The Derecho Apocalypse

It's been a few weeks ... but I have a good excuse. My part of the world was devastated by an unprecedented storm on August 10, a storm that knocked out power to literally every customer in Linn County and caused widespread damage to homes and businesses. And I was part of that.

The storm is called a derecho. Its destructive power is similar to a tornado, but instead of localized swirling winds, derechos sweep incredibly strong straight-line winds over a wide area. This storm on August 10 developed in South Dakota as a line of strong thunderstorms, which is nothing out of the ordinary for the Midwest in August. As it moved west into Iowa, it began gaining strength - it caused damage in parts of Des Moines and areas to the northwest, but it really started picking up power after that. By the time it moved into Marshall County, winds were being clocked at over 100 miles per hour, and these winds continued unabated for close to a half hour. The storm caused about a 40-mile wide path of destruction, from near Marshalltown right down Highway 30 through Cedar Rapids, even causing damage in the Clinton/Quad Cities area as it weakened a bit.

When it reached Cedar Rapids, later estimates by the National Weather Service said the peak winds reached 140 miles per hour, ripping roofs off buildings and toppling about half of all the trees in the city. Power lines went down, streets were blocked by trees and debris, it was a mess. TV and radio stations in the city went off the air, with no power or with transmission towers being knocked down. Phone lines were dead. At the least, cell service was still available immediately after the storm, but by Monday night that all went dead, too. No electricity, no communication, difficult travel - it was an unmitigated disaster.

As for me, I happened to be in my car when the storm caught up to me, along Highway 30 near Belle Plaine. I knew a bad storm was coming - we get bad storms in Iowa in the summer - but I had no idea how bad this was going to be. As the initial wind gusts and rain cut the visibility down to zero, I pulled onto the shoulder of the highway to wait it out. The hurricane-force winds picked up the rocks from the highway shoulder and shattered my rear window. The wind and rain blasted into my car, along with the bits of shattered glass and more rocks, and I was sure at some times the wind was going to lift my car off the ground and turn me over into the ditch. Again, this went on for at least 20 to 30 minutes of howling, incessant wind.

Once the worst of the storm passed and I limped back to Cedar Rapids, it was incredible to see the devastation of the farmland. Corn was flattened in the fields as far as you could see. Trees were uprooted and broken off at every farm. About half the farmsteads had buildings damaged, blown apart or roofs torn off. And the city was no different.

My home suffered only minor damage, but my back yard was full of elm tree. And our beautiful shade tree in the front yard, the one that shaded us from the summer sun, even though it looked like it just lost a few branches upon closer examination you could see the split trunk, from which it would not recover. Damn.

We were without electricity for 10 entire days, without internet service for 11. We still don't have our cable TV, now 17 days later. So that explains why I really haven't had the time to put together another blog post. Meanwhile, almost no one outside this area even heard about the storm. The second-largest city in Iowa, a metro area of better than 150,000 people, brought to its knees by a historic storm causing multiple millions in damages and heartbreak and stress to tens of thousands of people - and it wasn't on the national news for days. Once it made the news, it was just for a few days before people moved on to something else - as Iowans struggled without electricity, struggled to try to clear debris, struggled to try to fix their homes. It was maddening.

Things are starting to get a little bit back on track now, as we near three weeks after the storm. Crews from the DOT cleared the debris from our curbs last weekend (just round one, though). Even though the first company I hired to clear my trees flaked on me a week ago, I hope to get those cleared out of here in the next few days (which means the curbs will be filled up with debris again). And eventually I'll feel like I have the time to move on with another West Wing post.

I just thought you might like to know.

20 Hours In America, Part Two - TWW S4E2

Original airdate: September 25, 2002

Written by: Aaron Sorkin (67)

Directed by: Christopher Misiano (10)

Synopsis

• While Josh, Toby, and Donna continue their quest to return to DC from Indiana, a chance encounter in a hotel bar sparks a new way to look at the Bartlet campaign and its policy initiatives. A terrorist attack on a midwestern university prompts a moment of Presidential eloquence. Qumar continues to press the issue of their missing defense minister. Bartlet finally makes a decision on a new secretary, Charlie steps up on several fronts, and Sam gets a visit from an old flame. 

"It should be hard. I like that it's hard. ... But it should be a little easier. Just a little easier. Cause in that difference is ... everything."

Politicians can sometimes get too wrapped up in the "inside baseball" part of things, the little bits of tactical advantage you can gain from a statement or the minor edge you might grab from your stance on an obscure policy. It's easy to focus on those small things that you think add up to a campaign, perhaps, or a national political presence. But when that happens, you may just lose sight of the ultimate role of government - helping and protecting the citizens of your country, giving them support to overcome obstacles that aren't of their making, making things ... "a little easier. Just a little easier."

Having Josh, Toby, and Donna spend a day and a night in middle America, far from the "inside baseball" of DC, proves to be Aaron Sorkin's way of knocking a little bit of sense into them - well, Josh and Toby, at least. While a truly down-to-earth Donna (a native of Minnesota who grew up in Wisconsin herself) isn't completely successful in making them realize it's the people and not the electoral tactics that matter, a chance hotel bar conversation with a guy on a college visit with his daughter actually sinks in.

Sorkin begins this episode, though, with a moment that literally made me burst out laughing. We saw in Part One that the financial markets are falling throughout the day, thanks to a major hedge fund filing for bankruptcy. As the President prepares for a photo op with a fellow who's shaken hands with every President since Herbert Hoover, he's taken aback when the man tells Bartlet his meeting with Hoover came the day before the Black Thursday market crash of 1929 that led to the Great Depression. Given the current market situation, a superstitious Bartlet pulls Charlie aside to reconsider.

President: "There's a lot of science in economics to be sure but like a lot of things, a lot depends on the user. I need the Nikkei Index to do what I need it to do tonight and I've got Hoover's good luck charm over here. But now, while I'm talking about it, I feel like it's ridiculous that someone like me would consider canceling a photo op ..."

Charlie: "I can't believe you're considering doing it, sir."

President: "I'm not, it's momentary."

Charlie: "No, I mean I can't believe you're considering doing it."

President: "Really?"

Charlie: "Tokyo opens in three hours and you're going to drape your arm around the Mayor of Shantytown."

Which leads to the moment where I literally laughed out loud, as Charlie tells Mr. Keith they're going to have to reschedule and when he asks why, Charlie replies, "You're spooking the hell out of the President."

Anyway, back to Indiana, where our three intrepid staffers are riding in Tyler's jeep in an effort to get to a train station as the next step in their journey back to Washington. Josh and Toby continue to bicker over campaign strategy, as they did in the previous episode - Toby wants to keep going after Ritchie as not a smart fellow, while Josh wants to stick to promoting the President's agenda. It's all going to work out fine as they reach the train station, even as Toby still reluctantly keeps up his end of losing the rock-throwing bet to Josh, spending the rest of the day adding "I work at the White House" every time he says his name:

Tyler: "Mr. Lyman. Mr. Ziegler."

Josh: "Call me Josh."

(Josh looks at Toby, as Toby recalls their bet) 

Toby: "Toby. I work at the White House."

Tyler: "Yeah, can I tell you something? People are going to think you're a lot cooler if you don't say that yourself, but rather let them find out on their own."

Toby: "Yeah."

But they made the train, and are some 98 miles away from Indianapolis and a flight that will take them home. Tyler triumphantly points the way:

As the train begins heading the opposite direction down the tracks:

Womp-womp.

The campaign debate continues on the train, as Toby brings up Ritchie quote after Ritchie quote to show how ill-informed he is ("a rising tide sinks all boats?") but Josh can't go along with his plan.

Josh: "I don't know what gave you the impression that I had to be convinced, but I want to win. You want to beat him, and that's a problem for me, because I want to win."

Donna is sick of the bickering. She just wants the guys to approve her plan to get them turned around and back on a flight to DC.

A flight that ends up being delayed by weather anyhow. The three find shelter from the rain in an airport hotel, in an attempt to dry out for a few minutes - where Donna finally has had it, and unloads on Josh and Toby. They've spent the entire day squabbling about campaign tactics while they've ignored every bit of what the ordinary midwestern Americans they encountered were trying to tell them.

Donna: "I can't remember the last time I heard you two talk about anything other than how the campaign was playing in Washington. Cathy needed to take a second job so her dad could be covered by her insurance. She tried to tell you how bad things were for family farmers. You told her we already lost Indiana. You made fun of the fair but you didn't see they have livestock exhibitions and give prizes for the biggest tomato and the best heirloom apple. They're proud of what they grow. Eight modes of transportation, the kindness of six strangers, random conversations with twelve more, and nobody brought up Bartlet versus Ritchie but you."

Chastened, the guys retreat to the hotel bar. Toby gets pulled into a conversation with a random fellow there - he's also waiting out the weather, his flight delayed. He's visiting Indiana with his daughter, on a college visit to Notre Dame. He's just a guy, an everyday, middle-class guy, trying to get by and do the best for his family and make things a little better for his kids.

Kelley: "It should be hard. I like that it's hard. Putting your daughter through college, that's ... that's a man's job. A man's accomplishment. But it should be a little easier. Just a little easier. Cause in that difference is ... everything."

The guy reaches out to Toby, introducing himself as Matt Kelley. 

Toby responds, and as Josh signals to him that the bet is off, he doesn't have to add to the folly of their travels by trumpeting his workplace, for the first time today Toby makes a real connection and tries to make a real difference:

Toby: "I'm Toby Ziegler. I work at the White House. Have a minute to talk? We'd, uh ... like to buy you a beer."

College financial aid and making paying for education "just a little easier" is going to become a policy emphasis for the administration as the series moves on. And it's all thanks to this chance encounter with Matt Kelley in an Indianapolis hotel bar. As our weary travelers finally make it back to DC, they ditch the airport shuttle a couple of miles from the White House, wanting to walk through the streets of Washington in the early morning light, as Josh and Toby agree on a reset on what the campaign needs to be about:

Toby: "Instead of telling people who's the most qualified, instead of telling people who's got the better ideas, let's make it obvious. It's going to be hard."

Josh: "Then we'll do what's hard." 

Also looming over the events of the day is a Midwestern tragedy. Word comes in at the end of CJ's afternoon press briefing of a pipe bomb attack at a university swim meet in Iowa. Forty-some people are killed, another hundred injured, and as she tries to brief the press while listening in to a live feed in her earpiece, the rest of the administration and the nation reacts. An emotional moment, filmed expertly by Christopher Misiano, hits us in Indianapolis as Josh, Toby, and Donna see the news report in the hotel lobby:

And President Bartlet, speaking at a fundraiser that evening, expresses the eloquence and compassion of a true American leader in memorable fashion. Something we in 2020 can only dream about with our current leadership ...

President: "We did not seek nor did we provoke an assault on our freedom and our way of life. We did not expect nor did we invite a confrontation with evil. Yet the true measure of a people's strength is how they rise to master that moment when it does arrive. Forty four people were killed a couple of hours ago at Kennison State University. Three swimmers from the mens' team were killed and two others are in critical condition. When, after having heard the explosion from their practice facility, they ran into the fire to help get people out. Ran into the fire. The streets of heaven are too crowded with angels tonight. They're our students and our teachers and our parents and our friends. The streets of heaven are too crowded with angels, but every time we think we have measured our capacity to meet a challenge, we look up and we're reminded that that capacity may well be limitless. This is a time for American heroes. We will do what is hard. We will achieve what is great. This is a time for American heroes and we reach for the stars. God bless their memory, God bless you, and God bless the United States of America."

Looking on, an impressed Bruno asks an emotional Sam when he wrote that last part, given the bombing had only occurred mere hours before the speech.

Sam: "In the car."

Bruno: "Freak." 

The President's quest to find a new executive secretary finally comes to an end, but not without some drama and unexpected twists and turns. In the previous episode we saw Bartlet interviewing a couple of candidates on Air Force One, but he wasn't happy with either one - they were either not capable of being impressed, or not able to appreciate Jed's sense of humor. So Debbie Fiderer returns for another interview, to make up for her first one that flopped when she took too many pills to prepare for it. This one doesn't go great, either, as she stubbornly refuses to tell the President why she was fired from her personnel job at the White House:

Debbie: "Chronic lateness."

President: "I don't believe you."

Debbie: "It's true."

President: "No, it's not."

Debbie: "You call me a liar to my face?"

President: "Yes."

Debbie: "Okay."

President: "Charlie said it was because of him."

Debbie: "He did?"

President: "He said you hired him and that's why you got fired."

Debbie: "Charlie makes things up."

President: "No, he doesn't!"

Debbie: "He's a bad seed. I knew it the moment I saw him." 

She refuses to tell him more, but as she's dismissed from the interview she encounters Donald McKittridge in the outer office He's the head of the White House Office of Personnel who actually fired her, and he chastises Charlie for even bringing her in for an interview. Bartlet emerges from the Oval Office, putting two and two together and realizing Debbie had chosen Charlie for the job over the son of a big contributor to the campaign of the congressman brother of McKittridge. He still doesn't make a decision, though, until Sam steps into the office and asks, "Was she funny?"

The President races down the hallways to catch Debbie at the checkpoint at the door. He asks her to recall information about the status of the dollar, an update that was given during their interview (a secretary's memory skills will prove to be essential for a President suffering from MS, who might have some lapses in short-term memory as the disease progresses). She remembers the numbers. And with a gesture to Charlie, she's hired.

Speaking of Charlie, remember that previously on Air Force One CJ asked if he could take over as Big Brother for Anthony, whom Simon Donovan had been mentoring before his death in Posse Comitatus. Charlie demurred, leading CJ to ask Sam about it earlier in this episode even though she knows his schedule couldn't possibly allow it (Sam's response: "Maybe he'd enjoy sitting and watching me work. I could narrate what I was doing for him.").

After the fundraiser, Anthony is waiting in the West Wing for CJ, who tries to explain that she's still searching for another Big Brother for him. Anthony glumly resents CJ, in part because he connects her to Simon's death, and his resentment becomes evident as he rudely insults her:

CJ: "I'll take you home now."

Anthony (mumbling): "I don't need a babysitter."

CJ: "I'm sorry?"

Anthony: "I said I don't need a babysitter, bitch. Are you deaf?"

Charlie happens to be walking by, and his response is, well, epic.

Charlie: "This is Ms. Cregg. She's the White House press secretary and senior counsel to the President. And if she wasn't, she would still be Ms. Cregg. I don't mind you not respecting people. I mind you doing it out loud. I mind you doing it in this building. You wanna be a punk, fine, but I don't think you've got the size for it. You wanna go to juvey, get out, deal, and kill cops? Okay, but every time you do a crime, you get caught, so I think you're gonna have to do something else. Nine o'clock on Saturday mornings, I eat breakfast at Cosmo's on Delaware. I come here for an hour and do office work, and then I go to St. Jude's for an hour to play basketball. You can go to juvey, or you can be at Cosmo's at 9:00 on Saturday morning. It's entirely up to you."

So I guess Charlie is willing to take on the Big Brother role after all. 

In a sweet moment later, Charlie finds a gift on his desk. He unwraps it as CJ comes to the doorway - she's given him a framed photograph of Charlie as a boy with his police officer mother, who was shot and killed in the line of duty three years ago. Charlie earlier mentioned to the President that he didn't have any photographs on his desk, for his own reasons - but he proudly places this photo right there.

Then there's Qumar. In the arc we saw at the end of Season 3, Qumar's defense minister Shareef was connected to several terrorist attacks against American targets, and faced with the impossibility of bringing him to justice in the courts, President Bartlet reluctantly agreed with Leo and Admiral Fitzwallis on a plan to assassinate Shareef in Bermuda and make it appear his plane went down over the Atlantic. Now Qumar is still investigating, trying to bait the United States into giving up information about the incident (first they claim they have a recording of a phone call from Shareef on the plane, which Fitzwallis knows is impossible since his phone was disabled before takeoff; next they say they found wreckage with evidence proving it was the Israelis who killed him).

Nancy McNally, the National Security Adviser, has had enough, and she's ready to start "reducing our nuclear arsenal one at a time, if you know what I mean, sir." But the trio of Bartlet, Fitzwallis, and McNally know they're going to have to confront the situation in some meaningful way, as the Israelis aren't going to stand for being falsely accused. Fitzwallis wants to let Qumar know yes, we did it, but while insulating President Bartlet from the decision. Jed isn't having it:

President: "And you talked Leo into Shareef and he talked me into it. It was my order and you executed it flawlessly and I stand by it. I stand by it till I die. Plus, I'm going to need some cell mates in Holland. So, what do we do now?"

A President standing by his decisions, no matter the fallout - administration staffers listening to concerns of everyday Americans, and trying to make their lives better - people like Charlie and Debbie just doing the best they can, supporting those around them and doing their best every day - that's an administration that can lead, an administration that can inspire, an administration that can truly make America great.

Yeah, I know ...

 

Tales Of Interest!

- Timeline: Sam specifically says he's worked for the administration for three years and eight months. With Bartlet's inauguration in January 1999, that works out exactly to September 2002.

- Tyler says the troubles of the lost White House staffers will end "98 miles right down that track." In Part One Josh said they were going to catch "the metro" in Connersville. Connersville is actually about 55 miles from Indianapolis. Once the train starts heading in the wrong direction, Donna says they can get off in Bedford and backtrack - but Bedford is actually 113 miles southwest of Connersville, and to get there you'd start in the same direction as you would for Indianapolis.

 

- The fictional Kennison State University is said to have "Hawkeyes" as their nickname and is a member of the Big Ten conference. CJ remarks she's listening in to "Cedar Rapids police and fire" during the press briefing. In reality, the University of Iowa, located in Iowa City, some 27 miles south of Cedar Rapids, is a member of the Big Ten and has the "Hawkeyes" nickname.

- "The streets of heaven are too crowded with angels" is a line stolen from Tom Hanks' Oscar acceptance speech at the Academy Awards in 1994. Hanks won the award for his role as an AIDS-stricken attorney in Philadelphia, and used his speech to pay tribute to those who died of AIDS. As Sam tells Mallory in this episode (in a line written by Sorkin, who knows very well what he did and which not only self-deprecates his theft of the line but also refers to himself as a "great writer"), "Good writers borrow from other writers. Great writers steal from them outright." 

Interestingly enough, that same speech - where Hanks also gave a shout out to his high school drama teacher - was the inspiration for the opening scenes of the 1997 Kevin Kline film In & Out.

- Also, Sam's line to Mallory about "I've got to get back in there. That's where it's happening" was another inspiration for Lin-Manuel Miranda and his writing of Hamilton, specifically the song title The Room Where It Happens.

- Stockard Channing appears in the opening credits for the first time this season, but during the episode her only appearance is in the audience during the President's fundraiser speech. She doesn't even have any lines! Oddly, the website I use to get transcripts of West Wing episodes includes a scene from this episode that's not on the DVD or Netflix versions. This scene occurs between the hiring of Debbie Fiderer and the fundraiser speech, and is a conversation between Jed and Abbey in the residence where some more context/resolution of the "aprons and rolling pins" protest against her is given - a plotline that otherwise is just dropped out of the story.

 - Matt Kelley's salary of $55,000 in 2002 equates to about $78,800 in 2020 dollars, while their family income of $80,000 would be about $115,000 today.

- Bradley Whitford was nominated for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama for this episode and Evidence Of Things Not Seen. The award went to Joey Pantoliano for The Sopranos. This would be Whitford's third straight Emmy nomination (with a win for In The Shadow Of Two Gunmen and Noël in Season 2).

Quotes

McNally: "Leo. Yeoman Fitzwallis." 

Fitzwallace: "Dr. McNally." 

McNally: "Let's attack."

Fitzwallis: "Who?" 

McNally: "Qumar. Let's recommend to the President that we attack." 

Leo: "Why?" 

McNally: "Cause I've had it." 

Fitzwallis: "I don't think the UN is going to let us do it for that reason." 

McNally: "That's cause you're a sissy." 

-----

President: "Hey, do we have a GPS reading out on Josh and Toby? Have they been sighted?" 

Sam: "I talked to them a little while ago, they're on their way." 

President: "Three hundred IQ points between them, they can't find their way home. I swear to God, if Donna wasn't there, they'd have to buy a house." 

-----

Sam: "I had one good moment talking about the global ripple effect of a budget deficit, but that was it. The rest of the day was just keeping up. And this was a pretty light day." 

Mallory: "One good moment is good." 

Sam: "Oh, I'm not complaining. I'm saying one good moment is great. It's a golf shot. I've got to get back in there. That's where it's happening."

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

• National Security Adviser Nancy McNally (Anna Deavere Smith) returns, this time ready to nuke Qumar (her offhand greeting to the admiral serving as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff as "Yeoman Fitzwallis" is hilarious).

• Lily Tomlin is back as Debbie Fiderer, now joining the staff (and the cast) as President Bartlet's executive secretary.

• Martin Sheen's daughter Renee Estevez pops up in the background of this scene. As Nancy, she's apparently one of the President's five secretaries (as Charlie tells Debbie, in addition to the executive secretary there are two research secretaries, a social secretary, and a scheduler).

• Allison Smith is back as Mallory O' Brien, Leo's daughter and ongoing flirt with Sam (ever since they met in Pilot; she nearly took him to the opera as her date in Enemies and she kissed him after seeing his defense of her father in He Shall, From Time To Time ... ). Mallory was last seen in Galileo, when she told Sam she was dating the hockey player Richard Andreychuk. Now he's been traded to Chicago and they've broken up, which Sam is, well, less than broken-up about, if you know what I mean.

 

• President Bartlet mentions his granddaughter as he's talking with Muriel Keith. We first heard about her in Pilot, when Bartlet referred to his granddaughter Annie as being 12 (while taking Rev. Al Caldwell to task for not renouncing an anti-abortion extremist group that had sent her a doll with a knife). While we've met Jed's daughters Zoey and Ellie, we've yet to meet this granddaughter's mother.

• The issue of Jed's failing memory and having a secretary who can keep facts and figures readily at hand is directly related to his multiple sclerosis, which was first revealed in He Shall, From Time To Time ... and had a significant story arc in Season 2.

• The Shareef assassination/Qumar story line is extended from the episodes at the end of Season 3 (from Enemies Foreign And Domestic through Posse Comitatus).

• The hiring of Charlie (with Debbie DiLaguardia - now Fiderer - forwarding his name to Josh) was originally seen in A Proportional Response.

• CJ's search for a Big Brother replacement for Anthony ties in with Simon Donovan's death in Posse Comitatus and the quick scene of Simon hanging out with Anthony in that episode.

• In Part One Donna brought up the Boomtown Rats song I Don't Like Mondays (apparently this entire episode takes place over a Monday in September). During the montage of news of the KSU pipe bombing and President Bartlet's "streets of heaven" speech, we hear Tori Amo's version of the song.

• The photograph of Charlie's police officer mother reminds us of her death in the line of duty, first revealed by Charlie in A Proportional Response.

• President Bartlet's conversation with Fitzwallis near the end of the episode is a callback to "Post Hoc, Ergo Propter Hoc" where Bartlet mused over the Joint Chiefs' lack of respect for him as a Commander-In-Chief who had never served in the military.

As Morris Tolliver told him in that Season 1 episode, "Let the Chiefs get to know you, Mr. President. ... They may not like your resume, but they'll like you personally if you give it time. You have a once in a generation mind, sir. Ultimately, they'll respect that."

And in this episode: 

President: "You just hated my living guts when I got this job, didn't you?"

Fitzwallis: "No, sir."

President: "Yeah, you did. I didn't know anything and I didn't have any respect for the Chiefs. You became my counselor and you wrangled the Chiefs and you brought them to me." 

 

 DC location shots

• The Arlington Memorial Bridge, which crosses the Potomac between Arlington Cemetery and the Lincoln Memorial, is seen in the closing shot of the episode. It's over a two-mile walk to the White House from here. The series likes to use that bridge, which was previously a location for multiple scenes in In The Shadow Of Two Gunmen.

Here's a current Google Street view:

• The spot where they get off the shuttle van is actually right at the Arlington Cemetery Blue Line Metro station (there's an escalator to the Metro station on that corner). Directly behind them you can see the entrance to Arlington Cemetery. 

And a current view of that intersection:

• The scenes of Tyler driving the wayward staffers to the train station (supposedly Connersville, Indiana) were actually filmed in Bridgeville, Pennsylvania. 

View down the street in Bridgeville:

Pulling up to the train station (at the time, the Bridgeville Public Library; the show's producers rented the tracks and a six-car train just to shoot these scenes and the following train ride): 

The building is now the Bridgeville Area Historical Society - the caboose is still there: 

And the reverse shot of Railroad Street in Bridgeville as they park:

Not a lot has changed since 2002: 

 

 

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

• President Bartlet says, "It's a proud day for Alfred Nobel" as he watches the stock market fall, referring to his status as a Nobel Prize winner in economics. In reality, there isn't a true Nobel Prize in economics at all, although there is a related prize administered by the Nobel Foundation since 1968.

• In the discussion between Bartlet and Muriel Keith we hear mentions of Presidents Truman and Hoover, as well as the Great Depression beginning with Black Thursday in October 1929.

• Toby's rants about Ritchie bring up references to Act V of Hamlet, Batman villains, and British prime ministers Benjamin Disraeli and Neville Chamberlain.

• The Big Ten athletic conference comes up in connection with the bombing of the swim meet at Kennison State; Illinois, Michigan, and Minnesota are specifically named, and those state universities are indeed part of the Big Ten.

• Mallory and Sam talk about her hockey player ex-boyfriend getting traded to the Chicago Blackhawks. Sam also brings up the musical Camelot as a source from which he stole one of his speech lines.

• It's a Comfort Inn hotel where Josh, Toby, and Donna seek refuge from the rain (supposedly near the Indianapolis airport, in reality probably filmed somewhere in Pennsylvania - but maybe in California, I don't know).

• Donna is wearing an Indiana State University sweatshirt that she must have purchased near the hotel, just to have dry clothes. The giant Indianapolis Colts banner also puts our setting right in Indianapolis. 

• Matt Kelley mentions he and his daughter were visiting Notre Dame; we know that's President Bartlet's alma mater, as he reminds us with this sweatshirt early on Tuesday morning: 

• Toby orders a Jack Daniel's (we've heard him make that order before). It appears Kelley is drinking Rolling Rock, a beer brand founded in western Pennsylvania near the locations the show filmed at for this episode.

• Nancy McNally's eagerness to drop nuclear weapons on Qumar leads Fitzwallis to refer to her as Dr. Strangelove, a character played by Peter Sellers in Stanley Kubrick's 1964 film.

• Josh wonders why they couldn't just use Kikkoman soy sauce from a Chinese restaurant to refuel the soy diesel truck they had been originally stranded with in Part One.

Josh: "You're telling me, we couldn't have just gone to the nearest Chinese restaurant, picked up some Kikkoman and poured it into the soy diesel thing?"

Donna: "I don't think it works like that. Plus, how close do you think the nearest Chinese restaurant was?" 

• Capital City Limousine is still in business in Washington, DC. I believe that telephone number is still a good one for them, too.

 

End credits freeze frame: Toby, Josh, and Donna walking toward the Arlington Memorial Bridge with the Lincoln Memorial in the distance.

Previous episode: 20 Hours In America, Part One

Next episode: College Kids

20 Hours In America, Part One - TWW S4E1

Original airdate: September 25, 2002

Written by: Aaron Sorkin (66)

Directed by: Christopher Misiano (9)

Synopsis

• When Josh, Toby, and Donna are left behind by the motorcade at an Indiana campaign stop, they begin a journey through the heartland of America to get to back to DC. Months after Defense Minister Shareef's disappearance in a supposed plane crash, Qumar's reopening of their investigation into the incident gives Leo pause. Sam steps in to staff the President in Josh's absence, and realizes he has a taste for it. An offhand remark by Abbey stirs a backlash from conservatives. Bartlet continues to interview candidates for the executive secretary position.

"They just change their watches every time they cross a time zone? What is this, a joke?"

The story of average, everyday Americans living in the heartland being able to touch the lives and change the minds of elitist, urban, citified people is a longstanding trope in drama. I mean, really longstanding. Aaron Sorkin goes to that well to kick off Season 4, stranding Josh, Toby, and Donna in the middle of Indiana so they can get their comeuppance from the "common people" and learn something important in the process.

Okay, so that sounds a bit sneery and sarcastic when I put it that way. This episode actually is a well-loved one by many West Wing fans, because we like seeing city slickers Josh and Toby completely out of their element in rural America. And also dragged by some high schoolers:

Sam: "You got left behind by the motorcade?"

Josh: "Yeah, and then we ran out of gas, and there was a time zone foul-up, and also, we were waylaid by some mean schoolgirls. Alpha girls, you know what I'm saying?"

There are a lot of moving parts to this episode, and several of them that won't really come into play until Part Two. We hear of Abbey's campaign stop in Madison, Wisconsin, where she faced protests from women who didn't appreciate her comment about being "just a wife and mother":

Mark (reporter): "CJ, do you have any idea why there were women at the First Lady's rally this morning who were dressed in ... (checks notes) ... aprons and rolling pins?"

CJ: "They were dressed in rolling pins?"

The Dow is in free fall, and the administration is casting about for ways to stabilize the markets. CJ is trying to find a new Big Brother for Anthony Marcus, whom Simon was mentoring before he was shot. There's a guy waiting for a photo op who has shaken hands with every President since Herbert Hoover. And the President uses the flight back to DC from Indiana to interview a couple of candidates for his secretary position, to replace Mrs. Landingham. The interviews don't really go all that well ... you can see Jed really isn't making a connection with either of these extremely serious, almost gruff women.

There's also mention of Qumar, which brings to mind what we, the viewers know from last season: that President Bartlet had the country's Defense Minister, Abdul Shareef, killed on a lonely Bermuda airstrip in retaliation for terrorist attacks against Americans. It was reported as his plane going down in the Atlantic, but when an adviser notes Qumar is reopening the investigation into Shareef's disappearance, Leo and Admiral Fitzwallis share a meaningful look:

All these storylines are just waiting for future episodes to provide context, depth, and (eventually) resolution.

But the heart of this episode remains back in Indiana, with our three denizens of the big city high-falutin' political world stuck in the Midwest. The story begins at a campaign rally at an Indiana farm, where Bartlet touts alternative energy and connects his opponents to Big Oil. 

Josh and Toby are off in a soybean field with Cathy, the daughter of the farmer who owns the land. Toby is agonizing over how the speech is being delivered, how it lands with the crowd, while Josh dismisses Cathy's urging to increase aid to struggling small farmers like themselves. As the speech wraps up, Donna tracks them down so they can hop in the motorcade and continue to the next stop. Except as they come around a row of buses ...

Josh: "Hey, excuse me. Where's the motorcade?"

Woman (pointing): "It's out there."

 

And our journey begins, 110 miles from the nearest taxicab, stranded in Indiana.

Cathy offers to help - her boyfriend can let them use his soy-diesel pickup to get to the next campaign site. So all the guys load into the back of the truck:

If you're starting to be reminded of the 1987 Steve Martin/John Candy classic Planes, Trains, and Automobiles, I don't think it's an unintended connection. When the truck runs out of fuel, our intrepid trio must walk to a nearby service station to call for a ride. Josh and Toby, at odds with each other over something, have a tense game of tossing rocks at a barrel with the loser required to add "I work at the White House" to their name for the rest of the day.

Toby loses.

Once they get their ride, their simmering disagreement boils over. Josh isn't happy with the changes in the campaign strategy, changes that Toby and the President have apparently made without coordinating with the rest of the staff. Toby is trying to make the election more of a personal match, a contrast between competence and affability, between intellect and ignorance, or as he said in Hartsfield's Landing, "between smart, and not." Josh is afraid this tactic is going to turn off voters in what looks like a very close election.

Their argument is interrupted when their young driver sees some friends of his along the road and decides he needs to take care of a personal matter.

Josh: "When did we decide to make this about being the smartest person in the class? What meeting did I miss?"

Tyler: "I have to pull over for a minute."

Toby (to Josh, intently): "Let me tell you something ... (beat) What did he say?"

As Tyler begs his case with Kiki, Josh, Toby, and Donna are desperate to get to Air Force One before it departs. Except ... this is Indiana, where time is complex and confusing.

Josh: "Tyler, no fooling around. We've got 15 minutes to get to a plane that is three miles from here. That plane, I swear to God, is taking off at 1:00."

Tyler: "It's taking off at 1:00?"

Josh: "Yes, it is."

Kiki: "Are you guys stupid or something? It's 1:45 right now."

Josh: "It's 12:45."

Kiki: "No, not here, it's not."

Donna: "Oh, my God, she's right."

Tyler: "See, we crossed over from Unionville to Dearborn County which doesn't observe Daylight Saving Time."

Kiki: "I think it's the other way around, genius."

Air Force One is already long gone. Josh and Toby do not take this news well.

 

So they're really stuck, and as they scramble for another way back home they'll encounter even more denizens of the heartland.

Meanwhile, there's Sam. Ordered to go home and sleep after being up for nearly three days straight, he's awakened by a frantic phone call from Josh. Since the Deputy Chief of Staff is stuck in Indiana with no quick way home, and the President has a full slate in the Oval Office, Josh needs Sam to step in and staff Bartlet.

Sam: "I don't know what it is you do in there."

Josh: "Yeah, you do. Anything ceremonial, security related, or personal, you leave the room. As it gets later in the day he's going to start to talk to you. You're going to tell him how the meeting he just had with his Council of Economic Advisers relates to the meeting he had with the Agriculture Secretary, relates to his intelligence briefing, relates to the environment, relates to jobs, relates to education, relates to the campaign. You're his wide-angle lens."

Sam: "There are going to be any number of areas on which I can't give him expert advice."

Josh: "Welcome to the club, partner. We got jackets."

So a dead-tired Sam steps in to stand by President Bartlet. Unsure of his bearings, he asks the President if there's a place he should be, getting the answer, "Just rock and roll, Sam." Thankfully Larry is there to point him right:

"Josh likes to stand over there."

Instantly, in a meeting with the Secretary of Commerce, Sam does what he thinks he's supposed to do - he jumps in to take the blame for an energy speech that has Secretary Bryce riled up. Bartlet cuts Sam off, firmly telling Bryce he's wrong and he needs to get on board with the White House.

Sam takes note. This is how political power is used, how the levers of government come into play. It's not just about speeches and communication and how you say things - it's about personalities and drive and embodying the will of the voters who put you there. When a freshman Congressman from Texas stops by to get a photo with the President, Sam is even more intrigued - the easy familiarity Jed has, the way he connects this elected official from a Vietnamese refugee family to Leo, who flew fighter missions in the Vietnam War:

Sam feels something he's been missing in his job. The seed is planted, and Mr. Seaborn is going to start steering his career in a different direction over the next half of the season.

There is indeed a lot packed into this 43-some minutes, with no payoffs for us yet. Those must wait for Part Two, or even later episodes further down the line. As long as we have some dry rub to take along with us, we can manage the time.

Tales Of Interest!

- Another two-part season opener, just like Seasons 2 and 3. It was originally aired as a two-hour special episode, then divided into two parts for reruns and syndication.

- Let's address the elephant in the room in Season 4: Rob Lowe's upcoming departure from the series. If you've been reading this blog for a while, you know the original idea for The West Wing was to follow the staffers in the White House and see how things worked behind the scenes, with the President just an occasional figure that would pop up every month or so. Lowe (and Moira Kelly, in the beginning, but that's another story) was seen as the "star" of the series, given the top billing in the credits and a salary of $75,000 an episode, over twice as much as the rest of the regulars received.

But then we got Martin Sheen cast as Jed Bartlet, and his onscreen presence and undeniable strength as a performer forced the President into more of a starring role. Meanwhile, Sorkin started having trouble finding good stories to write for Sam Seaborn, as the character was left to deal with plotlines wholly separated from the rest of the cast: the elimination of the penny (War Crimes); the OMB definition of poverty (The Indians In The Lobby); seatbelt laws (The Women Of Qumar). Add to that the fact that Allison Janney, Richard Schiff, John Spencer, and Bradley Whitford walked off the set together the previous summer (after Season 2) to demand more money (and got a doubling of their salaries, to $70,000 per episode), and that Sheen saw his salary jump to $300,000 an episode for Season 4, well ... with Lowe looking at a serious lack of good stories for Sam as well as being the only cast member not getting a raise, it's not really all that surprising he decided to walk away from the show.

Right from episode one, you see Sorkin starting to lay the groundwork for Sam's departure, by giving him a taste of being "on the inside" with more access and responsibility than he has as Deputy White House Communications Director. And Sam likes it!

- A new season brings us a slightly revised credit sequence. Everybody stays in the same order - Lowe comes first, the rest of the cast in alphabetical order, with "and Martin Sheen" bringing up the rear - but there's some new video added for Lowe and John Spencer, and maybe for Janel Moloney as well. Stockard Channing will again appear in the credits in episodes she's in.

- Western Pennsylvania was used to stand in for the farmland of Indiana, specifically areas in Lawrence County in and around the town of Volant. That's just about 50 miles north of Pittsburgh.

- The Daylight Saving Time mixup truly was a fact of life in Indiana at the time of this episode, and the issues of time confusion in different parts of the state merits its own Wikipedia page. Indiana is mostly in the Eastern time zone, with some counties in the northwest (part of the Chicago-Gary metro area) and southwest choosing to be in the Central time zone. In 1972 Congress gave states with multiple time zones the power to allow one of those sections to not participate in Daylight Savings Time. In Indiana, the sections in the Central time zone did follow DST, turning their clocks ahead an hour in the spring and back in the fall, but the majority of the state (in the Eastern time zone) did not, remaining on Standard Time year-round. That meant the entire state was actually on the same clock during the summer months, with the northwest and southwest areas an hour off from the majority of the state in the winter.

Not following DST, though, made things complicated for cities and towns along the border with other states, which continued to change their clocks twice a year. Some counties in the southeastern corner of Indiana, near Cincinnati, Ohio and Louisville, Kentucky, chose to informally follow DST to align their clocks with the major metropolitan areas across the state lines. Dearborn County was one of those counties:

Tyler: "See, we crossed over from Unionville to Dearborn County which doesn't observe Daylight Saving Time."

Kiki: "I think it's the other way around, genius." (She's right, he's wrong, Dearborn County did observe DST)

So while our merry band of misfit wanderers that missed the motorcade was operating on Eastern Standard Time, the local time in Dearborn County was Eastern Daylight Time, or an hour ahead of what Toby, Josh, and Donna thought it was.

Since 2007 the entire state, while still divided between the Eastern and Central time zones, observes Daylight Saving Time.

- Sorkin's specificity about the Indiana locations only raises confusion for us, though:

• The only Unionville in Indiana is a small unincorporated town near Bloomington. It's certainly not the location of a Naval Warfare Center (not to mention it's 200 miles from Lake Michigan, the nearest large body of water).

• Unionville is also about 100 miles west of Dearborn county, so there's not really an instantaneous time-zone-dividing line between one and the other. 

• Dearborn county's largest town has about 5000 residents, and there's no large airport such as "Reynolds Air Force Base." It is right across the state line from Cincinnati, which would have airports that could accommodate Air Force One - but if the official schedule was using Cincinnati EDT for local time, instead of Indiana EST, there would never have been any confusion for Donna, Josh, and Toby about when the departure time was.

• Josh mentions Tyler is taking them to the "Connersville metro station" to catch a train to get to Indianapolis. Connersville is a town of about 13,000 people, two counties to the northwest of Dearborn county. Again, Dearborn county is almost to Cincinnati, it makes no travel sense to try to get to Indianapolis from there instead.

- Pretty fancy security to get into the Situation Room, as Leo gets his hand scanned in order to enter (note how far this set has come since the days of A Proportional Response, or "Post Hoc, Ergo Propter Hoc" when they didn't even have a Situation Room set):

- Kind of a neat shot as President Bartlet walks away after his speech at the military base, having just heard the news from Leo that Qumar is nosing around Shareef's disappearance again. The shot of the President under the huge American flag in the hangar, given the circumstances, is nicely timed and well composed.

- What's up with Josh asking Sam to "staff the President," and Sam seemingly unaware of what that entails? We haven't really seen Josh specifically hanging out in the Oval Office as Bartlet's "wide-angle lens" over the past three years - and much of the time he's been in there, Sam has been there, too. It really does seem to be a made-up reason to get Sam inside the meetings the President has, to get him "in the room where it happens" (yep, another Hamilton reference incoming).

- It's tough to make out, but Gail's fishbowl has a large directional sign pointing the way to Washington DC. If only Josh, Toby, and Donna had Gail along with them to guide the way ...

- Bruno says, "Election's in six weeks, Mr. President." With Election Day of 2002 being November 5, that would mean the end of September or the first week of October. This episode aired September 25, so pretty close.

Quotes    

CJ: "Where are Josh and Toby?"

Donna: "They're in the soybean fields, talking to Cathy."

CJ: "Cathy?"

Donna: "The daughter, but I like saying Toby and Josh are in the soybean fields."

CJ: "He's wrapping up, and we're getting right in the car. We're already late for Unionville."

Donna: "I'll get them from the soybean fields."

-----

Josh: "Donna's a little nervous. A couple of weeks ago, some guys got left behind by the motorcade in Kentucky."

Donna: "It was Tennessee, and they were never heard from again."

-----

Cathy: "We've got some voters here, Josh, did you forget?"

Josh: "No."

Toby: "They're voting for Ritchie."

Cathy: "What?"

Toby: "Indiana's voting for Ritchie. If there was someone less competent than Ritchie on the ballot, that's who Indiana'd be voting for."

-----

Leo: "What's his first?"

Margaret: "Treasurer of the United States, not to be confused with Treasury Secretary."

Leo: "The Treasurer of the United States deals with the color of money. What's the meeting about?"

(Margaret digs through the files she's carrying)

Margaret: "Color currency."

-----

Leo: "Just out of curiosity, what do you think would happen?"

Fitzwallis: "I don't know what would happen to you and me but I'm pretty sure the President would be invited to see the inside of The Hague."

Leo: "Yeah, well, they can invite all they want. He ain't going."

Fitzwallis: "Perhaps this would be a good time for you to reconsider your position on an international war crimes tribunal."

Leo: "Perhaps this would be a good time for you to -"

Fitzwallis: "Get out of your office?"

-----

(Josh and Toby are flipping out over the time mistake) 

Donna (to Tyler): "Okay, this is a whole new thing now. My boys are going to need to walk this off a bit before they can regroup. Kiki, you and your friends get back to school. Tyler, you and I are going to come up with a plan to get us to a commercial airport."

Tyler: "Okay, how long are they going to be?"

Donna: "A couple more minutes." 

-----

Fiona: "What would you like?"

Toby: "What's good?"

Fiona: "Everything."

Toby: "What's your specialty?"

Fiona: "Taking someone's order and giving it to them."

Toby: "Okay."

Fiona: "I saw you drive up. You people going to cause trouble."

Toby: "I swear not on purpose."

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

• Amy Adams (Arrival, American Hustle, Julie & Julia) plays Cathy, daughter of the farm family hosting the President's campaign speech. Adams had a few roles prior to this episode, mostly in TV with a few movie appearances, but was largely unknown. Catch Me If You Can, where she costarred with Leonardo DiCaprio, didn't come out until three months after this episode aired. Her breakout performance in Junebug was three years away, and the huge hit Enchanted was still five years in the future.

• Tyler, the high-school student who tries to help out Josh, Toby, and Donna in his jeep, is played by John Gallagher Jr. (10 Cloverfield Lane, Westworld).  He may not be quite a household name, but he returned as a member of the Mighty Sorkin Players with a lead role in Sorkin's 2012 HBO series The Newsroom.

• There's a familiar face in the Situation Room: Peter, the adviser updating Leo on Africa, has appeared several other times (most notably in 18th And Potomac and the opening episodes of Season 3 as the adviser on Haiti). He's played by Victor McKay (whose character was apparently billed as "Henry" in Manchester Part I but "Peter" in Manchester Part II and all his other appearances).

• Nancy (Renee Estevez, Martin Sheen's daughter) gets a little attention at the speech at the Naval Warfare Center, first seen on stage talking on the phone as the speech wraps up and then giving the phone to Charlie (who calls CJ over, so she can get the President's attention to come talk to Leo - seems like a lot of unnecessary steps).

• The Situation Room discussion about Qumar reopening their investigation into the "plane crash" that killed Defense Minister Shareef continues the assassination storyline from Posse Comitatus.

• During a campaign speech, President Bartlet mentions making an appointment to the Supreme Court. That, of course, was Justice Mendoza, with the nomination/confirmation playing out in The Short List and Six Meetings Before Lunch.

• Fitz says Leo should rethink his opinion on an international war crimes tribunal. We saw Leo's position in favor of such a tribunal in War Crimes.

• We get just a quick shot of CJ gathering her thoughts before she talks to Charlie. This moment of somber reflection shows her sorrow over Simon Donovan, their budding romance cut down by an armed robber in Posse Comitatus.

• One of Charlie's reasons for not becoming a Big Brother is that he just got Deanna off to school. We discovered in Charlie's first episode (A Proportional Response) that Deanna is Charlie's little sister, and he's been her caretaker since their police officer mother was killed in 1999.

• We know Sam's undergraduate work was done at Princeton, most recently mentioned in The U.S. Poet Laureate when he tells CJ his Princeton Tigers could whip her Cal Bears at logarithms. He's wearing a Princeton t-shirt when Josh wakes him up with a phone call.

• The ongoing comical confusion between Ed and Larry continues (and the two get quite a bit of screen time in this episode):

President (to Larry): "Ed ..."

Larry: "Well, I'm Larry, sir."

President: "Whatever."  

• WHAT'S NEXT MOMENT - At the end of the episode, after Congressman Lien leaves the Oval Office, the President smiles, turns to Larry and Leo, and says, "What's next?"

DC location shots    

• None, but there are plenty of shots of the Pennsylvania countryside (standing in for Indiana).

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

• A New Holland combine is seen clearly behind President Bartlet at his farmstead speech. 

• Bartlet mentions the oil companies Texaco and Shell in his speech.

• Leo grumps about fitness guru Jack LaLanne when he asks for a Margaret-approved half a grapefruit.

• The sailors sing The Battle Hymn Of The Republic at the Naval Warfare Center.

• The discussion between Leo and Fitz over the Bermuda Triangle includes references to "Toscanini landing in a cornfield" (which is apparently a Sorkin-invented phrase) and the disappearance of five Navy Avenger bombers and the rescue plane sent after them.

• Josh's exclamation "Danger, Will Robinson" when the high-school girls bring up abortion is from the television show Lost In Space.

• Bruno mentions a list of polls sponsored by actual media firms, including ABC/Washington Post, CBS/New York Times, NBC/Wall Street Journal, and CNN/USA Today, and the Gallup polling company. He also brings up right-wing conservative activists Phyllis Schlafly and Ann Coulter.

• Discussing Mondays, Donna refers to the Boomtown Rats' song I Don't Like Mondays and the school shooting that inspired Bob Geldof to write it.

• As Josh criticizes Toby's campaign tactics, he says Ritchie's advisers include the economist Milton Friedman. Leonard Tynan, the education adviser, is apparently fictional.

• There's a throwaway line about a photo op with someone who's shaken hands with every President since Herbert Hoover. More about that in the next episode.

• Sam asks Ginger about a Reader's Digest -style condensed index to get him up to speed:

Sam: "All right, do we have some sort of condensed Reader's Digest index of ... well, all human knowledge?"

Ginger: "We usually just use Margaret." 

End credits freeze frame: Sam in the Oval Office, getting a taste of the real benefits of inside politics.

Previous episode: Posse Comitatus

Next episode: 20 Hours In America, Part Two