Ellie - TWW S2E15

Original airdate: February 21, 2001

Teleplay by: Aaron Sorkin (36)
Story by: Kevin Falls (3) & Laura Glasser (2)

Directed by: Michael Engler (1)

Synopsis

• After the Surgeon General makes some controversial remarks about marijuana, the President's strained relationship with his middle daughter is laid bare when she expresses her public support for the doctor. Sam deals with a movie producer trying to drum up publicity at the White House's expense. Toby resorts to subterfuge in his battle to jump-start the blue-ribbon commission on entitlements.

"The only thing you ever had to do to make me happy, was come home at the end of the day."

Presidents are more than Leaders of the Free World, Commanders in Chief, and the most powerful person in their political party. They're also husbands, fathers, brothers, and uncles (and yes, someday soon, wives and mothers and sisters and aunts). It's easy to forget that, particularly watching an episodic series dealing with big-picture political life in the White House, but Aaron Sorkin turns Ellie into a tight little family-relationship drama that re-centers the way we might think about Jed Bartlet.

We've known since Pilot that the Bartlets have at least one daughter, Elizabeth, and that she has a daughter as well (making Jed and Abbey grandparents). In The Crackpots And These Women we met Zoey, preparing to start her freshman year at Georgetown University and soon to start dating Charlie. Now the third (and last, since Jed calls her the middle daughter) daughter is revealed ... Eleanor, or Ellie, a medical student at Johns Hopkins who, we discover, has somewhat of a fraught relationship with the President-dad. I gotta admit, as a father myself (including a daughter as well as a son) this story line hit me right in the feels. There's always an emotional minefield parents and children have to maneuver, and it often gets more complicated as the kids grow up. It's easy for a parent to stay rooted in the same familiar pathways they're used to, even when a child might have moved away from that pathway and wants the parent to adjust, too.

Let's start at the beginning. The Surgeon General, Dr. Millie Griffith, is holding an online chat discussing various medical issues with anyone who wants to send an electronic question. When the topic of legalizing marijuana comes up, Dr. Griffith outlines the facts about the drug, essentially pointing out that in many ways marijuana is less harmful than tobacco or alcohol. This sets off alarms in the White House, as the basic political stance of pretty much everyone in the late 1990s-early 2000s was a strong "No" to legalization, as part of the overall War On Drugs that had been ongoing since the Reagan administration. The next step is clear: the Surgeon General has to go, by resignation or firing.

That step is delayed slightly because the President is out of the country, returning from a trip to Japan - and that's where Ellie steps in. She's studying medicine at Johns Hopkins, following in the footsteps of her mother, and she knows the facts outlined by Dr. Graham are correct. She knows that politically restricting medical and scientific truth isn't the right thing to do. She's also very close to the Surgeon General, given that Millie is Ellie's godmother. On her own accord, and knowingly taking the legs out from under the administration, Ellie calls a reporter (Danny Concannon, to be precise) and gives him the quote, "My father won't fire the Surgeon General. He would never do that."

When the President returns to the White House, he is understandably furious (although first believing Danny called Ellie, in violation of the rules the President gave to the press about his children). He calls Ellie into the Oval Office, resulting in one of the most uncomfortable father-daughter meetings we might ever see. Jed makes some passive-aggressive digs at his daughter for her failure to come visit (boy, is that a typical parental discussion), shouts at her for lowering her head and hiding her face behind her hair, and sarcastically calls her out for not clearing her interview with the White House in advance. And then ... we get to the meat of the situation:

Jed: "There is politics involved in this, Ellie. And you knew this would make me unhappy and that's why you did it and that's cheap."

Ellie: "I didn't do it to make you unhappy, Dad."

Jed: "Well, you sure didn't do it to make me happy!"

Ellie: "I don't know how to make you happy, Dad! For that, you've got to talk to Zoey or Liz."

 Ouch.

The President is thrown by that. He knows he's been short with Ellie - he was pretty mad about her going to the press and taking his legs out from under him - but he also knows deep down that they haven't gotten along very well lately, and that's at least partly his fault. He can hardly look at her when he invites her to stay the night and watch a movie:

Ellie: "I can stay over if you want me to."

Jed (looking at some papers on his desk): "Yeah. Thanks."

And then we get the point that Ellie doesn't feel she belongs in this part of her Dad's world. She doesn't even know how to exit the Oval Office:

Ellie: "I go out ...?"

Jed (pointing): "That door over there."

 There is a lot to unpack there.

And unpacking we get, late in the episode, when Dr. Griffith comes to the White House to finally offer her resignation. She had first refused, saying the President would have to fire her, but at last came around to the conclusion that her resignation was the only proper political path. Jed takes the opportunity to do a little family counseling with Ellie's godmother:

Millie: "You've been the king of whatever room you walked into her entire life."

Jed: "It never seemed to intimidate Zoey or Liz."

Millie: "Well, kids are different, they're not the same. You would be amazed, you'd be stunned at how soon they understand they're not their father's favorite."

Jed goes off at this remark - "I will not stand and allow someone to tell me that I love one of my children less than the others" - but a bit of reflection goes a long way. Along with a callback to Shakespeare:

Jed: "I wanted to be so mad at her. I heard the news and my first thought was ... (beat) My God, King Lear is a good play. 'My father won't fire the Surgeon General, he would never do that.' I wanted to be so mad at her. But the truth is, it's the nicest thing she ever said about me."

The President refuses to take Dr. Griffith's resignation, he keeps her in his post, and he returns to the movie room to at least start to make things right with Ellie:

Jed: "The only thing you ever had to do to make me happy, was come home at the end of the day."

He follows that up with some dad jokes about confusing various medical specialties, which never succeeds in making Ellie laugh, but does bring them a bit closer together for the moment.

On the political side of things, Toby is trying to put together the blue-ribbon commission to examine entitlement programs that was touted in Bartlet's Third State Of The Union. He's getting an enormous amount of pushback, particularly from labor and the liberal wing - while the administration wants to have all options on the table to ensure the future of Social Security and Medicare ...:

Man in Roosevelt Room meeting: "If current economic conditions continue - "

Toby: "Forever? You mean if we never have another recession ever again? Then the fund can withstand all of 30 years without going bankrupt. Unfortunately, the actuarial tables say I won't be dead yet."

 ... the liberals demand North Dakota Democratic firebrand Seth Gillette (who threatened a third-party run against President Bartlet in The War At Home) be put on the commission. Toby would personally love that, but he fears if he's asked, Gillette will turn down the offer so that he can criticize its conclusions. And if the White House asks Gillette and he says no, the commission instantly becomes ineffective and makes the administration look weak.

So Toby calls on his ex-wife, Congresswoman Andy Wyatt (previously seen in Mandatory Minimums), to enlist her help in the situation.

She, being a part of that liberal wing somewhat suspicious of the administration's motives, says she won't help with Gillette. Toby really digs in, with what I think is a great justification of his reasons for building the panel his way:

Andy: "Why does this have to happen in secret?"

Toby: "Because it's the only way it's going to happen! Because you can't solve Social Security and ask people to run for election at the same time! So why not give politicians some cloud cover and let them be lawmakers for a while? Fifteen people in a room with the door closed; seven Democrats, seven Republicans, and the President of the United States, who will not have a vote, and they walk out of that room and with one voice they make a recommendation to Congress and the American people. And nobody knows who was where."

They end up getting nowhere, but ... on the way out of Toby's office, the two have a conversation about Toby discovering (by reading the newspaper) he'd been put on the benefit committee of the Childhood Leukemia Foundation:

Andy: "I guess they must have gotten it from that press release or something."

Toby: "I guess they must have. You don't think it'd be a better idea if you asked me first?"

Andy: "I really didn't."

Toby: "Interesting."

Andy: "I find that when I skip over the first step and move right to the second step, it becomes a lot harder for people to say no."

You practically see the light bulb go on over Toby's head as he stops stock-still after that line. He's discovered the path to get Gillette on the commission - simply announce the fact that he's agreed to be on it, without even asking him. When he tells CJ to make the announcement the next day, his reaction to her questioning is brilliant:

Toby: "Make sure they know that he's a patriot, and when the President asked him to serve, Senator Gillette answered the call."

CJ: "Did he?"

Toby: "Yeah. I just saw it at your press briefing tomorrow morning."

Which then leads CJ to threaten to quit for the third time in the episode.

There's one other storyline here, about a movie producer building up an imaginary fight with the White House. Morgan Ross has made a film called Prince of New York, and he sent a print of it to the White House for President Bartlet to watch. Charlie, in his role as assistant, viewed the movie first and decided it wasn't something the President would enjoy:

Charlie: "It's an updated version of Dostoevsky's The Idiot which tells the story of a Christ-like epileptic young man who embodies goodness, but encounters sex, crime, and family dysfunction."

Mrs. Landingham: "Hard to imagine why you didn't think the President would enjoy that, Charlie."

 When word of the refusal got back to Ross, he started a media campaign blasting the administration for censoring his movie, a campaign intended to stir up public interest (and as a side effect, bringing a full page ad from the Family Values Leadership Council congratulating the White House for denouncing the film. Which it did not).

Sam takes the lead on dousing that fire (over the objections of CJ, who wants to rev up her old Hollywood PR experience to make Ross cry), and does a nice job of it:

Sam: "Because it makes me crazy, Morgan, this is exactly the kind of thing that should be celebrated by First Amendment advocates. Charlie was offered a choice and he made one. Why aren't you standing up saying, 'See, it works! You don't need to ban movies like Prince of New York, you just have to choose not to watch them.'"

Which leads Toby to tell Sam "Good job" as he walks by his office, tossing one of his rubber balls to Sam behind his back:

 In essence, Ellie is a family-relationship-drama episode of The West Wing, which doesn't make it bad (not at all!), just different. While we've seen a lot of family relationship stuff in past episodes, it's generally about the family grown by the staff around the President. Ellie (and to a lesser extent, both Bartlet's Third State Of The Union and The War At Home) brings the Bartlet family dynamic to the fore, which gives us a deeper personal understanding of Jed and how his political life has had an impact on his family life. Even though political maneuverings and the day-to-day operations of the Bartlet administration continue to be the foundation of The West Wing, we'll be going down this path again in the future. Count on it.


Tales Of Interest!

- Here's the first time we see Toby smacking that pink rubber ball against the window between his office and Sam's. That's going to be an ongoing activity over the next several years. Those balls are called "Spaldeens" (a corruption of Spalding, the company that makes them) and have been used for decades by New York City children to play stickball and other games. Spalding stopped making these balls in 1979, but restarted production in 1999 (just over a year before this episode was filmed). Toby was definitely a child of New York City (we've heard of his Yankees fandom earlier, and here he's wearing a New York football Giants cap), so he's had lots of experience with the Spaldeen.

- If you listen to The West Wing Weekly podcast, hosted by Joshua Malina and Hrishikesh Hirway, they often refer to moments in The West Wing that pertain to the present-day Presidency as "Trump-ai-yi-yi" moments. Listening to President Bartlet talk to Charlie about tariffs on Japanese steel was absolutely one of those moments for me, particularly as the imposition of increased tariffs on Chinese goods was happening while I was rewatching the episode:

President: "They're begging for a protectionist response. Steel and mining employ a hundred and seventy thousand workers. They're not going to sit around while discount steel comes flying into - (waves to onlooker) How you doing? - They're going to want retaliatory tariffs, and you know what that means?"

Charlie: "A return to Smoot-Hawley and the Great Depression."

President: "A return to Smoot-Hawley and the Great Depression."

- Ed and Larry get to run a meeting! They're in charge of the meeting with Hollywood film producers, with the setting sun giving a glow to all things West Wing:

- Ah, yes, those days before YouTube and Facebook Live video streaming and Skype, when having an online chat - where you typed in questions for someone who then typed in a response for you and everyone logged on to see - was the pinnacle in technology. I can practically hear the modem dial-up sound right now, followed by the AOL voice saying, "Welcome! You've got mail!"

- President Bartlet's reference to King Lear cuts deep, considering the main story of the episode. Shakespeare's tragedy deals with a king who is dividing up his kingdom based on which of his three daughters love him the most, and the flattery of some (resulting in initial riches for them) and the simple truth of familial love from his favorite (angering the king and disinheriting her) results in madness and death, as in any good Shakespeare tragedy. Pretty deep and dark for Jed to bring up in comparison to his situation ...


Quotes    

Toby: "It will be 7 PM Thursday in Japan when he leaves."

Josh: "And he lands here when?"

Sam: "Okay, the flight is 13 hours long ..."

CJ: "This isn't happening ..."

Sam: "He's going to travel eastward from Tokyo, leaving at 7 PM, so when he crosses the International Date Line -"

Toby: "He will have traveled back in time to what?"

Sam: "Three AM."

CJ: "Which puts him down in Washington at 6 PM Thursday."

Josh: "He's going to land in Washington before he took off?"

Sam: "Yeah."

Josh: "And that's not a story that beats the Surgeon General?" 

-----

President: "I've got to hand it to you guys, you've pulled off a political first. You've managed to win me the support of the Christian Right and the Cheech and Chong Fan Club in the same day."

-----

Toby: "The first thing I have to do is be nice to a liberal Democratic congresswoman."

Sam: "Will that be hard?"

Toby: "Well, it was when I was married to her."

-----

Margaret: "Let me ask you this - red meat has been found to cause cancer in white rats. Maraschino cherries have been found to cause cancer in white rats. Cellular phones have been found to cause cancer in white rats. Has anyone examined the possibility that cancer might be hereditary in white rats?"

Dr. Griffith: "Let me tell you something, I'm not 100 percent sure we've ruled that out."

-----

President: "Tell CJ when she gives Millie our support on Monday, she can mean it."

Josh: "You know, it's going to seem to some people like you did it because your daughter asked you to."

President: "You know, Josh, I think if you ever have a daughter, you're going to discover there are worse reasons in the world to do something."

-----

Ellie: "Dad, people are trying to watch the movie."

Jed: "You want to bet me your tuition no one in this room is going to shush me?"

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

• Surgeon General Dr. Millicent Griffith is played by Mary Kay Place (The Big Chill, Big Love, Mary Hartman Mary Hartman).

• Ellie Bartlet is played by Nina Siemaszko (Airheads, The American President, More Tales Of The City).

• The film producer Morgan Ross is played by Robert Knepper (Heroes, Prison Break).

• Another callback to Josh's recovery from being shot (In The Shadow Of Two Gunmen) comes when Dr. Griffith inquires about how he's doing when he comes to ask for her resignation:

     Dr. Griffith: "How about your back?"

     Josh: "There's some pain."

     Dr. Griffith: "It's in your head."

     Josh (laughing): "Along with all manner of things." (a Noël callback!)

• Look, it's Nancy (played by Renee Estevez, Martin Sheen's daughter), getting a line as the President returns from his Japan trip. I suppose it's fitting Sheen's daughter gets to appear in this episode dealing with Jed's relationship with a Bartlet daughter:

• Danny Concannon gets mentioned (as being the reporter called by Ellie) but doesn't actually appear. Timothy Busfield hasn't been seen on the show since The Portland Trip eight episodes ago.

• I think CJ's reaction to Morgan Ross' shenanigans trying to whip up publicity for his movie at the expense of the White House directly relates to her previous job doing PR for movie producers in Hollywood, as seen in In The Shadow Of Two Gunmen Part II:

     CJ: "This guy's trying to get a little free media by screwing with us."

     Sam: "Look -"

     CJ: "I'm the enforcer, Sam. I'm going to crush him, I'm going to make him cry, and then I'm going to tell his momma about it."

     Sam: "You're not going to make him cry."

     CJ: "You want to watch me make him cry?"

     Sam: "I believe that you can make him cry, I'm saying you're not going to do it." 

DC location shots    

• None this episode.

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

• After Dr. Griffith mentions the Allman Brothers in her online chat, the band comes up again and again as the staff reacts to her comments. There's later references to Bob Marley and the Wailers, and Cheech and Chong (all in connection to the marijuana legalization plotline).

• CJ refers to the AP, the (New York) Times, the (Washington) Post, the Today show, and Tim Russert. We also see the C-SPAN logo on the TV when Josh is watching CJ's press conference before he talks to Dr. Griffith.

• We hear references to Tupperware, Pringles, and Twinkies as food items (yes, even the Tupperware).

• Morgan Ross, the film producer, called the President cowardly on Don Imus' radio show.

• Dostoevsky gets a shoutout (with his work The Idiot being the inspiration for Prince of New York). We also hear about Hitchcock and his film Dial M For Murder, including stars Ray Milland, Grace Kelly, Robert Cummings, and John Williams. President Bartlet also brings up King Lear (fittingly, as a study of a ruler's relationship with his three daughters).

• Ellie Bartlet is a medical school student at Johns Hopkins University.

• Product placement: There are at least three brands of water on the desk while the Surgeon General conducts her online chat - Fiji and Perrier bottles are clearly identifiable, while the other one may be San Pellegrino, I'm not positive (Dr. Griffith is also wearing a Stanford sweatshirt):

• We see a screenshot of Donna watching the Surgeon General's online chat. There are logos for MSN (Microsoft Network) and computer product makers Dell, HP, and APC:

• Toby wears a New York Giants cap (we see later it's made by Starter):

• Josh has a Starbucks cup on his desk (the name written on it appears to be "Show" - it's definitely not "Josh"):

• There are Goldfish crackers by the coffeepot near Donna's desk (remember when Josh confused Danny in Season 1 between CJ liking Goldfish the crackers or goldfish the fish):

• President Bartlet once again sports his Notre Dame sweatshirt while watching the movie:

End credits freeze frame: President Bartlet gazing out the window after his fight with Ellie.

Just For Fun - Hitting Some Locations In DC

I recently had the opportunity to visit Washington, DC, for a few days this spring. If you haven't been there, I highly recommend it - there's so much history, and art, and museums, and monuments. Many of the activities and attractions are free (including all the Smithsonian museums, including some real gems like the National Portrait Gallery and the National Gallery of Art), getting around is pretty easy (the Metro is a handy way to travel around DC, as well as the currently free DC Circulator bus - although there are some places that are tough to get to with public transit, like the Jefferson Memorial or Georgetown).

A key part of DC's history, at least for me and those of you who follow this blog, would be the locations used in filming episodes of The West Wing. I took a little time during my trip to visit some of those places we've seen in the first two seasons - I wish I had more time to get to places like the street we see Sam and Toby walking down as they're heading to breakfast in Mandatory Minimums, or Mandy's office where her car got towed from in "Post Hoc, Ergo Propter Hoc," or Laurie's apartment that we see in Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics, or the spot in Rosslyn where the shooting took place in What Kind Of Day Has It Been. I was very near the place where Mandy drove her car up on the curb in "Post Hoc ..." and where she got pulled over on the National Mall in Pilot, but I didn't have time to find the exact spots (or deal with the food trucks blocking those views). Heck, I wish I had the energy to get to the east side of the Capitol Reflecting Pool by the Grant Memorial to get a better angle of sites used in Five Votes Down and In The Shadow Of Two Gunmen Part 1 (or that there wasn't construction or some type of event happening in that spot, as well), but I least I got something from the other side of the pool.

Anyway, thought this might be kind of fun ... I didn't always get the exact right angle or spot, but I'm in the ballpark. Maybe I'll get another chance sometime to go back, and hit things more precisely! In any event, enjoy.

"Post Hoc, Ergo Propter Hoc"

The entire scene after Sam walks in on Laurie's group at the restaurant, causing her to go outside, was filmed near the corner of Pennsylvania Avenue and 6th Street NW. While they use a fictitious name in the episode, the restaurant at that corner is The Capitol Grille. They cross Pennsylvania Avenue to the south, then go east across 6th Street and have a conversation by the Andrew W. Mellon Memorial Fountain, right across the street from the National Gallery of Art. Here's the couple walking away next to the fountain, with the (scaffolded) Washington Monument in the background:

And here's me in almost the exact same spot (looks like they've trimmed down those hedges since 1999):

Five Votes Down

Josh and Congressman Katzenmoyer have their face-to-face conversation at the Grant Memorial, just west of the Capitol Building (a scenic spot, easily closed off for filming without actually inconveniencing Congress with a great view of the Capitol, and a place The West Wing comes back to again and again). Here they are walking north-to-south at the memorial:

And here they are as the conversation is wrapping up, just before Josh tells him the President doesn't hold grudges - "that's what he pays me for":

As I said, I wasn't able to get on the Grant Memorial surface myself (there was some kind of group event going on the north side, and construction on the south end), but I did get shots from across the reflecting pool. This shows most of the memorial, including the statue on the north end where these two first are seen (it's tough to see, but it's on the very left edge of this picture) and the Grant statue in the center, which is where the scene ends:

Here's a bit more centered shot of the Grant statue - the little area right behind the orange crane arm is where Josh laid the boom on Katzenmoyer:

The Short List

We all know and love Gail, CJ's goldfish, right? Well, this is where it all started. Danny was talking to Josh about how to get things started with CJ, and Josh told him she loved goldfish. He actually meant Goldfish crackers, but he wasn't clear, and Danny took the literal meaning of a fish, and that's how CJ got Gail. This conversation was right outside the Old Executive Office Building (now called the Eisenhower Executive Office Building) on 17th Street NW, immediately west of the White House:

And this is where I got a picture pretty close to where the scene was shot:

(Looks like I was just a bit too far down the street - Josh appears to be closer to the columned area you see to the right in my picture.)

In Excelsis Deo

The Season 1 Christmas episode had a lot of location shots, including the emotional funeral at Arlington National Cemetery in the closing scenes. I didn't get out to Arlington this trip. I did, though, get to the Korean War Memorial, which is where Toby comes to talk to the police when they find the body of a homeless man wearing a coat with Toby's name in the pocket:

And here is almost exactly the spot Richard Schiff was walking on:

(Isn't it amazing the difference camera lens focal lengths can make? This is the spot, that is the bench - yet see how much different the Washington Monument looks between a cellphone picture and the television shot.)

Speaking of exact spots, later in the episode Toby goes back to the memorial:

And I was able to find that very same spot:

(Again, my failing memory has me looking in the wrong direction ...)

20 Hours In L.A.

I've mentioned how the headquarters of the Daughters of the American Revolution (just southwest of the Capitol on 17th Street NW, across from the Ellipse) is a favorite location for West Wing producers. It's a non-government building that looks like a government building, with huge columns and porticos, and the DAR was agreeable to allowing filming there (including the interior, with their library standing in for the George Washington University Law School library in Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics). It first appeared in this episode, as the building Vice President Hoynes is coming out of when Leo meets him on C Street NW to talk about taking the fall on the ethanol tax credit vote:

Here are those same steps today (that tree has grown a lot in 20 years):

The two have a conversation in the snow under their umbrellas, actually standing in the street:

I wasn't going to stand in the middle of the street, but this is close to where they were:

Mandatory Minimums

There were quite a few locations used in this episode, too (as I mentioned above, the entire breakfast situation where Sam and Toby were walking along N Street NW near the General Winfield Scott statue), but the one I got to was the spot where Toby and his congresswoman ex-wife Andy Wyatt were having a picnic talk along the Tidal Basin:

This is darn near that exact spot:

In The Shadow Of Two Gunmen, Part 1

While I wanted to get out to the location in Rosslyn where they filmed the shooting at the end of Season 1 (it's called Freedom Park on North Kent Street in Rosslyn, near where the Newseum was located at the time), I did not make it there. I also did not get to the areas near George Washington University Hospital, where scenes for the first two episodes of Season 2 were filmed. However, one of the flashback scenes from this episode was shot at the Grant Memorial again. When Leo is talking Josh into taking a trip to New Hampshire to hear this Jed Bartlet guy speak, who's trying to run for president, they walk along that memorial:

And again, I got a shot of that area from the other side of the reflecting pool (Josh and Leo were walking in the area to the left of this picture, where the large crowd of people wearing blue shirts are):

Galileo

A good portion of this episode takes place at the Kennedy Center, where President Bartlet has to attend a performance of the Reykjavik Symphony Orchestra. I had the good fortune to attend a performance of The Who's Tommy at the Kennedy Center during my visit, so I got to see quite a few familiar sights. Here's the Grand Foyer, with CJ and Charlie coming down the stairs from the Presidential box of the Opera House:

And here's a shot of those very same stairs in 2019. Things look very much the same:

After that scene, CJ walks out onto the plaza facing the Potomac River, talking to Toby on her phone:

While I was there in the daylight, it looks very similar (although the fountain wasn't as extravagant):

When CJ is going back inside, as she turns to have the final word with Tad Whitney ("I'm great in bed") a stray leaf smacks her in the face:

This could be that very tree branch:

The Leadership Breakfast

And we're back to the Grant Memorial. A key plot point in this episode is Ann Stark's outmaneuvering of Toby, insisting the press conference following the breakfast be held outside the Capitol instead of at the White House. Well, this isn't exactly the Capitol steps, but given the limitations of where a film crew could set up, it's a nice looking spot:

And as for me, at least for this spot I was in kind of the right angle, across the reflecting pool. The drawback here, though, is the construction work going on right in the way:

And there you have it - a small part of my visit to Washington, wrapped up in stops at locations we've seen in the first two seasons of The West Wing. I hope you enjoyed sharing these views! I'll be back to my episode recaps real soon.

The War At Home - TWW S2E14

Original airdate: February 14, 2001

Written by: Aaron Sorkin (35)

Directed by: Christopher Misiano (5)

Synopsis

• President Bartlet reacts with fury and sadness when his military rescue mission in Colombia results in the deaths of nine soldiers. Jed and Abbey have it out over his medical situation and his future political plans. Josh finally gets some polling numbers, as well as a shove (in a couple of ways) from Joey Lucas. Ainsley's re-do of her meeting with the President goes a little bit better than the first.

"You draw a line."
"Where?"

What is the goal of governance? How should leaders lead - by carrying out the wishes of their constituents, or by using the position granted to them by the voters to reach higher? Is it enough to just do what the voters said they put you in office to do, or can you actually lead the populace to things they hadn't envisioned, by persuading and convincing them of the validity of your ideas? As Sam pointed out in The Portland Trip, "Can't great oratory inspire an idea that can be implemented?"

That's pretty much the theme of this wrapup of the two-episode arc, covering President Bartlet's State of the Union address and the hostage crisis in Colombia happening the same night. The capture of DEA agents by a Colombian drug cartel, and the underlying issues that brings to light, causes the President to consider a new approach to the war on drugs, something he says has been handed down from President to President over a series of administrations. Should there be a new approach to dealing with illegal drugs? Should the war turn hot, with hundreds of thousands of soldiers sent to the jungles of South America, or should the efforts turn to stopping the demand for drugs here in the United States?

When the military mission ordered by President Bartlet runs into an ambush, resulting in the deaths of nine soldiers, his mind turns in another direction as well - why not send black ops agents to assassinate a drug lord like Juan Aguilar? "What's to stop me?" he asks Leo, after Leo begged him to turn away from the idea of getting America bogged down in yet another jungle war with "no end in sight," much as the war Leo himself fought in Vietnam. Would the American people rejoice in an illegal mission to assassinate Aguilar? Perhaps. But is it the province of a true leader to take that path? Or are the lives of five DEA agents worth the trade of releasing a drug lord from a Colombian prison, a choice the President of Colombia firmly places on Bartlet's shoulders ("I'm willing to let Aguilar out in exchange for the hostages if you ask me to," President Santos tells Bartlet. "I'm making the offer and I'm leaving it up to you.")?

This episode puts the full weight of heavy foreign policy and military responsibilities on President Bartlet, really for the first time in the series. We saw a little bit of this back in A Proportional Response, but the stakes turn out to be considerably higher here (with the safety of hostages at risk, rather than a retaliation for an aircraft being shot down) and the outcome much worse (with the loss of nine soldiers in the rescue attempt). Jed's angry reaction on the portico after hearing the news, as well as his consideration of both a massive invasion or extra-legal actions in response, show us how deep this hits and how personally he takes the responsibility as President.

And of course, he feels the need to be there at Dover Air Force Base when those nine caskets come home; a moment that causes his eyes to well with tears:

This is what you're in for as leader of the free world. Things aren't always going to go according to plan; so isn't it worth it to reach a little higher than just to follow the will of the voters?

Joey Lucas clearly outlines this same thinking to Josh. We discover the reason Josh is so desperate to get polling results after the State of the Union is quite specific; he wants to see how five swing congressional districts respond to the President's call to beef up waiting periods for gun sales. When the numbers appear to show that policy doesn't seem popular in those districts, he's ready to pull back on the plan - but Joey says, double down and push even harder. Don't watch where the people are going and get in front of where they're heading anyway, use your position and your resources and your persuasive skills to explain to the voters why your policy is better. Convince them. Lead them. It's a nice little scene to sum up what really is the theme of the episode, if not the series as a whole.

Toby and Seth Gillette end up having a discussion along the same lines. Senator Gillette was mentioned a couple of episodes ago as threatening a third-party challenge to President Bartlet after his speech to an environmental group called them out for not stopping extremists, a kind of pivot to the right as the next campaign starts to gain its footing. Gillette (who could only exist in The West Wing universe, as a Democratic liberal hero Senator from North Dakota, of all places) also angrily calls out Toby ("you patronizing son of a bitch") and the administration for turning away from seniors (with the proposed commission to examine Social Security and entitlements) and African-Americans (since the Detroit police officer recognized at the speech turned out to have an excessive-force mark on his official record). Toby, though, recognizes that pandering to the groups already on your side doesn't really serve as leading the nation. Perhaps finding pathways that satisfy more people a little bit (while also finding ways to secure the future finances of the country) might prove better leadership than giving your friends everything they want.

We also get to the bottom of the "deal" Jed and Abbey had about running for a second term, something touched on late in the previous episode. Yes, it directly relates to Jed's multiple sclerosis, a disease we discovered he suffered from in He Shall, From Time To Time ... and was mentioned as a tightly held secret before his surgery following the Rosslyn shooting. Before the first campaign, Abbey got a pledge from Jed that he'd only serve one term, as the odds that his health would deteriorate only increase as the years go by. Now with the staff ramping up plans for a re-election campaign, and Jed appearing to be on board (especially with the topics outlined in his State of the Union), Abbey can't believe he's about to go back on his word to her and go after a second term. After all, the main reason he didn't reveal his medical condition to the country during the campaign was based on his promise to only serve four years:

Abbey: "But we had a deal. And that deal is how you justified keeping it a secret from the world. It's how you justified it to God. It's how you justified it to me."

What other storylines from the previous episode get wrapped up here? There are a couple, and are they wrapped up rather fleetingly. First, the Detroit police officer who explained himself to CJ previously (saying the suspect who claimed he was mistreated had broken his leg trying to get away, a story that appears to be truthful given the physical differences between the two) gets scheduled to talk with Mark Gottfried on TV the next morning, giving him the chance to state his case to the television audience. And that's it, that's all ... apparently that's going to do the trick.

Ainsley demands that Sam set up a do-over of her meeting with the President, as the first encounter (with her dancing in a bathrobe while enjoying a Pink Squirrel) was embarrassing to both her and her father, apparently. Sam sets it up, this time in Leo's office, but Ainsley's nervousness causes her to mistake a closet for a bathroom:

President: "Why were you in the closet?"

Ainsley: "I had to pee."

President: "They won't let me smoke inside but you can pee in Leo's closet." 

But what makes this second "first meeting" special is Jed asking Ainsley if her father is proud of her, and her face just breaks out into this beaming smile:

So much better than the stricken, humiliated look she had in her office the first time.

And that's about it - a couple of quick storyline wrap ups from the last episode, and a deep dive into the nature of leadership and trust and consequences. We are definitely building the setup for the rest of the season, as Jed's MS issues in relationship to his re-election campaign and his promise to Abbey are well in play.


Tales Of Interest!

- The title of this episode is pretty finely crafted. Leo explicitly describes it in relation to the war on drugs, with the angle that the real drug war should be addressed at home, in America, since it's the appetite for illegal drugs here that's funding drug lords like Aguilar in Colombia and other countries. It also relates to the final scene, where President Bartlet stands at attention as the flag-draped caskets return to the United States - an obvious symbol of the war being brought back home. And finally, the rift between Jed and Abbey over changing "the deal" about running for a second term can play right into the theme of a "war" at "home." That title is doing triple duty.

- Remember that oddly prominent Florida Gators coffee mug being held by a background actress in the previous episode, apparently as some kind of inside signal by someone on the production staff or crew? Well, we get it again in this episode:

Somebody here is really shilling for the University of Florida.

- As far as the polling situation goes ... are we supposed to believe the area of DC where the polling research company is located actually didn't have power for some 24 hours? That just seems like a really long time for a run-of-the-mill electricity outage, not related to a storm or a flood or something like that. Oh, well ... it's fiction, I know.

- We get a look at yet another new addition to Season 2's newly built West Wing set, with the "breakfast nook/Presidential dining area" where Josh and Sam meet with the President (and, while the President demands eggs be brought out, nobody actually eats anything):

- The fly-away hairs over the foreheads of the actors are really on display. First, we see a strand of hair rather distractingly blowing back and forth across Sam's forehead while he talks to Toby:

And later we get the same kind of look, with a lock of hair spilling over President Bartlet's forehead (although this is really a hallmark of Martin Sheen's hair anyway):

- Speaking of Sam, while we've previously seen NASA/space-related screen savers on the computer monitors in his office, here it looks like he's working on some kind of document ... but I'm not sure why he would choose a look with a blue background and white text for his writing. I don't know, it just looks odd to me (on the other hand, that's a rather odd display for 2001, with a modified flat screen and an oddly rounded base - maybe that's not a monitor for writing at all but some other type of display):

- I really liked the lighting and the look Christopher Misiano came up with for the scene in Josh's office with Joey and Kenny. The late night darkness (it's mentioned that it's 2:00 am) is split by the bold, bright lighting of the white papers on his desk that bounces upward like a beacon in the near blackness of the office:

Really cool.

- While we're on desks, I've mentioned previously that the President usually has three family photos prominently displayed on his Oval Office desk, featuring Abbey and Zoey (even though we know they have other daughters as well). Here we catch a glimpse of an additional photo, making four in total; although we can't see what they are, perhaps we're getting prepared to meet some more of the Bartlet family (in fact, the very next episode is called Ellie, so that ought to be a clue about another Bartlet daughter).

Quotes    

Leo (walking out on the portico where the President is playing chess in the cold): "You understand we've got heating inside, right?"

President: "This isn't cold. It's crisp."

Leo: "No, it's cold."

President: "Well, you're a big wussy." 

-----

Jed: "We didn't get a chance to talk again last night."

Abbey: "I don't think we should."

Jed: "Talk?"

Abbey: "No."

Jed: "Ever?"

Abbey: "Oh, if wishing made it so, Jed." 

-----

CJ: "How you doing, Ainsley?"

Ainsley: "Well, my mouth is dry, my hands are moist, and I have to pee."

CJ: "Okay ..."

(Later, in Leo's office)

Leo: "How you doing, Ainsley?"

Ainsley: "I'm concerned about peeing on your carpet."

Leo: "Okay, well ... now I am, too."

-----

Josh: "You don't think they're gonna kidnap another five people tomorrow morning and demand twelve months of free cable?"

Donna: "So you give them free cable."

Josh: "How about the keys to the Situation Room?"

Donna (pause): "You draw a line."

Josh: "Where?"

-----

Abbey: "Do you get that you have MS?"

Jed: "Abbey ..."

Abbey: "Do you get that your own immune system is shredding your brain and I can't tell you why? Do you have any idea how good a doctor I am and that I can't tell you why?" 

Jed: "I had one episode in two years."

Abbey: "Yes. But relapsing-remitting MS can turn into secondary progressive MS, oftentimes ten years after the initial diagnosis - which is exactly where we'll be in two years. Do you know what that's gonna look like if it happens?"

Jed: "I know when it's gonna -"

Abbey: "Fatigue. An inability to get through the day."

Jed: "Look ..."

Abbey: "Memory lapses. Loss of cognitive function. Failure to reason. Failure to think clearly. I can't tell you if it's gonna happen. I don't know if it's gonna get better, I don't know if it's gonna get worse. But we had a deal. And that deal is how you justified keeping it a secret from the world. It's how you justified it to God. It's how you justified it to me."

-----

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

• Seth Gillette, the Senator who was mentioned in The Drop In as threatening a third-party challenge to the President after his admonishment of environmental groups, is seen here played by the very recognizable Ed Begley Jr. (St. Elsewhere, the Christopher Guest movies, tons of other movies and TV series).

My own personal brush with fame: I appeared in a non-speaking role in the 2017 film Amelia 2.0, where Begley played the head of the Wesley Corporation. Here's me sitting in the board room right in front of Ed, in a scene from that movie:

• The sorta-kinda romantic interplay between Josh and Donna continues, and gets called out explicitly by Joey Lucas:

Joey (through Kenny): "If you polled a hundred Donnas and asked them if they think we should go out, you'd get a high positive response. But the poll wouldn't tell you it's because she likes you. And she knows it's beginning to show and she needs to cover herself with misdirection."

Josh replies with, "Believe me when I tell you that's not true" - yet earlier in the episode, when Josh is telling Sam about Donna's efforts to get him to ask Joey out, he first seems bewildered as to why Donna would be pushing him to go out with another woman (because he seems to know she's got some feelings for him), then tells Sam he's not "jealous" when Donna goes on dates, but he does do his best to sabotage them (the likes of which we saw clearly in The Portland Trip). What exactly does he think is going on with the two of them? 

• A couple of things about the President's private talk with Leo about what to do in Colombia: First, when Leo says they can have President Santos release Aguilar without it being known the United States asked for it, President Bartlet mentions there were 14 people in the room who heard Santos make that offer. Leo responds, "Those 14 people keep bigger secrets than this." Back in In The Shadow Of Two Gunmen, Part 1 Abbey tells the anesthesiologist that he's the 15th person in the world to know that President Bartlet suffers from MS - fourteen people had been keeping that secret.

Second, the President immediately goes to muse about living outside the law and wondering what's stopping him from sending CIA agents to Colombia to kill Aguilar. An almost exactly similar situation will turn out to be a driving force in Season 3.

DC location shots    

• None.

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

• The President mentions George Bernard Shaw (with the quote about life just seeming longer if you stop smoking - the quote is actually attributed to Sir Clement Freund) and Truman Capote (about living outside the law and therefore no longer having its protection). 

• Bob Woodward and Jeff Greenfield are among those being thanked for being guests on the special edition of Capital Beat.

• There's a clear view of CNN's Wolf Blitzer on the TV in Josh's office. Later we see he has Bloomberg TV on.

• Sam says Ainsley's dancing brings to mind Joey Heatherton. When she mentions how she and her father are both petrified by her disastrous first meeting with the President, Sam compares her situation to the Greek tragedies of Euripides and the "House of Atreus."

• We hear Abbey's staffer mention a biography of Truman. Perhaps she's referring to David McCullough's 1992 biography, which I can whole-heartedly recommend as being excellent.

• Donna brings up CNN, USA Today, and Gallup in questioning Josh about their own polling.

• Product placement: Toby has a bottle of  Early Times whiskey when Sam comes to tell him about meeting with Senator Gillette.

End credits freeze frame: The shot from inside the hangar as the caskets are unloaded from the plane.

By the way, it's doubtful (if not impossible) that the Coast Guard would have handled the travel arrangements for the casualties from Colombia. The Delta Force is an Army unit, plus the Coast Guard wouldn't have authority to fly to Colombia. I imagine the arrangements for this aircraft goes back to the Coast Guard's cooperation while filming the opening scene of Shibboleth.