For The Love Of PETE!!!!

I just spent two hours cleaning up and rewriting a darn good post on The White House Pro-Am. I mean, I was really proud of this one (which I'd started last week, then rebuilt almost from scratch this morning). I was ready to post and start a new month fresh and energetic!

But then Blogger apparently ate my changes. Even after I hit Save multiple times this morning, when I pulled up the Preview page to review it - none of today's work was there. Suddenly here, now gone. Vanished forever.

So I'll have to do all that again, when I can pull the time together. Sheesh ... I mean, I could blame myself if I didn't save it, but I did! I did save it. More than once!

20 Hours In L.A. - TWW S1E16

Original airdate: February 23, 2000

Written by: Aaron Sorkin (15)

Directed by: Alan Taylor (2)

Synopsis

• President Bartlet and his staff make a quick trip to California for a fundraising visit, where a major Democratic donor criticizes the President for his silence on gays in the military. Leo deals with a reluctant Hoynes over a tiebreaking vote in the Senate, Josh reconnects with Joey Lucas, and Zoey gets a new Secret Service agent.

"I know what I'm looking for in a crowd, if that's what you're asking me, Mr. President."

20 Hours In L.A. sees the gang (well, except for Leo, and Margaret ... and Ed and Larry ... and Mandy ... on second thought, where is Mandy, anyway?) make a one-day trip out to California and back to appear at a fundraiser held by Hollywood studio chief Ted Marcus. Just from a practical TV-series-making standpoint, it serves as an episode where nobody has to travel away from Los Angeles for location shots, and they can film outdoor scenes in places close to the Warner Brothers studio (and it's also a lot warmer than whenever it was they filmed those scenes in Washington!). It also portrays the difficulties a President has in serving multiple masters - we see Jed almost dancing at the end of strings held by: Marcus and his agenda of the day, forced there by the realities of raising campaign funds; or pollster Al Kiefer and his numbers, dealing with the hard ups-and-downs of polling demographics and hot-button issues - all the while trying to hold to the principles that got him elected and inspired those around him in the first place. Plus, Jed has his worries as a father, too - Charlie's involvement with Zoey has brought on more hate mail and threats, and so a new agent to protect Zoey while she's at Georgetown.

Meanwhile, the realities of governing continue, as an ethanol tax credit bill hangs in the balance in the Senate. All of the administration's arm twisting can only get 50 votes, meaning the Vice President will be called on to cast the tie-breaking vote and pass the bill. Trouble is, Vice President Hoynes thinks it could be political suicide for his future Presidential hopes if he helps pass a bill he's been fighting against for years.

(As an aside here, the opinion of Aaron Sorkin and others on the production staff regarding government support for ethanol production is pretty clear - they think it's a blatant play for support from Iowa and the Corn Belt, and that ethanol doesn't actually save energy or help reduce the use of foreign oil. As the son and grandson of Iowa farmers, I have somewhat of a different view, and think the criticisms against ethanol are weighed somewhat unfairly when the same types of drawbacks are not used in figuring the energy and environmental costs of using crude oil. Plus it's somewhat odd to see "Hollywood liberals" seem to favor Big Oil over, you know, farmers, but whatever. Anyhow, you can tell Sorkin and the production staff feel pretty strongly about this issue, as it's made clear not only here but in the Santos-Vinick campaigns in Season 7 that the show runners' belief is that politicians' support for ethanol is a dishonest move to buy votes from Iowa.)

Let's talk the VP/tiebreak issue first. Leo actually stays behind in DC to shepherd through the tax credit vote in the Senate. Despite all the pressure the White House is able to bring on Democratic senators, it's clear they can't get more than 50 votes. This means a 50-50 tie, which would bring the Vice President to do, as Leo says, "one of your two constitutional responsibilities" - vote to break the tie. We learn Hoynes served eight years in the Senate, during which time he was steadfastly against such benefits for ethanol production. As a Senator from Texas, looking out for oil interests, this is not a surprise - and he is not happy about the prospect of the President threatening him with consequences if he doesn't break this tie and pass the bill.

As things develop, eventually Leo, then Sam, then the President himself come around to the point of view that Hoynes is right - the government shouldn't be providing tax credits for ethanol production (despite the 16,000 new jobs created and the support for farmers in Iowa). Sam agrees to let three reluctant Democratic senators off the hook to vote "no," ending the tie and getting Hoynes off the hook.

This does illuminate the Bartlet-Hoynes tension a little more, which we've seen before. Hoynes rants to Leo that he believes the administration orchestrated the 50-50 tie just to put him into this position. Leo lists the things Hoynes won't be able to do if he defies the President, with things like losing his West Wing access and not being on the ticket for reelection. Bartlet himself even mulls over asking for his resignation. These guys do not get along well, but the phone conversation the President has with Hoynes at the end of the episode is a revealing scene showing Jed is willing to give credit when credit is due.

The trip! By the way, did you notice the producers have built an Air Force One set? They seem to be justifiably proud, as they show you plenty of pieces of it - a passageway as the gang gets on board:

The section with the press corps:

Another area of the cabin on the flight back to DC:

It's a nice set, and the producers will get good use out of it over the next six seasons.

Anyway, this fundraiser is supposed to bring in two-and-a-half million dollars for the Bartlet campaign, I guess (although it's never expressly stated what the funds are being raised for). I mean, the President isn't officially running for reelection yet, so maybe this is just a Democratic party fundraiser? It's not that clear. Unfortunately, the morning of the trip a Republican congressman has introduced a bill to ban gays in the military. Ted Marcus, the studio head hosting the party, insists President Bartlet publicly come out against this bill, even though there's no chance of it ever getting a hearing, let alone becoming law. When he doesn't get these public assurances, he threatens to cancel the entire affair, but he's strong-armed into continuing as long as he gets ten minutes alone with the President.

That meeting proves to be a good moment. Bartlet outlines the realities of political maneuvering and how sometimes taking a public stance, even if it's right, can be the worst thing in the world for actually bringing about change:

President: "Because I know what I'm doing, Ted. Because I live in the world of professional politics, and you live in the world of adolescent tantrum! ... Right now, right now this second, the worst thing that could possibly happen to gay rights in this country is for me to put that thing on the debating table, which is what happens the minute I open my mouth. Do you get that? I'm a human starting gun, Ted. You gotta trust me, I know what I'm doing."

Of course the entire issue of bringing about change incrementally, making the public ground ready for change, versus pushing for the right thing to be done right away despite the opposition and despite the political cost, is something that can take up many textbooks and scholarly studies. Gay rights in particular, it's interesting to note, have been a real-life example here. Barack Obama and the same-sex marriage issue is a good parallel; Obama only came around slowly to publicly supporting same-sex marriage, in some early statements actually saying he was against the issue (instead pushing civil unions), but wholeheartedly supported it once the general public was prepared for acceptance (yet I doubt anyone paying attention to Obama's stances on other civil rights issues ever really thought he actually was against same-sex marriage - as President Bartlet says above, he didn't want the issue out front and number one on the debating table). Is it better to help bring change slowly, step-by-step; or stand up for what's right from the start, regardless of the pushback that might bring about? It's a valid political question, that probably is answered in different ways depending on the particular subject.

Another part of the California visit is a meeting with members of the general public over a proposed constitutional amendment to outlaw flag burning. Again, we know the Bartlet administration is rather progressive and on the liberal side of things, therefore leaning more towards the freedoms of speech allowed in the Constitution rather than coming up with ways to limit them. Jed tries to be a good sport in the meeting, but:

Josh: "How's he doing in there?"

Sam: "He's got that look on his face like he's thinking about ways to kill himself."

And:

President: "There is a population in this country that seems to focus a great deal of time and energy on this conversation, so much so that I am moved to ask this question - is there an epidemic of flag burning going on that I'm not aware of?"

This meeting leads to a lunch gathering with pollster Al Kiefer (as well as Zoey, whose plans to enjoy lunch with real Los Angelenos is dashed when her father shows up and the restaurant is cleared out by Secret Service). As the senior staff looks on in derision and horror, Kiefer makes the point that Bartlet should get out in front of the flag burning issue by voicing full support, bringing up polling numbers that seem to show it's a no-brainer for public support and would guarantee easy re-election.

You can tell Kiefer is kind of creepy, both because the staff has been trying to talk the President out of meeting with him and because he's played by John de Lancie (best known as Q in Star Trek: The Next Generation):

The whole flag-burning amendment issue continues to hang over the staffers at Marcus' party, especially when Josh runs into Joey Lucas. She's running the campaign for a Democratic congressional candidate in California, but also has been running some polling numbers of her own. She lets Josh and Toby know that Kiefer didn't ask all the right questions; the support for the amendment is wide, but not very deep - most voters wouldn't let the issue change their decision in voting for a candidate.

(This is where Lucas begins to change from someone who runs campaigns to someone who's an expert pollster - we'll see her back in that pollster role many more times in the future. She never does make the switch to being a candidate herself, as Josh suggested she should in Take This Sabbath Day.)

One of the most significant plot lines, at least so far as the upcoming seasons, is the situation of the President's daughter and her protection. Here good old Ron Butterfield, head of the White House Secret Service detail, introduces the President to Gina Toscano, the agent who will be in charge of Zoey's protection during her time at Georgetown:

(Gina is played by Jorja Fox, known for roles on CSI and ER, among others.)

The President grills Toscano on protection of his daughter, with a nice scene in his office on Air Force One:

President: "It's not your job to tell me if she's cutting English Lit, it's not your job to tell me if she's dying her hair blue, or going to a strip club, or whatever she's doing with her friends. You know what your job is."

Toscano: "Yes, sir."

President: "Thank you."

Toscano: "Thank you, Mr. President." (prepares to leave)

President: "Gina -"

Toscano: "Yes, sir?"

President: "If she's cutting English Lit, I want to know about it."

Toscano: "No deal, Mr. President."

President: "Okay."

The spectre of white supremacists, their anger and hatred hanging over the relationship between Charlie and Zoey, looms over the rest of this season and into the future, so the introduction of this agent assigned to Zoey gives us another window into this plotline. I've always liked Fox's work since ER, and she's quite good here as well - Gina Toscano could have been a longer-running character on The West Wing if only a little unsung pilot called CSI hadn't been picked up by CBS.

On a lighter note to finish things up, Josh certainly seems smitten with Joey Lucas! Even Donna notices, as they're checking into their hotel rooms (for the day):

Donna: "Josh, you've got a crush on Joey Lucas and I think you should do something about it, cause you're really bothering me."

Josh: "Well, that's something I care a lot about."

Donna: "You should call her."

Josh: "I don't have a crush on her."

Donna: "You should call her right now."

Josh: "I'll see her tonight."

Donna: "Gather your rosebuds while ye may, Josh, you know what that means? - It means you should take this time together, rosebuds, because later on you might not be able to."

Josh: "Interpreting the classics with poet laureate Donnatella Moss."

So naturally, when Josh and Joey meet at the party, it's obvious he's crushing on her, so much so that Joey has to tell him that she came to the party with someone. Yet afterwards, as they're preparing to get back on Air Force One for the overnight flight back to Washington, Donna urges Josh to drop in one last time:

Josh: "I'm not gonna knock on her door at one in the morning."

Donna: "Yes, cause you're whisking back to Washington and you had to see her one more time before you left cause God knows what fate awaits you once you get there."

Josh: "Are you okay?"

Donna: "Gather ye rosebuds, Josh."

(Interestingly, in this scene Josh is taking the hotel bathroom toiletries with him in his luggage. He comes out of the bathroom carrying a basket full of shampoos and whatnot and dumps them in his suitcase. Ah, West Wing staffers - they're just like us!)

Anyway, when Josh does go to Joey's room, who should he meet there (wearing a bathrobe, no less) but Al Kiefer himself. Yes, Joey and Kiefer are having a little pollsters' fling - Joey is definitely surprised to see Josh, but also a little bit pleased, you can tell. We are left hoping to see these two flirt again.

And then back to DC, money raised, ethanol tax credit defeated, flag burning amendment put away, and Josh's rosebuds still to be gathered. And the darkness of the threats hanging over Charlie and Zoey, too.


Tales Of Interest!

- The President's Secret Service callsign seems to jump back and forth; in "Post Hoc, Ergo Propter Hoc" it was "Eagle"; in He Shall, From Time To Time ... it was "Liberty." Here it's "Eagle" again. What gives, Secret Service?

- It's pretty funny to see how irked Margaret is because Leo stayed behind in DC instead of going to California.

- It's also a nice moment to see Leo set Hoynes straight, when Hoynes says he thinks the President can do pretty much whatever he wants. It's a neat insight into Hoynes' sense of privilege and entitlement, which really is one of the big flashpoints between him and Bartlet.

- A dramatic shot by director Alan Taylor, as Leo and Hoynes have their first tense meeting in Leo's office:

Quotes    

President (as everyone is boarding Air Force One; he picks up a telephone): "You two want to see the best part about having my job?" (into telephone) "Colonel, this is the President. I'm ready to go." 

-----

President (heading to limousine): "I'm having lunch with my daughter, Toby, you guys are going to sit with Kiefer and let me know what's worth listening to."

Toby (moving to limousine): "Yes, sir."

President (stopping him): "We'll see you there."

Toby: "I'm not coming in the car?"

President: "No, and you know why? Cause you made fun of the guacamole."

Toby: "I didn't."

President: "I could tell you were thinking it."

Toby: "Fair enough."

-----

Kiefer: "Toby, you're smiling."

Toby: "I just figured out who you were."

Kiefer: "He's going to say Satan."

Toby: "No. You're the guy who runs into the 7-Eleven to get Satan a pack of cigarettes."

-----

CJ: "Pretend you're talking to me."

Sam: "I am talking to you."

CJ: "Walk me outside."

Sam: "Did he offer you a development deal?"

CJ: "Yes."

Sam: "Me, too. Do you know what that is?"

CJ: "No."

Sam: "Me, neither." 

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

• WHAT'S NEXT MOMENT: I wanted to start keep tracking these, as from the final scene of Pilot when President Bartlet says, "Mrs. Landingham! What's next?" it's clear this is a totemic phrase for Bartlet and the show in general. Anyway, I missed one in the previous episode, Celestial Navigation: When Leo is dressing down Secretary O'Leary over her calling Republicans racists, he says, "The President's nuts about you, always has been. He'll cry for three minutes after he fires your ass, and then he'll say, 'What's next?'"

• The first mention of a California fundraising trip came in The Crackpots And These Women, with Mandy pushing hard for attending a fundraiser hosted by movie producer Larry Posner (and Toby pushing back hard against it, because of Posner's violent, lowbrow movies). In Lord John Marbury, Mandy mentions to Josh in passing how good everybody is going to look in California. So, is this the original trip mentioned in October? Or have there been multiple fundraising trips to California with different movie executives? It seems doubtful that there have been multiple trips since the fall, particularly with Margaret's irritation at not going,  which you wouldn't expect if Air Force One was zipping back and forth across the country all the time. This seems to be a little glitch in the continuity. Although it is somewhat ironic to realize that Mandy, the one pushing for the Posner trip in October, the one excited about looking good in California in January ... Mandy doesn't make this trip. In fact, she doesn't appear in the episode at all. Her only mention is as one of the messages waiting for Josh at the hotel.

• Ted Marcus is played by well-known character actor Bob Balaban (Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Seinfeld, the Christopher Guest movies, so much more):

• I mentioned the return of Joey Lucas as she begins to turn from campaign manager to polling expert. We'll see her again.

• This is not the last we see of Al Kiefer, either.

• Also the ethanol tax credit issue becomes a key part of the Santos-Vinick campaign storyline towards the end of the series' run.

• CJ expresses ignorance as to what exactly a movie development deal is, going to great lengths having the filmmaking process explained to her. At the beginning of Season 2 we are going to discover CJ was a publicist in Hollywood before joining the Bartlet campaign - she should certainly know what a development deal is.

• President Bartlet complains several times about not being able to sleep lately. We haven't seen any mention at all about his MS since we learned about it in He Shall, From Time To Time ... - is this sleeplessness supposed to be related to his illness? Or, more likely, from the ongoing pressures of the presidency?

DC location shots    

• The outdoor confrontation scene between Leo and Hoynes was filmed outside the headquarters building of the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR), more precisely in the 1700 block of C Street NW. (Hat tip to The West Wing Weekly podcast - in their recent episode on Season 4's Privateers, in which potential DAR membership for Abbey is part of the plot, I discovered The West Wing filmed many location scenes at DAR Headquarters, as the building is well-suited for the Washington "look." Without that snippet, I wouldn't have even known where to start looking for this location site. Thanks Joshua Malina and Hrishikesh Hirway!)

• The early airport scene as they leave for California - could that be Dulles Airport again? If I had to guess, I'd imagine they shot this scene (with the Virgin Airways 747 later CGI-ed into Air Force One) at the same time they shot the scenes returning from overseas for Take This Sabbath Day. I mean, I wouldn't figure they would have borrowed the 747 multiple times for tarmac filming. Just a guess.

References to real people    

• Former Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes is mentioned by a speaker supporting the flag burning amendment.

• Former Supreme Court Justice William Brennan is quoted by David Hasselhoff - yes, that David Hasselhoff appears as a guest at the fundraiser. (Donna mentions his work in Baywatch, Knight Rider, Nick Fury, The Cartier Affair, Pleasure Cove, and Panic at Malibu Pier.)

• Donna then mentions seeing actor Matt (Matthew) Perry at the party- strangely enough, Matthew Perry will actually appear in several episodes of The West Wing in coming seasons, making one wonder - why doesn't Donna mention how much Joe Quincy looks like Matthew Perry?

• Also appearing at the party are Jay Leno (host of NBC's Tonight Show at the time) and model-actress Veronica Webb. CJ and Leno have this conversation (with a callback to Pilot):

CJ: "Jay, the President appreciates your laying off Leo McGarry the past few months, it hasn't gone unnoticed."

Leno: "Hey, you guys give me monologue material every night."

CJ: "Well, if there's anything I can do for you -"

Leno: "You know what'd be great? If you could get the President to drive his bike into a tree again - (CJ laughs) See, that's my bread and butter, that's what I live on." 

(That's CJ with her back to us, Leno in the middle and Webb on the right.)

• Product placement (and there's a lot): CJ and Donna discuss skin-care products on the flight to California - Clinique City Block oil-free daily face protector, Lancome high-protection sun stick for face and lips, Elizabeth Arden Modern Skin Care daily moisturizer); the hotel in Los Angeles is the Sheraton Universal Hotel (conveniently nearby to the Warner Brothers lot where The West Wing was filmed); it appears the Playa Cantina restaurant in Santa Monica may have fictional, although I have experienced having guacamole made at your table at a Mexican restaurant in San Antonio, so these things do happen.

End credits freeze frame: Leo and Hoynes on the steps of the DAR Headquarters.

Celestial Navigation - TWW S1E15

Original airdate: February 16, 2000

Teleplay by: Aaron Sorkin (14)

Story by: Dee Dee Myers (2) & Lawrence O'Donnell, Jr. (5)

Directed by: Christopher Misiano (2)

Synopsis

• Josh tells a college lecture audience the story of the previous 36 hours at the White House, which includes the signing of a new education reform bill; the fallout from a Cabinet secretary calling a Congressman a racist; a disastrous press briefing following CJ's emergency dental surgery; and a Supreme Court nominee whose independence may threaten his confirmation. Meanwhile, Sam and Toby make a trip to Connecticut to get Roberto Mendoza out of jail.

"A secwet pwan to fiwght infwation?"

"Ok, CJ, for a little while, you're going to have to write it down."

This is absolutely the funniest episode of The West Wing. While that might seem like damning with faint praise, considering the show is not a sitcom but a political drama, as we've seen already in Season One there's lots of humor written into these scripts. This one leans heavily into comedy territory, with CJ's "woot canaw," Josh's disastrous attempt to "instill discipline" into the White House press corps, Charlie's efforts to awaken a sleepy President, and the traveling comic duo of Ziegler and Seaborn.

Aaron Sorkin also takes the opportunity to play with structure. What's actually happening during the episode is Josh's guest appearance at a lecture series at some unnamed college campus, while concurrently Sam and Toby are on a mission to get Supreme Court nominee Roberto Mendoza out of a Connecticut jail. As Josh tells his audience what a typical day in the White House might entail, we get flashbacks of the prior 36 hours. It's an interesting dramatic structure, to play with time in this way - there's two things happening "now," but then we are shown the events of the past couple of days that help explain how we got to "now."

Let's go back in time with Josh's story. To start with, President Bartlet is going to sign a $700 million education reform bill that has groundbreaking advances for teacher recruitment and training. Unfortunately, this good news for the administration gets stepped on when a report about HUD Secretary Deborah O'Leary basically calling a Republican congressman a racist comes out:

Mandy (reading the press story): "'Are you calling me a racist?' Wooden shot back."

Toby: "Of course not, she answered wisely."

Mandy (reading): "'If the shoe fits,' responded the Secretary."

Toby: "Well. Wasn't that clever of her."

This turns the media story away from the signing of the education bill to whether or not the President is going to fire Secretary O'Leary, or at least demand an apology. Complication number two: CJ isn't at the bill signing, as she's at the dentist getting an emergency root canal. Therefore, the staff is late to step in, and President Bartlet (goaded by Danny) kind of blurts out that he thinks an apology would be a good idea. This forces the White House's hand - while Leo was privately going to force O'Leary to apologize anyway, now the whole process is out in the open and makes the White House look a little like a bully.

In conjunction with that second complication, and in a great comedic performance by Allison Janney, CJ's dental surgery results in her cheeks being stuffed with cotton and her unable to speak very clearly.

Josh: "What the hell happened?"

CJ:  "I had woot canaw."

Josh: "What happened to your cheeks?"

CJ: "I had woot canaw."

Josh: "Why are you talking like that?"

CJ: "I had woot canaw!"

Josh: "Yeah, I heard you the first time, I was just amusing myself."

She's ready to cancel the press briefing, but Josh breezily claims he can handle it, while instilling some discipline in what he sees as a rowdy, uncontrolled White House press corps. As you can see from several miles away, this is going to turn into a disaster, as Josh unwittingly reveals President Bartlet might be keeping a secret from the American public:

Reporter: "But he has no plan to address inflation specifically?"

Josh: "Twenty-four Ph.Ds on the Council of Economic Advisors, Katie, they have a plan to fight inflation."

Danny: "Is the reason you won't tell us about it is that it's a secret?"

Josh: "Yeah, Danny, we have a secret inflation plan."

The briefing collapses from there, leading Josh to look like this:

Thankfully, Donna is there to help Josh pick up the pieces:

Donna: "Oh, my God, Josh! I mean, oh, my God!"

Josh: "I can fix this."

Donna: "How?"

Josh: "I can fix this."

Donna: "I don't think you can."

Josh: "This would be a great time to feel a little support from you, Donna!"

Donna: "You have my support, Josh."

Josh: "Do I?"

Donna: "Yes."

Josh: "Ok, that's a start. Tell me what you think I should do right now."

Donna: "Go into your office and come up with a secret plan to fight inflation."

Josh: "That's support?!?"

Complication number three: Mendoza is still awaiting confirmation to the Supreme Court, but he's been stating his mind independently on several topics over the past 8 weeks, criticizing the American Bar Association, the AFL-CIO, and the New York state legislature - which is driving Toby crazy, since he's in charge of shepherding the judge through the confirmation process. Mendoza wastes no time telling the Chicago Tribune that doesn't think Secretary O'Leary should have to apologize at all, calling a reporter to give his opinion even though he's on vacation in Nova Scotia. So now, the administration needs to bring Mendoza in the White House for a stern talking to ... but he's going to take his time driving down, even stopping for antiquing in Connecticut on the way.

Leo: "He's driving from Nova Scotia to Washington."

Sam: "Yeah."

Leo: "How's a person do that?"

Sam: "Oh, my guess is he'll take the Trans-Canada Highway to New Brunswick, then maybe catch the One and take the scenic route along the coast of Maine. 95 through New Hampshire to the Mass Pike and then cut over to the Merritt Parkway around Milford."

Toby: "Something really kinda freakish about you, you know that?"

(As an aside - here we see the California travel-speak of calling highways "The [something]," like "The Five" or "The Four Oh Five" or "The Ten." This terminology isn't generally used elsewhere in the US, and the phrase would be "Highway One" or "US One." However, I believe we find out later in the series that Sam is a California native, so perhaps he's keeping that habit with him even in the eastern US.)

On the way, Mendoza is pulled over and arrested in Wesley, Connecticut (a fictitious place, by the way), for drunk driving - something which Sam assuredly states multiple times can't be possible, as Mendoza doesn't drink (Sam later tells the police Mendoza has chronic persistent hepatitis, which means if he drank enough alcohol to be impaired, he would likely die). And now our timelines converge, as Josh's retelling of the education bill/O'Leary apology/CJ root canal/press briefing/Mendoza interview meets up with Mendoza actually being held in a Connecticut jail.

Leo dispatches Sam and Toby to get the judge out of jail, flying them in an Air Force jet from Washington to Westchester, New York, then having them drive to Wesley. While in the world of television this makes sense (Mendoza was pulled over for being Hispanic, not for actually breaking the law, and just getting him out of jail and having the arrest dropped is the thing to do) in the real world this would be a scandal of pretty significant proportions (you can't just send White House staffers to talk the city police into releasing an arrested Supreme Court nominee and cover up/destroy the arrest records completely). But as I said, in the world of TV, it feels like the right thing to do. And it provides us some more comedy in the sight of Sam and Toby trying to navigate their way across Connecticut:

Josh (on the phone with Toby): "What's going on?"

Toby: "Sam feels we're zeroing in on it."

Josh: "You haven't found it yet?"

Toby: "We've been navigating by the North Star, which turned out to be the Delta shuttle from La Guardia. It's a miracle we're not in Nantucket right now."

But once Sam and Toby find the police station, they discover Mendoza doesn't want to leave. He wants to stay and use the legal system to fight the unjust arrest (he didn't take a Breathalyzer that he knew would clear him because he saw it as an invasion of his privacy). And in the most serious section of this mostly funny episode, Toby and Mendoza have a heart-to-heart about race, justice, and what's right:

Mendoza: "My kid was in the car, Toby. They patted me down and they handcuffed me in front of my nine-year-old boy. Then he and his mother got to see them put me in a squad car and drive away."

Toby: "He's also seen you wearing a robe, with a gavel in your hand."

Mendoza: "He doesn't understand that. He doesn't know what that is. He understands what the police are because he watches television. That's what he's going to remember - his father being handcuffed. So America just got another pissed-off guy with dark skin."

Toby turns the tables, though.

Toby: "Nothing about this that doesn't stink. Nothing about it that wouldn't be better if you were a Supreme Court Justice."

Mendoza agrees to go with Sam and Toby, Toby makes the police sergeant apologize to Mendoza (interesting parallel with O'Leary's forced apology to Wooden - the apology that led to Mendoza being in Connecticut in the first place), and Josh's talk with the college students continues as the episode ends.

While generally with Sorkin and The West Wing we find serious topics of national and political import being leavened with humor, this mostly comedic episode finds the overarching humor being brought back to solid ground with this serious moment at the end. It's a neat reversal of the typical format. And it's fantastic to see the comedy stylings of Janney, and Bradley Whitford, and Richard Schiff, and Rob Lowe, and even Martin Sheen (in his scenes with Charlie and in the Oval Office) - it's funny stuff, and it works.


Tales Of Interest!

- The last episode, Take This Sabbath Day, didn't have a "previously on The West Wing" section at all. This episode has one, but it's just many of the characters introducing themselves and their titles. It's almost as though the producers and/or NBC decided these two episodes -which, admittedly, are both nearly stand-alone episodes with no big plot tie-ins to the overall season - should serve as introductions to audience members just tuning in past Season One's halfway point.

- Allison Janney submitted this episode (along with the upcoming Lies, Damned Lies & Statistics) in her nomination for the Best Supporting Actress Emmy Award, which she ended up winning.

-  Former White House Press Secretary (for both Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush) Marlin Fitzwater said this about the getting-Mendoza-out-of-jail plot line:

"I've only seen one that I thought was so far off the mark that it was really a mistake, and that's when they had a Supreme Court nominee arrested for speeding, and two members of the White House staff went and broke him out of jail, which is an impeachable offense. And for any White House to really try that would have been stupid. First of all, everybody in the White House would have gotten fired. The president would have gotten impeached, and the Supreme Court nominee would have to be dumber than an owl to ever break the law by getting out of a speeding ticket. So that was the only one that I thought was really off the mark."

- We clearly see it's the Wesley city police that arrested Mendoza and are holding him; the sign outside the police station indicates it's the city services building, and both police officers' uniforms have a "Wesley Police" patch. Yet on the way out, Toby tells them "the county" won't have to worry about a wrongful-arrest lawsuit.

- Check out Josh's "manspreading" up on the stage in front of all those college students. And this was before the term "manspreading" was even a thing! Josh certainly isn't shy ...

Quotes    

CJ: "What happened?"

Sam: "It's not as bad as you think, CJ."

CJ: "Was the President's nominee for the Supreme Court just arrested for drunk driving?"

Sam: "Yes."

CJ: "Then it's pretty bad, isn't it?"

-----

President: "'If the shoe fits'? Is that the best she could do?"

Leo: "Of her many transgressions, Mr. President, let's not worry about she resorted to cliche."

-----

President (on the phone with Charlie's wake-up call): "Who the hell is this?"

Charlie: "Sir -"

President: "And what could you possibly want?"

Charlie: "Sir, I need you to dig in now. It wasn't a nightmare. You really are the President."

-----

Leo: "Mr. President, we experienced a few public relations - what's the word?"

Toby: "Catastrophes."

Leo: "Incidents, in the few hours you were away last night."

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

• Add the education reform bill to the list of administration victories since last fall: a gun control bill; hate crimes legislation; banking reform; changes to how the census is conducted; plus improvement in the unemployment rate and an economy good enough to provide a large federal budget surplus. It's hard to imagine an administration with these kinds of wins struggling to get its favorability numbers above 50 percent, but that's what we're supposed to believe.

• Gail's fishbowl has red gravel this week, probably related to CJ's dental surgery.

 

•  Josh is sporting a mug from Wesleyan University. Interestingly, while Wesley, Connecticut, isn't a real place, Wesleyan University is in Connecticut and is located near the route Sam says Mendoza would take to drive from Nova Scotia to DC.

• Secretary Deborah O'Leary (Department of Housing and Urban Development) is played by well-known actress CCH Pounder (ER, The Shield, NCIS: New Orleans, Avatar). Pounder was actually one of the finalists being considered for the role of CJ Cregg as The West Wing was being cast.

• Roberto Mendoza first appeared in The Short List, when President Bartlet decided to make him the nominee to fill a Supreme Court vacancy. It's stated here that it's been 8 weeks since that nomination was made - this episode aired 12 weeks after The Short List. It's also the last appearance of Edward James Olmos as Mendoza, which is too bad.

DC location shots    

• When Sam first calls Josh to inform him of Mendoza's arrest, Sam is standing on a street in DC with the Capitol in the background. In the DVD commentary with Aaron Sorkin, Thomas Schlamme, and director Christopher Misiano, it's stated it is not Pennsylvania Avenue, but one of the cross streets with a clear view of the Capitol. It was also very cold that night, they remember.

References to real people    

• Sam mentions Dale Carnegie, famous for courses on self-improvement and interpersonal skills.

• Barney Fife is mentioned in relation to the Wesley police force. While Fife was a fictional character in the TV series The Andy Griffith Show, apparently that show exists in The West Wing universe.

• Mentions are made of La Guardia Airport (named after former New York Mayor Fiorello La Guardia) and the Merritt Parkway (named after Congressman Schuyler Merritt).

• At the unnamed college where Josh is speaking, we see it's in the Marjorie Du Pont Lecture Hall (and part of the Marjorie Du Pont lecture series). "Marjorie Du Pont" is a name apparently created for the episode; of note, though, there is a Du Pont Hall at the University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg, Virginia, not too far from DC.

• Product placement: President Bartlet wears a Notre Dame T-shirt to bed; the Chicago Tribune is mentioned as printing the story of Mendoza criticizing President Bartlet's decision to have O'Leary apologize.

• The newspaper in the police station with the picture of Toby in the Oval Office is the Hartford Chronicle. That newspaper does not exist since 1947; the primary Connecticut newspaper is the Hartford Courant.

End credits freeze frame: The tired and cranky President about to get some bad news from his staff.

Take This Sabbath Day - TWW S1E14

Original airdate: February 9, 2000

Teleplay by: Aaron Sorkin (13)
Story by: Lawrence O'Donnell Jr. (4) & Paul Redford (2) and Aaron Sorkin

Directed by: Thomas Schlamme (4)

Synopsis

• Over the course of a weekend, President Bartlet struggles with the decision of whether or not to commute the execution of a federal prisoner. Josh has to give bad news to the fiery campaign manager for a California congressional candidate.

"We make it very hard to kill anyone in this country, Toby."

"It should be impossible."

"But it's not."

"But it should be."

This is a rather unusual episode of The West Wing. Right off the bat, there's no "previously on" section of clips from prior episodes, which signals this one pretty much stands alone and doesn't tie in with the ongoing threads of the series. Additionally, there are only two plotlines in this episode, as opposed to the multiple storylines we usually see.

But "unusual" doesn't mean "bad." Quite the contrary - this is a top-notch example of the series, one if its best ever (in my opinion), with some incredibly fine writing and great performances, centered around the controversial topic of capital punishment. When the Supreme Court unexpectedly denies the appeal of Simon Cruz, convicted of two murders in federal court, the administration has only a weekend to decide if the President will use his Constitutional power to commute the death sentence. President Bartlet, a staunch Roman Catholic (as is Martin Sheen himself), personally opposes the death penalty, but realizes the political problems with having the executive branch step in to override the decision of the judicial branch on purely personal motives. The President struggles with the weight of the decision, as do the other characters in the West Wing. Sam, Toby, even Jed's old parish priest from New Hampshire urge him to grant clemency, to not use the state's power to take a life. He even brings Joey Lucas, a congressional campaign manager meeting with Josh, into the Oval Office to ask her opinion. The other side of the issue is revealed in a powerful moment between the President and Charlie:

President: "What happened to the guy who shot your mother?"

Charlie: "They haven't caught him yet, sir."

President: "If they did, would you want to see him executed? (long pause) Killing a police officer's a capital crime, I figured you must have thought about it."

Charlie: "Yes, sir."

President: "And?"

Charlie: "I wouldn't want to see him executed, Mr. President. I'd want to do it myself."

Toby's rabbi (spurred by one of Cruz' attorneys) gives an anti-death penalty sermon hoping to spur Toby to influence the President toward commutation; Sam gives up a sailing weekend to dig through law books and court records, trying to find a solid reason to grant clemency; Lucas (as a pacifist Quaker) gives her view that the state shouldn't take a life; CJ battles with the personal connections of the execution: "I wish I didn't know his mother's name was Sophia." By the time the President calls on Father Cavanaugh, his mind is already made up - it seems he wants his childhood priest to help soothe his soul from the results of that decision, rather than take the priest's advice on what to do.

That is a great scene from Season 1. Karl Malden (in his last performance, as he died a few months after filming) delivers a terrific portrayal of Father Cavanaugh. When Jed tells him how frustrated he is with not getting wisdom after praying for it, Cavanaugh tells the story of the man who ignored a radio report about a flood, then turned away a rowboat and a rescue helicopter because he knew God would save him. After he drowned, the man asked St. Peter why God never stepped in, which leads to the punch line, "I sent a radio report, a rowboat, and a helicopter. What the hell are you doing here?" After which Father Cavanaugh tells the President:

"He sent you a priest, a rabbi, and a Quaker, Mr. President, not to mention His son, Jesus Christ. What do you want from him?"

(This, of course, brings us to the question of how did Father Cavanaugh know about the other two characters? It seems unlikely he would have been told about Joey Lucas' visit in the Oval Office, let alone the rabbi's sermon to Toby. But it's still a great line.)

Schlamme works some great directing magic again in this episode. At the start of the final scene, while President Bartlet is gazing out a window in the Oval Office while holding a rosary, a ghostly image of a man preparing for execution is shown, like a reflection in the window:

It's as if Jed is watching the execution right in front of him, with the prisoner's mother and other officials on hand. Then, after receiving word of the execution being carried out, Jed kneels for confession with Father Cavanaugh - kneeling right on the Presidential seal on the floor of the Oval Office. It's a tremendous illustration of President Bartlet's conflict, his personal religious beliefs and the weight of leading a nation of diverse thought and creed. The camera also pulls up during the shot, in a manner reminiscent of the closing shot of Pilot (also directed by Schlamme).

The other storyline of the episode is considerably more lighthearted, and introduces the fabulous Marlee Matlin as Joey Lucas. Her character will reappear numerous times over the course of the series. Here she's campaign manager for Bill O'Dwyer, a candidate for Congress in California's 46th district. He's running a strong race against the Republican incumbent, a cartoonishly conservative and xenophobic figure. However, the White House and the DNC have decided they'd rather keep the cartoon in his seat over an "empty shirt" like O'Dwyer, knowing that the racist and offensive things the Republican will say are good for fundraising.

(On a side note, this kind of caused me to shudder in today's political environment. Josh mentions the Republican saying something about "brown people coming across the border" being good for the DNC to raise a couple of million dollars - yet Congressman like Steve King and others have gained significant power in recent years with viewpoints far worse than that ("calves the size of cantaloupes" anybody?)

The meeting between Josh and Lucas (and Kenny, her sign-language translator) is played for laughs, since Josh, to put it lightly, is not recovering well from a bachelor party the night before.

That's Josh sleeping on the floor of his office - he didn't go home because he couldn't find his keys, or remember where he lived. Donna tries to sober him up with some coffee:

Which he immediately drools over himself. So in order to get his clothes cleaned before the meeting, he has to wear Sam's foul-weather sailing gear ... which is what he has on when Joey and Kenny barge in, yelling at him about the DNC cutting their funding.

Josh: "Tell you what, let's just take a deep breath for a second while I try and remember, you know, where I am right now."

Joey (signing): "Are you drunk?"

Josh: "I have a very delicate system."

Which is a pretty funny throwback to the afternoon before, when Josh is talking with Donna while he gets ready to leave for the party:

Donna: "Are you going to behave yourself tonight?"

Josh: "It's a bachelor party."

Donna: "I'm saying - "

Josh: "I can hold my liquor."

Donna: "No, you can't."

Josh: "I can drink with the best of 'em, Donna."

Donna: "You can't drink with any of 'em, Josh."

Josh: "I'm in politics, okay? I can drink."

Donna: "You have a very delicate system."

Josh: "I wish you'd stop telling people that, it makes me sound like an idiot."

Anyway, while Lucas doesn't get what she came for (even the President declines to offer help to her candidate), Josh comes to her hotel before she leaves to offer a word of encouragement. The President had told her if she came up with a better candidate, the party would be willing to work with her. It turns out, Josh tells her, the better candidate the President would like to work with is Lucas herself.

(The hotel bar scene has a continuity mistake. When Lucas and Kenny first arrive to talk to Josh, there's nothing on the bar:)

(A couple of lines later, money has magically appeared:)

(And a few lines after that, Josh reaches into his pocket and pulls out some bills to toss on the bar - which, as we saw above, already has money on it:)

Just two storylines, pretty much self-contained - but in-depth, involving, well-written and very well-acted (Sheen and Allison Janney are particularly great, with terrific guest appearances from Matlin and Malden). It's a fantastic episode in a stretch of great television here in Season 1.


Tales Of Interest!

- Martin Sheen's performance in this episode earned him an Emmy nomination for Best Lead Actor in a Drama Series. He lost to James Galdofini of The Sopranos. Sheen would end up being nominated for his role as Jed Bartlet six times over seven seasons, but he never actually won the Emmy.

- I mentioned in Pilot how the plot device of the switched pagers between Sam and Laurie already seemed a bit anachronistic in late 1999. It's a few months later now, and Toby gets paged while he's in temple, and Sam makes a point of leaving his pager behind before he sets out for his sailing weekend.

- Speaking of Sam's sailing weekend (and Josh's bachelor party and Donna's shopping plans) - did it seem odd to anyone else that the entire West Wing staff appeared to be taking the weekend off? In today's 24-hour news cycle world, it just felt wrong to have this notion of the bullpen area being dark and empty over a Saturday and Sunday, which is kind of what it looked like was going to happen. Obviously, even White House staffers have to have regular days off, but you'd still have somebody there, right?

- The Supreme Court scene: We know from The Short List that there's still a vacancy, leaving eight justices on the court until Mendoza is confirmed (and Sam mentions the denial of the appeal turned out 5-3). The initial shot indeed shows eight, but it's interesting to see the actors cast to sit as the justices are intended to remind us of at least some of the real-life Supreme Court justices of 2000. Here's someone definitely intended to resemble Ruth Bader Ginsburg:

(The man next to her doesn't really look like one of the justices at the time, although he might be supposed to represent David Souter.) Further down the panning shot is an obvious reference to Antonin Scalia (and perhaps John Paul Stevens next to him):

And the supposed Chief Justice reading the ruling on the denial of the appeal looks quite a bit like Chief Justice William Rehnquist:

I just thought it was interesting to have such visual representations of the real-life justices, when in the series universe we know we've had one justice recently step down. The other actual justices at the time were Clarence Thomas, Sandra Day O'Connor, Stephen Breyer, and Anthony Kennedy; the initial shot of the entire Supreme Court didn't appear to show an African-American (Thomas) or another woman besides Ginsburg (O'Connor).

- As mentioned, this was acclaimed actor Karl Malden's final role. He had retired from acting a few years prior, but answered the call for this character on The West Wing. Interestingly, the pocket Bible he takes out while preparing to hear President Bartlet's confession is the exact same Bible Malden used for his Oscar-nominated role as Father Barry in On The Waterfront.

- Just because I got a good shot of this: Here's the computer screen at the security checkpoint when Sam is signing out for the weekend (or, is he???!!?!?). It reads "WHITE HOUSE INTERNAL INFORMATION SERVICE" across the top bar, then inside the large window it reads "AUTHORIZATION CODE REQUIRED - INTRANET MULTI-VIEW DISTRIBUTION."

- It appears there might be something representing a dead fish floating in Gail's bowl. This would certainly fit in with the capital punishment storyline ... it's kind of hard to see, but it does look a lot like a dead fish.

(This would also be a good place to mention how sick Allison Janney was while shooting this episode. You can definitely tell she's not feeling well in the quick scene where she's talking with Carol walking through the bullpen. In the DVD commentary Sorkin and Schlamme say the above scene, with CJ and Mandy, had to be reshot because Janney felt so sick the first time they shot it that her emotions overtook her playing of the lines talking about the execution and Cruz' mother.)

- When the President checks his watch in the final scene and sees the second hand tick towards midnight, the date on the watch reads "21." The only Sunday that was the 21st in the entire year of 2000 fell in May - considering the snowfall outside the White House at the time, that seems implausible. Perhaps it could be fanwanked that the date turned over early, before the watch actually ticked past midnight, as February 20th was indeed a Sunday in 2000.

Quotes    

There are so many excellent stretches of dialogue in this episode. I could just print the entire script here, and pretty much all of it would be, to quote Ferris Bueller, "choice." It's just damn good writing. I'll try to limit myself.

Zane: "You are going to go to the President, you're going to tell him he can't run from this one. He's gotta consider my client, you're going to tell him that."

Sam: "I don't talk to the President that way, Bobby, nobody talks to the President that way, and I've got to tell you not that many people talk to me that way anymore."

Zane: "I got a guy 48 hours away from death, you want to make this personal?" (a reference to Sam & Bobby's high school days, when Bobby used to beat Sam up) 

 -----

Leo: "Why Monday morning?"

Sam: "What do you mean?"

Leo: "The court denied the appeal, why isn't he being executed at midnight tonight?"

Sam: "We don't execute people between sundown Friday and sundown Sunday."

Leo: "Why?"

Sam: "Hard as it is to believe -"

Leo: "You're kidding me."

Sam: "No."

Leo: "We don't execute people on the Sabbath."

Sam: "No."

Leo: "Well, that's about the most bizarre thing I've ever heard."

Sam: "Leo, I think you're going to find as you go through this weekend that there's virtually no part of this discussion that isn't bizarre."

------

President: "CJ, look -"

CJ: "Don't start with me, Mr. President."

President: "I was helping pass the time, I was being entertaining as well as instructive."

CJ: "I am back in America now, I have rights, I'm no longer belted down next to the passenger from hell."

Leo: "Welcome back, Mr. President."

President: "Leo! What are you doing here?"

Leo: "I needed a minute, sir. How was the flight?"

President: "Great."

CJ (simultaneously): "It was gruesome. If you look out the left side of the cabin you'll see the fjords. Then we got a history of the fjords, then we got a quiz on the fjords. Do you have any idea how much I'd like to dress you up in lederhosen and dropkick you into a fjord?"

President: "Ah, you don't know how to have fun while we're traveling."

------

Mandy: "What are the stats on federal executions and the President stepping in?"

Sam: " '63 was the last execution."*

Mandy: "Who was the last President to commute the sentence?"

Josh: "Lincoln."**

Mandy: "Abraham?"

Josh: "No, Bert Lincoln. Mandy, what are you -?"

* While at the time of this episode the last federal execution was in 1963 (in Iowa, no less), three people have been executed for federal crimes since; Timothy McVeigh and Juan Raul Garza in 2001, and Louis Jones, Jr. in 2003. Elements of the Garza case were actually incorporated into Simon Cruz' story in this episode.

 ** Again, true at the time, but Bill Clinton commuted one death penalty and Barack Obama commuted two others. 

------

Joey Lucas (signing): "Well, maybe if your head wasn't so far up your -"

Josh: "Hey!"

Lucas (speaking): "I want to speak to the President!"

Josh: "Hey, lunatic lady! Trust me when I tell you there's absolutely no way that you are going to see the President!"

President (appearing in the open door): "Hey, Josh."

------

CJ: "Carol, good. I need biographical information on Simon Cruz."

Carol: "Is it C-R-U-Z?"

CJ: "I don't know."

Carol: "What kind of biographical information?"

CJ: "We're going to need to know how to spell his name, for sure." 

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

• One of  Simon Cruz' attorneys (and a former high school nemesis of Sam's), Bobby Zane, is played by Noah Emmerich. While he currently has an important role in the FX series The Americans, I remember him best as Jim Carrey's best friend in The Truman Show. Interestingly, he was also a roommate of Joshua Malina's while attending Yale - Malina will join the cast of The West Wing in Season 4.

• Marlee Matlin, who plays Joey Lucas, first claimed fame in the film Children of a Lesser God. She has numerous film and TV appearances, and continues as a recurring character on The West Wing. However, while in this episode she was campaign manager for a Congressional candidate, in the future she will be a pollster.

• In this shot, we see two binders labeled "Tobacco" on top of this filing cabinet. The Bartlet administration's dealings with the tobacco industry will become an ongoing storyline in the future, particularly for Josh.

DC location shots    

• The early scene between Sam and Bobby Zane certainly appears as if it were shot in a governmental building. However, as Sorkin and Schlamme reveal in their commentary, this was actually filmed in the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles.

• The commentary mentions how Schlamme had to frame the shot to not reveal the dinosaur skeleton displayed, just off the right side of the shot in the rotunda. Here's a photo of the room from a different angle (the passageway the scene was filmed in appears to be at the back of this photo):

• Standing in for Andrews Air Force Base for the Air Force One scene was Dulles Airport, outside Washington, DC. And standing in for Air Force One was a Virgin Airways Boeing 747, which was digitally turned into the presidential aircraft in postproduction.

References to real people    

• In various discussions about the death penalty, we hear references to former Supreme Court justice Harry Blackmun, and philosophers St. Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, and Immanuel Kant.

• Stanford University is mentioned as one of Joey Luca's places of study: the school was founded by Leland Stanford in 1885.

• Product placement - Josh says he looks like the "Gorton's fisherman" in Sam's foul weather gear; President Bartlet wears a Notre Dame sweatshirt on Saturday; it appears there's a Bose Wave Radio on the nightstand next to the President's bed.

End credits freeze frame: President Bartlet listening to Toby in the Oval Office: