College" scenes might have been at UCLA, but I wonder why the show would have filmed at two different university campuses when they could have just set up at one instead. 
  • The "Port of Philadelphia" scene with Leo and Annabeth has a crane with a Port of Long Beach sign on it.


 


They Do Exist! It's The Real Person, or Thing    
  • We see the cover of Time magazine with a picture of "President Santos?"

  • Annabeth mentions the Preakness Stakes when she's comparing Leo's skill at advising candidates to actually being a candidate.
  • Everyone is waiting on a Gallup poll at the beginning of the episode.
  • There's a poster for a production of Shakespeare's As You Like It in the background as Matt and his team are heading into the auditorium at Brayburn College.

  • We see the MSNBC logo a few times.
  • There's also CNN Headline News! Back when it actually was "headline news," with each half-hour filled with news, weather, sports, and lifestyle segments. Now it's just called HLN, has no original live programming, and is filled with repeats of Forensic Files and other true-crime shows.

  • Bram mentions a Wizard of Oz cartoon with Matt (in a Dorothy costume) cowering before a giant head (Leo) with President Bartlet as the Wizard pulling the strings from behind the curtain.
  • The Santos staff discusses whether to make appearances on The View and The Daily Show; Josh and Annabeth also bring up the possibility of Leo doing an "apology tour" about his addiction and health issues on Nightline and 20/20.
  • Matt jokes about carrying around a copy of Proust in order to project depth.



End credits freeze frame: Josh and Ned watching Matt's speech at Brayburn College.



Previous episode: 2162 Votes
Next episode: The Mommy Problem


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