Welcome To Wherever You Are - TWW S7E15

 

Original airdate: March 26, 2006

Written by: Josh Singer (6)

Directed by: Matia Karrell (1)

Synopsis

• In the frantic final Halloween of the campaign, just days before the election, Matt and the Santos team play "time zone hopscotch" from city to city and state to state, a day jammed with meetings and rallies and photo ops and rock stars and candidate's wives popping off about felon voting rights. Meanwhile, Toby faces off with the US attorney for DC in a standoff that could affect his relationship with Andy and the twins.
  

"The last five days, it's all about hustle." 

This episode is not for the calm, not for the relaxed, and definitely not for those with attention-span issues. It's frenetic, frantic, shaky-cam, overlapping dialogue, rushing from bus to plane to bus to tarmac to hangar to rally to ... well, trick-or-treating in a Dayton neighborhood. It perfectly encapsulates what the final days of a closely contested Presidential election must feel like, the exhaustion, the nonstop pace, the urgency and issues and people competing for attention and notice, the dropped meetings ... it's a crazily energetic episode, and we can't help but feel caught up in the rush and the scurry and feel like we're missing something somewhere.

 

Then, as a contrast to the moving, spinning Santos campaign, we also get Toby - facing off with US Attorney Peter Blake as he's offered a deal: give up his source for the classified military space shuttle information he leaked to the press, or see an additional indictment looping in more Bartlet administration Democrats on the eve of the election. These scenes, while containing tension and drama, are much calmer and smoother than what we see on the campaign trail, which is nice - we kind of need the break!

 

We begin with Josh and Louise setting the schedule for the final days of the campaign, with Matt, Leo, and the President himself dashing across the country to drum up as many votes as possible in the swing states that will make the difference this coming Tuesday. The blue arrows are for Matt, the green ones for Leo, the red for President Bartlet:

 

And the purple clovers keep Louise entertained while she waits for Josh to make his decisions. It's an exhaustingly difficult plan, made more difficult by Vinick's VP candidate Ray Sullivan showing up in Colorado and bringing Matt's numbers down there, and issues with Latino registrations in Florida. 

The time-zone hopscotch is on, with an added trip for Helen to Florida to try to pump up the Santos vote there and phone calls to Vice President Russell to try to get him to help out in Colorado. As Halloween begins, the dash kicks off with Matt going from Pennsylvania to Ohio and back again, and Helen off to Florida before she rejoins the family for a trick-or-treating photo op in Dayton. The pace is brutal: each gaggle with reporters seems to end with "Are you watching the game this weekend?" to which Matt answers diplomatically, "Philly and New York, both strong teams. I'm looking forward to it." Until the time Donna reminds him he's actually in Ohio, and he has to correct himself with "Go Buckeyes!"

 

As Josh finds himself stymied by all the Vice President's men, Helen gets in a bit of hot water in Florida by making a statement about voting rights for ex-cons. While Matt is in agreement with her, it's a dicey political issue that could hurt his campaign in some key southern and western states, so he has to put out that fire - another added complication to an already busy day. Which gets even tougher when the Santos children arrive in Ohio to get ready for trick-or-treating, without Helen (and with Helen's mother off to chat with Ben Affleck instead of watching the kids). Thank goodness for Jon Bon Jovi, on the Santos bus already, and his willingness to chaperone the kids as they get candy from the press van while they wait for their parents.

 

That turns out to be a bad case of "priming the pump," so to speak - Matt is delayed in joining the family on the photo op, Helen and Matt snipe at one another over the Florida thing, the kids are grumpy and full of sugar and ice cream, having already been to 60-some houses waiting for Dad ... and at the last house, the sight of caramel apples is just too much for the Santos son.

 

Kind of a fitting end to a day spinning out of control.

But at the end of this grueling, exhausting day, with four more of the same yet to come, even after the missteps and the travel and the arguments and the blowups, as a spent, haggard Matt, dark circles under his eyes, asks Josh for the bottom line, there's daylight at the end.

 

Matt: "You think we're gonna win?"

(pause - a tiny hint of a smile plays over Josh's face)

Josh: "I do."

Meanwhile, back in DC, Toby is facing yet another meeting with the attorney ready to prosecute him for leaking classified information to the press. Toby has been clear, he's not interested in making any deals, and he's not interested in giving up his source in order for a shorter sentence. The attorney is ready to up the ante - if Toby doesn't give up a name by the end of the day, he'll add on an indictment for obstruction of justice and subpoena Chief of Staff CJ, Vice Presidential candidate Leo, and President Bartlet himself. And he'll do it just days before a tight Presidential election, giving the impression that the Democratic administration and its current VP candidate are deeply involved in a coverup over sensitive classified military secrets, an event that can't help but have a hugely negative impact on the Santos campaign. Toby is livid.

Toby: "You're gonna sabotage a national election over this?"

Blake: "No. You are."

 

Toby takes some time, heading out to Maryland to his ex-wife Andy's place, thinking things over as they prepare for Halloween with their twins. We haven't seen much of Andy lately, not since the events of Gaza when the delegation she was with hit a roadside bomb, resulting in the deaths of two Congresspeople and retired Admiral Fitzwallace, as well as seriously injuring Donna. We also haven't heard much about the twins Molly and Huck - born during the events of Twenty Five, where Toby realized the deep importance of fatherhood and declared his devotion and love for those newborns (only to see that completely disappear with the new writing team after Aaron Sorkin's departure). 

Toby and Andy still have a complicated relationship (remember he bought a house for her in an attempt to get her to accept his proposal for remarriage in Commencement), made tougher by her running for re-election with an ex-husband under investigation for leaking government secrets. And once Toby mentions there's a deal on the table that might help him avoid jail time, it gets even more complicated:

Andy: "A Republican hasn't won the Maryland 8th in forty years ... I'm running neck and neck ... my campaign manager wants to make 'That's Why I Divorced Him' buttons ... just tell the US Attorney it was David and this will all be over. It's what he would have wanted you to do."

Toby: "Don't tell me what my brother would have wanted. He did nothing wrong, and I will not consider for one second defaming his reputation over something he had absolutely nothing to do with."

(pause)

Andy: "Is that what you're going to tell the kids?"

Toby is nothing if not consistent, though. He's going to stick to his guns, stick to what he believes is right, knowing that his leaking of info on that military shuttle saved the lives of the astronauts on the ISS and that it was the only moral path to follow. He calls in the attorney late on Halloween evening and tells him not only will there be no deal, but he knows Blake is bluffing on the indictments and the subpoena threats.

Toby: "I've dedicated my life to this country, to public service - and regardless of our different interpretations of the role of the federal prosecutor in our legal system, I don't think derailing a Presidential election is part of your job description. (pause) And I don't think you believe it is, either."

So, to quote a certain fictional President ... "what's next?" As Santos and Vinick sprint to the finish line, and Toby holds firm in the face of threats, basically all we have left is - who will the American people vote for?

That's what's next, coming up on The West Wing.

 

Tales Of Interest!

- This episode is clearly set on Halloween, October 31. That day in 2006 (which is the year of this election, mind you) was a Tuesday, exactly a week before election day, November 7. Yet for some reason, the onscreen graphic we're shown is that Halloween, October 31, is a Thursday, and five days before the election (which would mean November 5).

 

What. The. Actual. Hell.

 

I mean, fine, it's a fictional world, it could be any year, the dates could be anything ... except the events of the series explicitly began in 1999 (In Excelsis Deo included Christmastime discussions about the upcoming millennium celebrations, which had to mean 2000 was coming up), and the prior Presidential election we saw was clearly 2002 (Toby says so definitively in 17 People, with the line, "Leo, has there been a discussion in some room, someplace -- anywhere, on any level, about Hoynes being dropped from the ticket in 2002?"). There's simply no way this election wrapping up Bartlet's second term could be any year but 2006 - so Halloween could NOT be on a Thursday. The only choices for a calendar with October 31 on a Thursday would be 2002 (which, as I showed, already had a Presidential election taking place four years prior) or 2013 (which would mean President Bartlet has been in office for 14 years).

- There's a nice little blink-and-you-miss-it moment on the bus, where a TV monitor in the background shows Leo campaigning. John Spencer died the previous December, before this episode was filmed; since in the universe of the show Leo is still around and running for Vice President, this was a nice way to pay a little tribute to the late actor even after his passing (and, of course, much more tribute is on the way).

- With the story about the Vinick "Made In America" bus tour buses being built in Canada, we do see that the Santos bus was built by MCI (Motor Coach Industries). That company is headquartered in Illinois, but at the time had factories in both Winnipeg and in North Dakota (so it's unclear in which country this particular bus might have been produced).

- Toby remains adamant - to both Andy and the US Attorney - that he didn't get the secret military shuttle information from his brother, from CJ, or from Leo. This does make us wonder, where exactly did he get it? His brother, being a space shuttle crewman for NASA, seems like a logical source (especially given the conversation he has with CJ in Things Fall Apart where he implies his brother might have let something like that slip, to lord it over Toby) - but if it wasn't David, and it wasn't CJ, or Leo ... who was it? There's a serious conspiracy theory community among West Wing fans that believes it was actually CJ who leaked the information to Greg Brock, and Toby just took the fall for her. My opinion is that's hogwash ... just look at how the two react at the end of Mr. Frost and the beginning of Here Today, when Toby admits to CJ that he was the leak, and there's nobody else in the room; if CJ had actually done it and Toby was covering for her, that scene would simply not exist. And another theory, that President Bartlet himself had set up the leak with Toby to give the President political cover to use the military shuttle to rescue the ISS astronauts, that doesn't really line up with Bartlet's hard line to Toby in Here Today when he was dismissed; and even if you shrug that off as Bartlet acting for Oliver Babish's benefit, the struggle we see the President dealing with over whether or not to pardon Toby on his way out of the White House in Tomorrow happens with no one but Bartlet in the room. The events of the show simply do not agree with either the CJ leaker/Toby covering for her theory, or the President Bartlet using Toby to leak the info for him theory. Anyway ... Toby is eliminating potential suspects right and left, so I don't know who gave him the information if it wasn't David.

- Why'd They Come Up With Welcome To Wherever You Are?

The title not only illustrates the frenetic nature of the final days of the campaign - who knows where we are right now? Where are we going to next? - but it's also the title of a Bon Jovi song, and Jon Bon Jovi appears in this episode. The song had just been released in December 2005, only months before this episode aired. It did not chart in the United States. (The song is from the album Have A Nice Day - Louise tells Jon at one point how she loves the “new album,” and there are also references to the album Slippery When Wet and the song Livin’ On A Prayer.) 

Quotes    

Reporter: "How many states are you hitting today?"

Matt: "Uh, I think Josh Lyman over there is shooting for about fifty."

-----

Helen (on the phone with Matt): "He does remember I'm white?"

Matt: "He does now."

Helen: "Whiter than white? White Album white?"

Matt: "Believe me, this wasn't --"

Helen: "White devil, white dahlia, the white-white witch who lured a big gorgeous Latino man away from --"

-----

(After Jon Bon Jovi says he'll look after the Santos kids trick-or-treating at the press van)

Louise: "He's fantastic."

Matt: "An international rock star looking after my kids. Yeah. It's like a dream come true."

  

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

• Toby's lawyer Alana Waterman, played by Lee Garlington (Sneakers, Dante's Peak, the "Nazi cow" in Field Of Dreams) appears. Alana was last seen in the Roosevelt Room telling Toby to stop talking about his leak of the classified military shuttle in Here Today, but first appeared in Red Haven's On Fire when Amy Gardner dissed her (at Abbey's request) during a fundraiser for Sam's House campaign in California.

• Peter Blake, the US Attorney prosecuting Toby, is played by Matt Letscher (Almost Perfect, Good Morning Miami, Eli Stone, The New Adventures Of Old Christine [along with Agent Casper himself, Clark Gregg]).

• Good old Ivan Allen (Sicario, Apollo 13, News Radio), consistent news anchor on movies and television, shows up again. This is his 24th credit on The West Wing, with his first appearance back in Season 1's A Proportional Response.
  

• Toby's ex-wife Andy Wyatt shows up (in her Halloween witch costume, va-va-voom), along with their children Huck and Molly. Andy is played by Kathleen York, and her last appearance was in Gaza, when she narrowly avoided being hurt in the roadside bombing that injured Donna and killed Admiral Fitzwallace.

• Speaking of Huck and Molly, the twins were born in May, 2003, in Twenty Five, during Zoey's kidnapping crisis. In that episode, Toby declared his undying love and devotion to the twins and pledged to be a good father - but we rarely heard a mention of them again after that, discovering in The Supremes that he hadn't actually been around much and wasn't much interested in taking care of them while Andy would be out of the country on her Mideast trip. In this episode, there's plenty of tension between Toby and Andy (admittedly, a lot of that because of the political fallout for Andy should she be seen in public with someone charged with leaking government secrets). Also, given the timeline of when the twins were born, at Halloween 2006 they'd be 3 1/2 years old. That actually does fit pretty well with the actors they chose to play the kids.
  

• There's a mention of Presidential daughter Zoey Bartlet doing some womens' issue appearances in Florida for the Santos campaign. We haven't seen Zoey onscreen since the convention in 2162 Votes. 
  

• We hear the name "Berryhill" a couple of times. Berryhill is the Secretary of State (only seen once in the series, as the potential Vice Presidential replacement played by William Devane in The Dogs Of War). 
  

• We also hear a lot about Matt wanting to be briefed by Nancy McNally over Kazakhstan. Josh calls her the "former" national security adviser to President Bartlet, so she's apparently been replaced (Kate Harper is basically doing her role now, I suppose she's formally now the NSA?). We saw McNally many times earlier in the series, but not since Liftoff (ironically, Matt Santos' first appearance on the show).
  

• There's also some references to Vice President Russell, who of course lost the Democratic nomination to Matt in 2162 Votes; as the "congressman from Western Colorado - the mining company, not the state" Josh is hoping Russell could help reverse Santos' sinking numbers in Colorado, but he's obviously not keen on helping out.
  

• Oh, so many story threads from the past:
• Pretty much the entire Santos campaign staff is aware Annabeth is sweet on Leo; we saw that first in Mr. Frost, when Annabeth called Leo "fabulous," fell asleep on his shoulder while holding his hand, and told him they needed to keep their distance "because of the tension." They flirted more seriously in Running Mates, and now it appears Annabeth is singing Stevie Wonder songs about her feelings for Leo.
• Toby's leak of the classified military shuttle to the press, leading to the rescue of astronauts stranded on the International Space Station, the suspicion falling on CJ, and the following investigation and Toby's confession and dismissal from the White House (Mr. Frost/Here Today) is front and center as he deals with the US Attorney on the case. Naturally, Toby's brother (a shuttle astronaut we first heard of in What Kind Of Day Has It Been, and a possible source of the classified information whose death by suicide was a huge part of Drought Conditions) is also a topic.
  
• Toby's fraught relationship with his ex-wife (first seen in Mandatory Minimums; he bought a house for Andy in a bid to get him to remarry him in Commencement) and their twins (seen as newborns in Twenty Five) runs throughout this Halloween night.
• At last, there's reference to the US troops serving as peacekeepers in Israel. That was a huge element of the Mideast peace agreement in the wake of the bombing of Donna, Fitzwallace, and two Congressmen in Gaza, an agreement we saw come together in The Birnam Wood - but hardly heard a word about since. Finally, here's a reference to those troops and that responsibility, as Matt shows his frustration over having to move some of those peacekeeping troops to Kazakhstan to cover President Bartlet's intervention there.
  

DC location shots    

• None. We do get an establishing shot of what's supposed to be the US Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia (and was also shown as the place where Donna was giving her deposition in War Crimes - in fact, it's the exact same video shot they used in that episode, and also the exact same footage they used to show what was supposed to be the Senate office building housing Vinick's office in In God We Trust) - but that building is actually the headquarters of the Environmental Protection Agency, in the 300 block of 12th Street NW.

Those people have been sitting on those benches for a long time.

This episode, the US Attorney for DC's office

 

In God We Trust, apparently the Senate office building where Vinick's office is located

War Crimes, where Donna gave her deposition to the House committee investigating the MS coverup

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

• Annabeth is singing the song For Once In My Life (made most famous by Stevie Wonder's 1967 version) on the St. Louis airport tarmac to open the episode, and we discover Stevie Wonder himself performed at the Santos rally that evening. Matt says Wonder recorded the song when he was just 17, which is true. (Kristin Chenoweth, of course, was a well-known and highly lauded Broadway musical star before joining The West Wing cast, so the girl can sing.)
  

• Matt appearing with Jay Leno on The Tonight Show is a running subplot of the episode. Annabeth later confuses David Letterman's Top Ten list with Leno's show. The literary characters Robin Hood and Zorro come up in talks about Matt's appearance.
  

• There are a couple of references to polls by Zogby, which was an important and respected pollster in the early 2000s. We hear about the news outlets AP, Reuters, the Philadelphia Inquirer, and there's the MSNBC and C-SPAN logos seen. We also get mentions of Drudge (Matt Drudge, who ran a popular political blog/website at the time) and a Rasmussen poll. CNN is also mentioned late in the episode.

• Jon Bon Jovi not only performs for a Santos rally in Pennsylvania, he rides on the bus and helps take the Santos kids trick or treating to the press bus. As a personal note, I saw Jon Bon Jovi appear and sing at a rally for John Kerry in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, the last week of October, 2004 (just over a year before this episode was filmed) - so Bon Jovi's bona fides as a supporter of Democratic presidential candidates rings true.

• Louise talks about Helen's felon-voting statement with the term "a universal suffrage, free-Capone kind of way." Al Capone was a famous gangster in Chicago in the 1920s, finally convicted of tax evasion and jailed in 1931.
  

• Toby jokes about dressing up as Julius Rosenberg for Halloween. Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were convicted of spying for the Soviet Union and executed in 1953.
  

• Huck and Molly are wearing Baltimore Orioles uniforms as their Halloween costumes (with their mother being a congressperson from Maryland, makes sense). Toby replaces one of their hats with a New York Yankees cap when he puts them to bed. As far as sports references go, Matt also says, "Go, Buckeyes!" meaning the Ohio State University football team.
  

• Andy mentions she's the Representative from Maryland's 8th congressional district. At this time, between 2003 and 2013, that district (located immediately north of the District of Columbia) took in parts of Frederick, Prince George's, Montgomery, and Carroll counties. Andy's remark about a Republican not winning the district in 40 years is incorrect, though - Republican Connie Morella actually held the seat from 1986 until she was voted out in 2002, just four years/two elections before what we see portrayed here. (This also indicates the house Toby bought for her in Commencement, which was located south of DC in Alexandria, Virginia, would have been a long way away from her district.)
  

• Matt and Helen's son is dressed as Harry Potter for Halloween. The events of this episode were taking place between the release of the book Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince in 2005 and the final book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, which came out in 2007. As far as the films go, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire had come out in 2005.
  

• We can see Paula Zahn on a TV monitor in the background on the Santos bus. At the time this episode was filmed in early 2006, Zahn was host of the show Paula Zahn Now on CNN.

• Donna says Matt's son eating Graeter's ice cream ("a Cincinnati delicacy") made for a great photo op.
  

• We have a mention of Helen's mother chatting with Ben Affleck.
  

• Toby picks through Mars bars and Bit-O-Honey as Halloween treats. 
  

• We see Barry Goodwin talking about all the lawyers the campaign has ready in Florida and other states in case election results need to be contested. The legal side of Presidential election outcomes was hardly a thing before Bush-Gore in 2000 (a case that ended up in the Supreme Court, where it was decided in favor of Bush), but is essentially a fact of life now, with the Trumpian policy of suing, complaining, and bringing out lawyers to bear on any vote result that doesn't go in his favor.

• During Toby's scathing takedown of Peter Blake he refers to Blake's Rhodes Scholarship.
  

• Toby quotes "Justice Robert Jackson" as he calls out Blake; Robert H. Jackson was indeed a Supreme Court justice between 1941 and 1954. The full quote, from a speech Jackson made in 1940, is "(T)he citizens' safety lies in the prosecutor who tempers zeal with human kindness, who seeks truth and not victims, who serves the law and not factional purposes, and who approaches his task with humility." Toby continues to quote Jackson's speech as he goes on ("Your positions are of such independence and importance that while you are being diligent, strict, and vigorous in law enforcement you can also afford to be just").
  

• Annabeth is trying to hide the logo, but we do get a glimpse that proves the water bottle she's holding is Dasani water.

Link To A Transcript Of This Episode

End credits freeze frame: Donna, Helen, and Matt on the airport tarmac in St. Louis.

Previous episode: Two Weeks Out

Next episode: Election Day: Part 1

Two Weeks Out - TWW S7E14

Original airdate: March 19, 2006

Written by: Lawrence O'Donnell (15)

Directed by: Laura Innes (5)

Synopsis

• As the candidates' paths repeatedly cross over the frantic final weeks of the campaign, Matt's misplaced briefcase and Vinick's strategy battles with Jane Braun could change the course of the election. Josh turns to Toby for advice. Vinick's nonstop handshaking leads to a painful result.
  

"It can make you President." 

Since we first met Congressman Matt Santos in Liftoff, we've seen multiple instances of his savvy political instincts - oftentimes even more clever and effective than Josh's ideas - from his health care bill trickery in The Dover Test to his seemingly doomed, quixotic efforts resulting in the debate he wants in Freedonia to his hiding of Democrats inside the halls of Congress to fool Speaker Haffley in A Good Day, and many more. We haven't seen much in the way of similar political mastermind work from Senator Arnie Vinick; well, his using of the religious right for his own purposes in In God We Trust probably fits. Here, we get to see Vinick's instincts shine, as he fights against the efforts of both Jane Braun and Bruno, insisting on doing things his way in California, the state he knows best, and how he turns out to be right all along.

 

Of course, we also get Vinick going along with Bruno's somewhat shady motives in handling Matt's lost briefcase, in a move that makes us think a bit less of Vinick, but that just makes him all the more human, I guess. I mean, the argument that "the public will find this out eventually, better that it comes out before they vote for the guy" can hold some weight, and the fact that Vinick decides not to leak the info personally and instead urges Matt to come clean himself is at least a more noble way to get there, but still ...

 

This episode is pretty linear, without a lot of subplotting, so let's get right to it: we start with the nonstop campaign glad-handing and personal contact with voters on rope lines wearing on Vinick physically. Particularly, his hands.

 

 

He's reduced to sticking his right hand in an ice bucket after every public appearance, with that hand bearing the brunt of squeezing and shaking and greeting every voter he's able to - with, as Bob says, "only five thousand more handshakes to go."

 

Bad turns to worse when he comes onstage at a Chicago event, and the host - an NFL football player - ends up probably breaking a bone in his hand with his brawny handshake, as Vinick grimaces in pain.

 

The physical pain is also a symbol of the pain running through the Vinick camp. After the accident at the nuclear power plant in San Andreo - a power plant Vinick pulled strings to get online 24 years ago - voter sentiment has turned against the Republican and the national race is basically a dead heat; in fact, Santos is actually ahead slightly even in California, Vinick's home state. That poll movement brought a shakeup to the Vinick campaign, with his longtime trusted adviser Sheila resigning and party bigshot Jane Braun coming on to shore up the Republican base, as we saw in The Cold. 

After the Chicago event, there's a tense and rather pointed debate on the Vinick plane, with Braun strongly pushing Vinick to turn to "values" issues like gay marriage and campaign in the South in order to get more Republicans to turn out and support his candidacy. Jane is, well ... extremely in-your-face in this episode; I realize her job is to get Vinick elected, and she sees this path as the best way to do it, but let's be frank - her strategy ignores who Vinick actually is and instead tries to portray him as a "normal," "socially conservative," "right wing" Republican candidate, which he definitely is not. As we discover a bit later in the episode, Jane is pushing her plan for, well, selfish reasons too; she doesn't want Vinick (or Bruno) doing something that hurts the campaign's chances if she's going to end up taking the blame for it. Bruno isn't that thrilled with her ideas, but given his precarious standing with the party at the moment, he doesn't feel like he can push back. At least, not to her face (that much), but it's a different story in private:

Vinick: "We should have just put Jane out there in front of the cameras and let her energize the base and then ignore her."

Bruno: "We are ignoring her."

But this is where Vinick's political savvy comes into play. As he watches Matt on TV once again keeping the San Andreo accident (and Vinick's apparent culpability) in the forefront of the news, he decides he has to try to put the issue behind him. He'll do a press conference, in front of the power plant, proving his confidence in the cleanup and the safety of the site, and answering every question from the press until they drop - a last-ditch talk-until-they-give-up event that should finally bury the issue. Both Jane and Bruno strongly disagree. They see no political advantage in going to California and basically taking responsibility for the accident right there in front of TV cameras, and would rather have him go to Florida and other southern states to start drumming up voter support in Republican strongholds. But Vinick is adamant. He knows his state, he knows how to campaign there, and he's doing this no matter what his advisers say.

On the other side of the coin, we also see the return of Toby, providing some secretive behind-the-scenes advice to Josh on the course of the Santos campaign. 

Toby … er, I mean, “Bob”

This is quite the turn for Toby, who scoffed at Matt's chances from the very start, with Toby’s effort to promote a primary challenger helping lead to a physical fight with Josh in Drought Conditions. But, I suppose, now that Matt is the Democratic nominee and only chance to keep the White House out of Republican hands, even Toby is willing to put his efforts behind him.

As the polling numbers continue to move following San Andreo, Toby urges Josh to change his plans on having Matt stump in the Northeast and Florida and instead head to California, where his surprising edge on Vinick is well worth the trip to try to cash in on. We soon discover, though, that Vinick's unexpected simultaneous move to go to San Andreo and wait out the press questions is going to suck a lot of the media coverage away from Matt's swing through the state.

And not only that - as the campaigns criss-cross over the same territory, hitting events in the same cities in the same swing states, the tension grows in this nail-bitingly close contest. Both candidates speak at the same convention in Chicago, and both campaigns cross paths in a hallway in a Philadelphia hotel:

And, in that same hotel, Matt's briefcase gets left behind in the same holding room that Vinick's campaign later uses. And of course, it's Bruno - the hard-nosed, win-at-almost-any-cost political wizard - who finds it. And looks inside. And sees something he thinks could change the outcome of the election.

There's a checkbook in the briefcase that shows monthly payments to someone named Anita Morales, a young unmarried mother who had been hired for a city job by Matt when he was the mayor of Houston, whose daughter was born right around the same time he hired her. Naturally, with any young, good-looking political figure, there have been rumors of indiscretions and romantic entanglements of various kinds - and Bruno takes this as evidence of Matt paying off the mother of his secret, illegitimate child.

Bruno brings the briefcase to Vinick. Of course, Vinick is stunned, with his first instinct being to immediately give it back. He wants no part of any strategy that might look underhanded, or "dirty" in any way. But Bruno being Bruno, he has just the way to put it to sway Vinick, at least for the time being:

Bruno: "Just think about what other secrets this guy might have. This may be the tip of the iceberg about what we don't know about him."

The argument that the voters deserve to know about what the candidates are hiding - before they make their choice in the election, instead of afterwards, when that now-President may find himself distracted or ineffective in the face of major crises like the upcoming intervention in Kazakhstan - is enough to make Vinick reconsider. Hold on to the briefcase, he tells Bruno. Let me think on this overnight.

The next day, it's the "till they drop" press conference, which takes the Santos campaign by surprise as they see themselves losing the attention of TV coverage of their events. Josh and Matt fight to try to keep themselves front and center in the media, but everybody is in San Andreo covering Senator Vinick, standing there in front of that nuclear plant, taking uncomfortable questions from every reporter. Jane and Bruno are also aghast, watching it play out and thinking it’s a losing strategy ... for almost three hours.

Finally, there are no more questions. The reporters have talked themselves out. Vinick closes down his conference, and even Toby and Bruno are stunned by his savvy instincts.

Toby: "Damn, this guy is good."

Bruno: "Son of a bitch."

The bleeding has been stopped, the nuclear power accident is no longer a weight around Vinick's neck, and the campaign and the party finds themselves reinvigorated. Then, as the campaigns once again cross paths in Los Angeles, Vinick asks for a private meeting with Matt.

Vinick: "I want to give him back his briefcase."

Bruno: "I figured."

Vinick: "'When in doubt, do the right thing -'"

Vinick and Bruno (together): "'The rest of the time, get away with whatever you can.'"

Vinick: "Who said that? It must have been one of those Louisiana governors."

Bruno: "Yeah, probably from his jail cell."

Then Bruno goes on with his argument for using the checkbook:

Bruno: "You know, Santos never got the vetting a front-runner gets. He was never supposed to get the nomination. The press gave him a free ride in the primaries. Until now, he's been running way behind you, so the press still hasn't done their digging on him. But they will now. So, it really doesn't matter what you do with that briefcase. It's going to come out. If it comes out when Santos is in the White House ... I don't know what happens. All hell is going to break loose."

Vinick is unshaken. He's giving the briefcase back. He and Matt meet in a hotel storage room.

Matt is upset that it took an entire day for Vinick to return the briefcase, and he knows Bruno has rummaged through it. Vinick says he's not going to use that information against him, but he sticks with the argument Bruno made - whatever scandal is revealed in that checkbook, it's going to come out, and it would be better if Matt comes clean now instead of waiting until he's President, having to deal with a personal scandal on top of the serious business of guiding the nation.

But Bruno and Vinick have it all wrong. Anita Morales' daughter isn't Matt's; it's his brother who is the deadbeat dad, the guy who got Morales pregnant and then didn't provide any support or live up to the responsibility. Matt gave her a job and a monthly stipend because he thought it was the right thing to do as a family member. Vinick is skeptical about his explanation:

And Matt shows stone-faced fury (frankly, unusual for him in the political arena) realizing he's not believed:

He leaves with a biting retort.

Matt: "You don't believe me."

Vinick: "Doesn't matter what I believe. You know the truth."

(Matt starts to leave, then turns back to Vinick)

Matt: "This is a family thing. This has nothing to do with what kind of President I would be."

And the episode closes almost as it began, with Vinick rubbing his painful right hand, musing over the course of the election as it barrels to a close.

 

It's interesting to me, to see Vinick shine with the political instinct to just talk his way out of the San Andreo problem, and then act more like a standard politician in trying to use a potential personal misstep against Matt politically. I think that final shot shows he regrets it, a little - but in any event, the slippage in the polls over blaming Vinick for the nuclear accident has stopped, and we've got about ten days left before the voters make their choice clear in what's obviously an incredibly tight race.

 

Tales Of Interest!

- We have not only the episode title to guide us, but an onscreen graphic right up front says "14 Days Until Election." So the day the candidates are in Chicago (and Vinick gets his hand squeezed by that Chicago Bears player) is Tuesday, October 24, 2006.

- A probably intentional little thing we're given to notice is how the candidates come onstage at the Chicago Small Business convention. Vinick (the Republican) comes on from stage right, while Santos (the Democrat) enters from stage left. Get it?

- I have my doubts that there'd actually be that much continued coverage of a Vinick press conference at San Andreo for almost three hours. Okay, maybe C-SPAN would stay for the entire thing, and that could explain Toby and Josh and Bruno and Jane still having it on TV to watch, but the local California stations and the cable news channels wouldn't keep broadcasting that live for multiple hours.

- Why'd They Come Up With Two Weeks Out?

It's two weeks before Election Day, duh.

Quotes    

Doctor: "We really need a set of X-rays."

Bruno and Vinick (together): "No."

Vinick: "No way."

Bruno: "No no no. Doctor, we've got a busload of reporters following us. We stop for an X-ray, the headline's gonna be 'Handshake Breaks Vinick's Hand.'"

Doctor: "I can't say for sure without an X-ray, but ... I think you got a metacarpal fracture and you're gonna need a cast."

Vinick: "No cast."

Doctor: "Senator, you have to --"

Vinick: "I can't look like an old man falling apart on the campaign trail."

Bruno: "And he's got a crowd waiting for him in Pittsburgh right now."

Doctor: "Well, I -- I guess I could realign the bone and ... give him a cast that he can take off in public."

Bruno: "Welcome to politics, doctor."

Vinick: "Anyone asks what you were doing in the car with me, we were discussing health care policies."

Doctor (pause): "Well, actually, I do have some suggestions about Medicare."

-----

Braun: "Bruno's 50-state strategy was ridiculous even before the accident."

Bruno: "Republicans have won 49 states twice in the last 30 years."

Braun: "Yeah, I've heard you say that a thousand times on TV. So you think nothing's changed in the last 20 years in the Republican Party?"

Bruno: "Yeah. People like you have taken over."

-----

Louise (on the phone with Josh, about the briefcase): "So there's nothing bad in there?"

Josh: "Like?"

Louise: "I don't know, heroin? Porn?"

Josh: "No, that's all mine."

-----

Braun: "A Republican can win the Presidency without winning California."

Vinick: "And a Democrat can't. This isn't some sentimental, home-state thing. This is about winning. I don't have a 50-state strategy any more. I have a one-state strategy - the one state that has everything; big cities, small towns, mountains, deserts, farms, factories, fishermen, surfers, all races, all religions, gay, straight ... everything this country has. There's more real America in California than anywhere else. If I can win California, I can win the country."

Braun: "That's a nice speech, just don't say it into any microphones cause everybody in the 49 other states thinks that California is a giant psycho ward."

-----

Vinick: "Please don't try to turn mud-slinging into a 'respect the voters' spiel."

Bruno: "Don't tell anyone, but I do respect the voters. That's why I win. I find out what they care about. I don't try to tell them what they care about."

Vinick: "That's not exactly my idea of leadership."

Bruno: "It's my idea of democracy. The voters get to set the terms of the elections, not us. They get to decide what's important, not us."

 

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

• Look, there's Danny Pudi (Abed from Community, which - thanks to his connection with the Community-producing Russo brothers who went on to direct a couple of Marvel Avengers movies - led Pudi to a small role in Captain America: The Winter Soldier; he's also in the upcoming TV series Going Dutch)! As a matter of fact, this appearance in The West Wing is Pudi's very first entry on his IMDB page. He also appeared in an episode of ER (continuing the ER/West Wing pipeline) and had a short run on Gilmore Girls that year.
  

• Matt Welsh, the fictional Chicago Bears player introducing both Vinick and Santos at the Chicago event, is played by Matt Willig (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Young Rock). Willig actually did play in the NFL for 14 seasons, including for two Super Bowl teams.

• The fact that Toby is now secretly in touch with Josh as a campaign adviser for Santos is interesting, given that Toby's outright hostile dismissal of Matt as a serious candidate was a big part of the wedge driven between he and Josh (not to mention the fight they had in Toby's office in Drought Conditions). Of course, seeing as how Matt is now the nominee and the only candidate the Democrats have got, I guess I could see Toby coming on board and doing his part to help the campaign.

• Toby tells Josh he's running on three hours sleep a night and not thinking straight; the commentary on Josh pushing himself too hard during the campaign and not accepting help goes all the way back to at least The Ticket, and will continue until after the election.
  

• Matt's brother has been a thorn in the side of the campaign before. We saw Jorge in Running Mates, where he was pushing Matt to arrange a meeting with some of Jorge's business associates.
  

DC location shots    

• None.

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

• A player for the NFL's Chicago Bears introduces the candidates at the small business owners' event in Chicago (and crushes Vinick's hand in the process).
  

• We see onscreen representations of news organizations MSNBC, CNN, C-SPAN, and USA Today.

  

 

 

 

• Bruno says Republican presidential candidates have won 49 states twice in the past 30 years. This is accurate (kind of) in reality: Richard Nixon won 49 states (only losing Massachusetts) in 1972, while Ronald Reagan won 49 states (except for Walter Mondale's home state of Minnesota) in 1984. Bruno's "30 years" is an approximation, as Nixon's win would have been 34 years prior to the events shown in this episode.
  

• Jane pushes Vinick to go to his hometown, Santa Paula, to remind voters of his roots in a farming community. Santa Paula is a small city (about 29,000 residents at the time) in Ventura County, about an hour northwest of downtown Los Angeles. The town calls itself "The Citrus Capital Of The World."
  

• Some fictional broadcast stations portrayed in this episode include KTML TV in Fresno, WPML, and KZPZ. WKZM is a radio station in Sarasota, Florida, run by the Moody Bible Institute. KPPO are call letters actually used for a non-commercial radio station in Pago Pago, American Samoa - but I doubt that either station would be covering an event in San Andreo, California.

• Jane Braun makes a statement about "drinking the Vinick Kool-Aid," which is not only a remark about the very real beverage Kool-Aid, but also a reference to the 1978 Jonestown massacre in Guyana. "Drinking the Kool-Aid" became shorthand for buying into a doomed or dangerous idea after that tragedy, where nearly a thousand followers of Jim Jones drank a poisoned beverage in a mass murder-suicide.
  

End credits freeze frame: Vinick and his staff encountering Santos and his staff in the hotel hallway in Philadelphia.

Previous episode: The Cold

Next episode: Welcome To Wherever You Are

The Cold - TWW S7E13

 

Original airdate: March 12, 2006

Teleplay by: Debora Cahn (13)
Story by: Debora Cahn  & Lauren Schmidt (5) 
 

Directed by: Alex Graves (30)

Synopsis

• New polling numbers after the San Andreo incident give a jolt of excitement to the Santos staff, while the Vinick campaign tries to change the subject. President Bartlet makes the decision to send troops into Kazakhstan, with long-term effects on whomever wins the election. Will and Kate take their relationship to another level, while Josh and Donna consider what theirs might mean. And Vinick has a cold.
  

"What's your exit strategy?"

"I don't have one. I suggest you both start giving it some thought."

An episode that begins on a couple of high notes - the polls showing the Santos campaign catching Senator Vinick in the wake of the San Andreo nuclear accident, the prospect of Irish rock star Bono meeting with Matt, not to mention Josh and Donna falling into each other's arms as the emotions swell with all the good polling news - takes on a much more sober, dramatic turn. The situation in Kazakhstan forces President Bartlet to order in American troops while Senator Vinick sees a trusted staffer fall on the sword in an effort to change the course of his campaign. All in all, it really highlights how political campaigns can find themselves at the mercy of unexpected events outside their control, particularly in the closing weeks as the election looms.

We start with Annabeth, Bram, Ronna and the other staffers breathlessly search out the latest tracking polls, polls that show a dramatic increase in support for Santos in important swing states in the wake of the San Andreo nuclear accident and essentially resetting the entire Presidential contest. The looks on their faces tell it all:

As Donna and the rest pound on doors, awakening everyone on the floor of the hotel to the good news, she reaches Josh's room to let him know. The celebration of the moment starts with a quick friendly kiss, and then:

 

 Hubba, hubba.

 

Viewers of the show have known since Pilot that Donna and Josh (thanks to the acting of Janel Moloney and Bradley Whitford) have a tremendous chemistry together. Moloney famously said she started from the beginning playing the role of Donna with the subtext of being desperately in love with Josh, and the moments they've shared together have become almost legendary: the (unseen) note Josh wrote in Donna's Christmas gift in In Excelsis Deo; the "If you were in the hospital I wouldn't stop for a beer"/"If you were in the hospital I wouldn't stop for red lights" exchange in 17 People; Josh's willingness to breach ethics and maybe even the law to save Donna from embarrassment over her diary in War Crimes; Josh's reassessment of their connection after she nearly dies in Memorial Day. They always seemed to be dancing around their personal relationship, which made sense considering the workplace supervisor/assistant framework they were in. And of course Josh not doing enough to help Donna advance in her career caused her to leave her post in the White House and work for Will Bailey and the Russell campaign, to Josh's regret and anger (anger that really came out once she came back looking for a job with Matt Santos).

That all comes to an emotional head now, driven by the huge rush of emotion and endorphins they get by seeing that maybe they've actually got a chance to win this thing in the final weeks. They both seem a little surprised by it, and Donna actually, maybe, tries to talk it out and talk herself out of it in a conversation with Will:

Donna: "If something had happened with us, when we were working, romantically, would that have been inappropriate?"

Will: "Wow, uh ... I'm flattered ... but --"

Donna: "Oh, no, no, no."

Will: "I'm actually seeing someone in a nonpublic and very poorly defined way."

Donna: "No, not you. I was talking about someone like you with your job in relation to me."

Will: "You're talking about Josh?"

Donna (two steps behind): "You're seeing someone?"

Will: "You're seeing Josh?"

Donna: "No."

Will: "Then who?"

Donna: "I'll tell you mine if you tell me yours."

Will: "Yours is Josh. You're not cryptic."

Donna: "And yours is ..."

Will: "Classified."

Donna: "Nothing happened with me and Josh, at all. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have brought this up. We should drop it."

Will: "Good idea. (pause) It's not inappropriate. Seeing someone. It's weird, maybe. But you'll figure it out."

But by the end of the episode, after many exchanged glances and unfinished conversations, we see Donna is okay with continuing this path. She slides her hotel room key across the table, pointedly indicating to Josh that he should use that key to visit her later that night. Their eyes connect.

 

But then Ronna notices the envelope and thinks Donna just forgot the key. The look on both of their faces as Edith returns Donna's key to her and they watch that opportunity slip by says volumes.

 

 

Will these two youngsters ever get the chance to experience true love? There's only nine episodes left, we're running out of time!

 

While we're talking about lovebirds, the awkward relationship between Will and Kate continues to ... well, get more awkward. Now they're spending nights together, as revealed by the fact Kate left her bra behind at Will's apartment. 

Will: "I have a thing of yours."

Kate: "My Pyongyang book, good, I tore up my whole office looking for it."

Will: "It's not that."

Kate: "Really?"

Will: "Really."

Kate: "It's in a blue binder. It may not be --"

Will: "Nothing in a blue binder."

Kate: "Are you sure? I mean, picking it out --"

Will: "It's a bra."

Kate: "Oh, okay."

Will: "I put it in a padded envelope, which seemed appropriate."

Kate: "Really?"

Will: "You want it now?"

Kate: "No! No. Yes? (pause) It's in your office?"

Will: "It is."

Kate: "You keep it."

Will: "Permanently?"

Kate: "Mail it to me, your home address to my home address."

Will: "You don't think that's a little complicated?"

Kate: "It is, isn't it."

Will: "I'll hang onto it until we ..."

Kate: "Okay."

Will: "We'll get better at this."

Kate: "We can only hope."

 

When CJ has them come to her office together to put together a press briefing plan for Kazakhstan, even she notices things are a little weird.

CJ (seeing the awkwardness): "Is something weird happening?"

Will: "Nnnnnope."

CJ: "I feel like I'm the heroine in the movie who doesn't know there's a guy behind the refrigerator with an axe."

Kate: "Maybe it's the weather. People feel that way when it's ... damp."

CJ: "Thank you. Both."

(Will and Kate leave CJ's office)

Will (whispering): "We're really bad at this."

Kate (whispering): "Really bad."

Then we've got the opposing campaign, with Vinick, Bob, Bruno and Sheila trying to figure out how to respond to the San Andreo disaster bringing the national race to a dead heat. Turns out, though, it's not just up to them. The head of the Republican National Committee, Steve Hodder, comes by to have a meeting with Vinick, Governor Sullivan ... and none of the staff. And he brings along Jane Braun, a top fundraiser closely connected with the religious conservative right-wing of the GOP. Bruno is convinced the fix is in, he's going to be blamed for Vinick losing his lead, and the party is pushing him out.

Sheila knows he's right, and she knows there's another path. She tells Vinick on their way to his evening appearance - she's resigning. She'll take the fall, she'll take the blame for the "50-state strategy" and the appeal to moderates, and she insists Braun be brought in to shore up support with the conservative wing of the party and to fire up voter turnout. It's a tough pill to swallow for Vinick - Sheila has been by his side for years, his most trusted adviser - but he knows deep down this is the only path to follow.

The shadowy shot of Vinick after he gets out of the car, standing in the street contemplating his future before he goes into the event, is a striking image well-constructed by director Alex Graves.

The biggest story, of course, is President Bartlet's plans to commit American troops into Kazakhstan in an effort to stave off an all-out war between Russia and China. We can trace this story all the way back to Message Of The Week, when Vinick's new national security liaison, Charles Frost, mentions an issue in Kazakhstan as one needing particular attention. In the following episodes, we learned of a presidential assassination there, Russian interference in the ensuing election that installed a Russian-leaning candidate, a repudiation of an oil deal with China, and the attacks on ethnic Chinese in the country that followed. Those events led to the Chinese army gathering on the border, with the Russian army responding in kind - and now that both armies have advanced into Kazakhstan itself (delayed only temporarily by Ellie's nuptials in The Wedding), President Bartlet believes the only way to avoid war is to put American forces in between the opposing armies.

Of course it's a daunting task. Bartlet's advisers tell him it's going to take some 150,000 troops over at least 18 months to stop the advance and help Kazakhstan conduct free and open elections, and worst of all, that means this "intervention" (as Secretary Hutchinson calls it) will be a problem for whomever ends up winning the election in three weeks. The President calls both candidates in for a face-to-face meeting and lays out the facts. The news does not go over well.

Vinick: "What's this going to cost?"

President: "It depends on how long we stay."

Matt: "It doesn't matter. The first 100 days in office are the most productive of the whole term and there's no way we can extricate ourselves from something like this in three months."

Followed by:

President: "First twelve months - 70 billion."

Vinick: "I can say goodbye to my tax cut. Your education plan is certainly off the table."

So we're left with the final three weeks of the campaign, Vinick and Santos squaring off in a virtual dead heat, but both of them knowing the winner will have the military operation in Kazakhstan looming over them and their priorities throughout the years to follow. It's certainly a downer.

And even though we get the bittersweet image of Josh and Donna, yearning for each other while their plans are foiled by well-meaning friends, playing along with Billie Holiday on the soundtrack, the episode ends in the Situation Room as President Bartlet gives the order for the "invasion" (as he puts it), knowing he's doing the right thing for geopolitical reasons, yet leaving a giant mess financially and politically for his successor. For an episode that starts on such an emotional high, this is really a downer of a conclusion.

Kinda like life, right? At least in the United States in early November, 2024, know what I mean?

Tales Of Interest!

- The last appearance of John Spencer before his passing in December, 2005. You'll remember the first episode that aired after his death, Running Mates on January 8, had an opening message from Martin Sheen acknowledging his passing. This was the final episode Spencer had filmed, and this is the last shot of him in the series.

- Our timeline is clearly set as 21 days prior to the election, from a caption at the start of the episode. That puts us at Tuesday, October 17, 2006. That would also fit with the San Andreo accident happening around the previous Friday into Saturday (remember from Internal Displacement, CJ's dinner date with Danny where she first learned of the accident would have been a Friday night), given the Gallup three-day tracking poll after the event. We'll just have to disregard the caption from Duck And Cover telling us that happened on a Wednesday ...

- Lots (and I mean lots) of the trademark West Wing camera-spinning-around-the-characters here. It is an Alex Graves-directed episode, so that tracks.

- Gail's fishbowl appears to have perhaps a medicine bottle in it, reflecting Vinick's battle with his cold symptoms.

- Why'd They Come Up With The Cold?

As usual, multiple reasons. The obvious one, of course, is Senator Vinick beginning to suffer from cold symptoms during the episode. We also get the chill coming over the Vinick campaign from the tightening polls, as well as the consideration of how American troops headed to Kazakhstan need to be prepared for a Central Asian winter, and the cold setting in for both candidates as they realize what will be facing them if they win the presidency.

Quotes    

President: "I want to see invasion plans as soon as possible."

Hutchinson: "We wouldn't think of it as an invasion, sir, we'd call it an intervention."

President: "Show me a plan that doesn't look like an invasion and I'll call it whatever you want."

-----

Bruno: "The undecideds are moderates. They're not Bible thumpers. He's got to speak to their issues."

Sullivan: "What's he going to do? Suddenly pull the Arnold Vinick health care plan out of his tailpipe?"

Vinick: "Would that qualify as a miracle? They like the miracles, your people."

----- 

Bram: "Bono called."

Ronna: "Bono?"

Josh: "Really?"

Bram: "Yeah. He's in New York this weekend, he wants to have dinner with the congressman."

Donna: "Do it!"

Bram: "We're not in New York this weekend --"

Ronna: "Change his schedule!"

Donna: "Bono wants to meet him?"

Ronna: "Does he want to perform at a rally?"

Bram: "We didn't get into specifics --"

Donna: "He doesn't have to sing, they could just talk about debt relief."

Ronna (breathlessly): "Oh, did you talk to him?!?"

Bram: "I talked to a guy named Phil."

Josh: "Okay, invite him to San Diego."

Bram: "Phil?"

Josh: "Not Phil."

-----

Debbie (showing Vinick and his staff into the Mural Room): "Make yourselves comfortable."

Vinick: "Thank you."

Debbie (as she turns to leave): "Not too comfortable."

Vinick: "Excuse me?"

Debbie: "Hmm?"

Vinick: "Did you ..."

Debbie: "What?"

Vinick: "Nothing."

Debbie: "If there's anything I can get you, please let me know." (exits)

  

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

• Dean Norris (Breaking Bad, Under The Dome, The Big Bang Theory) reappears as Republican Party chairman Steve Hodder.

• Melinda McGraw (The Commish, The X-Files, The Dark Knight) makes her first appearance as GOP strategist Jane Braun.

• When Donna comes to Josh's hotel room in the morning with the polling news, we see Josh's chest ... there's no scar there (remember Josh had surgery for his serious injuries after being shot in In The Shadow Of Two Gunmen). We'll actually get a better view of his scar-free chest in a few episodes.

• And of course, the kiss between Josh and Donna (and her conversation with Will, and her attempt to get her room key to Josh) is a kind of culmination of the long-standing chemistry between the two, all the way back to Pilot (and Donna's statement, "If you were in the hospital, I wouldn't stop for red lights" in 17 People).

• Donna's conversation with Will, by the way, reminds us of earlier days in the Russell campaign, when Will and Donna seemed to be the only two people on the campaign trail who weren't young, college-age enthusiastic volunteers, and who spent a lot of time and meals together.
  

• There's a van for TV station WPKW seen in the background of the park scene: WPKW is a fictional TV station, and we'd actually seen a van for that station previously covering the Santos campaign in Florida in The Mommy Problem. Those call letters later were used for a TV station in the CW series The Vampire Diaries that aired between 2009 and 2017.

The WPKW news van from The Mommy Problem

• Likewise, WBJH and WKZN (seen on other news vans) are also fictional TV stations, although both call signs have been used by radio stations in the past. WPFW is another fictional TV station, although the call letters do belong to a listener-supported "Jazz and Justice" radio station in Washington, DC.
  

• President Bartlet, who had been using a cane for several past episodes, particularly after his MS attack on the trip to China in In The Room and Impact Winter, hasn't been seen with that cane for quite a while. It's back here (mainly, I think, to provide Debbie with a comment about it and his official portrait).

• Will and Kate have been dancing around a flirtation ever since Drought Conditions, and it's been growing bit by bit recently (with them sharing a meal on Will's desk during the Vice Presidential debate in Running Mates). It's full-out serious now, with Kate leaving her underthings at Will's apartment.
  

• Josh mentions Joey (Lucas), his trusted pollster first seen in Take This Sabbath Day, and Lou (Thornton), the campaign strategist he hired in The Mommy Problem.
  

• The situation in the Middle Eastern nation of Qumar played a major role in Seasons 3 and 4, with President Bartlet ordering the killing of Qumari Foreign Minister Shareef in Posse Comitatus, and the fallout from that reverberating through Season 4 all the way to Zoey's kidnapping in Commencement through her rescue in The Dogs Of War. Yet, since seeing Qumar on Situation Room maps in Season 3, that country has ceased to exist on maps since that time. Still no evidence that Qumar ever existed with the quick view of the Situation Room displays here.

Qumar as it was seen in 7A WF 83429

• Russian President Chigorin is mentioned again. He first came to power as a moderate reformer just before Enemies Foreign And Domestic, where he signaled his intent to cooperate to shut down an Iranian heavy-water nuclear reactor, then met with President Bartlet in a summit in Finland immediately afterward. He also agreed to let the United States retrieve a secret military drone that crashed in Russian territory in Evidence Of Things Not Seen. Here he's less inclined to cooperate with the Americans given the Russian interference in the Kazakh elections.
  

• President Bartlet's decision to send troops into Kazakhstan kinda-sorta reminds us of the Bartlet Doctrine unveiled in Inauguration Day: Over There, when he pledged to use American political and military force to address attacks on human rights anywhere in the world. Of course, we've seen multiple situations since then where the doctrine should have been warranted (most recently in Sudan in Internal Displacement), but was never mentioned, let alone considered. Here it's less the attacks on Chinese nationals after Russian-rigged elections causing President Bartlet to act, than it is the threat of a major war between Russian and China over oil. But, still, you can trace a thread back to the Bartlet Doctrine, if you squint your eyes and turn your head a little (thanks for that, Bob Russell).
  

DC location shots    

• None. The fountain we see in the background when Josh gets the call from President Bartlet asking - no, telling - him to bring Santos to the White House looks to be the Friends fountain on the Warner Brothers lot (which was also seen in War Crimes, when Josh and Donna turned over her diary to Cliff Calley).

 

The same fountain in War Crimes

The same fountain in Friends

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

• Annabeth mentions numbers from the Gallup poll; there's a little drama about trying to get the New York Times website to come up on a computer.
  

• Vinick says the medicine Sheila is trying to get him to drink looks like Hawaiian Punch.
  

• The lead singer of the Irish group U2, Bono, excites the women of the Santos campaign when they discover he's called to see if Santos would have dinner with him. Matt later tells the crowd at the rally Dave Matthews is going to come up on the stage.
  

• Donna says reporters from the Sacramento Bee have called with rumors about Vinick's cold; we see MSNBC coverage on TV screens.

• The medications Vicks VapoRub and Sudafed are mentioned in connection with Vinick's cold symptoms.
  

• While the Santos staff is in the Roosevelt Room, Bram hands out hotel keys/menus saying they're in the Marriott (there's a host of Marriott brands fairly near the White House, including the Washington Marriott Metro Center, the JW Marriott, and the Washington Marriott Capitol Hill). But, when Donna tries to leave her key for Josh later that night, the key envelope says Capitol Grand Hotel. That hotel is fictional, but it was also used in pilot of the TV series Covert Affairs, which aired on the USA Network from 2010 to 2015. Fun fact: that pilot episode was directed by Tim Matheson (who plays John Hoynes on The West Wing).

• We hear Billie Holiday singing Body and Soul over the Santos staff and the Donna attempted key handoff at the hotel.
  

End credits freeze frame: Vinick standing alone outside the venue after Sheila resigned.

Previous episode: Duck And Cover

Next episode: Two Weeks Out