Mr. Frost - TWW S7E4

 

Original airdate: October 16, 2005

Written by: Alex Graves (1)

Directed by: Andrew Bernstein (2)

Synopsis

• The assassination of a Palestinian leader in East Jerusalem shakes President Bartlet and threatens the fragile peace agreement he brokered; an enigmatic intelligence briefer shakes CJ when his predictions about turmoil in Central Asia start to come true; Matt uses his political judo moves to turn a "gaffe" about intelligent design into a smart discussion on the separation of church and state (while shaking Vinick off his game). And the investigation into the national security leak inside the White House elicits a stunning confession.
  

"I did it." 

There's a lot packed into this episode. Probably too much, to be honest ... a lot of it doesn't really land, and some of it is kind of a mess. The whole thing with Charles Frost coming up with these wild conspiracies that start to come true, then he disappears, but there's no resolution or indication of what this all means; the assassination of Palestinian chairman Farad is huge on a geopolitical scale, of course, but it doesn't do much in the course of the story except to remind us of the implausible and unworkable peace plan President Bartlet arm-twisted out of Farad and Israeli Prime Minister Zahavy in The Birnam Wood. 

 

I did like the elegance of Matt's political jiu-jitsu in using Pennsylvania's debate over intelligent design in the classroom to change the conversation and catch his opponent Senator Vinick unaware - although, goodness, by this point hasn't Josh figured out how good Matt is at this sort of thing? From The Dover Test to Freedonia to A Good Day to La Palabra to 2162 Votes to The Mommy Problem, Matt has shown his uncanny ability to outmaneuver his political adversaries without them even realizing it. You'd think Josh wouldn't be surprised by how he keeps doing it. 

Looming over everything is the continuing story of the national security leak, and how someone in the White House gave top-secret information to a reporter and now has the FBI, the Attorney General, and a congressional subcommittee hot on their heels - which leads us to the stunning final scene of the episode that flips everything from what the show has been leading us to believe.

So, yeah, that's an awful lot. Some of it's kinda good, some of it less successful, and maybe not all of it needed to be jammed into these particular 43 minutes, but anyway ... let's proceed.

I'll start with the rather delightful and not-weighty-at-all subplot of Leo and Annabeth. Annabeth, you recall, joined the White House Communications Office after CJ was promoted to Chief of Staff (Liftoff), and has more recently left the West Wing in order to help shepherd Leo through his vice presidential campaign. It also appears she's starting to get a little sweet on Leo. When Josh and Lou get concerned over the appearances of Leo checking his watch while Matt is speaking, Annabeth has a plan (which ends with a rather meaningful remark from her):

Annabeth: "Give me your watch."

Leo: "I wasn't --"

Annabeth: "People don't think you liked the speech."

Leo: "I like the speech, but I'm getting it five times a day --"

Annabeth: "We didn't put you up here for your own entertainment, Leo."

Leo: "Is there somebody on that phone?"

Annabeth: "CJ."

Leo: "Give me the phone."

Annabeth: "Give me that watch."

Leo: "For the love of --"

Annabeth: "Give me the watch."

(Leo removes his watch and hands it over. Annabeth smiles)

Leo: "You're not a tall person."

Annabeth: "And I think you're fabulous."

Later, as the two board a plane to fly from Pennsylvania back to DC, Annabeth goes through her pre-flight routine of a couple of anti-anxiety pills washed down by a couple of gulped champagnes:

 

Which leads to the scene of her zonked out while holding Leo's hand:

 

And once they get back to campaign headquarters and then are heading home for the evening, we get this little exchange (the emotions playing across Annabeth's face in this scene are just darling; Kristin Chenoweth does such a good job): 

Annabeth: "Headed back to your hotel?"

Leo: "Yeah, it's been a day."

Annabeth: "Hmmm."

Leo: "What are you up to?"

Annabeth: "Heading back to my apartment and a nice, hot bath."

Leo: "You feel like dinner?"

Annabeth: "I do, but ..."

Leo: "We'll get a bite, it's early."

Annabeth: "Thanks, but no."

(pause, as Annabeth thinks, considers, then:)

Annabeth: "I just think it's better while we're spending so much time together that we try and keep our distance as much as possible."

Leo: "Keep our distance?"

Annabeth: "Because of the tension."

(she gets off the elevator)

Leo (baffled): "What tension?"

 

Yep, Annabeth has got it bad for Leo, and Leo - the typical guy - has absolutely no idea.

 

As I said before, Matt's storyline is quite well constructed, although we (as well as Josh) ought to be able to see what's coming by now. During a campaign appearance in Pennsylvania, Josh cautions Matt to stay clear of a debate going on in the state over whether or not "intelligent design" should be taught in schools alongside evolution (as Josh describes it, intelligent design is basically "creationism in a Groucho mask"). Matt can't resist, though, when a reporter calls out a question:

Reporter: "Congressman, can you tell us if you believe in intelligent design?"

Matt: "I believe in God, and I'd like to think He's intelligent."

 

That ends up riling up Democrats who don't like the idea of religion being brought into schoolrooms, and Republicans who don't trust Democrats on the issue anyway. In the midst of protests by pro- and anti-intelligent design adherents, Matt goes into a high school to talk to some teachers and parents - and, no surprise, turns the issue on its head.

Reynolds: "Do you believe that the theory of intelligent design and the theory of evolution should be taught alongside each other in the public schools?"

Matt: "Absolutely not. One is based on science, the other is based on faith. Intelligent design is not a scientific theory, it's a religious belief. And our Constitution does not allow for the teaching of religion in our public schools."

His well-crafted (and extemporaneous!) comments earn respect and applause from both sides of the issue, and as he departs the school he exercises a bit more of that political jiu-jitsu that he jiu-jitsus so well, turning the spotlight of critical attention back on his opponent:

Matt: "Just because I'm talking about my faith doesn't mean I don't believe in the separation of church and state."

Reporter: "Congressman Santos, do you think Senator Vinick believes in intelligent design?"

Matt: "Well, I don't know, you'd have to ask him that."

Which reporters proceed to do, bogging Vinick down and getting him off-message. Josh is flabbergasted, but again - he really shouldn't be.

The Mr. Frost storyline is actually pretty weak - Charles Frost, the intelligence analyst who briefed Vinick in Message Of The Week but weirded Arnie out so much he asked for a different briefer - is desperate to reach CJ in order to get some time with the President. He finally barges into her office, frightening her just as she's waking up from a nap, and brings up a bizarre theory about a string of assassinations that he claims are coming in Central Asia, deliberately planned and linked to the killing of Palestinian chairman Farad. Once CJ kicks him out and chews out Kate for not keeping a leash on her analysts, we do end up with the surprising news that one of Frost's predictions - the assassination of the president of Kazakhstan - actually comes true, and that sends CJ into a frenzy of action to try to halt the third event he had predicted, while trying to get a handle on what it all means. 

(What does it all mean? We don't know, we aren't told.)

But that storyline does link us to a big one, the aforementioned killing of Farad. This goes all the way back to the beginning of Season 6 and the Camp David summit after a couple of congressmen and Admiral Fitzwallace were killed and Donna was injured in a trip to Gaza. President Bartlet took great pride in the agreement he was able to wrest out of the Palestinian leaders Farad and Makarat, as well as Israeli Prime Minister Zahavy, even at the cost of putting American troops in harm's way as peacekeepers. Now, two years later (remember we've skipped a year - the summit was summer of 2004, this is fall 2006), the ongoing tensions in the region from those who don't want peace explode into a suicide attack that kills Farad. 

I really appreciate the little scene of Bartlet leaving the Situation Room after word of Farad's death. He can't stand still, he can't stop, even for a moment, the disbelief and anger and despair is just too much. He sits down, only for a split-second, then immediately stands back up, looking for some direction, somewhere to turn. Then he slams his fist against the door on the way out.

President Bartlet feels more than a little guilty. He knew this agreement would put those Palestinian leaders in danger from Hamas and other radical Arab factions, and now it's resulted in Farad's death. He pulls together as many world leaders as he can to attend the funeral, insisting on a show of support for both the peace process and Farad himself, someone Bartlet considers a friend. This plotline takes up a lot of space in this episode, but to be honest ... it's not that important for the series. In fact, as I said earlier, it only puts more attention on that Season 5/6 plotline, which wasn't all that successful at the time, and only emphasizes the eventual seemingly pointless effort in the first place.

But what is important is the other story thread - the investigation into the leak about the secret military space shuttle, a breach of national security that's been tracked to someone inside the West Wing. It was in Things Fall Apart that we learned of an oxygen leak on the International Space Station, threatening the lives of the three astronauts onboard who were unable to fix it. The NASA administrator told CJ the two NASA space shuttles were undergoing repairs and would not be available in time for a rescue, but accidentally let slip the existence of a "non-civilian" shuttle. While CJ started asking questions about that - including of Toby, whose late brother had been an astronaut and shuttle crew member and may or may not have mentioned such a spacecraft to him - President Bartlet deliberated over whether or not to expose the existence of a military shuttle program in order to save the astronauts, and seemed to be leaning towards "not" and hoping the astronauts could save themselves. The decision was made for him when Greg Brock published a front-page story in the New York Times about the program, a story which was quickly traced to someone inside the West Wing. The President, of course, hit the roof, and demanded that Toby and Kate track down the leaker.

And, from what we were shown, all signs pointed to CJ. She had spent an inordinate amount of time on the phone with Brock over the past few months; she was the one who started asking questions about the existence of a military shuttle and pushing for its use in a rescue; and she was shown watching news coverage in a pensive, thoughtful manner, as if she was considering something. Even White House Counsel Oliver Babish had settled on CJ as the chief suspect, and as congressional intelligence committee hearings and depositions began, with subpoenas flying throughout the White House, the notion that the investigation was focusing on CJ became clear.

This episode begins with Margaret appearing before the committee, in what was supposed to be a quick round of testimony that turns into an all-day affair. As that's going on, Toby and CJ get their subpoenas, as well as Leo out on the campaign trail. In the midst of all that, there's lots of talk of lawyers, and who needs one and who doesn't.

After Leo tells CJ he's been subpoenaed, he tells her he doesn't need a lawyer if he hasn't done anything wrong. While CJ is fighting her way through the day expecting to be subpoenaed at any moment, Toby tells her to get a lawyer - her response is the same, she doesn't need a lawyer if she hasn't done anything wrong. She sticks with that even when Toby doubles down, insisting she get one.

It's the bit of news about Leo's subpoena, I think, that starts twisting the narrative. The Democratic vice presidential candidate appearing before Congress in an investigation of a national security breach by the current Democratic administration would be disastrous for the Santos campaign.

President Bartlet, Leo's old friend, is also concerned and distracted by the news. He asks Toby to sit down in the Oval Office just so he can talk it over a bit. When Bartlet tells Toby Leo has been subpoenaed, just look at how Toby's face reacts:

His eyes flicker back and forth; something is going on in that head. And while this remark just seems like typical bravado from the team, maybe there's more going on with this as well:

Toby: "Leo can't pull up to the Hart Building in a limo, the vice-presidential candidate can't testify, it would be the end of the Santos campaign."

President: "The investigation into the leak is focused on CJ."

Toby: "They've got it wrong."

"They've got it wrong." A flat out declarative statement.

And finally, with Monday bearing down only a couple of days away, the day that Leo will appear before Congress and likely doom the Santos campaign, as the weight of the national security breach nearly hits that final breaking point - something happens.

Toby gets a lawyer.

CJ (babbling): "The truth is I'm so strung out and wired on caffeine I can't even tell what room I'm in --"

Toby: "CJ --"

CJ: "Let's open that bottle of champagne you gave me for my birthday, maybe the alcohol will balance out the caffeine."

Toby: "CJ, the, uh, leak --"

CJ: "Let's have a toast. One, final toast before I leave the White House in a perp walk and leg irons. Here, you open it, I’ll take out your eye --"

Toby: "CJ --"

CJ: "Fine, I'll open it. But just, uh, listen to what I have to say. (takes a breath, starts to open champagne bottle) Leo's in trouble."

Toby: "I know."

CJ: "You do?"

(Toby walks to CJ and sits down)

Toby (sniffs, his hand shaking): "I got a lawyer."

CJ: "What?"

Toby: "I got a lawyer."

(Pause. CJ stops and stares ahead. Toby clears his throat)

Toby: "I did it."

 

You can just feel the emotion and the dread and the portent in that scene. (And probably the anger, too ... CJ just resigned herself to being dragged out of the White House in handcuffs while the Santos campaign crashes and burns on Leo's appearance, and now Toby tells her it was him all along? He dragged this all out and left her twisting in the wind to try to protect himself? And he's not confessing to protect CJ, he's doing it to keep Leo out of trouble? Man, I'd be pissed ...)

 

So that's how this one ends, after about two dozen different plot threads and a grumpy CJ trying to get through the day without sleep and a weird intelligence guy having his conspiracies come true and an assassination in the Middle East and Matt getting his education plan back front and center and Leo and Annabeth sitting in a tree K-I-S-S-I-N-G ... now it ends, with Toby confessing to a felonious breach of national security secrets that he kept to himself even while one of his best friends was on the hook for it. Yeah.

 

Tales Of Interest!

- This episode was written by longtime director and executive producer Alex Graves, who had directed 27 episodes of the series by this time. He had previously written (and directed) the films The Crude Oasis (1993) and Casualties (1997).

 

- Let's talk a little about Toby and the leak. Richard Schiff was not pleased with the direction this storyline went in; he felt Toby's actions as written were completely out of character for the person Toby was over the previous six-plus years. 

 

And there's quite a debate among West Wing fans over whether or not it was fair for Toby to be the leaker; in fact, there's a good number of fans who staunchly maintain Toby didn't do it, that he was taking the fall to protect CJ; or even that President Bartlet actually leaked the military shuttle info in order to find an avenue for saving the ISS astronauts, and Toby (and perhaps CJ) were in on the conspiracy from the beginning.

 

Here's where I stand:

 

- First, this final scene makes it clear that the Bartlet-leak-coverup-conspiracy is a bunch of hooey. No one was in the office but CJ and Toby, there's no one to cover up from. That idea is just silly.

- Second, again, that final scene makes the idea that Toby is covering for CJ ridiculous. If CJ was the leaker, and Toby knew it, what is the purpose of Toby admitting to CJ that he actually did it? With nobody else there to witness his false confession? (Some people still try to make the claim that Toby's admission to CJ was his way of telling her he was willing to take the fall - I mean, seriously? Plus the way the very next episode starts out kinda blows that nutty theory out of the water.)

- Third: I do think it makes sense that Toby would have been the one to make the military shuttle public. His deceased brother was an astronaut, he had a personal connection to the ISS crew slowly suffocating, he would have gone that extra mile to use the rescue opportunity that existed with the DOD to save them, even if it was a top-secret spacecraft. I have no problem logically or storywise with Toby being the one to make sure they were saved ...

BUT: I do agree with Schiff that it makes zero sense for Toby to do it in the way it was done. I don't think Toby would have secretly leaked to Greg Brock, and I definitely think there's no way he would have left CJ twisting in the wind as the chief suspect for this long. Toby would have gotten the military shuttle information out there openly, perhaps by telling President Bartlet if the President didn't make the shuttle public he would, and damn the consequences, because the lives of those three astronauts were more important. Secretly slipping word of this project to a reporter, then heading up the internal investigation to find out who did it, all the while keeping your involvement under wraps while the FBI and the White House Counsel and Congress were all dragging CJ through the mud? CJ, the person Toby personally asked to join the first campaign in In The Shadow Of Two Gunmen Part II, Toby, the guy who's had an intensely close personal relationship with CJ, Toby, the guy who can both flirt with CJ and feel open enough to break down in front of her after his brother dies (Drought Conditions)? This is the guy you think would let CJ take the fall, and only confess now that Leo is in trouble?

 

Yeah, I can believe Toby did it. But I can't believe Toby did it that way. (In the DVD commentary for 2162 Votes we discovered that by the end of Season 6 the writers had not decided on who the leaker actually was yet; it was over the summer between seasons that the decision was made to make it Toby, even after suspicion was cast on CJ in 2162 Votes. Obviously the writers went with the dramatic decision to point that finger at CJ even stronger in the first part of Season 7, to emphasize the surprise effect of Toby's confession here, but that's just really cheap considering what we know about CJ and Toby from the beginning.)

 

It just makes it more galling that one of the reasons the writers chose Toby as the leaker was so they could write him out of more episodes in Season 7, and thereby save money.

 

- This is the first time we are told Margaret's last name (Hooper). And let me just say how awesome Margaret is in her testimony before a hostile congressional subcommittee, particularly when she was so nervous about the prospect in The Mommy Problem. She has no problem staring down Senator Dresden when he's trying to poke holes in her story!

Sen. Dresden: "At 7:23 on the morning of June 20, Ms. Cregg called Mr. Brock on his cell phone."

Margaret: "Yes, sir."

Sen. Dresden: "Were you on that call?"

Margaret: "I don't believe I was."

Sen. Dresden: "You don't believe you were?"

Margaret: "No, because my first recollection of learning of this call was from Ms. Cregg."

Sen. Dresden: "So you're saying you connected the call but you did not monitor its content?"

Margaret: "I don't believe I connected that call."

Sen. Dresden: "Categorically, can you say that --"

Margaret: "That is my best recollection."

Sen. Dresden: "So what you're saying is your best recollection is that you don't remember whether you connected that call or not."

Margaret (shaking her head): "My best recollection is that I did not connect that particular call."

- If we go by the Labor-Day-week stipulated Marine Reserve training from The Mommy Problem, the "Friday" caption would indicate this the end of the week after that, the week which we saw begin in Message Of The Week (which was over a Monday and Tuesday). That means this episode covers Friday and Saturday, September 15 and 16. While Message Of The Week had Matt's "message" be momentum and national security, and this week's message being "education week," that seems perhaps a bit dicey (since it's all the same week), but it's plausible to start with one message and go into the weekend with another, I suppose. 

 

HOWEVER ... the writers also insist on continuing with their device of literally counting down the days left before the election, putting up a caption that reads "82 Days Until Election Day." That would be Thursday, August 17 - or else election day has now been moved to January 26.

- Something else we're explicitly told is that Greg Brock's story on the secret military space shuttle was published on July 14 - so that places Things Fall Apart on the day before, July 13 (remember Annabeth coming to Toby at the end of that episode telling him the story would be in the next morning's paper). Trouble is, that episode featured the ongoing Republican National Convention and the revelation of the oxygen leak on the International Space Station leaving the crew with three weeks of air to breathe - not to mention the "178" on Leo's white board telling us that with 178 days before January 20, Things Fall Apart had to be July 26 (making Brock's story running on July 27). It continues to baffle me that these writers, who can use any date they want and put any number of days remaining in the campaign up there onscreen, can't actually make the dates line up in any logical way. You're doing this to yourselves! You literally can't reconcile the different timelines of Things Fall Apart, The Ticket, and The Mommy Problem, and it's all because you writers mixed things up!

- There's also a moment of Margaret's testimony where Sen. Dresden is grilling her over a call between CJ and Brock on June 20. He goes on to talk about a call from Leo to CJ on "the 29th" (no month mentioned) where he was calling about the leak. The context of this comment leads us to June 29 (why would Dresden leap from June to July without giving Margaret that information?) ... which is TWO WEEKS BEFORE we are told the story was published.

Sorry ... this is just such sloppy writing, and there's literally no excuse for not making the dates align.

- There's a literal blink-and-you'll-miss-it shot of MSNBC reporting that this is the 14th day of the congressional hearings on the leak about the military shuttle. If this is September 15, those hearings began around August 28 (and about six weeks after Brock's story was published) ... of course, if this is August 17, then those hearings started around July 31, the same time as the Democratic National Convention kicked off according to the Things Fall Apart timeline.

 

- There's no sign of President Bartlet's cane in this episode. Since he recovered from the MS attack he suffered on the way to China in In The Room, he's been using a cane in pretty much every episode since. But it now appears he's improved enough to move around like his old self.

- Gail's fishbowl appears to be full of ice and frost ... "Mr. Frost," get it?

- CJ's coffee order sounds terrible, not to mention nonsensical. She wants a "cinnamon chai mochaccino?" I mean, I guess, that's kind of like a dirty chai (tea with a shot of espresso) with a bunch of extra stuff, but still ... And then she wants "no whip" (no whipped cream), but she does want sprinkles? What the hell would the sprinkles do, sink into the drink?

- Why'd They Come Up With Mr. Frost?

The mysterious and enigmatic Charles Frost, CIA and NSC intelligence briefer, plays a key role in bringing an international crisis to light that will be a factor through the rest of the series.

Quotes   

Kate: "Only world leaders with a death wish would go to this funeral."

President: "Fine, then we'll send Congress."

----- 

Josh: "ACLU and the Anti-Defamation League have called for clarification on your God gaffe."

Matt: "My what?"

Josh: "The Center for American Innovation and the Advancement of the American Way are basically going bananas."

Lou: "So don't let anybody bait you into using any kind of ..."

(she gestures, searching for the right term)

Josh: "Words."

Matt: "Words?"

Josh: "Yeah, words like --"

Lou: "Evolution."

Josh: "Genesis."

Lou: "Monkey trial."

Josh: "Creationism."

Lou: "School."

Josh: "Prayer."

Lou: "Church."

Josh: "State."

Matt: "Amen."

-----

CJ: "I'm going out to get coffee. I'm learning to freebase this stuff, but that's what it takes to keep this life livable: peace and quiet and an IV of caffeine. Can I get you anything?"

Toby: "I'm good."

CJ:  "Charlie?"

Charlie: "Let me get it. You take your nap."

CJ: "Really?"

Charlie: "It's either that or we pad the walls of your office. What do you have?"

CJ: "I want a double shot, light on the soy, cinnamon chai mochaccino, no whip, sprinkles, and another shot on top."

(Charlie looks at her. CJ hands him money)

CJ: "I'll write it down."

-----

President: "Has the Speaker called back?"

Debbie: "No, sir, I, I think he's on to the fact that you're inviting him to a funeral where there's a fifty-fifty chance he'll wind up dead."

President: "Coward."

-----

Matt: "To be a person of faith is to have the world challenge that faith. Was the universe designed by God? That's up for everyone in this country to decide for themselves, because the framers of our Constitution believed that if the people were to be sovereign and belong to different religions at the same time then our official religion would have to be no religion at all. It was a bold experiment then, as it is now. It wasn't meant to make us comfortable. It was meant to make us free."

 

 

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

• Senator Dresden, leading the questioning of Margaret at the intelligence committee hearing, is played by Mitch Pileggi (The X-Files, Basic Instinct, Sons Of Anarchy, Stargate: Atlantis).
  

• There's Defense Secretary Miles Hutchinson (Steve Ryan), back in the Situation Room again.
  

• And look! We haven't seen Assistant Secretary of State for Near East Affairs Bob Slattery (Thomas Kopache) for a while (and that may not be his official title any more, maybe). Bob was first seen in On The Day Before, but hasn't shown up since The Warfare Of Genghis Khan.
  

• The (former) White House reporter Gordon, famously pranked by CJ about helping her start her own family in Slow News Day, is continuing his coverage of the Santos campaign. He's actually been following the Santos campaign since at least La Palabra.
  

• Presidential secretary Nancy, played by Martin Sheen's daughter Renée Estevez, pops up again.
  

• I ACTUALLY KNOW THIS GUY! David Combs plays the history teacher questioning Matt about bringing religious faith into public school classrooms. David lives near me, I've worked with his wife on several theatre productions in the area, and we've hung out a few times. David has appeared on a bunch of TV series, including JAG, NYPD Blue, and Star Trek: The Next Generation - but I definitely remember him as Frankenstein in a couple of TV commercials for Osteo Bi-Flex in the early 2000s.
  

• The guy known as Barry, the Democratic bigwig whom Leo trusts to get legal advice from, is  played by John Aylward (part of the ER/West Wing pipeline, Armageddon, North Country, Northern Exposure). We'll eventually learn his name is Barry Goodwin, and he might be the head of the DNC at this point.
  

• Mr. Frost returns (Tom Everett, seen in Dances With Wolves, Air Force One, Picket Fences) - he showed up in Message Of The Week briefing Arnie Vinick about intelligence matters, including "a situation in Kazakhstan" - he weirded Vinick out so much Kate was forced to switch Vinick's intelligence briefers, but now he's stalking CJ to tell her his bizarre predictions of more assassinations.
  

• The talk of the Santos staffers saying Vinick is "still hammering us on border issues" means this comes immediately after the events we saw in Message Of The Week, when Vinick swerved to the border/immigration to throw Matt off his campaign message.
  

• When CJ is telling Leo about Vinick being upset about his intelligence briefer bringing up Kazakhstan for no reason, he says, "Have you asked Kate or Nancy about it?" That's a mention of National Security Advisor Nancy McNally, who hasn't actually appeared on the show since Liftoff.
  

• There's lots of talk about getting lawyers, and how you don't need a lawyer if you haven't done anything wrong. While this is all setup for Toby's confession, it also brings to mind Josh's deposition for Freedom Watch in Lord John Marbury, when Sam asked him if he was going to bring a lawyer and Josh insisted he didn't need one (Sam invited himself along anyway, then threatened to bust Claypool "like a pinata").
  

• Palestinian Chairman Farad, Palestinian Prime Minister Mukarat, and Israeli Prime Minister Zahavy all play major roles in the discussions over the fallout from Farad's assassination. This reminds us of the arc from Gaza to The Birnam Wood/Third-Day Story and the Middle East peace talks at Camp David, when President Bartlet brought all three of those figures together to try to work out a deal. The President's later scene with Toby shows Bartlet feeling some guilt for pushing Farad into the peace agreement, which contributed in some degree to his death. We also should not forget that part of that agreement resulted in American troops acting as peacekeepers over some holy sites in the region, putting them directly in the middle of an increasingly hostile situation after Farad's killing (and Kate mentions some of those troops being used to help protect Farad's funeral).
  

• President Bartlet includes Prime Minister Graty as one of the world leaders he wants to have join him at Farad's funeral. British Prime Minister Graty was seen on TV in the midst of the crisis over Iran shooting down an British jetliner in The Wake Up Call.
  

• Leo is still wearing his wedding ring. Remember, his wife walked out in Five Votes Down and their divorce became final in The Portland Trip.

• Russian President Chigorin is another world leader mentioned by President Bartlet. Chigorin was referred to as the newly elected President in Enemies Foreign And Domestic, and has since been a part of language-idiom-based negotiations over a secret heavy-water reactor in Iran, took part in a summit in Helsinki (The Black Vera Wang), and had to be talked off a ledge over an American surveillance drone crashing inside Russia as it was gaining intelligence on illegal transfers of nuclear material (Evidence Of Things Not Seen).
  

• We haven't seen White House Secret Service chief Ron Butterfield for a while (since No Exit), but his name comes up in the course of preparations for the trip to Farad's funeral.
  

• Leo's history of alcoholism and heart disease is a topic. We first learned he was a recovering alcoholic in Five Votes Down, and of course he suffered a near-fatal heart attack in the woods of Camp David in The Birnam Wood.
  

• Here's something kind of fun: Annabeth tells Leo she graduated cum laude with a degree in art history. If you remember, we actually saw Annabeth's resume in Liftoff, when Toby was going through applications for the Press Secretary job; while you had to freeze-frame the screen to see it, that resume told us Annabeth had a BA in business administration from the University of Maryland and an Associates Degree in political science from Georgetown (does Georgetown even give out Associates Degrees?). That resume also said Annabeth graduated from college in 1974, which would make her in her mid-fifties at this point, which is obviously not the case (some of the information in that resume, including the dates, was from the life experience of props master Blanche Sindelar).

 

DC location shots    

• None. Matt's appearance at the University of Pennsylvania must have been filmed on the UCLA campus (see the shot of the UCLA building below and how it matches with the building seen behind Josh and Lou as they cross the street). Interestingly, there's also a banner over the stage with "Calverson College," which is not a part of the University of Pennsylvania or any other higher learning institution I've been able to find.

 

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

• Newspapers mentioned include the Washington Post, the L.A. Times, and the (St. Louis) Post-Dispatch.
  

• CJ quotes the song "Ya Got Trouble" from The Music Man.

CJ: "How many people around here have subpoenas?"

Charlie: "Lots."

CJ: "Lots."

Charlie: "We got trouble."

CJ: "Trouble with a capital T and that rhymes with P and that stands for ... pool."

• Leo tells CJ they're handing out congressional subpoenas at the Dairy Queen.
  

• Kate's reference to the Augusta Victoria Hospital on the Mount of Olives is to a real place. She later refers to Al-Quds University, also a real Palestinian university in Jerusalem.
  

• Matt quotes a poem making his statement to the press on Farad's death. The poem exists, but the author is apparently anonymous.

"Those souls are great who, dying, gave a gift of greater life to man. Death stands abashed before the brave. They own a life death cannot ban."

• Josh calls intelligent design "creationism in a Groucho mask."
  

• Lou brings up Presidents Abe Lincoln and George Washington as two who stated their belief in God.
  

• The (Scopes) "monkey trial" gets thrown out in a list of things the staff doesn't want Matt to use in an answer about intelligent design. (Fun fact, this past February I played the part of Matthew Harrison Brady in a production of Inherit The Wind, a fictionalized version of the actual 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial.)
  

• President Bartlet is preparing to meet the new board members of the Kennedy Center, an event which features a performance by Mozart [we later see the titled sheet music and hear Serenade No. 10 in B flat Major being played; while Debbie tells us it's the (apparently fictional) Vlasenko Septet, Shazam tells me the recording we hear is by the Linos Ensemble]. 

• The TV news programs Meet The Press and Nightline want to feature Matt's take on religion and education; the host of Meet The Press at the time, Tim Russert, is also brought up, as well as Face The Nation.  
  

• Mr. Frost tells CJ the regional vice president of Unocal will be the third figure to be assassinated, after Farad and the President of Kazakhstan. Unocal was a major petroleum marketer before being acquired by Chevron in August, 2005 (a couple of months before this episode aired), and did have major investments and operations in Central Asia.

• Barry mentions the "press-infested Hart Building" as the site of the Senate intelligence subcommittee hearings that Leo (and others) have been subpoenaed for. The Hart Senate Office Building would be a potential site for such an interview, I suppose.
  

• Winston Churchill is indeed credited with the saying, "A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject."
  

End credits freeze frame: Matt and Leo waving to the crowd after the speech at the University of Virginia.

Previous episode: Message Of The Week

Next episode: Here Today

Message Of The Week - TWW S7E3

Original airdate: October 9, 2005

Written by: Lawrence O'Donnell (13)

Directed by: Christopher Misiano (24)

Synopsis

• Vinick switches up his campaign to focus on Latino issues and shake up a rapidly gaining Santos. Pressure from a conservative religious group gets Vinick in some hot water.
  

"I want to knock him off message without even mentioning his name." 

There's an old saying (from the 19th century British historian Lord Acton), "Power tends to corrupt." I think a corollary of that saying is that even the pursuit of power can tend to corrupt some of the most upstanding, ethical people you can find - to the point where a principled candidate for President can flat-out lie to a group in order to get their support. That's the big takeaway I get from this episode, and while it's Arnie Vinick who panders and insinuates and, yes, just lies to George Rohr's face, we know this kind of corruption of ethical and moral standards isn't limited to just one party.

 

We begin right after Matt's Marine Reserve training, the training that ended The Mommy Problem. His "dedication to duty" in serving his country counteracted Vinick's edge in national security/defense matters, to the point of cutting Vinick's original 9-point lead (from The Ticket) down to 5 points. Josh is feeling the momentum (or the "Big Mo," whatever).

 

(Can I also mention the subtle contrast between the campaigns of an upstart long-shot, who barely survived the national convention, let alone getting the nomination, and the longtime California Senator with a staff and budget matching his position? Just look at the dry-erase white board in Josh's office that they use to track the polls in each state compared to Bruno's flashy magnetic state cutouts, one each in blue and in red.)

Santos' rise in the polling makes Vinick antsy - as his campaign staff sets out a schedule for his "message of the week," - homeland security and law enforcement - he wants to do something bold, something different, something unexpected that will knock Santos off his game.

Dan: "Go after the Latino vote?"

Bruno: "Mm-hmm."

(Leon and Bruno chuckle; Vinick sits silently considering)

Bruno (looking around the room): "Do ... do I actually have to say how insane that is?"

Vinick: "I've always won the Latino vote in California, why should I give up on that now?"

Bruno: "Well, let, let, let me think ... well, maybe because you're running against a Latino candidate who's going to get, about, 2000 percent of the Latino vote."

[...]

Vinick: "Bruno - if you're the Santos campaign, how would you respond?"

Bruno (sits, thinks, looks around; finally): "I don't know."

Vinick: "That's the whole point, knock him off his game, Santos will never know what I'm going to do next."

Vinick and his staff quickly change direction - they plan an appearance at the border, to highlight border security and immigration issues; then the Senator will introduce a bill creating a guest worker program, giving some migrants who crossed the border illegally a chance to stay in America and do the jobs Americans don't want to do, but need to be done. This swerve works as intended, particularly when Vinick uses a border appearance with the Minutemen (a private group patrolling the border to keep migrants out) to describe them as "vigilantes" who need to go home, a statement that Matt is forced to agree with. Josh and Matt continue to try to stick to their "message of the week" (momentum, mostly, along with national security in the wake of Matt's military training), but all the reporters want to talk about is the border and immigration. And Vinick's guest worker program is a policy Matt himself tried to introduce in the House a few years earlier, with no success, so now they feel attacked from the left. Matt begins to second-guess his longtime commitment to not playing off his Latino heritage, to not be "the brown candidate" (a point he first brought up in Opposition Research).

The Vinick maneuver exacts even more damage when the Senator brings up his support of the Central American Fair Trade Agreement, and sneakily highlights Santos' previous flip-flop on the bill (he voted for it in committee, but after it was amended and changed before being brought up on the floor, he voted against its passage). By late in the episode we find out Vinick has recovered from his drop in the tracking polls, and has rebounded to be ahead by as many as 12 points.

Lou (to Josh): "We just got our tracking."

Josh: "How bad?"

Lou: "We've got Vinick up by 12."

(A reporter walks up)

Reporter: "Hey. I hear Vinick's tracking has him up by 10."

Josh (exchanging a glance with Lou): "That's not what we have."

But all is not perfect in Vinick-land. Conservative religious groups, generally a voting bloc the Republican candidate can put in the bank, are rattled about Vinick's pro-choice stance on abortion. The choice of conservative, pro-lifer Ray Sullivan as the Vice Presidential candidate (In God We Trust) was meant to assuage those concerns, but the reverends of the American Christian Assembly want a guarantee that a President Vinick will nominate pro-life judges to the federal courts. An emissary from the assembly, George Rohr, comes by Vinick's office to lay down his group's position. Vinick tries to push off the responsibility to his Vice President.

Vinick: "I'm going to make the Vice President my point man on judges. You know Ray Sullivan."

Rohr: "Great man. Great governor. Going to make a great VP."

Vinick: "And you know that Ray shares your views on everything that's important to your organization."

Rohr (bitingly): "You mean, to my religion."

Vinick (pause): "Yeah."

You can tell Vinick really hates this pandering to religious groups (In God We Trust was all about him pushing back against the hold religion has over the Republican Party), and he especially hates it when Rohr basically accuses him of killing babies. In a meeting with no witnesses, we see Vinick ask Rohr if he can tell him something in confidence.

That turns out, we later find, to be a promise to appoint pro-life judges; a lie that Vinick has no intention of actually keeping.

Vinick: "Let Ray Sullivan talk to him, he knows how to talk to those people."

Sheila: "'Those people' can take this election away from you, so you'd better --"

Vinick: "I can't meet with him again."

Sheila: "Well, he somehow got the idea that you promised him approval of judges --"

Vinick: "That's because I did."

(Sheila and Bruno react)

Bruno: "You promised him judges?"

Vinick: "Yeah. I lied."

Word of the promise leaks - because of course it would - and Vinick and his staff have to scramble to try to clean up the damage. But even while that lie to the reverends is a hit to the campaign, it's a reaction to the swerve to Latino issues and the border and immigration - in a contest with an actual Latino candidate! - that ends up hitting Vinick in a personal way.

We meet Leon early on. He's a longtime Vinick staffer, who worked his way up from the mailroom to becoming a key member of the Senator's staff. His Hispanic background and connection with Latino issues proved invaluable to running Vinick's California operations for years - but this tactic of hitting Matt on his heritage really bothers Leon. We see it on his face when Vinick suggests the idea on the campaign plane; he speaks out against the idea of a photo op with the Minutemen ("You mean the vigilantes? [...] A bunch of nuts patrolling the border with guns? Someone's going to get hurt"); we see it again when Vinick is at the border, praising the Border Patrol. It eventually becomes too much, and while Vinick was trying to switch up his strategy to hit Matt from areas he'd never see coming, Arnie never saw this coming, either, as Leon hands him his letter of resignation:

Leon: "I never thought it was going to be Santos. He didn't have a chance at the nomination, now we're three weeks into this and I can't do it, I can't be working all day and night to beat the first Latino nominee for President. And now that we're using his heritage against him --"

Vinick: "That's not what I'm doing, I'm talking policy. That's fair."

Leon: "Please, Senator ... I was in the meeting."

Vinick: "If Santos is afraid to lead the country on these issues, then he doesn't deserve to be President. The voters have a right to hear from the Latino candidate about Latino issues, he ought to be way out ahead of me on this stuff."

Leon: "Twins are two and a half now. My mother in law just taught them how to say the word Santos. Someday they're gonna ask me what I did on this campaign ... I can't tell them I did this. Can't do it."

Suddenly the "Latino vote" gets very personal, not only for Matt Santos, but also for Arnold Vinick. And now we start to see the cost of that corruption in the pursuit of power, the fact that lying to get a group's support or pandering to an ethnic group isn't a free ticket to those votes. You have to pay a price.

 

Tales Of Interest!

- This is the second consecutive full-campaign-only episode, with no appearances by anybody back at the White House. We'll get back to the Bartlet administration in the next episode.

 

- The onscreen titles tell us we go through "Monday" and "Tuesday." This must be the week after Matt completed his Marine Reserve training, which we were told previously he started right around Labor Day, which was September 4 in 2006. That would make this Monday, September 11 and Tuesday, September 12.

 

If that is indeed correct, I mean (and given the fact Josh and others are explicit on the training scheduled "in two days, the Tuesday after Labor Day" in the previous episode) ... on the other hand, the characters also told us The Ticket came four days after the Democratic convention and The Mommy Problem was four days after that, which places Matt's Reserve training at about mid August, August 13th or so, and then this episode would be Monday and Tuesday August 21 and 22.

 

Or we go by the onscreen titles in The Ticket and The Mommy Problem that say the previous episode was 100 days before the election, which would be July 30, making this episode August 7 and 8. 

For now, let's just go with the quite definite placement of Matt's training around Labor Day and say this episode puts us in mid-September, eight weeks before the election on November 7. This may be kind of dicey considering the series still has 12 episodes to come before we see the election (and 11 episodes before one titled Two Weeks Out), so ... once again time has no meaning in The West Wing universe.

- Okay, visual aids! I know I'm obsessing over the timeline missteps here, but it's just such an obvious dumb error that the writers stepped into with no reason. All they had to do is do the math properly, and everything would line up, but nooooo ...

Here are calendar pages from July through September 2006. The items I've added in blue line up with what we saw in Things Fall Apart, with the Republican convention happening when Leo's whiteboard said "178" days left until the inauguration. Items in green go with the "105/101/100 Days Until The Election" captions we saw in The Ticket and The Mommy Problem, which mean either the conventions happened earlier than in the Things Fall Apart timeline or the election isn't until mid-December. And the orange entries go along with the expressly no-doubt-about-it statement from The Mommy Problem of Matt's Reserve training coming up "in two days, the Tuesday after Labor Day," and therefore the "Monday" caption in this episode meaning that second week in September.

- Arnie Vinick's Secret Service code name is "Big Sur," as we hear in the opening scene ("Big Sur is on the move").

- Whoever came up with the graphic design for Vinick's campaign - especially the nearly unreadable design on his airplane - needs to be fired.

- Speaking of airplanes, there's something wonky with the aerial shots of the Santos aircraft.

The flight deck is on a different level from the passenger seats. Aircraft generally do not work that way, except for an exception I'll talk about in a minute. It also appears that an outboard jet engine has been photoshopped away (note there's an engine on the opposite side further out on the wing than on the wing nearest us).

I think the show used aerial footage of a B747 (likely for an Air Force One shot earlier in the series) and then digitally adjusted it into the Santos campaign plane. That would mean they smoothed out the "bump" on the top of the fuselage that B747s are famous for, but they left the cockpit on that level (which, on a normal aircraft, would be the very same level as the rest of the interior - airplanes that are not B747s do not have two stories). And then they also removed an engine, since B747s have four and almost all modern jetliners only have two. Here's an actual B747 indicating some of what I mean. The rows of passenger windows on this plane look exactly like the ones on Santo's jet, with the "second story" magically removed (except for the flight deck, of course). That's an awful lot of headroom and overhead space for carryon bags, just saying.

- This is the first time we see Josh realize Bruno Gianelli is running Vinick's campaign. In The Mommy Problem Joey Lucas actually suggested Josh hire Bruno to take some of the workload off his shoulders, and Bruno did, in fact, run President Bartlet's re-election campaign in Seasons 3 and 4. As viewers, we remember Bruno meeting with Vinick in In God We Trust, as Bruno believed Vinick was a better candidate (even as a Republican!) with more general appeal to the electorate. Anyway, Bruno comes by the Santos campaign HQ to talk debates, and as its the first face-to-face meeting between he and Josh since Bartlet's re-election, there's some tension in the air.

- I really like this shot, as a callback to so many West Wing compositions in the past. Directors on the series have really gotten enamored with showing characters speaking in front of a camera, but focusing more on their appearance on the in-scene TV screen rather than on the character right there in the scene. They used that a lot in briefing room scenes with CJ, for example. We get that in this interview snippet with Matt; also very telling that Josh is focusing on the TV screen. He wants to get the idea of how Matt comes across to the voters watching, not in what he's saying right there in the room. It's an elegant way of showing the ubiquity of television in today's politics and Josh's savvy in picking up on what matters for the election.

- Why'd They Come Up With Message Of The Week?

There's a lot of talk about the campaigns and their "messages" - the Vinick camp starts with homeland security as their message of the week, but pivots to immigration and the border to knock Santos off of his plans to focus on the economy and avoid what he thinks of as "brown/Hispanic" issues.

Quotes    

(Bruno and Vinick are watching the attack ad Leon has brought them from the RNC)

Bruno (sharply): "Is this all you guys know how to do? Attack ads?"

Leon: "Hey ..."

Bruno: "Have you seen any of the ads I've written for this campaign? Anyone with half a brain --"

Vinick: "Leon's not with the RNC. He's one of us. He ran my California operation for years."

Leon (pointedly, to Bruno): "And I don't write TV ads. I leave that for the people with half a brain."

-----

(Vinick is taping the "I approve this message" tag with a room full of campaign staffers)

Vinick: "I'm Arnold Vinick, and I approved this message."

Bruno: "Stronger."

Vinick: "I'm Arnold Vinick, and I approved this message."

Bruno: "Softer."

Vinick: "I'm Arnold Vinick, and I'll be the nicest President ever, I promise."

-----

Sheila: "Just got you out of a meeting with the reverends."

Vinick: "God ... have I told you how much I love you?"

Sheila: "But you're going to have to do a meeting with George Rohr."

Vinick: "That vicious little ... geez, I'd rather meet with the entire American Christian Assembly."

Sheila: "No. You wouldn't. George is a political professional and the reverends follow his advice. You are going to be very nice to him."

Vinick: "You're the devil, aren't you. I have the devil running my campaign, don't I?"

-----

Bruno (to TV reporters after meeting with Josh): "We had a very productive meeting."

Reporter: "Did you agree on a format?"

Bruno: "No."

Reporter: "Did you agree on dates?"

Bruno: "No."

Reporter: "Did you agree on a number of debates?"

Bruno: "No."

 

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

• Say hello to a new advisor on the Vinick campaign, Dan, played by William Russ (Wiseguy, Boy Meets World, a memorable appearance on Miami Vice). Also say farewell to Dan, he'll never show up again.
  

• The CIA/NSC intelligence briefer, Charles Frost, is played by Tom Everett (Dances With Wolves, Air Force One, Picket Fences). He gets an entire episode named after his character next time!
  

• Campaign strategist Bruno Gianelli (Ron Silver) is back and working hard on the Vinick campaign. We saw him play a key role in President Bartlet's reelection campaign in Seasons 3 and 4, but also saw him switching sides and starting to advise Senator Vinick in In God We Trust.
  

• Longtime White House press room reporters Mark and Katie are seen out on the road, Mark covering Senator Vinick and Katie on the Santos plane.
  

• George Rohr, who must have left the House of Representatives to be a liaison for the reverends of the American Christian Assembly (according to Dan's dialogue, I think), is played by Peter Mackenzie (Black-ish, Herman's Head, the canceled-too-early Don't Trust The B--- In Apartment 23).
  

• And here I thought The Dogs Of War gave us the only restroom scene we ever had in The West Wing, with Josh going after Walken's aide while he's trying to take a leak. At least that's the only White House restroom scene ...

Then we get not one, but two bathroom-related scenes, with Sheila coming out of the women's room, talking on her phone headset. Sure, these two settings indicate the frantic world of political campaigns, where you can't take time off even to use the restroom, and you must "multi-task," as Vinick says ... but I mean, really?

• The NSC intelligence advisor Frost tells Vinick there's a situation in Kazakhstan. This is the first we're hearing about it; it will not be the last.
  

• George Rohr mentions Reverend Butler, one of the candidates Vinick defeated for the Republican nomination and who we saw in In God We Trust.
  

DC location shots    

• None. The scenes at the border and the Boeing plant would have been filmed in California (Boeing built the C-17 at their Long Beach factory in California).

 

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

• Bruno tells Vinick that no Senator has won a Presidential election since 1960 (which was John F. Kennedy in reality). While this was true at the time, just three years after this episode, in 2008, Senator Barack Obama was elected President.
  

• Several shots of MSNBC news coverage, including this on the TV in Vinick's limo:
  

• Bram and Dan both talk about CNN and Zogby polls.
  

• The photo op with the Minutemen highlights an actual vigilante group that patrols the Mexico-United States border. Bruno throws in, "Is there a local chapter of the Klan, maybe we can do a drop-by?"
  

• The Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) is a real program that passed the House of Representatives by one vote in July, 2005 (three months before this episode aired).
  

• Catching Matt in the "he voted for it in committee, then voted against it on the floor" is a callback to John Kerry's words, "I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it," referring to a 2003 supplemental funding bill for US soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. Kerry's reasoning was much like Matt's; the bill he voted for in committee funded the military by rolling back President George Bush's tax cuts, but when that bill was doomed to fail on the floor of the Senate Kerry voted against the bill that actually did pass, one that did not roll back the tax cuts. 
  

• Katie mentions stopping "Al Qaeda at the Rio Grande" when talking about Vinick's Border Patrol message to Lou. While the 9/11 attacks didn't explicitly happen in the West Wing universe, this makes it clear Al Qaeda does exist (and let's not forget Nancy McNally's reference to Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in In The Shadow Of Two Gunmen Part I).
  

• Newspapers mentioned include the Boston Globe, the New York Times, and the Chicago Tribune. Bruno also brings up the Atlanta Constitution, but in reality that newspaper is called the Journal-Constitution.
  

• Bruno calls up the Drudge Report website on Sheila's computer for the story about Vinick promising pro-life judges. The Drudge Report was a key online source for breaking political news in the late 1990s and early 2000s. While it still exists, its importance in the online realm has ebbed while other news organizations began to exploit the internet on their own.

• We see Senator Vinick announcing his guest worker bill on C-SPAN 2, the public cable channel that covers the Senate (as C-SPAN does the House).

• Vinick appears on MSNBC's program Hardball with actual real-life host Chris Matthews.
  

End credits freeze frame: Vinick and Sullivan at the Houston Police event.

Previous episode: The Mommy Problem

Next episode: Mr. Frost