Here Today - TWW S7E5

Original airdate: October 23, 2005

Written by: Peter Noah (6) 

Directed by: Alex Graves (28)

Synopsis

• A long Saturday night sees Toby facing the music after his confession; the assassination in Kazakhstan leading to a potential global conflict; Jed and Abbey with conflicting emotions over Ellie's engagement; and a staff shakeup in the Santos campaign.
  

"Is it possible to be astonished and, at the same time, not surprised?" 

The penny has dropped. The shadows have fallen, the chips have been laid down, and it's time for Toby to face the music after his stunning admission to leaking classified information on the military space shuttle to the New York Times. It makes for a rather gripping episode, made so much better by the incredible direction and framing choices made by Alex Graves. This episode just looks great, all the visual choices are so intentional and fit the mood perfectly. It almost seems like too much to have lighter subplots like Ellie's engagement or Josh shaking up the Santos staff included along with the overwhelming weight of Toby's fate (and possibly the fate of the world), but as we've seen many, many times before, the world of politics and government doesn't stop just because something important is happening.

 

We actually begin before the previous episode even comes to its end; we are thrown back to the start of the final scene of Mr. Frost, with Toby coming into CJ's office as she bustles about, distracting herself from her upcoming appearance before Congress and her being the target of the leak investigation by offering to split a bottle of champagne with Toby ... and it's so much more laden with dread for us, the viewers, because we know what's coming. 

We get to that moment, that confession, and instantly we see the news fall on CJ like a thunderbolt. Perhaps her dearest friend, the one who brought her into the Bartlet campaign in the first place, the one she joked with and flirted with and created communications policy with for years, one of the people she truly trusted ... is now admitting not only to betraying government secrets, but also to leaving her to twist in the wind for months. She tries to be professional, cutting Toby off when he tries to explain - "We really can't have any further conversation without counsel present," she tells him - but her face can't deny what she's feeling inside, as we see a tear roll down her cheek.

We get a full minute of silence then, sixty seconds of uncomfortable tension, before someone arrives from the White House Counsel's office. And then we are off. Toby is marched into the Roosevelt Room, told to sit there quietly and speak to no one while Mike handles the securing of his office. He curtly dimisses Ed and Larry when they poke their heads in ... but he can't resist taking the opportunity to call his lawyer and tell her voice mail what's going on.

Oliver Babish starts his questioning, from the point of view of protecting the President and White House, with Toby seeming merely an afterthought in the process. Toby seems okay with that, he knows what he did, he knows why he did it, and he says he's ready to take the consequences - but he did call his lawyer. And when she arrives, she gives Toby an ultimatum: he either stops answering Babish's questions, or she's not going to be his lawyer on this case. This doesn't please Babish, but it does give Toby a little something to be thankful for.

Toby (struggling with himself, considering, then finally): "I decline to answer on the advice of counsel."

Babish (pause, then curtly): "Please wait here."

(Babish and Alana trade looks as he exits the room)

Toby: "Well, you certainly earned your fee today."

Alana: "I'm deeply gratified that you decided to heed my guidance."

Toby: "No, I just meant it was the first time tonight he used the word 'please.'"

In the midst of all this, with only a few people privy to what's going on, we get a humorous little moment attached to the clearing of Toby's office. Kate and Margaret are walking by the Communications bullpen (remember, Margaret just finished up her testimony before the Senate committee in the leak investigation a few hours before):

Margaret: "When's your turn?"

Kate: "With the committee? Supposedly Friday, but if they took all day with you ..."

Margaret: "I'm really looking forward to things getting back to normal around here."

And then they stop.

 

Yeah, "back to normal" isn't very likely.

Toby is in it, up to his neck. And it doesn't get any better once it's time to inform the President. After CJ and Babish give Bartlet the news, and their recommendation for Toby's immediate dismissal, the President insists he needs to do it himself. And once Toby is ushered into the Oval Office, it goes extraordinarily badly for him.

Toby: "I was hoping we would be able to speak in private."

President: "Your actions have pretty much made that impossible. I haven't had much time to absorb this news, so I'll apologize in advance if I express any half-formed thoughts. But the one thought that hits the hardest is that this was somehow inevitable; that you've always been heading for this sort of crash-and-burn. That self-righteous superiority - not that you were smarter than everyone; that you were purer, morally superior."

Toby: "Due respect, sir, I don't think I'm morally superior to everyone."

President: "No. Just to me."

Toby offers to resign, but the President refuses; he has to fire him. And with his final words as Toby is heading out the door, a little twist of the knife:

President: "When you walk out of here, there'll be people out there, perhaps a great many, who'll think of you as a hero. I just don't for a moment want you thinking I'll be one of them."

 

And then we see a shaky, tearful CJ, going to the office of the Vice President's Chief of Staff, offering - "well, not so much offering as dragooning" - Will Bailey to take over as Communications Director. An unexpected way to bring Will back into the West Wing after he abandoned Toby to work for VP Russell in Constituency Of One, but almost full-circle, as he ends up in the same office he started in back in Holy Night. 

 

While Toby is waiting for his escort out of the building, there is a nice little moment with Babish, who hasn't been treating Toby with a lot of kindness or compassion throughout the evening. But it's only Oliver among everyone who speaks to Toby this night who thinks about his contributions to this President and this country over the years.

Babish: "Rough in there."

Toby: "To be expected."

Babish: "I thought he'd thank you for your service."

Toby: "He's angry."

(pause)

Babish: "Someone should thank you for your service."

And then Toby is marched out of the White House, accompanied by a Secret Service agent, taken through the halls and past the offices and down the lobby and out the doors to a waiting car - all as President Bartlet speaks to the nation on TV to announce Toby's betrayal of national secrets and his dismissal. Toby Ziegler, a guy who was there in New Hampshire at the start, a guy who'd finally gotten that gold ring of leading a winning campaign after years of losing, a part of a team of dedicated public servants who've served this administration so long and so well - he will never again set foot in this building.

Yeah, that's a hell of a storyline. But guess what - there's more!

Let's stick with another somber, long-lived plot going on here this Saturday night. In Message Of The Week, Arnold Vinick's designated CIA/NSA intelligence briefer Charles Frost brought word of a "situation in Kazakhstan." His briefing was so long-winded and so weird that Vinick asked to be assigned a different intelligence briefer. In Mr. Frost Frost incessantly pestered CJ via phone, and when she wouldn't respond he finally just showed up in her office to tell her his wild conspiracy theory that the assassination of Palestinian Chairman Farad in East Jerusalem was just the first in a line of assassinations that would eventually involve the President of Kazakhstan and the regional vice president of an international oil company. After CJ threw him out of her office, she later discovered his prediction of the Kazakhstan assassination had actually come true, and maybe there is something to his bizarre theory.

So now the fallout of that event plays out in and around the Situation Room. Frost is still intent on getting access to, if not the President, at least the military bigwigs inside, but Kate is not about to let a wild card like him into the room. The theories start to come together - Kazakhstan under President Isatov was starting to pull away from Russia and make some oil deals with the Chinese; getting Isatov out of the way results in a former Soviet-connected politician taking over, which means Russia might have a vested interest in that assassination; and the big issue at play is, of course, oil reserves in Kazakhstan (hence Frost's mention of a Unocal executive being the next target). What seemed like minor, run-of-the-mill unrest in Central Asia is starting to look like the trigger to a widespread conflict, perhaps even a global one - and it does highlight Frost's rather eccentric creepiness:

Frost: "All right, your theory; what is it? Tell me."

Kate: "It's a pretty scary scenario, actually. It leads to Russia and China on the brink of confrontation; two neighboring nuclear powers, India and Pakistan, poised to take sides; Japan and the United States being drawn in against their will. It's your basic horror show, World War III nightmare."

Frost (with just the hint of a smile): "Very cool. You want to grab coffee?'

Also we have a little Bartlet family drama. As Jed and Abbey head back to the residence after the Kennedy Center board event we saw in the previous episode, they have a talk about their upcoming meeting with their daughter Ellie and her fiance, a researcher who studies fruit flies (remember, Ellie was in medical school at Johns Hopkins doing research on an HPV vaccine when we last saw her in Eppur si Muove). After a rather odd conversation where the parents discuss their daughter's sexual preference:

Abbey: "Are you ...?"

Jed: "A little, how about you?"

Abbey: "Astonished, actually."

Jed: "Why? Did you and she never discuss --"

Abbey: "Oh, no. There are some things that are outside even the mother-daughter bond, at least for us. Did you and she ...?"

Jed: "We always adhered to a strict 'don't ask, don't tell' policy; clung to it, actually."

Abbey: "She is one's daughter. And she wants her to be happy in whatever."

Jed: "Of course, true to herself."

Abbey: "There's nothing wrong with that inclination."

Jed: "Nothing, whatsoever."

Abbey: "But God Herself strike me dead, it is not to be denied that I am not unhappy that my daughter is straight after all."

Jed: "At least straight enough to be marrying the fruit fly guy."

... they have a pleasant meeting with Ellie and her beau, Vic, who seems excessively nervous, even for a man who's intending to marry the daughter of the President of the United States. As they discuss wedding plans (Jed thinks a Christmas wedding at the White House would be terrific, although Abbey wonders if maybe it would be better to wait until after he leaves office), Ellie drops a little bombshell:

Ellie: "Where, at the moment, is the less pressing concern.There's another consideration that may need to take precedence as far as scheduling goes."

(Jed and Abbey look at her, trying to comprehend)

Ellie: "And ... why we ... might not want to ... wait."

So there's another Bartlet grandchild on the way, which means that wedding probably ought to come sooner rather than later, and also explains why Vic is so uncomfortable in front of the President and First Lady. I love this little moment after the President is called away (to get the news from CJ and Babish), where Doctor Abbey takes the champagne flute away from Ellie:

And then, outside all these things happening in the White House, we get a look into some trouble in the Santos campaign. The tracking polls have Matt stubbornly stuck nine points behind Vinick, which was good coming out of the conventions, but several weeks later is not so good. (As viewers we do remember Message Of The Week, where Matt started to close the gap to around five points, but Vinick's pivot to border/immigration issues ended up taking the lead back to a 10-12 point edge ... which doesn't seem to match the plot point of nine points being a steady margin that they can't seem to overcome, let alone Matt's education/religion pivot in Mr. Frost that ought to have brought him a nice bounce, but ... yeah, let's just accept this nine-point thing and move on.) Anyway, Lou is convinced there are too many young, unaccomplished staffers around who don't have the moxie for a national presidential campaign, and she thinks things need to be shaken up, by firing a few dozen members of the longer-term Santos team and bringing in some more knowledgeable Democratic operatives.

Chief among Lou's targets is Ned, who we first saw working alongside Ronna in Matt's congressional office in Liftoff. In the previous episode there was a little moment where Lou called Ned "Ted," and when Josh corrected her she said, "I don't like his head." In this episode the two clash a couple of more times, making it clear that Lou really doesn't believe he's cut out for this kind of campaign. So, Josh agrees, takes the firing/hiring plan to Matt, who also goes along (although Helen is not as happy with it), and then takes care of making the changes.

Which naturally, ticks off Ned.

Ned: "You know, you can fire as many of us grunts as you want, but if you want to know why this campaign is floundering, look in the mirror."

So, just a subplot to show us the ruthlessness of modern day campaigns and the efforts to break out of the August doldrums ... but it does give us yet another example of the incredible chemistry between Matt and Helen/Jimmy Smits and Teri Polo. I love those two together, with their risqué little exchanges, and this moment when Helen is trying to convince Matt to watch a movie together with her is a great example.

Helen: "Come on, the headphone thing should be a plus. You hate it when I get loud."

Matt: "You're just going to get louder. You're not going to fool me."

Helen (flirtatiously): "I thought you liked it when I got loud."

 

Matt: "In this, as in all things, context is king."

The hubris of the "morally pure," the contentment of a seemingly calm future, and the refusal to settle for the satisfaction of "good enough" all come to fall in this episode, from Ned to the Bartlet family to the situation in Central Asia to, of course, the biggest and hardest fall of all - Toby.

 

Tales Of Interest!

Things Fall Apart timeline: Night of August 26 into August 27, 2006

The Ticket timeline: Night of August 19 into August 20, 2006

 

- I have to apologize, big-time, for a mistake I've made in complaining about how the writers have screwed up the timeline since The Mommy Problem. I know I've ranted quite a bit about that issue, and probably showed off a little of that "self-righteous superiority" that President Bartlet accuses Toby of, so this is more than a little humbling.

 

Anyway, I misheard Josh's line in The Mommy Problem about the letter calling Matt up for his Marine Reserve training. I thought he said "in two days, the Tuesday after Labor Day" - he apparently said "for two days, the Tuesday after Labor Day." So my projected calendar assuming events were happening in September and complaining about how that didn't align with the other dates we've been given was, and I don't say this lightly, absolutely wrong.

 

Which isn't to say everything is fine and hunky-dory with the timeline the writers are giving us, that isn't true ... but man, I was so very, very wrong about that September thing. If any of the writers are looking at this blog (yeah, sure, it's got a wide reach in the Hollywood TV scriptwriting community, lol), I do personally apologize to you.

 

- So, let's get to the brass tacks of timelines. This episode is clearly set in "still the middle of August," as Josh says to Lou. Let's go back to Things Fall Apart and Leo's whiteboard counting down the days of the Bartlet administration, which will come to a close on January 20, 2007.

- In that episode the whiteboard reads "178." That would mean it was July 26, 2006 (178 days until January 20), with the Republican National Convention going on that week (July 24-27, most likely).

- That would make 2162 Votes, the following episode with the Democratic National Convention, occurring the following week, July 31 through August 3.

- In the next episode, The Ticket, as Matt and Leo hit the campaign trail hard, we hear references to being four days after that convention, which makes the two days we see there August 7 and 8.

- Then comes The Mommy Problem, where we hear Josh say they thought they were all unemployed "twelve days ago" (before the convention started) and the convention being eight days ago. That would place us over the weekend of August 12 and 13, with Matt's (hurriedly rescheduled) Reserve training being sometime that week of August 13.

- Message Of The Week happens over a Monday and Tuesday after that Reserve training, so that's August 21 and 22; Mr. Frost is the following Friday and Saturday, so August 25 and 26; with this episode running into the overnight hours of August 26.

So, it's a bit generous to say August 26 is "the middle of August," but that can fit - as long as we're using Leo's whiteboard as our starting point.

But let's also remember the writers are including countdowns of days until the election on the screen for us.

- The Ticket says it's 105 days until the election; with Election Day 2006 being on November 7, that would mean it's July 25 ... which is before the date indicated on Leo's whiteboard three episodes prior in Things Fall Apart.

- The Mommy Problem tells us it's 101 and 100 days before the election, which would be July 29 and 30 - putting the Democratic convention around July 18-21, again far off the Leo whiteboard timeline.

 

- Message Of The Week doesn't give us any definite calendar signposts, except it's a Monday and Tuesday and Matt's Reserve training is still fresh ... so that would probably be August 7 and 8.

- And in Mr. Frost we get a caption saying it's 82 days until election day, which would be August 17 (which was a Thursday, not a Friday in 2006). That makes it a week and a half since Message Of The Week, yet the Santos staffers are still whining about Vinick hitting them on border issues (which he started in that episode), and while that's possible, I dunno.

 

So ... yeah. Still not ideal, and still an easy fix that they refused to make (if the writers just made their countdowns agree, it's not hard, they just have to add). Me, I think I'm going to stick with Leo's "178" days signpost as the starting point, and then all the dates agree to make this episode late on Saturday, August 26. Or we have to ignore Leo's math skills and assume he had a totally wrong number on his board in Things Fall Apart, which means the Republican convention must have been the week of July 10-13, the Democratic convention July 17-20, Matt's Reserve training the first days of August, Vinick's immigration/border gambit the second week of August, and Matt's religion/education appearances, Toby's confession, and Ned's firing coming about 10 days later.

Just as an aside, holding the convention in mid-July, as the onscreen Election Day countdown would lead us to believe, doesn’t fit with recent reality. The 2004 Democratic convention was held in late July, but every other convention between 1996 and 2012 was in August or even September (while 2016’s event was indeed the last week of July). A July 31-August 3 gathering seems much more realistic than a July 17-20 convention. 

 

- Just a weird catch-up thing that has absolutely no bearing to this episode at all, but I caught it a few days ago and don't want to forget. In 2162 Votes the 2006 Democratic convention is being held in San Diego. During the 2002 campaign episodes in Season 3, in The Black Vera Wang, Toby says the two party conventions will be held in New York and … San Diego. And of course, the single debate between Bartlet and Ritchie in Game On was held in, you guessed it, San Diego. What is it with this show and San Diego? Would the same city host national conventions in back-to-back presidential elections?

 

- In Message Of The Week the tracking polls had Santos catching up to Vinick, getting within five points and leading in a few unexpected states. Vinick's pivot to border issues reversed that trend, though, knocking Matt back to 10-12 points down. In Mr. Frost Matt seemed to really make some waves with his intelligent design/separation of church and state/defense of the First Amendment approach, and one of his staffers said something about seeing some movement in the polls. Now we discover the polls are stuck at 9 points behind Vinick, and they have been for a while (perhaps even since coming out of the convention in The Ticket, which was about three weeks prior). This is literally the same/next day as Mr. Frost.

- Alex Graves does some outstanding work in shot composition and just how this entire episode looks. I'm a huge fan of this one - Graves creates an oddly unnerving sense of unease, of characters being distant and separated from one another, of secrets and hidden agendas ... all just by how he composes shots in the frame and how he reveals characters to us (or not reveal - there's several shots where we are looking at a character listen to someone else talking off the screen). It's terrific work.

Tight on Toby, Mike's feet out of focus as Mike and CJ talk

The shot of Kate, as Sec. Hutchinson & Rollie argue offscreen

Frost seen only in reflection, Kate's back to us

Slattery's head in the way of this Sit Room shot

Frost and Kate seen only in reflections and on a TV screen

Kate, off-center on screen talking to an unseen CJ

The President getting the news about Toby, seen through a window

That last shot reminds me of Leo telling the President the news of Mrs. Landingham's death in 18th And Potomac - also shot through the wavy glass of the Oval Office windows, no sound, just us being separated from the immediacy of what's happening and how striking, uncomfortable news is being received.

- I talked about Richard Schiff's discontent with Toby's classified secrets leaker storyline in my last blog entry, and mentioned one of the reasons for tagging Toby with the felony was to cut down on his episodes towards the end of the series. There are 17 episodes yet to come for The West Wing ... and after being walked out of the White House in this one Toby is only in seven of them. 

- Yes, I know, waiting around for things to happen in what would be real time would be horrible television - but how about Mike getting from the counsel's office to CJ's office in one minute flat from her making the call? That is some good traveling time!

 

- We get one look at Gail's fishbowl early, but as it's literally an extension of the same scene that ended Mr. Frost, it's no surprise that the bowl looks the same (filled with icy frost).

 

- Why'd They Come Up With Here Today?

About all I can think of is the saying, "Here today, gone tomorrow" - which obviously fits in with Toby's situation as he's being walked out of the West Wing.

Quotes    

Mike: "I'll need the key to your office."

(Toby starts walking toward the door)

Mike: "Where are you going?"

Toby: "The key's on my desk."

Mike: "I'll have to ask you to accompany me to the Roosevelt Room. You'll need to wait there quietly while I retrieve your key, lock your office, and post a uniformed Secret Service agent at the door. That needs to happen right now."

----- 

Frost: "Whom will I be addressing in the Sit Room?"

Kate: "That would be no one. You're not going in the Sit Room. You're going to tell me what you have to say, then I'm going in. But first, you can't stalk the White House Chief of Staff."

Frost: "She wouldn't return my calls."

Kate: "She's a little busy helping to run the free world. I doubt she calls her mother back."

Frost: "Her mother is dead and her father's Alzheimers' so bad, he'd have no idea whether she called or not."

Kate: "Do you try to come off this creepy? Cause I've got to tell you, as a strategy for getting people to like you, it leaves a bit to be desired."

-----

Margaret: "I reached Oliver Babish, he says you owe him a raspberry panna cotta cheesecake."

CJ: "He'll live."

Margaret: "Longer, probably."

-----

Lou: "What's wrong with the word 'vigorous'?"

Josh: "It sounds like we're taking a shot at Bartlet."

Lou: "We're not running against Bartlet, we're running against a Methuselah Republican."

Josh: "'Vigorous' isn't the opposite of old, it's the opposite of ... vigor, less ... ness. It's going to come off like we're referencing the MS."

Lou: "That's a win-win in my book."

Josh: "Arnold Vinick isn't some broken-down feeb doddering from one campaign stop to the next, he's got more energy than I do."

Lou: "He is inconveniently spry."

Josh: "Use that."

Lou: "What?"

Josh: "Spry. It's a word that's only used to describe old people. Ever hear of anyone under the age of 70 who's ever been called spry?"

-----

Toby: "I really appreciate your concern but I am taking full responsibility and I am prepared and ready to face the consequences."

Alana: "Well, that's very noble and very stupid."

Toby: "Thank you."

----- 

Kate: "It's Russia's interests that are most directly served by removing the sitting President."

CJ: "What will the Chinese do?"

Kate: "That's the question."

CJ: "Russia and China, eyeball-to-eyeball in central Asia?"

Kate: "Over oil."

Hutchinson: "With 900 US Marines stuck right in the middle."

-----

Alana: "Why'd you do it?"

Toby: "To save lives."

Alana: "Your brother was an astronaut."

Toby: "Astronauts' lives in the short term, start a discussion about whether we want to extend mankind's capacity for warfare into the heavens."

Alana: "The weaponization of space."

Toby: "I believe in an open society. You debate these things in the light of day. That's what's supposed to happen in a democracy."

 

 

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

• The attorney from the White House Counsel's office, Mike Wayne, was first seen in Privateers helping Toby and Josh try to deal with the fallout of Burt Gantz' admission of his company lying about pollution, and also appeared in Han discussing the potential defection of the North Korean pianist. He's played by Benjamin Brown (Liar Liar, I Still Know What You Did Last Summer, a couple of episodes of ER as part of that ER/West Wing pipeline).

• The older background actor fellow with the short buzz-cut hair who passes by in the background of many, many episodes is seen again.

• The middle Bartlet daughter, Ellie (Nina Siemaszko), is back, and this time she's engaged! And pregnant, apparently. Ellie's fiancé, Vic Faison "the fruit fly guy," is played by Ben Weber (Twister, Sex And The City, The Secret Life Of The American Teenager).

• We've actually seen Toby's attorney Alana Waterman (Lee Garlington from Sneakers, Dante's Peak, Everwood, many, many TV series appearances) before! In Red Haven's On Fire, after Abbey's speech in support of Sam's House campaign, she is approached by a woman wanting to talk about her op-ed on fair pay. Abbey asks Amy to save her, and she does by zinging the woman so hard she has to walk away. That was Alana! And now she's Toby's lawyer ... talk about a deep cut callback.
  

 

Alana from Red Haven's On Fire

• Check it out, Ed and Larry!

• We haven't seen CIA director George Rollie (Ryan Cutrona) since Ninety Miles Away. He's been a subject of criticism from the President and his staff ever since his first appearance in Lord John Marbury, but somehow he's survived all that to stay CIA director throughout both terms.

• Nancy (Renée Estevez) shows up again, but as part of Alex Graves' masterful and creative direction of this episode, we only see her from behind.

• Will Bailey is back ... we see him working as the Vice President's chief of staff as CJ enlists him to be the new White House Communications Director. Will, of course, came to the White House to help Toby with the second inaugural address (Arctic Radar), left the West Wing to run VP Russell's presidential campaign (Constituency Of One), and we haven't seen him around since the convention (2162 Votes) where Russell lost the nomination to Matt Santos.

• The Secret Service agent walking Toby out of the White House is Donnie (Bradley James), who's been around since Season 1 but hasn't been seen since The Benign Prerogative. Donnie was one of the primary Secret Service agents we saw in the early seasons (including the one who called in the medical emergency when President Bartlet collapsed in He Shall, From Time To Time ...). 

• Margaret and CJ have discussions about a call to Jerusalem about Farad's funeral and about Margaret's testimony to Congress, storylines from the previous episode. Abbey and Jed also have a short conversation about the funeral ("Isn't that what Vice Presidents are for?").
  

• Speaking of Farad, Frost made it clear to CJ in Mr. Frost that his assassination was the first in a linked series of three, with the President of Kazakhstan and the Unocal executive being the next two. Isatov's assassination is the one that's concerning the administration here, with the connections to oil agreements leading to a potential conflict between Russia and China ... but it's left completely unanswered as to why Farad's assassination had anything to do with this angle.
  

• President Bartlet's multiple sclerosis is referenced, a disease we first learned about in He Shall, From Time To Time ... and that has been an important plot point ever since.
  

• Frost creepily brings up CJ's family history of her mother being dead and her father suffering from Alzheimer's, both of which we learned in depth in The Long Goodbye (we first found out about her father's condition in The Two Bartlets).
  

• Toby angrily accuses Alana of trying to use "my kids" as a reason to work out a plea deal. The story of Toby's twins with his ex-wife Andy began in Debate Camp; we saw the newborn twins in Twenty Five, with Toby pledging his undying devotion to being their dad; but since then (and the departure of Aaron Sorkin) Toby hasn't been seen having much of a relationship with either Andy or Huck and Molly.
  

• Toby's astronaut brother is a topic of Babish's questions and Alana's discussion. We found out Toby's brother was a space shuttle mission specialist in What Kind Of Day Has It Been. We learned of his suicide after a cancer diagnosis in Drought Conditions, and CJ asked Toby if his brother had ever mentioned a military space shuttle in Things Fall Apart.
  

• The President's speech about Toby's "self-righteous superiority" brings to mind several past examples of the rather fraught relationship between the two, including Toby's resentment after discovering he wasn't the first choice for Communications Director in The Crackpots And These Women and his badgering of President Bartlet over his campaign style and his relationship with his father in The Two Bartlets. And of course, Toby's angry high-minded and, yes, "self-righteously superior" reaction to learning about President Bartlet's MS coverup in 17 People.
  

• It takes her a bit to get there, but CJ finally does land on the fact that the office available for Will to work in is the one he used to work in.

CJ: "White House Counsel's sealed Toby's office, so feel free to use Annabeth's old one for the time being which, come to think of it, used to be yours. Funny how things work out."

Will: "Not so funny, really." 

We saw Will moving into that office next to Toby to work on the inaugural address in Holy Night - of course that office was originally Sam's.

DC location shots    

• None.

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

• We hear a reference to Al Qaeda as Secretary Hutchinson and Director Rollie are arguing over Frost's reliability.
  

• Helen is watching "the latest Rob Zombie film" on the plane. At the time, the latest film from Zombie was The Devil's Rejects, which came out over a year earlier in July 2005.
  

• Alana is close on her quoting of 35 USC 799 as the pertinent federal law regarding disobeying a regulation from the director of NASA. That is actually under Title 18, so it's 18 USC 799 (she did get the paragraph right). Title 35 pertains to patent law, which would have no bearing for poor Toby here.
  

End credits freeze frame: Toby in the Roosevelt Room answering Babish's questions.

Previous episode: Mr. Frost

Next episode: The Al Smith Dinner