Internal Displacement - TWW S7E11

 

Original airdate: January 15, 2006

Written by: Bradley Whitford (2)

Directed by: Andrew Bernstein (3)

Synopsis

• A visit from an old friend spurs CJ to take action about a humanitarian disaster in Sudan. Word of a potential scandal in New Hampshire and CJ's reaction to it upsets members of the Bartlet family. Josh tries to pull some strings to get the White House to help out the Santos campaign.
  

"So don't get hypnotized by complexity. Make it count." 

Tick tock. Tick tock.

 

Time is running out - running out on the Bartlet administration, running out on CJ's position in the White House, running out on secrets in the Westin household, even running out on Danny Concannon's newspaper career. And the overwhelming presence of that ticking clock, forcing our heroes to decide exactly how they want to spend that time remaining, looms over this episode.

(Of course this exact same topic was brought up before, by Leo in 365 Days, but that was months ago, how is CJ or anyone else supposed to remember that?)

We start at a restaurant, and our first look at Danny since the kidnapping of Zoey in 7A WF 83429 (except for the quick look at him and CJ as a couple with a baby in the flash-forward of The Ticket, so we already know where this is headed). He has asked CJ to dinner because he has a very important question to ask, one about their joint futures, and what he and CJ might find together once she's out of the White House and he leaves reporting behind. Of course, CJ has very little time for a discussion, and even less time for dinner, what with Kazakhstan threatening to become World War III - and when Danny makes the mistake of mentioning that he thinks he's found evidence of the President's son-in-law having an affair (while running for Congress and expecting a Presidential visit in support a few days later), CJ has no time for the dinner either.

We'll get back to the topic of dinner with CJ and Danny later. The affair news causes CJ to focus on the President's legacy - how tarnished might it become if he heads to New Hampshire to stump for Doug Westin, only to later discover Doug had cheated on Jed's daughter? Not to mention the personal impact on Jed as a father, especially if it's CJ who spills the news. As Will helpfully explains:

Will: "Can I give you one piece of advice before you ask me to leave my own office?"

CJ: "What?"

Will: "I don't know where you're going with this --"

CJ: "I'm protecting the President."

Will: "Right. Whatever. This much I do know - there's only one thing worse than telling the President of the United States his son-in-law is having an affair."

CJ: "What's that?"

Will: "Telling the President of the United States his son-in-law is having an affair and then finding out you were wrong."

This topic also leads to a madcap moment of physical comedy, as CJ is on the phone with Danny trying to get him to confirm she's on the right track, and the phone knocks poor Gail off the desk and nearly onto the floor.

CJ is right there to catch it, though, saving Gail from a horrible fate. (Man, she's really good, hardly anything inside the bowl got disturbed one bit!)

CJ finally lands on a strategy. She asks Doug to come into her office, lays out what she's been hearing and the fact that the evidence is pretty strong against him, and basically orders him to go down the hall himself and request that the White House cancel the trip to come campaign with him. The fact that Doug rather meekly agrees to that seems pretty damning.

And that leads to this (I kinda like the whole CJ-Kate buddy thing they've got going on, you know, women of power sticking together in the male-dominated West Wing):

Kate (after CJ spilled the news of Doug Westin's affair): "And you're telling me this because ...?"

CJ: "I don't know if I should --"

Kate: "Tell her? No. No, no, no, no, now's the time everybody just looks at her funny until she figures it out."

CJ: "I know. I just don't know if I owe the President --"

Margaret (coming down the hall): "Sorry. Liz Westin's in your office, she needs to talk to you."

Kate (smiling): "Good luck." (She walks away)

Wait. Why is Liz, Doug's wife and Jed's daughter, coming to see CJ? Turns out ... she knows about his affair. It's not that she's okay with it, but she thinks getting past it for the good of their children is more important than getting her revenge on a cheating spouse. Plus, as we saw in Abu el Banat, Liz is all-in on helping Doug with his campaign, even if she may not think it's all that wise, because he wants to do it, he asked her to help, and she's his wife and he's the father of their kids and she's going to support him.

Liz is really disappointed to discover that even though she's telling CJ it's okay, and her father is the President and grandfather to the Westin kids, the opportunity for Bartlet to come to New Hampshire and help Doug campaign is gone.

The reason that date has been given away is another plot point. A big government contract to build a molecular transport lab is soon to be announced, but the actual location is not yet public. Josh stops by the White House to urge CJ and Will to go ahead and break the news that it's going to be in Austin, Texas - news that would serve as a huge boost to the Santos campaign in his home state. Trouble is, though, the administration had promised an embattled Democratic Senator from Kentucky facing a tough re-election campaign that they'd hold off on the announcement until after the election, as Kentucky was also on the short list for the lab's location.

CJ and Josh spar over this a couple of times, with CJ getting irate when she sees Matt on television implying the announcement is coming in a few days, but eventually the administration decides they will break their promise to the Kentucky Senator, that President Bartlet will fly to Texas to appear with Matt Santos to make the announcement (hence, the date formerly committed to Doug being given away), and then they will take up Josh on his offer to both fly to Kentucky to make a campaign appearance for Senator Bowles.

What helped spur CJ to recommend this change in course? That looming sense of "time's running out, try to do something big, something important with the time you have left" - which is the same reason we get the other big plot point from this episode.

Kate updates CJ on the latest word from Sudan, where government-backed militias are attacking civilians in refugee camps. The United States, while condemning the attacks, hasn't taken any other diplomatic or military action in return ... but CJ (after her talk with Danny the night before) suddenly has the impetus to try and do something.

(If we remember the Bartlet Doctrine from Inauguration: Over There, the administration should already have been in full-on retaliation mode against the Sudanese government, just as they were in Equatorial Kundu after that, and for almost exactly the same reasons ... but apparently the Bartlet Doctrine hasn't survived since the spring of 2002.)

Again, that sense of "we only have a few months left, let's make them count" inspires CJ to try to do something. She has a meeting with a representative of a refugee rights group, who gives her more details about the atrocities going on in Sudan. She comes up with the idea of cutting off oil revenues to the Sudanese government, but that would require a United Nations resolution that China would surely veto, given their reliance on Sudanese oil. But the situation in Kazakhstan gives her an opening: if the United States could help broker free elections in Kazakhstan, and thereby help guarantee the supply of oil from there to the Chinese, perhaps China would be disinclined to veto this resolution and agree to give up some of there Sudanese oil connections.

But it's complicated - the US can't be seen to be taking sides in Kazakhstan. Kate mentions that both the French and the Germans would like to start selling arms to China again, a move that's been sanctioned since the Tiananmen Square crackdown on protesting students in 1998. CJ tries the tricky maneuver of getting either France or Germany to present the resolution in the UN, in exchange for the US looking the other way on arms sales to China. The move in the United Nations would not be coming from the United States, keeping its neutrality in Kazakhstan, but still punishes the Sudanese government for their attacks on civilians. China keeps getting oil from Kazakhstan, the Germans (after the French pass on the notion) get to sell weapons to China, and the Sudanese get their oil revenues taken away.

It's a delicate dance. The scenes between CJ and the ambassadors from France, Germany, and China are fraught with the difference between high-minded moral leadership and commonplace concerns of state. The French ambassador, in particular, has a couple of pointed jabs at the United States general approach to world diplomacy:

French ambassador: "Perhaps a murderous government with intelligence on international Islamic terrorist organizations --"

CJ: "Could provide the United States with crucial information, absolutely."

French ambassador: "Perfectly understandable. But when we push things to the side, often they come back to haunt us."

CJ: "We all make calculations, Jacques." 

French ambassador: "And your investors who continue to trade shares of the multinationals who do business with these killers on the New York Stock Exchange; that's another calculation, yes?"

CJ: "And there's plenty of hypocrisy to go around."

French ambassador: "Sure, sure. Unfortunately, CJ, we cannot afford to introduce a resolution so obviously aimed at the Chinese. You are so fond of calling yourselves the leaders of the free world. So ... lead."

(In general, this depiction of statecraft, diplomacy, and tricky multinational balancing acts is a bit dull and in-the-weeds for The West Wing, not to mention heavy-handed; but I'll allow it for the purpose of showing how committed CJ is to trying to achieve something truly important as the Bartlet administration winds down.) 

And so, back to that restaurant, a couple of days after Danny's first attempt at baring his soul to CJ, someone he's been mooning over since 1999. This time CJ seems committed to actually having a meal and actually listening to Danny - his plea to her earlier about not getting hypnotized by complexity, to "Make it count" sank in, and she actually has accomplished something over the past two days. And now, it's getting personal.

Danny is all-in with his offer to share the future with CJ.

And CJ seems very receptive to his request this time.

Danny is eloquent and passionate, and makes his point well. His "fall off the cliff" metaphor is perfect.

Danny: "We're both about to fall off of a cliff and I don't know what I'm going to do with the rest of my life except I know what I don't want to do. And on Inauguration Day you're going to be released from that glorious prison on Pennsylvania Avenue with --"

CJ (smiling): "No human skills?"

Danny: "Seems to me --"

CJ: "I should punch you in the face, but yes."

Danny: "That's what I'm talking about."

CJ: "Keep going."

Danny: "So, if I'm going to jump off the cliff, and you're going to get pushed off the cliff - why don't we hold hands on the way down?"

Then the beeper goes off, there's urgent trouble somewhere, and CJ dashes back to the White House. Poor Danny. 

And poor California, if Kate's scenario in the final scene actually comes to fruition. But that's for another day, and another episode, as events once again take over best intentions and high-minded policy initiatives in the final days of the Bartlet administration.

 

Tales Of Interest!

- The opening scene in the restaurant tells us it's Wednesday night. Given the tight timeline we are presented with over these pre-election episodes, my first inclination would be to say this means the Wednesday immediately after the events of Running Mates and the Sunday VP debate, so it's likely October 4, 2006. The next day, Danny offers to tell CJ whatever she wants to know if she'll have dinner with him "tomorrow night," so the final restaurant scene would likely be Friday, October 6.

- Bradley Whitford's second teleplay for the series (his first was Faith Based Initiative).

- Speaking of which, Whitford and Joshua Malina have had a long-term friendship that still exists today. They met while working on Broadway around 1990 (both were in the Broadway production of Aaron Sorkin's play A Few Good Men), and have been good friends since. The two have a long-standing tradition of pranking one another, or lodging good-natured insults against one another online. Whitford took advantage of his opportunity to write for Malina's character in this episode in giving Malina this line of dialogue:

Will: "I can't act, I'm a terrible actor."

Rumor has it that the original teleplay included this bit of stage direction to describe Will's/Malina's initial entrance in that scene:

Will waddles in. The actor playing Will struggles to be remotely honest. CJ ignores the insincere, one-dimensional acting of the guy playing Will. Will enters - scene dies. Will does deep background cross that nobody believes and punctures the suspension of disbelief globally.

Malina said later, "Hat tip to Whitford. This was a solid prank ... I think they made him take [the stage directions] out of the final script, sadly. It was very mean and funny."

- There's a lot of symmetry in this script. We begin and (practically) end at the same restaurant, with Danny and CJ; Danny's line to CJ about being "hypnotized by complexity" gets repeated later by CJ; CJ tears into Doug about the affair and its potential effect on the Presidency, asking him, "Do you understand me?" to which he answers, "I think I do," while later when Liz tells CJ that the Westin's personal life isn't any of CJ's business (while not flat-out admitting she knows about Doug's dalliance, still implying she absolutely does) she asks, "Do you understand what I'm saying?" to which CJ replies, "I think I do."

- Danny shows an eerily accurate foreshadowing of American politics in 2015-2024 (hopefully that's the end of it) with his description of modern politics and false heroics:

Danny: "Well, there are two places where you can see a pumped-up egomaniac slathered with man-tan talking about how great he is and how he's going to kick his opponent's ass: one is a professional wrestling match, the other is a national political convention."

(Using the words "a pumped-up egomaniac slathered with man-tan" boasting about his greatness scarily fits the crude phenomenon that is Donald Trump today, considering this was written nine years before Trump rode down the escalator to announce his candidacy for President. Not to mention that Trump was also involved with professional wrestling and appeared in the ring several times since 2007. Trump is even a member of the World Wrestling Entertainment Hall of Fame, for chrissake!) 

- While I get that it's realistic to see prior commitments and promises get left behind and forgotten as time passes, let us not forget that the very theme of this episode - we hold the power to do great things, but our time to do them is running out, therefore let's use the time remaining to actually do great things - is the exact same theme as we saw in 365 Days. While that episode aired almost exactly a year before this one, the events of that episode occurred only about eight months prior to what happens here (January 20 to early October, 2006). Leo was making the exact same points that Danny does here, spurring CJ to actually work at trying to make a difference - you realize that CJ was in the room with Leo back in 365 Days, even offering ideas of initiatives the administration could pursue in its final year?

Again, it's not unrealistic for a group of hard-working people to forget those good intentions and let them fall by the wayside over a few months, being distracted by election campaigns/a potential space shuttle disaster/leaks of top secret government information by a key staffer/a potential global war breaking out, but maybe at least have CJ remember they already talked about this in January. And that's not even including the "Bartlet Doctrine" of Inauguration: Over There, which has been long sent to the ash heap of Aaron Sorkin Plot Points We Don't Care About Anymore and dropped like it was hot, even though it fits ideally with a military intervention into Sudan right now.

- It looks like there's a clock in Gail's fishbowl, which is an obvious symbol of time running out for the Bartlet administration.

 

- Why'd They Come Up With Internal Displacement?

The formal definition of "internal displacement" is the movement of refugee populations within a country's borders, or what we see described in this episode with the forced relocation of people within Sudan. I think we can extend the metaphor to include the forced "relocations" of some of our characters: Danny, giving up reporting to try something else; CJ, facing the reality of leaving the White House and political life in a few months; and the administration overall, with the same looming deadline of leaving the office to someone else. How do they take on this change in their lives? Will they do something with the time they have left, or simply run out the clock?

Quotes    

Danny: "Your boss never has to get elected ever again. But you guys are content to run out the clock with the same game of well-intentioned defense you've always played."

-----

Danny: "You could do more in a day than most people could do in a lifetime."

CJ: "You think I'm not aware that I'm living the first line in my obituary now?"

Danny: "So don't get hypnotized by complexity. Make it count."

-----

Danny: "I think the President's son-in-law may be banging the nanny."

CJ: "Is that a euphemism?"

Danny: "No. Well, 'banging' is, I guess."

----- 

CJ: "I think Doug Westin is having an affair with his nanny."

Will (astonished): "Geez, I don't want to know that, why did you tell me that?"

CJ: "Because you deal with the press and I don't want you to get blindsided."

Will: "Exactly, I work with the press, I do my best work when I'm the least informed person in the room - you taught me that."

CJ: "Suck it up."

Will: "I can't act. I'm a terrible actor."

CJ: "You were up in New Hampshire --"

Will: "I don't like to pretend."

  

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

• It's Danny! We saw him in the flash-forward opening scene of The Ticket, so we already know he and CJ become a couple eventually, but other than that we haven't seen him since 7A WF 83429 at the beginning of Season 5.

• Steve Laussen from Refugee Rights Alliance is played by Tim Guinee (Major Allen in Iron Man, The Good Wife, Homeland, The Staircase).
  

• Chinese ambassador Ling-Po is played by George Cheung (then credited as George Kee Cheung - Rush Hour, Murder In The First, Starsky & Hutch). We saw Cheung play this role earlier in A Change Is Gonna Come.
  

• Another appearance by Doug Westin (Steven Eckholdt) and his wife and Presidential daughter Liz (Annabeth Gish), both of whom we last saw campaigning in New Hampshire in Opposition Research. Doug's intent to run for a House seat (in the face of the Democratic Party's plans, and hoping to use his Presidential-family connections to help) was first discovered in Abu el Banat.
  

• Kate leaves CJ's office rather quickly when she learns Will is on his way, and they exchange a little awkward glance at the door. The two have been flirting on-and-off since Drought Conditions, and had a date of sorts (watching the debate and eating take-out in Will's office) in Running Mates (which would have been just a few days before this episode).

• I've been trying to keep tabs on the older background actor with the close-cropped gray hair who keeps popping up in the West Wing scenes. Here he is again!

• The ongoing potential conflict between China and Russia in Kazakhstan has been a topic ever since Mr. Frost.

• The rumors of Doug Westin having a affair with the nanny reminds us that in Abu el Banat we first heard of this nanny, as the Bartlet family was waiting for everyone to arrive for Christmas dinner:

Zoey: "Where's Doug?"

Liz: "I think he's making sure Gus is down."

Jed: "Isn't there some kind of person ---"

Liz: "A nanny is not a substitute for a parent."

Jed: "I thought that's exactly what a nanny was."

Zoey: "She has a strange chin."

Abbey: "No, she doesn't."

Zoey: "Well, she kind of has no chin."

Liz: "She's Swedish."

Zoey: "Yeah, most Swedes have chins."

Jed: "Would you like to call him up and tell him we're waiting, and he can leave the child in the confident care of the chinless Swede?"

So no real foreshadowing of an affair there, but we learn there is a nanny, and she's Swedish. In this episode we learn the nanny had worked with the Westins for three years before being let go in August, which means she had started her job not that long before Christmas 2003 and this discussion in Abu el Banat.

• Will's protest to CJ of "I didn't do it ... Toby did it" when she was simply asking him to close the door is a reminder of Toby's confession to leaking information on a secret military space shuttle to the press (Mr. Frost/Here Today).
  

• The mention of "losing a VP in a sex scandal" takes us back to Life On Mars and the randiness of John Hoynes forcing him to resign the Vice Presidency.
  

• Sort of a missing story thread, but whatever happened to the Bartlet Doctrine outlined in Inauguration: Over There? President Bartlet made a pledge for the United States to intervene anywhere, anytime, if human rights were threatened. Seems like an obvious situation to trot that out in Sudan, but nobody even mentions it. 

President (just before his second inaugural): "We're for freedom of speech everywhere. We're for freedom to worship everywhere. We're for freedom to learn, for everybody. [...] And so we are for freedom from tyranny everywhere, whether in the guise of political oppression, Toby, or economic slavery, Josh, or religious fanaticism, CJ. That most fundamental ideal cannot be met with merely our support. It has to be met with our strength. Diplomatically, economically, materially. [...] No country has ever had a doctrine of intervention when only humanitarian interests were at stake. That streak ends Sunday at noon."

And, as I mentioned earlier, the entire concept of not wasting your final days in office and using that time to do something meaningful was already addressed by Leo in 365 Days, but that also seems to have been forgotten ...

• Danny was previously writing for The Washington Post, a very prestigious job for a political reporter. Now we see him apparently working for the (fictitious) Washington Leader, given the sign on the wall behind him when CJ calls. Seems less than likely ... unless the Leader has taken over the mantle of the leading newspaper in DC from the Post in this universe (even though we have literally never heard the Leader mentioned in dialogue, while the Post keeps coming up over and over).
  

• We get the Bartlet/Sheen jacket flip, only partially in the foreground, but it's there.

• Danny's reference to "As long as you didn't kill our fish" goes back to The Short List, when a smitten Danny wanted to give CJ a gift. Josh told him she likes goldfish ("can't get enough of 'em"), but not understanding that Josh meant the snack crackers, he showed up in her office with an actual goldfish in a fishbowl. Hence, "our fish."
  

• The San Andreo nuclear power plant accident is going to be really, really important over the coming episodes.

CJ: "What is it?"

Kate: "Some kind of nuclear accident."

CJ: "Oh, lord. A weapon?"

Kate: "Power plant."

CJ: "Is it Russia?"

Kate: "San Andreo, California. They think it might blow up."

DC location shots    

• None. There is an establishing shot of the outside of the restaurant where Danny and CJ are meeting at the opening of the episode; what we see there is actually the Sherry-Nederlander Hotel on the Upper East Side in New York City. Not Washington DC at all!

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

• The conflict in the Darfur region of Sudan really happened, and to a certain extent is still going on 18 years after this episode aired. The war started in 2003 when two rebel groups began fighting the Sudanese government, in opposition to the government's treatment of non-Arabs. The government responded with ethnic cleansing of the non-Arab population, resulting in the "internal displacement" of millions and the starvation deaths of hundreds of thousands. The Janjaweed is an Arab militia in Darfur with founding ties to Libya's Muammar Gaddafi, first appearing in 1988, and operating as an arm of the Sudanese government during the 2003-2010 war. While a peace agreement to end the hostilities was signed in 2010, a civil war between factions of the Sudanese military (including one made up of Janjaweed fighters) broke out in spring 2023, and is ongoing as of the fall of 2024.
  

• CJ, referring to Westin's possible sex scandal as well as Hoynes' resignation, says she feels like she's handing out towels at the Playboy Mansion.
  

• Steve Laussen mentions the 1963 photo of the Vietnamese monk who lit himself on fire to protest the war in Vietnam. The monk, Thich Quang Duc, actually immolated himself in a protest against how the South Vietnamese government was treating Buddhist monks, so not an anti-war protest at all (but that didn't matter to those who saw the photo, or to Laussen's point to CJ, either).
  

• We see Matt's speech touting a potential announcement of the molecular transport lab being shown on C-SPAN. We also see some coverage of Steve Laussen criticizing the administration on MSNBC.

• There's a mention of Tiananmen in the discussion between CJ and the Chinese ambassador, which implies the events of the government's brutal crackdown on protestors in Tiananamen Square in 1998 happened in this universe.
  

End credits freeze frame: Danny and CJ during their end-of-episode talk in the restaurant.

Previous episode: Running Mates

Next episode: Duck And Cover

Running Mates - TWW S7E10

 

Original airdate: January 8, 2006

Written by: Peter Noah (7)

Directed by: Paul McCrane (1)

Synopsis

• Tensions run extremely high when it appears Leo is totally unprepared for the VP debate. There's more tension on the Santos homefront as Helen deals with some unexpected exposure. Will and Kate actually have a date, of sorts.
  

"Yeah, Josh? About the VP debate Sunday ... we may have a problem." 

I begin this entry the same way the episode began on that Sunday night in 2006: a sweater-clad Martin Sheen speaking directly to the audience with the sad news that John Spencer had passed away three weeks prior, on December 16.

 

Spencer's death from a heart attack eerily echoed the character of Leo McGarry, who nearly died of a heart attack he suffered in The Birnam Wood. Spencer, like Leo, was also a recovering alcoholic - Spencer quit drinking in 1989, while Leo went to rehab for alcohol and drug abuse while he was Secretary of Labor in 1993 (or was it 1995? The show's timeline is unclear between what we learned in The Short List and what we were shown in Ninety Miles Away).

 

Spencer's death is a stunning turn of events for the series that will reverberate through the end of the season. Leo only appears in one more episode (The Cold) of the five remaining before the death of Spencer/Leo is addressed, but Sheen touchingly steps up to acknowledge his work and the legacy he left behind:

Sheen: "Through our shock and grief, we can think of no more fitting memorial to this wonderful man, this extraordinary actor, than to share with you, beginning tonight, the last few months of his work here on The West Wing."

It's perfectly fitting, then, that this episode features Leo so prominently. We see him preparing for the vice presidential debate against Ray Sullivan, going through a practice session just two days before ... and things are not going well. Leo fumbles his words, can't settle on the framing of answers the campaign had settled on, sees Otto (in his role as Sullivan) taking him apart, and finally crumbles knowing he's so far off from the performance he's going to need on national television.

The campaign staff in the room is, well, let's say concerned. Panicked, even. When Josh gets a look at the taped footage of the practice, he ends up destroying the evidence so nobody else can ever see it.

Shoutout to the VHS era

Josh and Lou are desperate to keep news of Leo's stumbles under wraps, to prevent the idea of an unprepared neophyte candidate not being up to the role of Vice President ... but then a blogger gets word of the session and it's all over the internet. The mood at the Vinick/Sullivan campaign is sheer giddiness, or as Bob puts it, "Yippee!" (off the record, of course). The Sullivan camp is even talking about going easy on Leo, so as not to look like he's "kicking a cripple."

Josh is scrambling to do damage control on the leak, even as he and Lou and the rest of the staff frantically put Leo through more practice sessions. Josh is sure one of the inner circle had to be the leaker, since they were the only ones aware of Leo's struggles, which leads to this little exchange that really highlights the personal lives of those enmeshed in a high-stakes national political campaign:

Lou: "You can't seriously think it's one of us."

Josh: "You told a friend, they told a friend, the friend told the Washington Post."

Lou: "I haven't spoken to a friend in two months."

Annabeth: "I don't think I have any friends left."

Ronna: "All of my friends are in this room."

Lou: "Okay, you win most pathetic."

Annabeth is doing her best to keep Leo in the right frame of mind, and also trying to keep him looking good. Their whole conversation about Leo's "smirk" is a highlight of the episode.

Annabeth: "None of this is your problem."

Leo: "You're going to tell me what is."

Annabeth: "Your smirk."

Leo: "My what?"

Annabeth: "Yeah, you're doing it now."

Leo: "No, I'm not."

Annabeth: "It's your default expression, Leo."

Leo: "What are you talk --"

(He looks into the mirror)

Leo: "That's a scowl. I'm scowling, which is, in itself, probably not great. That's the way my mouth forms."

Annabeth: "From decades of smirking. In the right context, extremely effective; commanding, reassuring, even devastatingly sexy."

Leo: "Sexy?"

Annabeth: "In the right context. In a debate, in the best of circumstances it reads as smug and condescending. In the context where you're getting waxed by your opponent it comes off as clueless, defensive, and not a little pathetic."

I have to say, the developing sorta-relationship between these two is just adorable. We saw that Annabeth, of course, left the White House Communications department to help run Leo's campaign in The Ticket. She seemed to be quite flirty in Mr. Frost, falling asleep on Leo's shoulder while holding his hand on the airplane, then telling him they should maybe not spend so much time together "because of the tension" ("What tension?" Leo replied cluelessly). Her consistent comments about Leo being "sexy" or "gorgeous" continue here, even while Leo just goes along being Leo. It's cute. (It also becomes tragic when we get to the end of Leo's storyline, but that's yet to come.) And then, of course, Annabeth's breathless reaction when Leo smirks at her again on the way to the debate stage:

Josh nearly goes ballistic on Sunday, the actual day of the debate, when Leo blows off the practice sessions the staff had set up and says he'll just take it easy and rest up until the time actually comes. Josh goes to Leo's apartment to see if there's anything he can do to salvage what's sure to be a disaster for the campaign - and during the conversation we get this sneaky little grin from Leo when Josh isn't looking.

It's the first clue we have that Leo might have something up his sleeve, and when the debate actually comes, he performs smoothly and confidently, which shocks Josh, Lou, and the rest of the campaign staff while causing some consternation among the Sullivan staffers ("I never said he'd gibber like a gibbon," says Bob). Josh is so surprised and elated that this happens:

Josh: "I could kiss somebody."

(He looks over at Lou, who rolls her eyes and keeps watching the TV)

Josh: "Or, you know ... not."

Turns out, Leo had been sandbagging - at least during Saturday and Sunday - and it was Leo himself who leaked word about his horrible debate preparation.

Annabeth: "What was all this about?"

Leo: "The truth?"

Annabeth: "Yeah."

Leo: "I was really that lost."

Annabeth: "Oh, come on."

Leo: "Couching answers in tame, time-pressured sound bites. And then when Josh wouldn't even show me that tape, it scared me to death. So I leaked it."

Annabeth: "You did?"

Leo: "I was worried he was so worried, he wouldn't."

Leo himself lowered expectations, then set his mind to exceeding them, without letting on to Josh or anyone else on the staff. A brilliant kind of bait-and-switch, which only prevented Josh getting mad because it worked so well.

It's a wonderful episode for John Spencer to be coupled with those words from Martin Sheen at the opening.

Meanwhile, Matt is heading home for his last visit before the election (this is late September, so he'll be in full-out campaign travel mode for the next five-plus weeks). He gets a taste of what Helen and his kids have been going through - the heavy security presence, the bullet-proof glass in the house windows, the anti-abortion protesters down the street, the shutting down of the entire neighborhood if he just wants to go get the mail - but it doesn't really sink in. Matt is still heavily involved in campaign issues, joking with the staff around the dining room table, taking a phone call while he's supposed to be playing games with his kids ... and that doesn't sit well with Helen. It's especially galling for her considering this is the last time he'll be home for over a month. It doesn't help that his shady brother drops by, hoping to gain some benefits for his business partners by getting face time with a presidential candidate.

The family tensions explode when a tabloid runs a photograph that shows Helen's (somewhat racy) underwear - what appears to be a red thong (along with a portion of a lower back tattoo, it seems).

(I actually hadn't noticed in previous watches that you actually see this same shot when we're watching Matt first come home and greet his family earlier in the episode. I guess part of that is emphasizing this isn't all that big a deal in actuality, but gets blown far out of proportion by the tabloid coverage.)

A furious Matt is instantly on the phone with the publisher to read him the riot act, while a frustrated Helen feels powerless to do anything about it - except tell Matt she and the kids are done taking the time to traipse around the country as campaign props. She's not even sure she wants Matt's dream to come true.

Helen: "Well, I'm not running for President."

Donna: "With all due respect, we both know you're not that naive. The option to be left alone took a hit when the Congressman signed on to run, and pretty much got obliterated when he won the nomination. It'll be a distant memory when he wins this thing. It might be time for you to start talking about the kind of First Lady you want to be. I'd like to help you out with that if you'll let me."

Helen: "I can't tell you what kind of First Lady I'd like to be. I'm too busy deciding if I want him to win."

That discussion with Donna, though, and some time to reflect brings Helen back around, and as Matt heads back out on the campaign trail she tells him she and the kids will be out there with him.

Matt: "So, I'll see you in Phoenix on Thursday."

Helen: "I'll be there."

Matt: "I hear that the hotel's got this water slide."

Helen: "I will pack a Victorian bathing dress."

Matt: "I meant for the --"

Helen (smiling): "I know what you meant."

The Matt-home-visit story comes full circle as he rides in his motorcade to the airport. After spending time with his sniffly-nosed kids (wiping their noses on his shoulder), he sneezes. He's bringing a little bit of home back with him on the campaign, lol.

We get a little bit of Toby as well (Josh calls him for advice about Leo's horrific debate prep - although isn't it weird that Toby's in a courthouse awaiting some kind of formal legal action on a Sunday?), but the other bit of plot involves those two lovebirds, Kate and Will.

The story of these two goes back to Drought Conditions, when Kate was trying to let Charlie set her up for a date (which turned out to be one of her ex-husbands), and when she and Will ended up next to each other at the DNC gala snack table they kept exchanging glances at one another. In Undecideds Kate definitely spent a longer-than-necessary time watching Will's backside walk out of CJ's office; and in The Wedding Kate asked Will to be her plus-one at the ceremony. Now, as they spar over how much information Kate can let Will have to give to the press over Kazakhstan, Will is feeling enamored enough to ask her to dinner.

A dinner which turns out to be a take-out meal enjoyed at Will's desk while they watch the vice presidential debate, but well, you know ... not a lot of time to spare for busy West Wing staffers.

So, gee ... lovebirds Will and Kate (no, not the royal ones, these ones), flirty Annabeth and Leo, and the working-through-personal-issues-affected-by-the-campaign Helen and Matt. Quite a romantic episode, all in all, with Leo's "devastatingly sexy" smirk leading the way.

 

Tales Of Interest!

- This episode takes place over a Friday through Sunday approximately six weeks before the election. Since the previous episode (The Wedding) was also over a weekend about six weeks before the election, we can surmise Ellie's wedding was on Saturday, September 23, 2006, and this episode covers September 29 through October 1, 2006.

 

- I'm just noticing that many of these episodes ... and several of them in a row ... are set over weekends. I wonder if that was a conscious decision by the show's writers, given the move by NBC to air the show on Sunday nights for Season 7.

- Isn't it odd that Toby is in a courthouse somewhere awaiting some kind of interview/deposition/activity on his indictment for leaking information on the secret military space shuttle on a Sunday? There aren't typically court activities taking place on Sundays.

- When Donna tells Helen she knows how she feels after the underwear-tabloid-photo thing, Helen doesn't take well to the comment. Why didn't Donna follow up with the story of her underwear falling on the floor in front of Karen Cahill, getting mailed back to her office, and displayed in front of everyone by Josh (The Leadership Breakfast)? I think that's a very pertinent story in this situation!

- In the phone call with Josh Toby mentions the "tattoo thing" about Helen. I guess we do see a bit of her back tattoo in the photo of her thong underwear, but everyone else seems concerned with the underwear and not the tattoo.

- As far as that goes, you have to freeze-frame to see this kind of stuff, but the tabloid with the photo is the (fictional) Houston Report, with exciting captions on the front page like, "We'll take you 'behind' the scenes with Helen! An exclusive interview with the lady in red, Page 20." Page 20? Not such a great story after all, huh? Also note the blurb "Color Photos Inside!" Umm, these are color photos on the front page, what, is color some new printing technology or something?

- Why'd They Come Up With Running Mates?

The main storylines deal with Leo and the stressful vice presidential debate, along with Matt and the stresses his family is enduring at home with his presidential run. So ... running mates, coping with issues both at the top and the bottom of the ticket.

Quotes    

Josh (talking about Lou): "Does she look happy, worried?"

Ronna: "Uh, stricken might be the word."

Josh: "Hyperbole, right? Your well-known predilection for panic and exaggeration."

Ronna: "I don't have a predilection for panic and exaggeration."

Josh: "For the purposes of this moment, let's stipulate that you do."

-----

Will: "It makes you feel powerful. 'I am woman, hear me withhold.'"

Kate: "It's not like that."

Will: "A little."

Kate: "At moments."

Will: "This moment?"

Kate: "A bit."

Will: "It's disturbingly compelling."

Kate: "What's that say about you?'

Will: "Nothing good."

----- 

Donna: "It's trash journalism - the lowest kind of tabloid stuff. This will backfire."

Helen: "They'll only sell out every copy."

Donna: "I'm so sorry, Mrs. Santos. I can understand how you must feel."

Helen: "Can you? What kind of underwear are you wearing right now, Donna?"

-----

Leo (telling Annabeth about leaking his debate prep): "I had a couple think it was you."

Annabeth: "Wasn't the voice a big tip-off?"

Leo: "There's not enough helium in the cosmos. So, I borrowed your email account."

Annabeth: "Excuse me!"

Leo: "Never use your cat's name as your password."

  

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

• It's been a few episodes since we've have a chance to see the Vinick campaign staff, so it's good to see Sheila (Patricia Richardson) and Bob (Stephen Root) again.

• Steve is seen in the White House press room.

• Matt's brother Jorge appears, played by David Barrera (Generation Kill, NYPD Blue, Castle). While we won't actually see him again, Jorge certainly proves to be a complication for the Santos campaign.

• There's a quick glimpse of media talking head Mike Diacovo (David Garrison) in the background. He's been a thorn in the side of the Santos campaign since The Ticket.

• The situation in Kazakhstan serves as a background for Will and Kate's flirtation. We first heard of possible trouble in Kazakhstan in Mr. Frost; since then the president has been assassinated, the pro-Russian new leader has canceled an oil deal with China, delayed elections, and forcibly put down protests by ethnic Chinese, and both Russian and Chinese military units are threatening to cross the border and ignite a conflict between world powers.

•  Leo brings up his divorce when he's giving Matt marital advice. We saw Leo's wife leave in Five Votes Down, and the divorce papers coming through in The Portland Trip. Leo does recognize the irony of giving advice to Matt, considering Leo told his wife his job was more important than his marriage before she walked out.

• The topic of the United States refusing to accede to the authority of the International Criminal Court comes up in debate prep and during the actual debate. We saw a discussion on that (and Leo's opinion) as a major plot point in War Crimes.
  

• There's a quick mention of Illinois and what the Vinick campaign should do there in a discussion between the staff and Ray Sullivan. We discovered the Santos campaign was starting to challenge Vinick in Illinois in The Wedding. 
  

• Toby tells Josh he talks to him "once every six weeks." We saw Josh stop over at Toby's apartment (twice) in Undecideds, which was a weekend after the debate in early September, so probably September 16-17 ... only two weeks before the events of this episode. (This episode aired five weeks after that one, so there's that, but that's not how much time has passed in-universe.)

• Leo's sandbagging to fool the Sullivan campaign (and his own staff) about his debate performance reminds us a little bit of the opening of Game On. That's where President Bartlet completely fumbled a question Toby gave him about the death penalty, practically giving Toby a heart attack about how badly Bartlet might perform - but that was all a prank played on Toby by President Bartlet and the rest of the staff.
  

• Donna's connection with Helen and her request to let her help decide what kind of First Lady she wants to be is going to pay off later in the season.
  

DC location shots    

• None in DC, although we can see the Santos residence (supposedly in Houston) is actually on the corner of Rancho Road and Hacienda Drive in Arcadia, California. The house used for the yard/exterior shots is 250 Hacienda Drive (the house has a walkway to the front door/frontage on Hacienda, with the driveway and another walkway off Rancho Road).

From the episode, shot from the front yard

A view of the front door/yard, from the episode

Google Street View, looking back at where the motorcade was coming down Hacienda

Google Street View of the front door/yard of 250 Hacienda

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

• Josh mentions Torquemada, the Grand Inquisitor of the Spanish Inquisition, when he threatens the rest of the staff not to breath a word about Leo's poor debate prep.
  

• Botox comes up in Annabeth's talk with Leo about his appearance at the debate ("It's a hair and makeup room, it's not a time machine").

• We can see Leo using a Dell laptop to look at the blog post covering the leak about his woeful debate preparation.

• Matt uses the phrase, "Less filling, tastes great." The reverse of that ("Tastes great, less filling") was a famous phrase from an ad campaign for Miller Lite beer that began in 1973. Miller has revived that phrase a few times since, including with an ad campaign running right now in 2024.
  

• There's a quick glimpse of CNN/Headline News anchor Chuck Roberts on a TV in the Santos home.

• The Washington Post is mentioned by Josh when he's trying to find out if any of the staffers leaked word of Leo's debate prep performance.
  

• Camelot and Kennedy come up when Josh visits Leo, as a callback to the youthful optimism of the John F. Kennedy administration (sometimes compared to the musical Camelot).
  

• It appears Matt and Helen's son is playing video games on an original Xbox. The first-generation Xboxes had ended production in late 2005, with the Xbox 360 coming on the market in November. Remember, even though this episode is set in September 2006, it totally makes sense for an Xbox to be in the Santos home. Heck, I'm still nursing along an original Xbox just to play MVP Baseball 2005 and NCAA Football 07, and that console is about 20 years old now.
  

• We see MSNBC coverage of the debate.

• In the debate Leo mentions the Kyoto Treaty, a multinational agreement to address climate change by reducing greenhouse gases. The real-life treaty was signed in 1997 (which would have been before the 1998 election campaign that saw Bartlet elected) and went into effect in February 2005 (about a year before this episode aired, and over a year and half before the events of this episode were set).
   

End credits freeze frame: Leo listening to Annabeth's advice on smirking.

Previous episode: The Wedding

Next episode: Internal Displacement