Let Bartlet Be Bartlet - TWW S1E19

Original airdate: April 26, 2000

Teleplay by: Aaron Sorkin (18)
Story by: Peter Parnell (1) and Patrick Caddell (5)

Directed by: Laura Innes (1)

Synopsis

• The entire administration feels stuck in place, mired in meaningless meetings going nowhere  as the President's poll numbers fall. When word leaks of a memo written by Mandy outlining ways to attack the President on his inability to take strong stands, the staff is energized to turn the tables and reset the tone of the Bartlet presidency.

"I serve at the pleasure of the President."

"Good. Now let's get in the game."

Great storytelling often involves pulling together threads and plotlines, sometimes seeds of ideas planted long before, and wrapping them up into a unified, perhaps even surprising, final product. As viewers, we find ourselves gratified when a person or event or crumb of information mentioned weeks ago suddenly is revealed as an important element of the story's climax. Aaron Sorkin shows he's pretty good at this, and the final few episodes of Season One bring his skills to the fore.

In fact, this method of ending a season with a group of linked episodes, bringing together threads and storylines established over the entire year and rushing towards a cliffhanger of a season-ending climax, is basically a standard of Sorkin's TV-series style. I know you can see it in The Newsroom, and while I haven't seen Sports Night and didn't last very long with Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip, I'll bet he did the same thing there.

Right from the start in Pilot, with President Bartlet's bicycle-tree collision, we have been bombarded with talk of the listlessness and futility of his administration. While the staff got to celebrate the confirmation of Bartlet's nominee to the Supreme Court in Six Meetings Before Lunch, that seems to be the only big success of the administration's first year-plus in office. They did push through a watered-down gun control bill, but Vice President Hoynes ended up with the credit; they found themselves bogged down in a fight with Congress over Leo's former drug abuse problems; Bartlet was taken to task by a retiring Supreme Court justice over his move away from the liberal policies he ran on; the President's poll numbers have been aggravatingly stuck at an anemic 48 percent*. We also learn Bartlet's election victory came with just 48 percent of the popular vote - my take is there must have been a third-party candidate that split the national vote (similar to Ross Perot in 1992, which meant Bill Clinton won the presidency with only 43 percent of the vote). There's just a gnawing feeling that there's no overall strategy, no drive, no inspiration - it's seen as a presidency stuck in neutral, hoping to make it to re-election in 2002 without any higher goals than that. As Toby shouts to Leo, "One victory a year stinks in the life of an administration, but it's not the ones we lose that bother me, Leo, it's the ones we don't suit up for!"

(* I will take this one last opportunity to mention that Sorkin undermines his own agenda multiple times over the course of the season: the administration is successful in passing a banking reform bill over the objections of the banking lobby; they get hate crimes legislation through after the beating death of a gay Minnesota teen; they have the economy running at a pace that results in a huge budget surplus, and appears to have some success in where that money was delegated; and they convince Congress to go along on studying changes to the census process. So it hasn't been a total disaster of an administration - but even with these "wins," the overall public opinion of President Bartlet continues to be poor, and the opposition Congress is flexing its muscles against what is seen as a weak White House. That's all I have to say about that.)

Now, all those tendrils of impotence and caution and vacillation come crashing together, leading us to a reset in the direction of the Bartlet presidency that Sorkin has been setting up since Pilot. A move to look into the chances of naming two champions of campaign finance reform to the Federal Election Commission is met with disdain on Capitol Hill, with senatorial aides even threatening to bring up retaliatory legislation if the White House tries it; a meeting with congressmen and military liaisons on getting rid of Don't Ask, Don't Tell and letting gay servicemembers serve openly is dead on arrival; a new poll shows the President's approval ratings have dropped five points in a week ("We didn't do anything!" exclaims Leo, exasperated at how public opinion has dropped without any misstep by the administration); even the White House e-mail system is slowed to a crawl, thanks to Margaret's message about the calories in the raisin muffins being "reply-alled" into e-mail hell. The feeling of despair and frustration has spread throughout the entire West Wing:

CJ (asking about the President): "How's his mood today?"

Leo: "We had breakfast. He seemed very upbeat, very energetic, very optimistic about the day."

CJ: "How long do you suppose that's going to last?"

(cut to President and Mrs. Landingham at the OEOB)

President: "Can't we get this godforsaken event over with so I can get back to presiding over a civilization going to hell in a handcart?"

And whatever the staff tries to do, they find themselves stymied at every turn. Josh asks Leo if the President expects to go anywhere with making his nominations to the FEC; Leo says no. The military officers ask Toby and Sam what the consequences of their meeting will be; Sam says the consequences will be little. Admiral Fitzwallace later tells Sam he's not going to get anywhere with that meeting. Josh, looking at Mandy's memo, says to Toby, "Our second year doesn't seem to be going a whole lot better than our first, does it?" Even Donna makes mention of the gloom permeating the entire West Wing:

Donna: "Why is everyone walking around like they know they've already lost?"

Then, just to add more misery to the situation, word comes out of an explosive "piece of paper" that's been discovered by the media, which turns out to be a memo written by Mandy to help Senator Russell as he was contemplating a possible primary challenge to President Bartlet. This memo outlines the weaknesses of the President and his staff, blaming Leo for holding Bartlet back from his more progressive instincts, and serves as a playbook for stopping the incumbent from being renominated in 2002. The memo serves as a spark for some lively scenes between CJ and Mandy (CJ treats Mandy like a disobedient child, which is pretty apt, I think) and CJ and Danny (a emotionally loaded scene - the tightness of CJ's voice with her final "OK" before she goes out the door is so perfect. Have I mentioned how much I love Allison Janney's work?). Danny hits on the listlessness of the administration too:

Danny: "You guys are stuck in the mud around here, and none if it is the fault of the press. I know you're frustrated - but it ain't nothing compared to the frustration of the people who voted for you, so don't come in here and question my --"

Sorkin takes all this inaction and frustration and uncertainty plaguing the White House and brings it to a boil in a crackling Oval Office fight between Jed and Leo. Leo turns the tables on the memo, pointing out that it's Bartlet himself who's been holding back, Bartlet himself who's been too timid to do what he really wants. Instead he's keeping things safe and noncontroversial, playing the long game for reelection instead of using his office to make forceful policy changes. It's a fantastic scene, made a classic by those pros John Spencer and Martin Sheen, and ends with Jed coming around to the knowledge that his staff, these loyal employees who believe in the President and democracy and the United States, will truly go to the ends of the earth to fight for those ideals:

Leo: "Everyone's waiting for you, I don't know how much longer."

President: "I don't want to feel like this anymore."

Leo: "You don't have to."

President: "I don't want to go to sleep like this."

Leo: "You don't have to."

President: "I want to speak."

Leo: "Say it out loud. Say it to me."

President: "This is more important than reelection, I want to speak now."

Leo: "Say it again."

President: "This is more important than reelection. I want to speak now."

And Leo comes up with the beginnings of a strategy, with something on a legal pad that we're going to see echoed on a napkin in the future:

And when Leo goes back into his office to tell the rest of the staff that the game has changed, they proudly and happily proclaim one by one, "I serve at the pleasure of the President." The course of the administration has changed; the energy has crescendoed, and they're going after the long shot policy changes that can actually better the country:

Leo: "And we're gonna lose some of these battles. And we might even lose the White House. But we're not gonna be threatened by issues. We're gonna put 'em front and center. We're gonna raise the level of public debate in this country. And let that be our legacy."

And, as Leo said, they're ready to run through walls for President Bartlet:

It's a marvelously crafted reset of the direction of the administration (with some really stirring Snuffy Walden music over the final scenes), and we are ready to see what these folks will choose to do with their restored energy and inspiration.



Tales Of Interest!

- Toby has a microwave in his office. Apparently Sam does not, as he comes over to use it to heat up his coffee:

Also note the CNN weather on the television (cable news weather reports are seen on quite a few background TVs in this episode). This shows a front with widespread precipitation all across the eastern seaboard, so Sam's reliance on Coast Guard Lt. Lowenbrau's forecast is clearly misplaced.

- The timeline of this episode matches with the real-life calendar, as CJ briefs the press about what's coming up for Easter ("The Easter Egg Hunt and the Easter Egg Roll are two different things. The theme of this year's event is 'Learning Is Delightful and Delicious,' as, by the way, am I.") Easter in 2000 arrived on Sunday, April 23, three days before this episode aired.

- This is the first episode of The West Wing directed by Laura Innes, who you might know as Dr. Kerry Weaver on ER (ER being a John Wells-produced show, as was The West Wing). Innes got her start in directing with ER in 1999, going to direct 12 episodes of that series as well as 5 more episodes of The West Wing. Since 2002 she's directed for 14 other TV series as well. She shows she's really got the hang of the West Wing style - I loved the swooping shot around the table as Sam and the military officers are arguing in the Roosevelt Room.

- Once again, what exactly is Mandy's job, and how exactly is she supposed to be any good at it? As a media consultant, all she can do is tell Josh not to get involved in hot-button issues like flag burning, school prayer or English as the national language, but when Josh tells her they're not going to push their candidates for the FEC, she says, "Why not?" You crazy woman, you just told him not to stir up trouble and stay on the safe road, now you're questioning that exact same policy? PLUS - if she had written an opposition memo while working for Russell, wouldn't the FIRST THING YOU'D DO after being hired by the White House be to offer that memo to the administration, so they can work on correcting those weaknesses? Sorkin puts the onus on CJ (through Danny berating her) for not asking for any such material, but I think it's on Mandy to volunteer to give that up when she first came on board. Anyway ... Mandy's not very good at her job, and it was nice to see CJ slapping her down a little.

- Toby can be a riot, with his prickly personality put to good use when he's putting others into what he thinks is their place. His talk with Margaret about "the lab" is a classic:

Margaret: "I was simply informing the others that the calorie count in the raisin muffin was wrong, and it is, Toby, you don't believe me. You should take one of those muffins and, you know, take it down to the lab."

Toby: "I'll do that."

Margaret: "Will you?"

Toby: "Get me a muffin. Careful not to handle it yourself, you want to use gloves. Slip it to me in a plastic bag, I'll send it off to the lab."

Margaret: "You're mocking me now, aren't you?"

Toby: "Yes."

- In the early days of the series, we saw CJ used a Gateway laptop. Later we saw Sam and Toby using Macbooks. Here ... well, I can't tell the brand, although it's certainly not a Mac:

- Even though Fitzwallace later tells Sam he isn't going to get anywhere with the military guys over Don't Ask, Don't Tell, he lays down a truth bomb to them when he crashes the meeting:

Officer 1: "Sir, we're not prejudiced toward homosexuals."

Fitz: "You just don't want to see them serve in the armed forces."

Officer 1: "No, sir, I don't."

Fitz: "Cause they pose a threat to unit discipline and cohesion."

Officer 2: "Yes, sir."

Fitz: "That's what I think, too. I also think the military wasn't designed to be an instrument of social change."

Officer 2: "Yes, sir."

Fitz: "Problem with that is, that's what they were saying about me 50 years ago. Blacks shouldn't serve with whites. It would disrupt the unit. You know what? It did disrupt the unit. The unit got over it. The unit changed. I'm an admiral in the US Navy and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Beat that with a stick."

Quotes    

President: "CJ, are you taller than you usually are?"

CJ: "No, sir, I'm my usual height." 

-----

Toby: "Sam?"

Sam: "Damn it!"

Leo: "What?"

Sam: "I forgot to do something."

President (offscreen, to trout fishermen): "As I look out over this magnificent vista --"

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

• Steve Onorato, aide to the (apparently Republican) Senate Majority Leader, is played by Paul Provenza (Empty Nest, The Facts Of Life, Northern Exposure).

• Congressman Mike Satchel is played by Andy Buckley, probably best known for his role as David Wallace in The Office.

• Gail's fishbowl is decorated with colorful Easter eggs.

• Did you notice the newspaper framed on Toby's wall? It's the Hartford Chronicle front page that Sam used in Celestial Navigation to prove to the police officers that they were from the White House, convincing the police to release Roberto Mendoza.

• The gays in the military as a plot point first came up in 20 Hours In L.A., when Ted Marcus threatened to cancel the fundraiser if President Bartlet didn't speak out against a bill banning gays from serving. Jed convinced Marcus things would be worse if he took a public stand on the issue; a position that's reflected in the wishy-washy approach of the administration in general shown here.

• Jed tells Leo "you came to my house" and talked him into running for President. We'll soon see where that conversation takes place, and it's not at Jed's house.

• Speaking of running for President, it seems clear here that Bartlet is holding back and playing it safe to set things up for reelection in 2002. We are going to find out later that because of his MS, he was not planning to actually run for a second term, or at least that was the agreement he made with Abbey. Of course, the rest of the staff had no knowledge of this (Leo didn't even find out about the MS until He Shall, From Time To Time ...), so they would have been working towards another election, but Jed's discussion with Leo here seems to show he was planning on running.

• Josh and Donna ... personally, I love the chemistry these two actors have with each other (Janel Maloney is so good she gets promoted to appearing in the starring cast credits next season). A lot of people have issues with their relationship - Josh does treat her pretty badly a lot of the time, it's true, but he also has sweet, tender moments sometimes. If you throw out the whole boss-subordinate kind of relationship-power-imbalance angle (and you have to, in this case, because it's TV and because it was a different time almost 20 years ago), well, they have a pretty long will-they-or-won't-they thing going on. I won't deny I was rooting for these two kooky kids all along. ANYWAY - there's a bit of foreshadowing of their future relationship. It doesn't come to fruition for years, but the seeds are being planted:

Donna: "So the President has the opportunity to stack the FEC with our people and make a measurable impact on campaign finance reform?"

Josh: "Yes."

Donna: "Well, do it, baby."

Josh: "There's a couple of roadblocks."

Donna: "What?"

Josh: "Whenever a vacancy comes up, the party leadership on both sides, uh ... did you just, call me 'baby' back there?"

And later, when Josh comes back from his meeting on the Hill:

Donna (meeting Josh in the foyer): "How'd it go?"

Josh: "How do you know to be standing here?"

Donna: "I see you out the window."

Josh: "You don't have a window."

Donna: "There's a window in your office."

Josh: "What are you doing in my office when I'm not there?"

Donna: "Looking for you out the window."

DC location shots    

• The early scene with the President and staff walking through hallways on their way to the (relocated) speech to the United Organization of Trout Fishermen is described as being in the Old Executive Office Building (OEOB), which is located just west of the White House (the outside of which was used for a scene in The Short List). The building was actually renamed the Eisenhower Executive Office Building in November, 1999, but it's not a stretch to think people would still call it by its old name a few months later. I've been unable to find information about where that scene was actually shot - it may have been the OEOB (although I doubt it), it may have been in the Daughters of the American Revolution building (the exterior of which was seen in 20 Hours In L.A.), but most likely it was somewhere in Los Angeles (as the museum rotunda was used to stand in for a government building in Take This Sabbath Day).

(Also, it seems odd to me that we first see the President and Mrs. Landingham heading up a couple of flights of stairs to a hallway, then to see the staff burst in from an obvious ground-floor entrance to join them.)

References to real people    

• Donna uses James Madison in her bullet points for Josh about English as the national language.

• Danny gives a shout-out to the ice cream franchise Baskin-Robbins.

• The bad news about losing five points in a week comes from a CNN/USA Today poll.

• Josh is seen carrying the book A Necessary Evil by Garry Wills, subtitled A History of American Distrust of Government. It would seem to be clearly connected to the overall theme of this episode, how politicians tend to do things that are safer for their own ends rather than breaking out of the box and working to improve the nation.

End credits freeze frame: President Bartlet sharing a smile and a nod with Leo at the end of the episode.

What Kind Of Day Has It Been - TWW S1E22

Original airdate: May 17, 2000

Written by: Aaron Sorkin (21)

Directed by: Thomas Schlamme (5)

Synopsis

• In flashback, we see West Wing staffers preparing the President for a televised town hall meeting, while he also waits for word on the fate of a downed Air Force pilot in Iraq. The space shuttle crew (which includes Toby's brother) is dealing with critical problems before they can leave orbit and return to earth. Josh gets the Vice President onboard with the campaign finance reform issue. Then, at the end of the town hall, Season 1 ends in gunshots and chaos with a voice calling out on the radio, "Who's been hit? Who's been hit?"

"Decisions are made by those who show up."

Yep, Season 1 ends with a cliffhanger. Aaron Sorkin kind of made that his style, though, with each finale episode of his four seasons of The West Wing leaving the audience waiting for answers (Two Cathedrals, yeah, you can argue that's not really a cliffhanger, but it has the style). Sorkin caught some flak from critics for that back in 2000, being accused of using a hackneyed plot device to hold the audience over the summer, but I mean, damn - he does it really, really well.

We saw in Celestial Navigation a bit of playing around with time - in that episode we started with Josh giving a talk, then we saw some flashbacks of the week leading up to that talk before time catches up with him and Toby and Sam's trip to Connecticut. Here we get a full flashback treatment, something that will be used again and again in the series. The cold-open teaser shows us the present, with something bad about to happen, then we go back to 12 hours earlier to fill in the gaps and build us back up to that night.

That teaser, by the way, is so damn good. It still makes me catch my breath and feel the tension rising in my throat. Right from the end of the nearly seven-minute cold open, when Gina Toscano sees the kid looking up to a window behind her and turns, and begins to shout as the opening titles roll ...

Holy frickin' moly, that's good TV. I still get the hairs on my neck standing up seeing that shot.

And think about seeing this for the first time. There's the President, holding court onstage for this town hall ... but why is Charlie grinning about something he said? Why is he so excited when he's talking to Josh? What's with the swooshing arm signals passed between Sam and Toby and Josh and Leo, and the President? What's that news tip CJ is giving Danny? Sorkin and director Tommy Schlamme do what I think is a great job of giving us interesting hints and leaving us wanting answers, which they give us over the course of the episode (sometimes in unexpected ways). And then, of course, the episode and the season ends in a hail of gunfire, with the crowd scattering and the radio call of "Who's been hit?" And back in 2000 ... we had to wait four whole months to find out.

So,what's going on here. President Bartlet is preparing to hold a televised town hall meeting, mostly with college students, it appears (Sam tells Toby students aren't going to ask questions about Cuba, and Toby responds there'll be faculty there). Please note, this town hall is televised by MSNBC, which is something that hasn't been mentioned before in The West Wing universe:

(MSNBC being a cable news channel and joint venture of Microsoft and the NBC television network. The channel launched in 1996, so had been on the air over three years at this time. While it's an intrusion of the real world into the universe of the show, it's kind of a corporate synergy strategy to use your own real-life news network in this entertainment programming rather than made-up channels like the previously seen "CND" network.)

Over the course of the day leading up to the town hall, an Air Force pilot patrolling the no-fly zone over Iraq is shot down. President Bartlet orders the military to go in and rescue him, threatening to march on Baghdad if the Iraqis capture him (the no-fly zone and opposition with Iraq imply something like the Gulf War happened in this universe). Meanwhile, we also discover equipment problems are causing a delay in the return of the space shuttle Columbia from orbit - and furthermore, Toby's brother is a payload specialist on the flight (Sam: "I didn't know you had a brother on the space shuttle. I didn't know you had a brother."). And Josh meets with Vice President Hoynes to get him to work with the administration's recent push to reform campaign finance rules on soft money.

So there's tension galore, and not just from that look of Gina's before the opening titles. The President and Leo go back and forth to the Situation Room as plans are made for the military rescue operation. Toby stews in frustration, smart enough to know that the situation in orbit could be dire, but powerless to do anything about it. And let's not forget CJ - after Leo (somewhat reluctantly) lets her know about the rescue mission in Iraq, he has to bring up the events of Lord John Marbury where she was left out of the information loop entirely, and when he somewhat condescendingly says he hopes she won't have issues dealing with the press this time, she's not shy:

CJ: "I wasn't lying to the press on India-Pakistan, I was lied to by you, which made me look like an idiot."

Leo (pause): "Well, I'm not lying to you now." 

Leading to a nice Schlamme-designed shot of CJ flat-out answering Danny's question about any current military operation with "No" as Leo watches through the glass:

That little give-and-take at the briefing, by the way, continues to keep Danny riled up. He feels he's still being unfairly treated by CJ after his reveal of Mandy's opposition research memo some episodes ago, and is miffed at CJ calling on him to ask the question so she can mislead the public (and the Iraqis) about the rescue mission. We do get the impression, though, that CJ is softening about that whole thing:

Danny: "CJ, I'm not staying in the penalty box forever. I have covered the White House for eight years, and I've done it with the New York Times, the Washington Post, Time magazine, and the Dallas Morning News, and I'm telling you, you can't mess me around like this!"

CJ: "Danny, I gotta tell you, that was, seriously, that was a turn-on when you said that, though I don't know why you decided to be your most haughty on the Dallas Morning News in that sentence."

So that little exchange, as well as the troubles with the space shuttle, answer our questions about the CJ/Danny scene in the teaser.

The space shuttle story gives us another insight into Toby. He's obviously a deeply private man - we've seen over the season that in many ways he's the moral center of the West Wing and this administration, doing his best to hold the President to the path of doing what's right rather than what's politically expedient, but for his personal life, well - we didn't even know he had been married until Mandatory Minimums. Now we discover he has a brother, and he's a NASA astronaut. When Sam first talks to him about the issues the Columbia is having in orbit, Toby is quite rude and snippy. Then later, we find he acted that way because he felt guilty. He forgot that his brother was even on the flight, since his assignment had been changed around several times, and now that he was in danger, well, Toby does have feelings after all. There are very nice scenes between Sam and Toby, and Jed and Toby, that not only show the deep emotions going on behind Toby's wall (his eyes welling up while he talks to the President, that's great acting), but also the deep affection the others in the West Wing have for him.

The shuttle does finally return safely, with word passed around via swooping arm movements, giving the audience the answer to that little bit in the teaser. What we discover, though, is that the "signal" was actually thought up by Sam to pass along word on the rescue of the Air Force pilot. The thinking was that the rescue mission might take some time, and word might come down while the President was at the town hall. Sam thought a wordless signal might be a good way to pass along good news on the pilot's rescue:

(Naturally Leo thinks it looks like a "hip-hop movement.")

The rescue mission, though, goes quickly, and Admiral Fitzwallace gets to pass the word to President Bartlet in the Oval Office well before the town hall meeting. I like how Sorkin put that scene together - Fitz comes in telling Jed he should have news soon, then they sit together and talk about the carpet for a moment, then when the call comes it's not actually word on the outcome of the mission, but the pilot himself, Scott Hotchkiss, on the line to talk to the President. The sudden surprise and joy on Jed's face is priceless. Nicely done.

(What's not so nicely done is the "urban legend" Fitz tells about the eagle in the Presidential seal, and how it turns from facing the olive branch to facing the sheaf of arrows when war is declared. That's simply not true. While the eagle in the seal had been facing different directions at different times before 1945, in that year President Truman ordered the seal always have the eagle facing right, toward the olive branch.)

Josh's little jogging meeting with the Vice President is notable only for the location shot (on the Arlington Memorial Bridge) and the little nugget that Josh had been advising Hoynes on his presidential campaign a couple of years ago.

Hoynes: "You know something, Josh, sometimes I wonder if I'd listened to you two years ago, would I be President right now? You ever wonder that?"

Josh: "No, sir, I know it for sure."

So, in Jed's words when he discovered Charlie and Ambassador Cochran knew each other, "You have a past?" It creates a little oddity in the moment in Five Votes Down when Josh goes to Hoynes' office to congratulate him on the maneuvering, and Hoynes tells him, "Welcome to the NFL." Would Hoynes have acted quite like that if he had Josh as an adviser during his campaign? Or was that a dig at Josh for leaving him and going to Bartlet? And how long exactly did Josh work for Hoynes before changing teams?

There we are, though, with our questions about the teaser answered and our attention back to the town hall. We still need to find out about Charlie's grinning, though ... and that comes through when the President mentions him in bringing up a fact about youth disengagement in politics, from a report Charlie had found interesting but only mentioned to the President after Zoey's urging. That moment gives us a callback to Charlie's hiring in A Proportional Response, in which he tells Josh, "I've never felt like this before," and Josh replies, "It doesn't go away." Here Charlie tracks down Josh in the back of the auditorium:

Charlie: "He used the material I told him about. You were right."

Josh: "What do you mean?"

Charlie: "It doesn't go away."

I want to mention that town hall scene, shown to us twice, in the teaser and leading up to the climax at the end of the episode (and in both places, starting at the exact same time, where Jed tells the joke about the debating politicians and "Yes, I am lying, but hear me out!"). Sorkin and Schlamme do a masterful job of weaving different angles and focus on different speeches the two times we see it, while still leaving us sign posts along the way so we remember where we are. The bit about the President mentioning Charlie is buried and lost in the teaser - we only see Charlie's reaction - but it's right out front in the second telling. Jed's final words about his great-great-great-great grandfather Josiah Bartlett and the founding fathers writing down "all men are created equal" was never heard in the teaser, but is prominently featured in the final act (with great shots of Leo and CJ watching him). The town hall wraps up, all our early questions answered, with a overarching crane shot of the auditorium (a West Wing and Schlamme specialty).

And then two guys with handguns open fire on the Presidential party from a building across the street, with bullets flying and chaos everywhere. We know somebody's been hit, but who? In the DVD commentary, Sorkin mentions how viewers examined the scene like the Zapruder film of Kennedy's assassination looking for clues ... so let's do that!

First, Gina knocks Charlie to the ground:

She then covers Zoey with her body next to a limousine:

The President is pulled away into the limousine by Secret Service:

Josh looks on in horror from behind a gate:

CJ gets pushed by a Secret Service agent:

And then is tackled by Sam just before the police car window shatters from gunfire:

Toby is on the ground, in the crowd near a fence:

And Leo is held down, presumably by Secret Service agents:

(This shot is eerily reminiscent of James Brady lying face down on the sidewalk after the assassination attempt on Ronald Reagan in 1981.)

And the final shot, from overhead, with at least one person (Secret Service, perhaps?) lying motionless on the ground, with a voice on the radio calling out "People down! People down! Who's been hit? Who's been hit?"

Now, the kicker ... at the time this scene was filmed, Sorkin didn't know who had been shot. He had built up the season to end with an assassination attempt, but he hadn't worked any further ahead than that. He literally did not have a plan for what followed or who ended up hit in the melee of bullets ... making any attempt by viewers to figure out the result of the assassination futile. That also means, for the Season 2 opener, the crew had to go back to the Virginia location to shoot more footage once Sorkin wrote that script and decided which characters actually had been shot.

Season 1 ends on an exciting note, and a cliffhanger (cliche, perhaps, but well-done in any event). Sorkin pulls together threads he'd planted throughout the course of the season - the Charlie-Zoey relationship, the soft-money campaign finance reform plan, the President's illness, Josh's brash arrogance, Gina Toscano's intuition - and has it all come together to wrap up the season and leave the audience on tenterhooks until the fall.


Tales Of Interest!

- An interesting shot from the previous episode, which I forgot to add in to that post. There's a picture on the wall of the Communications Office area that shows a young, well-coiffed Jed Bartlet (obviously a young Martin Sheen photoshopped in) talking with Teddy Kennedy and another old-school Democratic bigwig. It's right above Bonnie's head in this shot. I can't tell if it's maybe Chicago mayor Richard Daley, or perhaps not. It's still a pretty cool little detail in the set decoration that you're going to miss unless you're looking closely, and it really helps to add a dose of physical reality and history to this whole TV-series world we're watching.

- While we're talking pictures, there's some new portraits added to the Situation Room wall. I'm going to assume they're previous Presidents, as the one on the left is obviously Richard Nixon. However, this brings up some universe questions:

You can get some better looks at a couple of these in early shots, but the next picture over from Nixon looks an awful lot like Jimmy Carter, and the one on the other side of the seal looks a lot like George H. W. Bush. The one on the right we never get a real good look at, but it sure has the impression of Bill Clinton, who was actually President at the time this episode aired. As I've surmised earlier, a possible permutation of history in this universe was new elections called in 1974 to replace the resigned Nixon; Carter serving as President from 1975-1979 could be possible. Putting Bush in the line, perhaps elected in 1978 or 1982, okay, I could see that. Clinton, though ... that wouldn't make any sense. We know the previous President before Bartlet (elected in 1994) was Republican (the Supreme Court justice in The Short List tells Jed he'd been waiting for a Democrat to retire), and it would have had to be a one-termer (in The White House Pro-Am we're told the trade bill has been worked on for eight years and three presidents). The administration prior to that, elected in 1990 or perhaps 1986, was likely Democratic (as Leo served as Secretary of Labor when he went into rehab in 1993). There have been at most five, and at least three, Presidents between Nixon and Bartlet - and if these pictures indicate it was Carter, Bush, and Clinton in there, that doesn't leave room for the presidents we find out about in Season 5's The Stormy Present. Just a fun thought about alternate reality ...

- That title, What Kind Of Day Has It Been, is a hallmark of Sorkin's. He used it for the Season 1 finale of Sports Night prior to this; after this he has used it for the series finales of Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip and The Newsroom.

- The use of the space shuttle Columbia in the story putting the crew in peril turned out to be sadly prescient, as the real-life Columbia broke up during re-entry in February 2003, killing all seven crew members.

- Perhaps you noticed this episode seemed stuffed with extra bodies. In the DVD commentary, Sorkin and Schlamme say the season finale is a good opportunity to put the stand-ins and other background folks onscreen for a moment, and maybe even give them a line. It also gives Sorkin a chance to dig at a well-known quirk of Martin Sheen's:

President (walking through the corridors): "Morning, Patty [...] Hey, Steve, hey, Mikey. (to Charlie) Listen, have I gotten any of the names right so far?"

Charlie: "No, sir, but you came damn close on a couple of them."

Sheen is famous for not remembering names well, or at all.

- Speaking of stand-ins and other folks, remember back in Take This Sabbath Day, where we saw the Supreme Court justices, and one of those actors looked a lot like Ruth Bader Ginsburg?

Isn't this reporter sitting next to Danny in the press briefing room the same person?

- I mentioned the Schlamme shots of Leo watching CJ and the briefing through the window, and the sweeping overhead shot of the auditorium. I also liked the shot of Leo giving the signal to the President while he's on stage, and you see Jed's face on the monitor as his head follows Leo's arm motion. Pretty cool.

- The town hall scenes were filmed at the Colburn School, a music school in downtown Los Angeles. I found this out because the sign outside the room being used by the press calls it the "Toby E. Mayman Recital Hall." That means the school's larger Zipper Hall was used for the auditorium shots.

- Less of an interesting item than a sad one: The political topics covered in this episode from early 2000 include: youth disengagement from politics; younger generations blaming older ones for their lack of opportunities; campaign finance reform to remove corporate "soft money" from elections; the difficulties in finding health care for all Americans; heck, President Bartlet even mentions how one of the town hall attendees called him a socialist. How much progress have we made, in any of these areas, in the past 18 years? Sad to say, not much.


Quotes    

CJ (whispering): "I have a tip."

Danny (whispering): "You do?"

CJ (whispering): "Yes."

Danny: "Okay."

CJ (whispering): "I have a tip and I'm going to give it to you before the others."

Danny: "Are we being watched right now?"

CJ (looks around, whispers): "No."

Danny: "Then why are we talking like this?" 

-----

Sam: "I'm also not wild about that hand-held mic, can we get him wired?"

President: "No, cause with the mic and the stool and the jacket over my shoulder I can do the town hall meeting and then do a couple of sets at the Copa." 

-----

Josh: "It looked, like, you wanted to hug me."

Leo: "Man, did you read that wrong." 

-----

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

• Say farewell to Cathy, the Communications Office assistant (the one whom Sam looks on like a sister). Suzy Nakamura got a part on another series and left the cast after this season. Here's her final appearance:

• Speaking of farewells - Mandy, Mandy, Mandy. You've had so little to do over the past six or eight episodes, and what you've done, you haven't done well. You never had any chemistry with Josh, you screwed stuff up all the time, and you were just generally annoying. Your final scene on The West Wing had you musing about whether or not the President should take off his jacket during the town hall:

And this is the final time we see Mandy, heading down a corridor, disappearing forever (never to be even mentioned again, which is pretty odd when you think about it):

• Back in 20 Hours In L.A., when the President meets Gina and asks her some questions, she tells him, "I know what I'm looking for in a crowd, if that's what you're asking me." Here, as she scans the crowd and notices something odd, she says to herself, "I saw something. I saw something."

• CJ continues to give Carol a hard time about her spelling. Back in Take Out The Trash Day, she got after her for misspelling "Senator." Here, after briefing the press about the military rescue operation:

CJ: "I want to congratulate you, Carol. I really thought I was going to see Saudi Arabia spelled with a Y."

Carol: "CJ, I am a much better speller than you give me credit for."

CJ: "Yes. One L in Tel Aviv." 

• Gail's fishbowl has a space shuttle in it:

• So what's the deal with Josh and Hoynes, exactly? If Josh was helping Hoynes "two years ago," that would have been late 1997-early 1998. What are some other things we know about Josh? We know Donna started working for him "during the campaign" in early 1998, so he was on the Bartlet campaign then. We know he and Mandy had a thing during the campaign, but they broke up in a July (probably 1998, as it was before the election). So could Josh have changed teams from Hoynes to Bartlet around the first of 1998? It's possible.

• A couple of Presidential callbacks: Zoey notices Jed is sweating when she talks to him in the hallway during the town hall prep. He brushes it off, but does it have something to do with his multiple sclerosis?

Also, in "Post Hoc, Ergo Propter Hoc" and A Proportional Response Leo was the one who had to hold the President back from a devastating military strike on Syria. Here, it's Jed who puts a hand on Leo's arm when Leo bristles at the idea of waiting before going after the downed pilot.

Leo does tell Josh he flew planes "in the war" - in Season 5's An Khe we'll learn during the Vietnam War Leo had firsthand experience of what it's like to be shot down in hostile territory (this also helps explain Josh's deference and deep respect in his apology to Leo for bringing up a political upside to rescuing Hotchkiss during his talk with Hoynes). 

• Remember those two skinhead-looking dudes who made Gina nervous outside the restaurant in Los Angeles in 20 Hours In L.A.?

Sorkin confirms in the DVD commentary that they used the same two actors, flying them to Virginia, as the shooters in the assassination-attempt scene.

You never get a really good look at them during this episode, but it is indeed those same two guys from Episode 16. 

DC location shots    

• The exterior shots of the Newseum, in Rosslyn, Virginia (the site of the town hall meeting) were indeed shot there, on North Kent Street.

The Newseum has since moved to downtown Washington, on Pennsylvania Avenue between the White House and the Capitol (and I highly recommend it as a site to visit). This area in Rosslyn is now called Freedom Park.

• Here's the building where the shooters were set up:

And here's what that building actually looks like today:

• The jogging meeting between Josh and Hoynes took place on the Arlington Memorial Bridge over the Potomac. That's the back of the Lincoln Memorial in the background:

References to real people    

• Jed is looking forward to a televised softball game between Sacramento State and the University of the Pacific, both real universities.

• Wolf Blitzer and Christiane Amanpour are seen on TV screens in the background,and their CNN network is mentioned.

• President Bartlet is seen drinking out of a Dayton Flyers mug, from the University of Dayton. Martin Sheen is from Dayton.

• The President mentions the daytime drama General Hospital.

• Hoynes is wearing a U.S. Naval Academy T-shirt while jogging, implying he's a graduate of the USNA.

End credits freeze frame: The establishing shot outside the Newseum from the beginning of the episode.

In This White House - TWW S2E4

Original airdate: October 25, 2000

Written by: Aaron Sorkin (25)
Story by: Peter Parnell (2) & Allison Abner (1)

Directed by: Ken Olin (3)

Synopsis

• A bright and quick-thinking Republican spokesperson outwits Sam on a political TV talk show, causing the President to ask Leo to bring her on to the White House staff. The administration tries to broker a deal between African nations and American pharmaceutical companies over the price and availability of AIDS treatment drugs.

"Say they're smug and superior. Say their approach to public policy makes you want to tear your hair out. Say they like high taxes and spending your money, say they want to take your guns and open your borders, but don't call them worthless. At least don't do it in front of me. The people that I have met have been extraordinarily qualified. Their intent is good, their commitment is true, they are righteous, and they are patriots. And I'm their lawyer."

Being the writer of a popular TV show, it turns out, is a pretty powerful spot to be in. And that goes triple if you're the writer of every episode. When your show starts taking criticism for being "smug," "superior," too liberal (even being called The Left Wing by too-clever conservative critics), why, then, you can just write into the show a conservative Republican character who espouses those countering opinions and then have her see how committed, righteous, and patriotic these liberal characters actually are.

Okay, that's certainly painting Aaron Sorkin in an admittedly ungenerous light, and I'm not entirely serious - but there's a little bit of that in Ainsley Hayes, the blond Republican conservative in favor of gun rights (and not in favor of condom distribution in schools) who is introduced here.

I actually think the character of Ainsley is great, and Emily Procter is absolutely wonderful in the role (she brings a lot of her own mannerisms and speech patterns, which fits in great with Sorkinese), but she's still a liberal's idea of what a conservative might be like. And the manner in which she comes around to the fact that the staff of this White House (which she has disdained from afar) is actually fighting the good fight and is as patriotic as any Republican is, well, kind of a liberal fantasy. Less so in the atmosphere of the early 2000s than now, but still ... I mean, the Trump GOP/Democratic dichotomy of today is as wide a split as I can remember, but the GOP vs. Clinton divide nearly 20 years ago seemed so, so dramatic at the time (oh, what I'd give for those days again).

To the episode! Ainsley appears on a TV talk show where we're led to believe she's just a punching bag for Sam, who has appeared a "couple of dozen" times on the show taking apart various Republican spokespersons. Ainsley is a last-minute replacement who says she hasn't been on TV before; so naturally, she picks apart Sam's defense of the President's education bill, calling him out for lying and even catching him in a glaring geographical error.

This takedown does a couple of things: It brings us one of the fan-favorite lines of West Wing history ("Ginger, get the popcorn!") even while that same exchange between Josh and Toby really exposes Sorkin's less-than-charitable view of women in power ("Sam's getting his ass kicked by a girl!"); but more importantly, it draws President Bartlet's attention and makes him think she'd be a great addition to the White House staff:

President: "We should hire her."

Leo: "What, you mean as a joke on Sam?"

President: "No, not as a joke. I mean we should hire her as a reality. We should hire her."

Leo: "She's a Republican."

President: "So are half the people in this country."

The meat of the episode from here on is Leo's attempt to talk Ainsley into joining the staff of the White House Counsel ("Associate White House Counsel, who reports to the Deputy White House Counsel, who reports to the White House Counsel, who reports to me."). Ainsley is reluctant to do so, as the policy positions of the Bartlet administration are pretty much the exact opposite of everything she believes. A couple of discussions while she's waiting to see Leo to formally turn down the job help change her mind, however - first, she helps CJ with an (overheard) potential legal issue, to CJ's evident relief and gratitude; then she brings up the Second Amendment and the administration's (unconstitutional, to her) gun control proposals, which brings a fiery and deeply felt response from Sam in the still-fresh aftermath of the Rosslyn shooting:

Sam: "But for a brilliant surgical team and two centimeters of a miracle, this guy's (motions to Josh) dead right now. From bullets fired from a gun bought legally."

 Ainsley doesn't back down, though, making the point that the administration (and liberals in general) act from feeling, instead of hard fact:

Ainsley: "Your gun control position doesn't have anything to do with public safety, and it's certainly not about personal freedom. It's about you don't like people who do like guns. You don't like the people."

But after that, there's a flurry of activity as the senior staffers head into the Oval Office. Through an open door, Ainsley sees President Bartlet and his staff break the news to President Nimbala that the military has staged a coup in his country of Equatorial Kundu, that his family's whereabouts are unknown and that his life is in danger if he insists on returning.

I believe these three things - CJ's evident concern about doing the legal and correct thing, the ability to have a frank back and forth about a controversial topic that exposes each side to the other's stance, and the view of a compassionate, caring Chief Executive who is truly trying his best to improve the nation and the world - have a deep impact on Ainsley. In any event, she changes her mind and tells her two (rather snotty Democrat-hating) friends that she's going to take the job (which gives us the quote at the top of this post).

Speaking of President Nimbala, he's in the United States to meet with pharmaceutical company reps in order to try to get a handle on the price and availability of drugs to treat AIDS. AIDS was on the rampage in Africa at this time, and the cost of treatment through American firms was much higher than if African countries evaded patent laws and bought the drugs at cut-rate prices from other countries. There's some good discussion of some real-life issues here: Josh brings up the point that even though drugs may be far cheaper to produce than the drug companies charge, there's a huge initial cost to develop the drug in the first place ("The second pill cost them four cents; the first pill cost them four hundred million dollars"); The attitude of first-world industry towards third-world consumers is made clear by the pharmaceutical company executive's doubt that Africans have the capability to follow the requirements of AIDS drug dosages and timing; The realities of generics and drug sourcing from less-than-quality sources is pointed out. It's a nicely developed plot point that shines light on a real-world issue.

Interestingly enough, we also get one of the first walk-and-talks in which Josh explains things to Donna (while in fact actually explaining things to the audience). The West Wing Weekly podcast calls this technique a "Telladonna" (a goof on Donna's actual first name, Donnatella). While it is somewhat necessary for exposition for the audience, the fact that it's usually Donna getting the explanation is sorta-kinda another example of Sorkin's unbalanced male-female point of view (yes, I may be reaching here, but why couldn't Donna, a completely capable and smart person herself, explain something to another character? And this is going to happen a lot over the course of the series):

Donna: "I don't feel that I've homed in on this."

Josh: "There are a lot of people in Africa with HIV."

Donna: "Right."

Josh: "American companies hold the patents on the medicines they need."

Donna: "Yes."

Josh: "Most people in most African countries can't afford to buy the drugs at these prices, so they buy them on the black market."

Donna: "In violation of the US patents and international treaties."

Josh: "Yes." 

Toby and Josh eventually come up with a deal for Nimbala, saying they can get concessions from the drug companies and a deal on international development loans if he gets his police and military to crack down on the black-market drug purchases. Unfortunately, this all comes to naught at the end of the episode when we discover there's been a coup in Equatorial Kundu and Nimbala's government has been overthrown. Despite the offer of asylum from President Bartlet, Nimbala insists on returning home, facing certain execution.

There's another minor plot point involving CJ, who inadvertently lets slip to a (new and green) reporter word of a grand jury investigation into a company violating sanctions by selling oil drilling equipment to Iraq. She goes through several sleepless nights, waiting to see if the reporter will publish the story and (she believes) put her in legal jeopardy for revealing the grand jury news, but Ainsley bumps into the reporter and hears about the leak. She later happens across CJ sweating things out on her exercise cycle, and (eventually) lets her know she's in the clear legally:

Ainsley: "Who told you?"

CJ: "One of the witnesses who was called. What could happen?"

Ainsley: "Eighteen months, medium security. (CJ abruptly stops pedaling) CJ, I'm kidding. You didn't break the law. Attorneys and jurors are under a gag order. Witnesses are free to say whatever they want, and anyone is free to repeat what they've said."

(I think in addition to what I covered previously about  what caused Ainsley to change her mind about the White House job, she also can see here the staff could really use additional help from the Counsel's office.)

Some truly memorable moments in this episode, some clever writing, a little cringiness from Sorkin, and the great introduction of another terrific character. Season 2 is off and running, and believe me, there's a lot of really good stuff ahead.


Tales Of Interest!

- Ainsley tells Mark Gottfried that this is her first time appearing on TV - yet in the opening video for Capital Beat we see a "talking head" clip of Ainsley apparently speaking on TV at some prior time. If this were her first time on TV, where did they get this video?

- Since the timeline of the series got so wonky in the previous episode, there are a couple of clues here that definitely place this episode in the fall (as it aired in late October). Sam talks about winning an NFL football bet with a member of the Capital Beat crew; and on the computer screen behind Leo in one scene we see the word "SNOW."

- The number Ainsley sees on her caller ID (202-456-1414) is indeed the actual White House switchboard phone number.

- I believe this is the first time the series creates a fictional country (Equatorial Kundu). Of course, for the purposes of the plot (AIDS-ravaged African country disregarding international patent law, with a military coup overthrowing a democratically elected leader), it probably wouldn't do to use a real-life nation. Mentions in the script helping to pin down the location of Equatorial Kundu indicate there are informational contacts in Sudan and Angola, and Nimbala's wife flees to Kenya (so that must be nearby). With the equator running through the northern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda, and Kenya, this would appear to place Equatorial Kundu somewhere around Uganda or northern Congo.

- So when does Capital Beat air? Obviously Toby and Josh are at the office, given the scene where they run to see Sam get "his ass kicked by a girl," so that would seem to be a weekday (given these guys all appear to get weekends off). The first act of the episode (after the cold open) is clearly labeled "Tuesday," and the staff are giving Sam a hard time for showing his face at work after his performance on TV. The call from the White House to Ainsley comes on Tuesday night; when Leo is talking to her he says, "I've never seen Sam Seaborn get beat the way you beat him on Monday." All these indications clearly point to Sam's appearance on Capital Beat as being on a Monday night. Yet ... when Leo tells Sam and CJ he's going to offer Ainsley a job, he says she's "the woman who was on Capital Beat with Sam Sunday night." So which is it?

- When President Nimbala is informed of the coup, he asks to call his embassy, to which President Bartlet replies "Your embassy is in exile." What does this mean, exactly? A government would not have an embassy in their own country; embassies are, by definition, offices/residences of ambassadors to other countries. Why would Nimbala be wanting to call any of his embassies, and why would any of those embassies be in exile, when the military coup is happening within his own nation? I think Sorkin messed up here.


Quotes    

Sam (as Capital Beat goes to a break): "Please, oh please, let them not be watching."

(Cut to Josh running into Toby's office)

Josh: "Toby, come quick! Sam's getting his ass kicked by a girl."

Toby (rushing out of his office): "Ginger, get the popcorn." 

-----

Toby: "A drug they gotta buy from us for four dollars a unit they can get generic from Pakistan for forty cents."

CJ: "That's not the only bargain in Pakistan, Toby, my girlfriends and I go for the spring fashions."

Toby: "It shows."

-----

President: "She's smart, she's not just carping. She feels a sense of something."

Leo: "Of what?"

President: "Of duty. Of civic duty."

Leo: "How many pieces by her did you read?"

President: "Three."

Leo: "And you're certain of her sense of civic duty?"

President: "I can sense civic duty a mile away." 

-----

Leo: "I wanted to tell you this out where there were people so you wouldn't scream about it."

CJ: "Scream about what?"

Leo: "The woman who was on Capital Beat with Sam Sunday night."

Sam: "What about her?"

Leo: "I'm offering her a job."

Sam: "Where?"

Leo: "Here."

CJ: "Are you kidding?"

Leo: "No."

CJ: "Are you kidding?"

Leo: "No."

CJ: "ARE YOU KIDDING?"

Leo: "No!"

CJ (yelling): "Well, what the hell made you think I wouldn't scream where there were people?"

Leo: "I took a shot."

-----

Ainsley: "The woman who works out there who I imagine is your secretary offered me coffee or a soft drink."

Leo: "Okay, so -"

Ainsley: "She was also kind enough to ask for my coat."

Leo: "Excellent. And -"

Ainsley: "She seems to be a very good secretary."

Leo: "Well, she'll be happy to hear that. She's standing right outside the door." (Bangs on office door)

Margaret (from behind door): "Ow." 

-----

Leo: "Ainsley, even if you hadn't already told me all of this, you know, many many times, I would know it anyway cause I have this FBI file."

Ainsley: "You have my FBI file?"

Leo: "Yes."

Ainsley: "I can't believe this. You have my FBI file?"

Leo: "Yes."

Ainsley: "I have an FBI file?"

-----

Leo (to Ainsley): "The President likes smart people who disagree with him. He wants to hear from you. The President's asking you to serve. And everything else is crap."

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

• Familiar TV show guest Ted McGinley (Revenge of the Nerds, Married .. With Children, Hope & Faith) is here, as Capital Beat host Mark Gottfried. McGinley got a somewhat undeserved reputation as "the patron saint of shark-jumping," called on to take roles on several TV series nearing the end of their runs (Happy Days, The Love Boat, Dynasty).

• Bruce, the male half of the Democrat-hating Republican team hanging out with Ainsley, is played by Tom Gallop. While he's not a household name, you've probably seen him in one of his many, many roles on TV (Will & Grace) or movies (the Bourne series).

• Len Cariou appears as the pharmaceutical company executive. Cariou has a long and successful career on Broadway (Sweeney Todd), movies (Thirteen Days, Spotlight), and TV (Blue Bloods).

• Gail's fishbowl features an elephant, appropriate for the addition of a Republican to the West Wing staff.

• Capital Beat is the same TV show Josh appeared on with Mary Marsh prior to the events in Pilot, when he was nearly fired for saying her God was under indictment for tax fraud.

• A "Stackhouse" was mentioned back in Mandatory Minimums, as one of the lawmakers who had some family or staff connection to drug-related charges. Here he's mentioned as an unavailable guest for Capital Beat. He'll come up again.

DC location shots    

• There are no location shots in this episode.

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

• President Nimbala brings up the American "miracle" maker who revolutionized agriculture, Norman Borlaug (from Iowa, by the way. Yay, Iowa!). As President Bartlet expands on later, Borlaug's research into dwarf wheat varieties helped yields nearly double in southern Asian countries like India and Pakistan.

• The President mentions Paul Ehrlich's book, with Josh recalling the title (The Population Bomb).

• President Bartlet has his handy Dayton Flyers mug in the Oval Office (as mentioned before, Martin Sheen is a native of Dayton). He's also seen wearing a Notre Dame shirt at the end of the episode.

• Ainsley mentions the possibility of having a spot on Geraldo. Geraldo Rivera had a sensationalistic syndicated TV talk show in the late 1990s. At the time of this episode, he hosted Rivera Live on CNBC. He moved to Fox News in late 2001.

• We spy CNN's Wolf Blitzer on a TV screen in Leo's office.

• The flying Windows 98 logos screensaver is seen a couple of times, most clearly on Ainsley's computer.

End credits freeze frame: Ainsley looking through the Oval Office doorway as President Bartlet talks to President Nimbala about the coup.