I Know, I Know

Yes, I know, it's been over two months since my last West Wing post, all the way back on the first of September. I did have good intentions - but this time of year is pretty cluttered. I do high school football on the radio, and with the time I put in with that plus my regular job, that's somewhere around 55-60 hours per week. My wedding anniversary is in October, too, and I always do remember to set aside time for that. Excuses, I know ... at least I'm not working on Daddy Warbucks this fall, like I was last year at this time.

I thought maybe I'd get my next post out before the midterm elections (because the next episode is, of course, The Midterms) but that didn't happen either. It will be soon, though! I promise! Plus, as you'll discover in my take on the episode, time really doesn't mean much in The West Wing universe anyway (how can an event happen in the spring, then be referred to as "last week" in August? It can, in West Wing World!).

Have patience, my friends. I'll be firing up the DVD player and diving back into the fantasy world of sane, functioning adults in the White House soon (and, spoiler alert, I'm retiring from my 27+ year career in December, so I'll actually have time to do important stuff like this!).

In The Shadow Of Two Gunmen, Part II - TWW S2E2

Original airdate: October 4, 2000

Written by: Aaron Sorkin (23)

Directed by: Thomas Schlamme (7)

Synopsis

• As Josh's surgery continues, flashbacks reveal how Sam, CJ, and Donna joined the Bartlet campaign. We also see Jed's growth as a candidate and his eventual trust and reliance on the staffers. The remaining conspirator in the assassination attempt is caught, with a surprising revelation about the actual target. Toby talks to Ron Butterfield about the White House and not the Secret Service taking the blame for the President being in the open at Rosslyn. Josh comes out of surgery with a whispered "What's next?"

"Leo ... I'm ready."

I appreciate irony as a dramatic device, good irony, anyway. So I leave this to you ... how ironic is it (in a good way, I mean) that for this three-episode arc (What Kind Of Day Has It Been and the two parts of In The Shadow Of Two Gunmen) it has taken me more than six weeks to recap and discuss literally 36 hours in the life of the Bartlet administration? That drips with irony, right? Like rain on your wedding day? (I know, I know ...)

Well, anyhoo, Part II of this season-opener covers more ground of what we got started with in Part I. While the President is now out of danger from his gunshot wound, Josh is undergoing tricky surgery for a collapsed lung and severed pulmonary artery. Flashbacks cover how Sam, CJ, and Donna joined the campaign team, as well as seeing Jed grow from a grumpy old "son of a bitch" (as Josh calls him to Abbey's face) into the lovable-yet-stern President-father figure we've gotten to know over the first season.

Leo: "He's really very easy to like once you get to know him."

Josh: "How many people get that far?"

Leo: "Not that many." 

The teaser opens with the skinhead Gina spotted in the crowd at the Rosslyn shooting hanging out at The Dixie Pig BBQ. This is a special BBQ place, because not only is it open at 3:28 on a Tuesday morning, blasting Hamilton, Joe Frank & Reynolds, it's fairly busy. How are we supposed to know this skinhead character is bad news? Well, because he puts out his cigarette in the yolk of a sunny-side-up egg.

Oh, yeah, the swastika tattoo on his hand, that too, but that mistreatment of the poor egg ... (In the DVD commentary director Tommy Schlamme admits that if he could do this scene over, he would make sure some of the food on the plate had been eaten, rather than showing that egg untouched). When the skinhead steps out of the diner (immediately lighting up another cigarette, for Pete's sake), he's immediately captured at gunpoint by a huge crowd of law enforcement officers, and even a helicopter. Apparently Gina was able to give enough of a description for the guy to be arrested less than six hours after the shooting, so good job, Gina!

That kicks things off for the episode, knowing that the investigation into the assassination attempt is moving forward and the authorities are well on the case. But, before we move forward in present time, let's take the flashbacks first.

When we last saw Sam at Gage Whitney, he was distractedly creating liability protection for a company wanting to buy barely seaworthy oil tankers at a discount, while telling Josh wouldn't have to say if he found the "real thing" in New Hampshire because of Josh's terrible poker face. Now, as the clients are finalizing their purchase of the bargain-basement tankers, Sam undermines his boss and his firm by trying to convince them to buy a safer, more up-to-date, brand new ship (for a lot more money). Obviously this illustrates Sam's moral code and the fact he's just not onboard with the business-before-ethics credo at this big-law firm in New York. When he's just about to get fired, Josh rides to the rescue with his indeed-terrible poker face:

And Sam is off to join the Bartlet campaign, with a smile, no less - something we never saw while he was doing his lawyering work in the Gage Whitney conference room.

[As an aside, if you remember the location scenes from Part I (Josh and Leo in DC and Josh and Sam on the streets of New York) - isn't it rather green and mild for the time of year? This is taking place sometime prior to the New Hampshire primary, so it's February or maybe even January; you wouldn't know it from the location shots we saw in Part I.]

Later we move on to CJ's flashback. Here we find out CJ's frizzy hairstyle is the signpost we didn't know we needed to let us know it's 1998:

We see her getting called in to work early at the PR firm she works for, because a movie studio chief is incensed at the poor showing he's gotten at the Golden Globe nominations. He wants CJ fired, not only for the lack of nominations she helped secure, but also because he thinks she has a "smart mouth." CJ helpfully proves his point:

Roger Becker (complaining about his status on the Premiere magazine list of Hollywood's most powerful): "I went from third to ninth. I dropped to ninth. Do you know how that looks? Do you know how many other people there were ahead of me?"

CJ: "Eight?" 

She doesn't seem too torn up about being fired from a $550,000 a year job (like Sam, showing the viewer that entertainment PR work wasn't her thing anyway). Luckily, when she arrives home, Toby is there sitting by her pool. He offers her the job as Bartlet's press secretary, first telling her how impressed Bartlet is by her work for that "women's group with the funny name" (EMILY's List), and then, after admitting Bartlet doesn't actually know who she is, he tells her it's Leo who really wants her on board. Which proves impressive enough (along with Toby's assurance that Jed is a good man) for her to take a bit of a pay cut -

CJ: "McGarry wants me?"

Toby: "Yes. Come join the campaign."

CJ: "How much does it pay?"

Toby: "How much were you making before?"

CJ: "550,000 a year."

Toby: "This pays 600 dollars a week."

CJ: "So this is less."

(This equates to about $900 a week in 2017 dollars, by the way - but then her PR job was paying her almost $850,000 in 2017 terms.)

Later on our flashbacks take us to New Hampshire, where the gang is preparing to face the upcoming primary. We hear that Bartlet is making progress in the polls, moving to a surprising third in a straw poll of Democrats, although still well behind the favorite, John Hoynes. Here also, we see how gruff Jed is in the face of these young, energetic, hopeful staffers, nearly biting CJ's head off with a "What's. Next." and listening with alarm as the team suggests the campaign ditch his home state of New Hampshire and make an early strategic move to South Carolina.

Here comes a really neat microcosm of the campaign game plan, and I really like how it shows the smarts and vision of this staff. They realize Jed has nothing to win in New Hampshire; as a native son and former governor, there's no way to beat expectations. So their idea is to pack up and head to South Carolina ahead of the other candidates, hoping to at least finish ahead of the second-place candidate there (Senator William Wylie of Washington, a handful of a title if you ever heard one) and pull in his money and some of his support, and ... I'll let them describe the rest:

Toby: "So, we finish second in South Carolina, we pick up some steam, some endorsements, mostly some money going into South Dakota, Vermont, Maine -"

Sam: "Where we come away with a split, maybe better, and now the presumptive nominee for the Democratic nomination has lost three of the first seven contests -"

CJ: "Past the actual primaries -"

Sam: "- leading into Super Tuesday."

Josh: "Hoynes will win the south, we'll take the north and the Pacific northwest."

Toby: "The race will be decided a week later in Illinois."

CJ: "Illinois' going to be High Noon."

Leo: "Sam, if we win in Illinois do we have a shot at California and New York?"

Sam: "If we win in Illinois we're going to run the table."

This is a great, tightly written scene. It sets out the path to victory for the Bartlet campaign, and gives Jed a great chance to be irritated about these new faces stepping in and making him quit campaigning in his home state.

Jed: "Well, that's it, then, we've saved people the trouble of voting. What's next?"

Josh: "Our point is that it's -"

Jed: "I understood the point. I'm going to South Carolina to set up Illinois. When I ask 'what's next' it means I'm ready to move on to other things, so, what's next?" 

It turns out the scenario described here is exactly what happens, but we never need it shown to us; we are aware this group is smart enough and savvy enough they can put the pieces together in New Hampshire in February and figure out where they'll be by the convention in the summer.

And this is where Josh meets Donna for the first time, right there in Manchester campaign headquarters. Another great scene - Donna just showed up and started answering phones as Josh's assistant, figuring forgiveness would be better than permission. Their meeting, and Josh's surprise at someone acting as his assistant and his repeated question, "Who are you?" is well-written and nicely acted (part of why Bradley Whitford was nominated for a Supporting Actor Emmy for this episode). Another great decision by Schlamme was to make the conversation between the two into a patented West Wing "walk and talk," one of the first (chronologically, anyway). In the DVD commentary it's mentioned the scene was originally written as a static scene in Josh's office, but Schlamme moved it out and around the set (with CJ, Toby and Sam sticking around in the background), giving it some verve and life while establishing this is what these people do, they talk through issues while they're on the move. Josh shows his powers of figuring out people really well, as he can figure out almost instantly that Donna is on the run from some personal issues and a bad breakup, but Donna has her own motives:

Josh: "Donna, this is a campaign for the presidency, and there's nothing I take more seriously than that. This can't be a place for people to come find their confidence and start over."

Donna: "Why not?" 

Josh: "I'm sorry?"

Donna: "Why can't it be those things?" 

And Josh's powers of personal awareness also come to the fore as he silently gives her his campaign ID badge, agreeing to take her on as part of the campaign and part of the team (and as a part of a lot more in a few years, but that's yet to come).

I'm going to save the final two flashback scenes for later, because they turn out to be the true heart of the episode. So in present time, CJ is trying to hold off Danny and other members of the press about a couple of topics; the lack of a tent or cover at the Rosslyn ropeline, and who was actually in charge for the 3 1/2 hour period when the President was under anesthesia. (One of the other urgent plot points from Part I, the troop movement in Iraq, is dropped completely and unmentioned in this episode - I guess Iraq took Leo's threat "Don't mess with us tonight" seriously.) At the same time, CJ is shaky on remembering exactly what happened during the shooting, and still focused on her missing necklace.

How about Schlamme's early shot of CJ and the press room? The camera moves into the room, past the reporters, moves in on CJ's face as it pans around her, zooming back out to show the press ... great active, interesting, immersive camera work.

As to the answers for the press: we eventually find out President Bartlet, like many politicians, was against the idea of canopies or covers at public events all along, and Toby convinced the President to send a note to the Secret Service asking them to not use them. Now that the lack of a canopy has been seen as a factor in this assassination attempt, Toby goes to Ron Butterfield to talk him into letting the White House take the heat, releasing the memo so the media won't blame the Secret Service. The most excellent Michael O'Neill delivers a fantastic monologue letting Toby know the Secret Service doesn't comment on matters of protection, and blame isn't on their radar - doing their job is all that matters.

 Butterfield: "It wasn't your fault. It wasn't Gina's fault, it wasn't Charlie's fault, it wasn't anybody's fault, Toby. It was an act of madmen. You think a tent was going to stop them? We got the President in the car. We got Zoey in the car. And at 150 yards and five stories up the shooters were down 9.2 seconds after the first shot was fired. I would never let you not let me protect the President. You tell us you don't like something, we figure out something else. It was an act of madmen. Anyway - the Secret Service doesn't comment on procedure."

(By the way, going back to the scene in What Kind Of Day Has It Been, the shooting is going on for far longer than 9.2 seconds, even showing the shooters firing after that time. True, the scene is filmed in slow-motion, but it's not that slow, and there's some 20 seconds of gunfire. Just saying.)

The other press question, who was in charge - well, that basically gets dropped. We get hints: Leo says they should send Danny to talk to him; during a later press briefing Margaret pulls Danny aside to have him meet Leo - but we never see the actual conversation. Turns out there was a scene with the two (cut for time) where Leo told Danny they didn't want to invoke the 25th Amendment (the Cabinet could have made the call on their own, even without a signed Presidential letter) and that he, Leo, was essentially in charge while Jed was in surgery. This is striking (and unconstitutional) news to Danny, and we'll see the topic addressed again later in the series (with the President's MS, what are the chances that he might become incapacitated for a time, leaving the unelected and not-in-the-line-of-succession Chief of Staff running things?). But insofar as planting the seed over both Part I and Part II of this being an important question, it's left unresolved for the viewer here.

We do get a fun look at another of Margaret's talents, though - apparently she's quite the forger:

Margaret: "I can sign the President's name. I have the signature down pretty good."

Leo: "You can sign the President's name?"

Margaret: "Yeah."

Leo: "On a document removing him from power and handing it to someone else?"

Margaret: "Yeah!"

(pause - they look at each other)

Margaret: "Or, do you think the White House Counsel would say that was a bad idea?"

Leo: "I think the White House Counsel would say that's a coup d'etat." 

Margaret: "Well, I'd probably end up doing some time for that."

Leo: "I would think. And what the hell were you doing practicing the President's signature?"

Margaret: "It was just for fun."

Leo: "We've got separation of powers, checks and balances, and Margaret, vetoing things and sending them back to the Hill."

(NiCole Robinson makes Margaret into such a great, interesting, living character, in just her little opportunities given in the scripts. That's real acting talent, I'd say.)

And CJ's fogginess on the details and who pulled her down clears up after she hears Sam describing the shooting on the morning news shows. She realizes Sam was the one who knocked her to the ground just before the police car window was shattered by gunfire, and he probably has her necklace. Sam admits he was reluctant to tell her, because he thought she might think she owed him a favor now:

Sam: "I didn't want you to feel beholden to me. I didn't want it to be like an episode of I Dream Of Jeannie where now, you gotta save my life, and the time-space continuum ..."

CJ: "Sam -"

Sam: "...and you follow me around with coconut oil and hot towels ..."

CJ: "Coconut oil?"

Sam: "I'm saying -"

CJ: "Sam, I don't feel beholden to you."

Sam: "Why not? I saved your life."

The other important item revealed in the present-day plot comes out of the capture of the skinhead, Carl Leroy. He admits that the real target of his group, West Virginia White Pride, wasn't the President at all - it was Charlie. This band of white supremacists was furious that the President's daughter, Zoey, was dating an African-American, and hoped to kill Charlie at the motorcade. It helped that they used handguns from five stories up, so their accuracy was terrible, but that was little solace to the President, Josh, or Stephanie Abbott, the three people referred to as being wounded by the shooters. This plot point was actually mentioned by Danny in The White House Pro-Am, when he was talking to Charlie about the threats being made by white supremacists and the fact they're probably lousy shots and would aim at Charlie but hit Danny instead.

(An aside - it's clear those three, Bartlet, Josh, and Abbott, are the only people mentioned as being hit in the assault. Let's look back at the final shot from What Kind Of Day Has It Been - there's a man in a light-colored suit lying face down on the ground, obviously wounded. He wasn't the President, he wasn't Josh, he sure wasn't Stephanie Abbott - who was he, and why isn't anyone talking about him?)

Maybe that was actually Mandy? Something to think about ...

Back to wrap up the flashbacks - we see the excitement and celebration of the campaign at their Chicago hotel, when the TV networks call the Illinois primary for Bartlet, making him the presumptive nominee. We are all brought crashing back to earth, though, when Donna tells Josh that his father has died. Josh's dad had been undergoing chemotherapy for cancer (a point mentioned in passing between Josh and Leo in Part I), but it turns out a pulmonary embolism was unexpectedly fatal on this day.

Which brings us to the airport scene, a real turning point for Bartlet and his relationship with Josh and the rest of the staff. This scene is set up wonderfully - Josh is sitting alone in the terminal, waiting for his flight to be called, when several men in dark suits talking into their sleeves filter in and stand around him. It takes a minute for Josh to realize what's happening, as well as the audience - now that Bartlet is the frontrunner for the nomination, he's receiving Secret Service protection, and he has made his way from downtown Chicago out to O'Hare Airport to comfort Josh.

Here's where Jed becomes the replacement father figure for Josh. As Josh tries to convince Bartlet to go back and deliver his victory speech, Jed is satisfied sitting there in the terminal, keeping Josh company, even offering to buy a ticket himself and fly to New York with him. And Bartlet admits he knows how poorly he's acted around his staff, and asserts he'll try to make things right:

Jed: "I was a jackass to you, Josh."

Josh: "Well -"

Jed: "To everybody. Toby Ziegler, CJ Cregg, Sam Seaborn."

Josh: "Yeah."

Jed: "Don't think I don't know what you gave up to work for this campaign, and don't think I don't know your value. And I'll never make you think I don't again."

(pause)

Jed: "You gotta be a little impressed I got those names right just now."

(Martin Sheen was famously known for not remembering names, and Aaron Sorkin made that a Jed Bartlet trait, too.)

And with that, Jed says to Leo, "I'm ready," ready to really step into the role of Presidential candidate and leader of the campaign. A nice moment, well done by writer and actors.

This two-part start to Season 2 is certainly one of the high points of the series. It gives us the backstory of how these people came together, how they joined forces to help Jed Bartlet get elected, and how their personalities and strengths meshed together to create a real team. The present-day scenes continue to grow the Charlie-Zoey relationship and how it affects those around them, the integrity of the administration (for both Toby, ready to take the blame for not having cover at Rosslyn, and Ron Butterfield, for saying there's no blame to be taken), and the deep personal connections these people have, especially for Josh in this instance. It all wraps up with a whispered "What's next?" from Josh to the President - he's ready to move on to the next thing.


Tales Of Interest!

- We saw in Part I that Leo and Josh's father were friends, and that Sam and Josh knew each other previously. Here we find out that Toby and CJ also knew each other prior to the campaign. We also discover Sam had been a congressional aide at some point before joining Gage Whitney, which shows his interest in politics.

- Roger Becker, the movie studio chief who gets CJ fired, runs the Atlantis movie studio. Sorkin used that name again later, with Atlantis World Media being the owner of Atlantic Cable News in his HBO series The Newsroom.

- Speaking of Allen Garfield, who played Roger Becker, in the DVD commentary it's mentioned the clothes he's wearing are the actor's own, and not supplied by the wardrobe department.

- In the background of the scene at Manchester campaign headquarters, there's a white board with some campaign slogans written on it. This is a direct copy of a sign James Carville had hanging in Bill Clinton's campaign headquarters in 1991-1992 - "Change vs More Of The Same;" "The Economy Stupid;" and "Don't Forget Health Care."

- Sam's office has been remodeled. I looked back to What Kind Of Day Has It Been hoping to find a continuity error, with Sam's old office setup (with the shelves built up on the wall behind his desk) being shown there on Monday and this new setup depicted on the following day, but we don't actually get a good look into Sam's office for several episodes prior to the end of Season 1. So that remodel could have been done prior to the trip to Rosslyn. Anyway, look - there were windows back there behind that shelf unit, and now they're opened up:

The studio actually rebuilt some of the White House set between season 1 and 2; while in Season 1 the set was split between two stages in different buildings, from Season 2 onward the entire White House set was built all together and connected on one stage. This change to Sam's office might have been part of that.

- While Allison Janney won a Supporting Actress Emmy in part for her work for Part I, Brad Whitford won a Supporting Actor Emmy for Part II (and, perhaps mostly, his later performance in Noel.) Thomas Schlamme won the Directing Emmy for both parts of this season opener, while Sorkin was nominated for writing both parts.


Quotes    

CJ: "At this time we cannot, we are not, releasing any information whatsoever about the suspect."

Reporter Steve: "CJ - can you tell us anything, his name, where he's from, ethnicity - if you guys suspect a motive -"

CJ: "Yes, Steve, I can tell you all those things because when I said we weren't releasing any information whatsoever I meant except his name, his address, his ethnicity, and what we think the motive was." 

----- 

Toby: "I tried calling you at your office, they said you were fired. Were you caught stealing things?"

CJ: "Roger Becker dropped from third most powerful person in Hollywood to ninth most power person in Hollywood."

Toby: "Does he still make the playoffs or is the cutoff line -" 

-----

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

• Isobel, CJ's boss at the PR agency, is played by Grace Zabriskie (Twin Peaks, Seinfeld, Big Love).

• Roger Becker, the movie studio head, is played by Allen Garfield in his own clothes (Nashville, Beverly Hills Cop II, Chicago Hope).

• Remember back in 20 Hours In L.A., when both CJ and Sam were being offered movie development deals and neither one knew what they were? Now we find out CJ used to work at a Hollywood PR firm working with TV and movie studios. You'd think she'd know what a development deal is, but Sorkin tried to lampshade it a bit with her line to Isobel, "Take me off film and television, I don't know anything about it anyway."

• In The Short List Josh tells Danny CJ loves goldfish (meaning Goldfish crackers), which results in Danny buying CJ an actual goldfish (good old Gail!). Here, when CJ has been fired and is bringing her office stuff back to her house, you can see a package of Goldfish crackers in the box:

• In The Crackpots And These Women CJ mentions being pushed into a pool by Roberto Begnini while at a fundraiser at movie producer Larry Posner's house. I guess CJ has a thing for falling into swimming pools, even at her own house (and another wonderful Allison Janney pratfall):

• Okay, where was Mandy? All we heard through Season 1 was about how much she helped the campaign, and how much they all owed her for her 1 1/2 years (or 2 1/2 years, depending on who you listened to) working with the campaign (Sam expressly said he owed her more than he could repay). So you'd think, in campaign flashbacks, she might be involved somewhere? The Illinois primary, for example, was a big moment with the entire staff in that hotel suite. Not to mention, Josh's dad dies - Josh and Mandy were still dating in March 1998 when the Illinois primary would have happened, with it stated clearly in Five Votes Down that they broke up July 9; wouldn't she be right at his side comforting him? (All right, Moira Kelly was off the show, her character basically erased from history, I understand that ... but continuity, man!)

• Speaking of Five Votes Down, CJ's swerve in the final press briefing to all the other gun crimes that happened the same night Josh and the President were shot is a pretty strong call for gun control. Five Votes Down was all about the administration trying to get a (somewhat watered down) gun control bill through Congress.

• WHAT'S NEXT MOMENT - This is where it really becomes iconic, in both parts of the season opener. If you remember the last line of Pilot was President Bartlet saying to Mrs. Landingham, "What's next?" Now Sorkin has determined that phrase will be a calling card for the President. Here he cuts off CJ's lessons-learned discussion of missing a media interview with "I blew it. What's next?" and then a biting "What's. Next." when she tries to drive the point home. Of course then there's Jed's grouchy explanation to Josh (mentioned above), which leads directly to Josh's whispered "What's next?" to the President at the end of the episode.

DC location shots    

• The teaser scene, with the arrest of the skinhead Carl Leroy, was filmed at the actual Dixie Pig BBQ diner in Alexandria, Virginia.

The restaurant still exists, although it's now a Greek eatery called Vaso's Mediterranean Bistro (or "Vaso's Kitchen," according to the sign over the front). The Dixie Pig neon sign is still on the roof.

• Toby and Ron Butterfield have their conversation about the Secret Service and comments on security issues in a park across from the Ronald Reagan Institute of Emergency Medicine, part of George Washington University Hospital.

It's the real thing: References to real people and stuff    

• With the NBC network realizing they have their own 24-hour cable news channel that they could use in this fictional world, we get another view of MSNBC covering a CJ press briefing:

• Sam, in his exhortation for the shipping company to buy better ships, mentions the oil companies Exxon and Chevron, as well as these oil tankers involved in spills: the Amoco Cadiz, the Braer, the Exxon Valdez, the Aegean Sea, and the Argo Merchant.

• Josh uses a Verizon telephone booth when he's trying to remember where Sam works:

The odd thing here is that Verizon didn't exist yet in 1997, which is when this phone call would have taken place.

• We see a copy of Entertainment Weekly magazine on Isobel's desk.

• The Golden Globes and Premiere magazine are mentioned (I used to subscribe to dear, departed Premiere magazine - loved it).

• CJ mentions the failure of New Coke; this is an inside dig at co-producer Patrick Caddell, who was actually involved in the marketing plan for New Coke.

• CJ at various times mentions the movies The Maltese Falcon and High Noon.

• CJ talks about her work with EMILY's List (Early Money Is Like Yeast, it helps raise the dough ... I get it, says Toby repeatedly).

• Vending machines in the Manchester campaign headquarters show M&Ms, Minute Maid juices, and Coca-Cola:

• Sam brings up the TV series I Dream Of Jeannie when he thinks CJ might have to bring him coconut oil and hot towels in exchange for saving her life.

• Leo is drinking Pepsi at the Chicago hotel the night of the Illinois primary:

• Music references in this episode include "Don't Pull Your Love" by Hamilton, Joe Frank & Reynolds, playing at the Dixie Pig; "Celebration" by Kool & the Gang, played when Bartlet's Illinois victory is called by the networks; and the Doobie Brothers, a group Josh would rather hear instead of Kool & the Gang. 

End credits freeze frame: The final scene with the President and Leo at Josh's bedside.

In The Shadow of Two Gunmen, Part I - TWW S2E1

Original airdate: October 4, 2000

Written by: Aaron Sorkin (22)

Directed by: Thomas Schlamme (6)

Synopsis

• Season 2 starts where Season 1's cliffhanger ended, with the presidential motorcade speeding away from the chaos of the Rosslyn shooting. We discover both President Bartlet and Josh have been shot, one much more seriously than the other. While emergency room medical personnel work to save their lives, staff members think back three years to the beginnings of Jed's presidential campaign and how they came together.

"Look what happened."

I've said it before and I'll stand by my opinion - Season 2 of The West Wing ranks as one of the best, most well-crafted, and consistently excellent seasons of any television series anywhere. And it starts with another terrific Aaron Sorkin script, a two-part episode showing us the outcome of the Season 1 cliffhanger shooting while also flashing back to the beginnings of how Bartlet's staff came together. (Much like season-ending cliffhangers, two-part season premieres sort of became a thing for Sorkin and The West Wing.)

We're thrown right into the situation from the season finale, with the Presidential motorcade speeding across the Arlington Memorial Bridge away from Rosslyn. President Bartlet and Ron Butterfield (the incredibly awesome Michael O'Neill) have a back-and-forth about the whereabouts of Zoey and the condition of Ron's hand that feels real and true, the exact kind of frantic conversation that could take place in the aftermath of an assassination attempt - until Butterfield notices blood coming from the President's mouth and finds more blood underneath his jacket. Instantly the audience starts with the knowledge that this is the big reveal from last season's cliffhanger, that the President has been shot and is in danger.

Then we're taken back to Rosslyn (remember, the production had to set up again at the same location as the previous year to shoot these scenes, since when What Kind Of Day Has It Been was filmed Sorkin didn't know who was going to end up shot at the end of the night). We see CJ being treated for a bump on the head, Sam, Charlie, and Toby, who is searching for Josh. He finds him, all right - shot in the chest and bleeding out on the walkway. Sorkin has faked us out, and we have two gunshot victims to worry about.

The story of the night, the rushing of the President and Josh to the emergency room, the Bartlet family and staff making their way to the hospital, the two undergoing surgery - that's the current running plotline that takes us through the episode. Adding to the chaos of that storyline is unusual troop movement in Iraq that might require an American response, but there's uncertainty about exactly who is in charge and the failure to draw on the 25th Amendment provisions for handing over presidential power. Adding to the story of the night's events, and more importantly to the series, we see through flashbacks the beginnings of how we got here, how Jed Bartlet and Leo McGarry put together a staff that built a successful campaign ending with Bartlet in the White House.

That's the real meat of the episode, of both episodes, really. We get to see the characters we got to know over the first season in a new light, at the outset of the Bartlet story: Josh, working with Hoynes on his presidential campaign, but not fully convinced this is the "real thing"; Sam, about to make partner at a top law firm, where his biggest (and unfulfilling) priority is creating oil tanker liability barriers to protect oil companies; and Toby, certain he's about to be canned for his failure to get the Bartlet campaign to catch fire. Not to mention a Bartlet making uninspired speeches to a VFW hall full of half-interested New Hampshire residents.

Josh tries to get Hoynes to get out in front of big issues (saving Social Security, to be exact) but ends up getting shot down for base, electoral-politics reasons. Leo shows up asking Josh to go to New Hampshire later that week to hear Jed Bartlet speak. He asks as an old friend of Josh's father, but Leo always knows - he knows Josh isn't satisfied with the Hoynes campaign, and he knows Josh is a top-notch asset for any candidate. Their discussion winds up with what is actually a pretty good slam on the 1988 Michael Dukakis campaign (which didn't actually happen in The West Wing universe, but we get who Josh is referring to):

Josh: "The Democrats aren't gonna nominate another liberal academic former governor from New England. I mean, we're dumb, but we're not that dumb."

Leo."Nah. I think we're exactly that dumb."

On the way north Josh stops in Manhattan to track down Sam, who's working at the second-biggest law firm in New York protecting oil companies from liability on their semi-seaworthy tankers. It turns out these two guys are old friends as well, and Josh has been trying to get Sam to join him on Hoynes' campaign as a speechwriter. Sam, though, is a week away from making partner and has wedding plans for the following year, but it turns out his biggest obstacle is the fact Josh isn't really all-in for Hoynes. Could this Bartlet fellow be the one?:

Josh: "If I see the real thing in Nashua - should I tell you about it?"

Sam: "You won't have to."

Josh: "Why?"

Sam: "You got a pretty bad poker face."

SPOILER ALERT: Sam gets to see Josh's bad poker face in the next episode, but you already figured that out.

Meanwhile, in Nashua Toby is day-drinking at a bar because he knows he's about to be fired. The Bartlet campaign isn't doing much, some 48 points behind Hoynes in polling for the Democratic nomination, and the campaign staff that's been working for Bartlet over the years isn't too happy with his work (as he tells a woman at the bar, even though he's very good at being a professional political operative that's run campaigns for city council, two congressional runs, a Senate campaign, a gubernatorial run and a national campaign, he's never had one of his candidates actually win). The biggest sticking point is Bartlet's vote against a bill while he was in Congress that would have increased prices paid to New England dairy farmers. The old staff want Jed to obfuscate and backtrack to placate the New Hampshire voters, while Toby (and Leo) just want him to tell the truth:

Cal: "Do you enjoy losing?"

Toby: "Not that much, no, but then again I don't actually have a lot to compare it to, so ..."

When Jed is asked the question, he pauses, then lets it all hang out:

Jed: "Yeeahup. I screwed you on that one."

Farmer: "I'm sorry?"

Jed: "I screwed you, you got hosed. [...he goes on to make some points about growing childhood poverty...] Let me put it this way - I voted against the bill cause I didn't want to make it hard for people to buy milk. I stopped some money from flowing into your pocket. If that angers you, if you resent me, I completely respect that. But if you expect different from the President of the United States, you should vote for someone else."

Which finally causes Josh to turn his attention away from the crossword puzzle (right at the moment "I screwed you on that one").

And causes the Bartlet campaign staff to direct even more ire at Toby, until Leo unexpectedly turns the tables and gives it all to Toby:

Leo: "Jerry, Cal, Mac, Steve - you're fired."

Cal: "What?"

Toby: "What?"

Leo: "Don't screw up."

(This picture doesn't fully depict Toby's surprised reaction. Boy, Richard Schiff is outstanding in this episode.)

And the flashback part of the episode draws to a close on the streets of Nashua, with Jed railing against Leo for firing all "his people" and Leo maintaining it's time to build their own team:

Jed: "You know, I got elected to Congress by this state, this state sent me to Congress three times and then elected me Governor, all without your help. Don't start!"

Leo: "No, seriously, that's, that's a real political accomplishment considering your family founded this state."

Jed: "Hey -"

Leo: "Were you even opposed in any of those elections?"

Leo then finishes the conversation off by challenging Jed to be the best candidate, the best man for the job that he can be:

Leo: "They say a good man can't get elected President. I don't believe that. Do you? [...] This is the time of Jed Bartlet, my old friend. You're going to open your mouth and lift houses off the ground. Whole houses, clear off the ground."

Back in the current course of events, the President's wound turns out to be minor and quickly dealt with, but not without Abbey informing the anesthesiologist that he's now the 15th person to know about Jed's MS - and that's a topic that's going to hang over this entire season. However, during the procedure, steps were never taken to actually transfer presidential power to the Vice President; and when a Situation Room meeting is required to address Iraqi troop movement, the question of who can order a change in defense levels is an open one. And that's a topic that ties into the previous one.

Josh, meanwhile, is in much worse condition, with a collapsed lung and a damaged pulmonary artery, requiring a 12- to 14-hour surgery. The entire situation has the staff out of sorts and staggering through the night - poor Donna, racing to the hospital to happily learn the President is going to be fine, only to then get the news of Josh's condition:

(The confusion and emotion of the exchange between Toby and Donna - "Donna, Josh was hit." "Hit with what?" - is so well written and well acted. Great scene.)

Let me quickly mention Gina Toscano and her frustration at being unable to remember all the details about the accomplice on the ground. Jorja Fox did a wonderful job of bringing Gina's professionalism and her subdued anger at herself into play - even the fact that her spotting the shooters initially probably saved lives, when she couldn't remember exactly what the accomplice's ball cap looked like, she felt like she had failed in her duty. Speaking of Gina, take a look at the incredible take from 2:03 to 3:25 in the teaser - it's just a minute and twenty seconds, you might say, but it's a single take with a Steadicam moving from CJ and a medic, to CJ looking at a shot-out car window, then talking to Sam, to Gina bursting past them to talk to another Secret Service agent, all with extras moving through the background and foreground and lights shining ... it's an incredible logistical feat, while not quite the long unbroken shot through the hotel from Five Votes Down, still damn impressive.

Before we wrap up the episode, a shout-out to the debut of National Security Advisor Nancy McNally, played by the wonderful Anna Deavere Smith. Nancy is going to be around throughout the rest of the series, and you won't find a more badass take-no-prisoners adviser than she.

Interestingly enough, Smith had roles in the White House-set movies Dave and Sorkin's own The American President prior to being cast in The West Wing. She also got to deliver this line in this episode (real-life foreshadowing):

Nancy: "It's worth mentioning that at this moment we do not know the whereabouts of about a half dozen cell leaders, including Bin Laden."

That's the only mention of Osama bin Laden in The West Wing, in a world in which 9/11 never happened, but this mention comes almost a full year before the actual attack.

Part I of this two-parter draws to a close with the President and Leo looking through a window as the doctors operate on Josh, his life in the balance, while in the flashback sequences an unsettled Jed has put his trust in Leo to put together a staff to help him win the White House. Will Part II bring us closure on any of this? As Toby might say: "I'm just guessing - I'm pretty drunk."


Tales Of Interest!

- Continuity between scenes - things like costumes, hair, props - are tough enough while shooting one episode. When the production staff had to go back to Rosslyn to recreate the scene from What Kind Of Day Has It Been several months later, that must have been a continuity nightmare.

First of all, here's the landscaping from the end of Season 1, with yellow flowers along the walkway (Ron Butterfield, on the right, is right next to the spot where Josh is discovered after being shot):

And here's the exact same area when they filmed this episode. You'll notice the flowers are now red:

Sam and CJ appear to have gotten their hair cut and styled sometime during the assassination attempt.
Here they are from the end of Season 1:

And now in this episode (Sam seems to have changed the side he parts his hair on):

- The credits for Season 2 have changed somewhat. Janel Moloney is now added to the starring cast (yay, Donna!), while Moira Kelly has disappeared (the last we saw of Mandy was her walking down the hallway after talking the President into taking his jacket off during the town hall prep meeting). There's also some different shots mixed in, including a new headshot of Allison Janney, and the removal of the photo with the entire staff (including Mandy) talking with the President in the Oval Office. Rob Lowe remains first credited, with Hill, Janney, Moloney, Schiff, Spencer, and Whitford following in alphabetical order, ending with "and Martin Sheen."

- The basic elements of President Bartlet's shooting storyline were drawn directly from the assassination attempt on President Reagan in 1981. In both cases the wounds to the President were not discovered until he was in the limousine being driven away from the shooting; both men joked with medical personnel in the emergency room; both were treated at George Washington University Hospital; and in both cases, a staffer was wounded more seriously than the President (press secretary James Brady in Reagan's shooting). Also the question of who actually held presidential powers while Reagan was in surgery (remember Secretary of State Alexander Haig saying "I am in control here"?) is reflected a bit with the 25th Amendment discussion.

- Let's talk about the 25th Amendment storyline and what they got right and what they weren't clear on. While McNally's statement about the Constitution saying the presidency only automatically devolves to the Vice President if the President dies is accurate, it's not the full story. The amendment also offers a provision for the Cabinet to make the determination of transferring presidential powers, and when Jed tells Leo to assemble the Cabinet before he goes into surgery, that provision could certainly have come into play. (Modern-day angle: the current Cabinet, if it saw fit, could absolutely make the decision to remove presidential powers from Donald Trump and transfer them to Vice President Pence. One wonders exactly what it would take for that to happen.)

So the administration's hands aren't tied, as it seems in this episode, to having presidential powers held solely by a man who is under anesthesia and can't actually exercise them (you know, God forbid someone launches an attack on the United States at the exact same time. Who is the Commander-in-Chief? Who can order a missile launch?). In fact, there's a deleted scene where Leo talks to Danny and expressly tells him they did not want to actually invoke the 25th Amendment provisions. You wonder why that is.

(Also McNally's mention of the 1947 Defense Act and the powers granted to the Secretary of Defense isn't accurate, as that act was superseded by a law passed in 1962. The mention serves only to set up Toby's quite sarcastic line "Of course it wouldn't, cause that's an area of federal law where you'd want to have as much ambiguity as possible.")

- When Josh is pulled out of the ambulance at the hospital, it's a neat overhead shot - but it also shows him being taken out head-first. Which would mean he was loaded in the ambulance feet-first. That's never how it is actually done.

- Let's talk timelines. As this episode picks up right where Season 1 ended, it's still the Monday night in May (and eventually Tuesday morning) of the MSNBC town hall meeting. The flashbacks are described as "three years" ago - Hoynes mentions that it's 13 weeks until the New Hampshire primary, and Leo gripes to Jed about how cold it is in October. So we're looking at October 1997, about a year before the presidential election.

- Some Internet sites say there's a goof or error in the scene with Hoynes talking to Josh, as you can see a Tennessee flag behind Hoynes even though he's clearly a Senator from Texas. To me it's obvious that conversation isn't being held in Hoynes' office, but in a hallway of the Senate office building. A different state flag (I think it's Iowa's) can be seen behind Josh. It's not an error of having a Tennessee flag in Hoynes' office, it's a conversation held in the hallway outside the office of a Tennessee Senator.

- In Pilot Sam mentioned he worked at Dewey Ballantine out of law school, which was a real-life law firm. Now that his job involved creating liability shields for oil tankers, Sorkin decided he needed to work for a fictional firm, and created Gage Whitney Pace. Ever the kind of writer to not let a good idea be wasted, Gage Whitney Pace also popped up on Sorkin's 2006 series Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip and appeared on a computer screen in the background of his 2017 movie Molly's Game. The firm also was mentioned in the series 24 and Rob Lowe's series Lyon's Den.

- I really think the transitions between current time and flashback time were well done by Sorkin and Tommy Schlamme: When Josh is wheeled into the ER, he's deliriously babbling about a meeting and going to New Hampshire, which transitions (via the bright overhead light morphing into a chandelier) into Josh meeting with Hoynes' campaign staff; Sam bumps into a woman on the sidewalk after talking to Josh in New York, which immediately transitions into Sam bumping into a nurse in the ER waiting room, throwing us right back into the present; Toby thinks he hears Ginger say something after consoling her, but he's remembering the bartender at Hank's Tavern ask him if he wants another drink.

- A neat little moment illustrating the confusion about who's in charge: when Hoynes comes into the Situation Room, several of the military officers have to be reminded to stand. Then Hoynes pointedly avoids sitting in the President's chair at the head of the table, taking the one next to it.

- Allison Janney's performance at the press conference was perfectly off-kilter, confused, and adrift, exactly what you might expect from someone who had just been through such a traumatic experience. This episode was one submitted by Janney that earned her a second best supporting actress Emmy. Tommy Schlamme also won an Emmy for directing this episode, while John Spencer (supporting actor) and Sorkin (writing) were nominated for Emmys based on this episode.



Quotes    

Nurse: "I need to ask you some questions, sir. Do you have any medical conditions?"

President: "Well ... I've been shot." 

-----

Leo: "Jack? What's the best way to get a message to Iraq?"

General: "King of Jordan."

Leo: "Okay."

Advisor: "What do you want the message to be?"

Leo: "Don't mess with us tonight." 

-----

Reporter: "CJ, can you tell us why the AP knows more than you do?"

CJ: "I don't believe they do know more than I do, I just believe they're willing to tell you more than I am." 

-----

Woman at bar: "I'm gonna tell ya, I didn't even know Bartlet was running."

Toby: "Yeah, we keep that secret pretty good." 

-----

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

• The big cheese at Gage Whitney Pace, Jack Gage, is played by Peter White (longtime TV character actor, recurring on The Colbys, Dallas, and Sisters, among many others).

• The Air Force general in the Situation Room is played by Daniel von Bargen (Malcolm In The Middle, Seinfeld).

• And look, there's Jane Lynch (Glee, Best In Show, Two And A Half Men, many others) as a reporter yelling questions at CJ! We'll see her again at the end of the season.

• Check this out - I didn't know this until watching the DVD commentary with Sorkin, Schlamme, Whitford and Moloney - one of the Secret Service agents assigned to Abbey is Olympic sprinter and former NFL wide receiver Willie Gault. Seriously! It's true! He actually started his acting career in the early 1990s, and had a recurring role on The Pretender from 1997 through 2000.

• Some threads that are just for Part II: CJ's constant referral to "somebody pulled me down" will come to a nattily-coiffed head; Josh's mention of his dad being sick plays a big part in the next episode; and the press question about why a tent or canopy wasn't used at Rosslyn will get answered.

• Abbey tells the anesthesiologist that 14 people know about the President's MS. We can assume family members (although that exact number is unknown), and she mentions the Vice President, Leo, and Fitzwallis. We might also assume his personal physician is included, named as Admiral Jarvis in CJ's press conference. So Hoynes, Leo, Fitz, the doctor, Abbey, Zoey, that's six. We'll find out there are two other Bartlet daughters, so that makes eight. So there are six others in on the secret that we don't know about yet (perhaps a son-in-law or other relatives?). And we're not counting Jed - that's made clear later in 17 People.

• Okay, the well-traveled newsman played by Ivan Allen is back. We first saw him as an unnamed anchor for cable news station CND in A Proportional Response :

He then apparently moved to local TV, working under the name Roger Salier at the fictional "Channel 5" in The White House Pro-Am :

Here he is again as Roger Salier, and he's apparently moved across town to the very real Channel 4 (WRC-TV in Washington, DC, owned and operated by NBC):

• When Hoynes leaves the campaign staff meeting, pulling Josh out, he tells the rest to work on the ethanol tax credit. We learned in 20 Hours In L.A. that Hoynes had worked to defeat that credit.

• We learn background information that Leo is an old friend of Josh's dad, and Josh and Sam have known each other for a while.

• In the flashback Sam is engaged to Lisa, with the marriage set for next September. We might see Lisa in the future.

• WHAT'S NEXT MOMENT - We hear Jed using the term three times in his testy meeting with staff after his VFW hall speech (finishing with "What's next? Nothing? Excellent." before stalking off). Leo then jumps right in to say, "Okay, what's next?"

DC location shots    

• Back in Rosslyn at the Newseum site, including a shot outside the segment of the Berlin Wall the Newseum has (still on display at its Pennsylvania Avenue location)

• The Arlington Memorial Bridge shows up twice, in the opening shot of the Presidential motorcade and again in the ending montage with police searching vehicles:

• Leo and Josh talk outside the Capitol building.

• I believe the show actually shot outside the George Washington University Hospital emergency room. I know scenes in Part II were filmed outside the hospital, so it's likely this was actually at GW:

References to real people    

• George Washington University Hospital is, of course, named after our first President.

• Josh mentions the Walt Disney Corporation (actually The Walt Disney Company) and remodeling the rides at Epcot.

• For a pop-culture reference, a nurse mentions how a worried pregnant woman will soon feel her baby doing the Macarena. That dance became a sensation after the song was the number one Billboard hit of 1996.

End credits freeze frame: Aerial shot of the President's motorcade crossing the Arlington Memorial Bridge,with the Lincoln Memorial in the background (in the DVD commentary Schlamme tells Bradley Whitford that this took three takes).