The Last Hurrah - TWW S7E20

 

Original airdate: April 30, 2006

Written by: Lawrence O'Donnell (16)

Directed by: Tim Matheson (1)

Synopsis

• As Senator Vinick faces unemployment, a surprising offer from Matt sends him in an unexpected direction. Matt and Helen deal with big decisions on schools, staff, and renovations.

"You can enter the history books as maybe the last honorable Senator and a great Secretary of State. Or, you can be the guy who just didn't know when to quit."

You really gotta feel for Arnie Vinick.

 

Here's a guy who spent decades in public service, ran and won multiple campaigns, dedicated his life to politics, served his constituents for many years as Senator from California - and if it weren't for a couple of stuck valves at a nuclear power plant a couple of months ago, he would be preparing for his first term as President. Instead, his time in the Senate will be ending in a few weeks, and he's got, well ... nothing but time on his hands.

Vinick (on the phone with Sheila, waiting to see Goodwin): "Just keep talking to me, as though I'm too busy to sit."

Sheila: "Okay."

Vinick: "What do I have tomorrow?"

Sheila (looking at planner): "Uhhhh, you have a haircut at ten."

Vinick: "Okay, then what?"

Sheila: "That looks like it."

Vinick: "For the rest of the day?"

Sheila: "For the rest of the year."

For a guy like Vinick, this will not stand. Knowing how razor-thin the election was, and knowing the reason he lost wasn't his campaign or his proposals but just because of an uncontrollable outside event, he immediately puts his mind towards going after the Presidency again in four years. When he's offered seats on boards of directors, he turns them down because "it wouldn't look good." When a list of university lecturer offers is given him, he says he'll take only the jobs in the electorally important states of Ohio, Florida, and Pennsylvania. He's calling Republican donors and governors and elected officials, ostensibly to thank them for their support, but also to lay the groundwork for trying it all over again. His staff is concerned.

Annie: "Who's gonna tell him?"

Sheila: "What?"

Annie: "That the campaign is over."

But there are gears turning in places other than Vinick's soon-to-be-vacated Senate office. Matt is still finalizing his Cabinet nominees, as well as a Vice President to replace the recently departed Leo. His choice for VP, Pennsylvania Governor Eric Baker, might prove to be a problem with Congress, if Matt asks them to confirm his pick (Barry and Amy think since Baker would be a strong, obvious choice to replace Santos in eight years, congresspeople who want a chance themselves might not want to put him in the VP position - a situation we saw play out once before in Jefferson Lives). And the option to just give Baker's name to the Electoral College for their approval in a week might not seem the open, transparent, democratic way to fill such an important post.

 

Matt asks to see Vinick. The Santos staff and Vinick himself think this is just a photo op, a "unifying moment" after a bruising campaign and election. But Matt has other plans ... he brings up the Vice Presidential dilemma to him, asking if he'd consider the role if Matt offered it.

 

Vinick knows that's a gambit, an offer Matt would never actually make, and it's a play to try to help Baker's nomination get through Congress. But Matt has another offer up his sleeve.

Matt: "I'm going to need another cop when Bartlet leaves office. (pause) How about Secretary of State?"

Vinick: "You gonna go with Reynolds?"

Matt: "Maybe. If I don't get my first choice."

Vinick: "Who's that?"

Matt: "That would be you."

It's a brilliant move. Both Matt and Vinick agree for the most part on foreign policy, the idea of a strong Republican serving in an important position in a Democratic administration can only help bring the country together, and it gives Vinick a sense of purpose and motivation again. (I mean, it also helps reduce the chances of Vinick trying to run against Matt in four years, but I don't believe that's a major motivation for the offer.)

 

As the idea rolls around Vinick's head, he's reluctant. So Matt switches gears, showing him the latest intelligence report from Kazakhstan and feeling Vinick out over ways to approach negotiations with the Russians and Chinese. This is right up Vinick's alley, and as the two stand before the fireplace in Matt's office and talk out matters of international diplomacy, we know in the end Vinick is going to take the job.

 

 

It's a tour de force for Alan Alda, who - let's face it - has been knocking it out of the park all season as Vinick. Alda earned the final Emmy Award in West Wing history for this episode (along with Two Weeks Out, but he was so great in The Cold and Message Of The Week too, plus others). Just to see his face when he's alone in Matt's office, as he looks around at the desk - you can read the emotion in his eyes, the knowledge that this should be his office, it should be him as President-elect. He doesn't need to say a word, it all plays out in his expression. Great stuff.

 

In addition to the primary Vinick plot, Matt and Helen (after seeing the Secret Service impact on keeping a split household through the spring) make the big decision to pull the kids out of school in Houston and move to the White House. They tour some high-priced private schools, but none of them feel right to Matt; so they look at a public school, which surprisingly seems just perfect. The notion of Presidential children attending a public school in Washington DC doesn't appear to be realistic to our eyes, but as recently as the 1970s Amy Carter went to Stevens Elementary and Rose Hardy Middle School while her father was President. So it has happened (even though things have changed a lot since the late 1970s).

 

Helen also abruptly faces what life in the White House will look like. She comes to CJ's office when she has a meeting with the decorator; Margaret points her to a door, which unexpectedly leads Helen into the Oval Office. That takes her aback.

 

And then when CJ brings her to meet the White House residential staff, it's another moment that sends Helen's mind reeling.

 

Helen: "This is too much, I don't need all these people."

CJ: "Okay. Which ones do you want to fire?"

So things are starting to get real for the Santos family: the living arrangements, the staff, the schools, and for Matt, choosing the right people to fill the roles to keep his administration humming along. And time is counting down for those currently in the West Wing, as well. The next episode helps move that topic along, so stay tuned.

Tales Of Interest!

- The previous episode was set "ten weeks" before the inauguration, or in mid-November, probably the week of November 12 (Election Day was November 7, Leo's funeral in Requiem was three days later, or Friday November 10, so Transition would have been following on a few days after that). In this episode we hear the Electoral College is voting "next week." That vote is always on a Tuesday in mid-December (specifically the Tuesday after the second Wednesday of the month, which would have been December 19 in 2006), which places this episode somewhere in the week of December 10, 2006.

 

- One would think Josh and Sam would be deeply involved in the Vice Presidential/Secretary of State picks, given their critical importance and how the pieces fit together to help get Baker's nomination through Congress. You might also think Donna, as Helen's Chief of Staff, might be deeply involved in her meetings with the decorator and the staff, not to mention the school choice. But Josh, Sam, and Donna do not appear in this episode at all. If you're saying, "Well, in the previous episode Josh and Donna were taking a vacation, that's why they're not here" you're exactly where the episode's creators want you to be ... but Josh and Donna were going away for one week. The previous episode was mid-November, meaning they should have been back no later than Thanksgiving weekend, and as worked out above, we're in at least the week of December 10 here. They would have been back by now! And Sam was supposed to be taking care of things while Josh was gone anyhow - where is he?

- The Secret Service model of the Santos residence is obviously not to scale, but it doesn't look anything like the house we saw in Running Mates.

 

 

- As Vinick mulls over another run for the Presidency, he mentions the "seven dwarfs" he beat in the Republican primary. Methinks he's confused - there was talk of "seven dwarfs" among the Democratic field in Freedonia, but the only Republican candidates we heard about during the primaries were someone named "Allard" (in 365 Days) and former Speaker and Acting President Glenallen Walken (in King Corn and Ninety Miles Away). Vinick had a slow start, not doing well in Iowa, but otherwise we heard he was "sweeping the primaries" in La Palabra and won the nomination fairly easily. We actually did see someone who was described as one of his primary opponents, Rev. Don Butler, in In God We Trust, but we'd literally never heard of him before and only once since (brought up by the American Christian Assembly guy in Message Of The Week). 

- I don't believe we've ever had a mention before of who the Secretary of Education is in the Bartlet administration. We're told here it's Jim Kane.

 

- Amy says they'll need five GOP votes "at least" to get a VP confirmed in the Senate. That must mean the Senate is split 54-46 in favor of Republicans. Five Republicans joining Democrats to confirm would make the vote 51-49.

- Tim Matheson (who plays former Vice President John Hoynes on the series) directed this episode. An actor since the early 1960s, he has a long list of directing credits for TV movies and series since his first directing job with an episode of St. Elsewhere in 1984.

- In Gail's fishbowl there looks to be the White House on a bright green lawn with a For Sale sign in the yard, a symbol of the Bartlet administration getting ready to move out of the White House.

 

- Alan Alda received an Emmy for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series for his performance in this episode (and Two Weeks Out). He'd also been nominated the year before, losing to William Shatner for Boston Legal. Alda's win was the only Emmy going to the series this season (The West Wing won 10 total Emmys in its first four years, but only two in the final three seasons).

- Why'd They Come Up With The Last Hurrah?

A "last hurrah" is defined as a last act, or final effort. We can see this in both the outgoing Bartlet administration with barely a month left in office, and more importantly, Senator Vinick coming to grips with the realization that his losing run for the Presidency is essentially his "last hurrah" (although not without a fight, even if only in his head).

Quotes    

Vinick: "I won't do lobbying, it wouldn't look good."

Sheila: "You wouldn't have to do any lobbying."

Bob: "Wouldn't look good?"

(pause)

Sheila: "Lecturing in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Florida? You thinking about running again?"

----- 

Barista: "What size?"

Vinick: "Uh, whatever's biggest."

Barista: "Name?"

Vinick: "Sen --  (pause) Arnie."

Barista (calling out): "Venti coffee of the day for Ernie."

 

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

• Amy Gardner seems to have taken Matt up on his offer of a job as Director of Legislative Affairs that he offered in Requiem.

• We haven't seen head of the White House Secret Service detail Ron Butterfield (Michael O'Neill) in a while. Here he's introducing part of the Secret Service detail to the Santos children, as well as coordinating the protection plan for the Santos home in Houston.

• Our favorite news anchor Ivan Allen returns. First appearing in A Proportional Response, we've seen him many, many times on the series (sometimes playing a reporter named Roger Salier, sometimes with a network called CND, sometimes at MSNBC, once at a local Washington DC station, mostly at a generic news network). This is actually his 27th and final time with a credit in the cast.

• Vinick's lawyer is played by David Clennon (The Thing, thirtysomething, Gone Girl).

• The Secret Service agent explaining the Houston situation to Matt and Helen is played by Paul Keeley (Romy and Michele's High School Reunion, Desperate Housewives, Mission Impossible III).

• Curtis Schaefer, the White House Head Usher, is played by Van Epperson (The Green Mile, Documentary Now!, The Middle).

• The barista at the coffee shop who calls Arnie Vinick "Ernie" is played by Parvesh Cheena (Outsourced, Barbershop, The Goldbergs, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend).

• We've seen the White House decorator who met with Helen in the Oval Office before. Gail Addison (played by Bonita Friedericy, seen in Chuck, Preacher, and Chicago Med) had ideas to help redecorate CJ's new office after she became the new Chief of Staff in The Hubbert Peak.

• The public school principal showing Matt and Helen around, Cathy Holland, is played by Maria Broom (The Wire).

• We see the President-elect meeting with generals and head military officers, but there's no sign of General Alexander, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Played by Terry O'Quinn, he was last seen in The Birnam Wood, and I don't think has even been mentioned since.
  

• "Royce" is mentioned as the Senate Majority Leader. We first saw Rep. Robert Royce as a House member from Pennsylvania in On The Day Before; by his next appearance on Jefferson Lives he was a Senator, and already the Republican Majority Leader. He's been in that post ever since, apparently (last seen in In God We Trust).

• During Vinick's physical we learn that his hand has healed "faster than we expected." He broke bones in his right hand in Two Weeks Out, which would have been Tuesday October 24 (although we saw no signs of that hand injury in Election Day Part 1 or Election Day Part II). With this episode the week of December 10, this would be seven weeks later, at which time you'd probably expect a broken bone to be healed.
  

• The decision between sending a Vice Presidential name to the Electoral College or having Matt's choice go through Congressional confirmation was first brought up in Election Day Part II. Also, Eric Baker, Matt's choice for VP, was seen originally as the front-runner for the Democratic nomination in The Hubbert Peak, announced he was withdrawing from consideration due to "family reasons" in In The Room, jumped back in when he saw a chance to steal the nomination at the convention in 2162 Votes, but then saw his chances evaporate when word of his wife's treatment for depression was leaked by Will and the Russell campaign.

• The concern over a Republican Congress possibly refusing to vote to confirm a Vice Presidential nominee was a primary plot point in Jefferson Lives, which led to the Bartlet administration meekly accepting a list of names the Republicans were willing to support and eventually naming Bob Russell as VP. This discussion, after Goodwin brings up a possible Senate filibuster against Baker, is nearly a perfect description of what we saw then:

Amy: "Not if you talk to the Majority Leader, give him the feeling he's being consulted, let him suggest some names."

Matt: "No, that'll give him the chance to try to jam me into taking someone I don't want."

Of course, Royce, still the Majority Leader, was actually in the room back in Jefferson Lives and went along with Speaker Haffley's ploy to deny President Bartlet his choice of Berryhill as Vice President and offer up that list. He saw it work once, he certainly might try it again.

• The look on Amy's face when Matt confirms Baker as his choice for Vice President reminds us that in Requiem Amy was pushing hard for a Florida congresswoman to be Matt's pick instead.

• Ray Sullivan is brought up as the presumptive favorite for the Republican nomination in 2010. Sullivan, the governor of West Virginia, was Vinick's running mate in the 2006 campaign.
  

• Vinick and Bob discuss the nuclear accident that cost him Nevada and other Western votes, and therefore the election. The San Andreo nuclear plant, one that Vinick had pushed to open 20 years prior, suffered a serious accident that threatened a massive release of radioactivity over California in Duck And Cover. 
  

• Matt shows off his Naval Academy class ring to Helen when he says he got a paycheck while attending Annapolis. This reminds us that he's a Naval Academy graduate who is still in the Marine Corps Reserves (as seen in The Mommy Problem).

• Vinick brings up the "good cop/bad cop" routine President Bartlet and Matt are playing to try to get Russia and China to negotiate over Kazakhstan. We saw that gambit begin in the previous episode, Transition. 
  

• The combination of Nancy McNally being nominated as ambassador to the United Nations and Vinick getting the Secretary of State offer reminds us that Josh went to Vinick to offer him the post of UN ambassador in In The Room. As Matt tells Barry, Lou, and Amy, "He never leaked that Bartlet offered him that UN job."

• Vinick says he "wouldn't lift a finger" to help Baker get confirmed. In In God We Trust we learned it was Baker who helped Bruno join the Vinick campaign, vouching for him with the Senator. So Baker and Vinick apparently got along well then.
  

DC location shots    

• The shot of Matt outside his car on the street was shot where 15th Street NW and New York Avenue NW meet, not far east of the White House. You can see the Treasury Building in the background, which is located between the White House and 15th Street. There's also a sign for Sun Trust Bank on the National Savings and Trust Company building on the northeast corner of the intersection, which now is Truist Bank.

The "Do Not Enter" signs are in the same place

Google Street View from near the corner seen in the episode

Google Street View looking down New York Avenue

• The exterior shots of the school visits were done in the DC area. It appears the production unit made a trip out east to film scenes for episodes from Requiem through Tomorrow, so these location shots were all from that trip (in February or March of 2006). I haven't been able to uncover the location for the Santos "private school" visit; the public school location was Eaton Elementary, at 3301 Lowell Street NW (near the National Cathedral, not really that close to the White House).

Mystery private school

In front of Eaton Elementary

Google Street View of Eaton Elementary

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

• There's a shot of the Washington Post on Vinick's doorstep.

• Other newspaper/media outlets mentioned include the New York Times, the Kansas City Star, CNN, and the Drudge Report.

• CNN Headline News anchor Chuck Roberts is seen again on a TV monitor in the background. I'm pretty sure the "LANDMARK EVOLUTION CASE" chyron across the bottom of the screen is exactly the same we saw in last week's episode; probably the exact same bit of video being re-used.

• The list of universities offering faculty jobs to Vinick includes NYU, Princeton, Penn, UVa, Duke, Emory, Florida State, Ohio Wesleyan, and William & Mary.
  

• Among the schools mentioned during Matt and Helen's tour are St. Albans (a prep school for boys only in grades 4-12, located near the National Cathedral) and Bancroft - while there is an expensive private school named Bancroft in Massachusetts, the school named Bancroft in DC is a public elementary school, not private.

• Adlai Stevenson is brought up by Vinick, who did indeed win back-to-back nominations to be the Democratic candidate for President in 1952 and 1956 (only to lose both times, as Sheila points out).

End credits freeze frame: Helen meeting the White House residential staff.

Previous episode: Transition

Next episode: Institutional Memory

Transition - TWW S7E19

 

Original airdate: April 23, 2006

Written by: Peter Noah (8)

Directed by: Nelson McCormick (2)

Synopsis

• An overstressed, overworked Josh faces ultimatums, both for his future with Donna and for his choice for deputy Chief of Staff. Helen tries to work through the adjustment to life as a First Lady. Matt may find himself in hot water over his Kazakhstan remarks to China's President. And is this the return of Sam Seaborn?

"When was the last time you took a vacation?" 

Josh is at the end of his rope.

 

This isn't a new development: during his time as Deputy Chief of Staff in the West Wing, he was always driven, to the point where work always won out over any sort of personal/social life. With the exception of Amy Gardner (and let's face it, that pretty much proves the rule), we never saw Josh in a relationship, or having much of any life outside work. During the primary campaign Josh was on top of everything, making nearly every important decision on the direction of the operation, fine-tuning the ad buys, working on the nuts and bolts of the message; while in The Ticket and The Mommy Problem, we saw him even more overworked and stretched thin after Matt won the Democratic nomination, and Josh continued to micromanage the campaign down to which states to compete in and which to drop out of. Even Leo made the comment that after winning the election, the time commitment for Josh was only going to get worse.

 

And here we are. 

 

Josh, on the plane heading out to California, a pile of folders and printouts on his lap tray:

 

Josh, in the car traveling from the airport, tapping on his Blackberry:

 

Josh, even after a night of lovemaking with Donna, up before dawn to work on education policy:

 

 

Josh, face down in his Blackberry while meeting with a Congressman:

 

 

With the Blackberry literally attached between his teeth:

 

 

With the Blackberry keeping him from convincing Sam to come work with him:

 

 

And even having that damn Blackberry distract him while he's talking to the President-elect:

 

 

The nonstop minutiae of the transition, the neverending discussions, the decisions on who to tap for administration positions, the thinking, the considering, the machinations - it's consuming Josh from the inside out. And everybody notices it. Sam comments on his pallor, his lack of a life. Matt asks Donna if he's doing anything outside of work to blow off steam. Even Louise, while Josh is asking her to join the administration, makes an obvious poke at Josh's monomania.

Josh: "Campaigning's about promise. Governing's about achievement. It's, it's tougher and a lot less romantic, but it's not boring. I already think you're smarter than everyone, that's why I want you down the hall. Come on, it's not like getting a life."

Louise: "That's true, look at you."

Which brings Josh up short to consider, at least momentarily.

 

Then there's Donna, who had a brief phone discussion about "the talk" with Josh while he was in California. Of course we remember the unspoken devotion and connection between these two, all the way from Pilot, the note in the skiing book that make Donna smile in In Excelsis Deo, the "If you were in an accident, I wouldn't stop for red lights" in 17 People, the dashing halfway across the globe when Donna was grievously injured in Gaza, the heartbreak on Josh's face when he turned Donna away from the Santos campaign in The Ticket, the unexpected kiss in The Cold - all culminating finally, finally, with Donna and Josh falling into bed together (twice) in Election Day Part 1. And now both of them are trying to navigate the tricky waters of defining and developing whatever relationship they might be able to build here.

 

Donna comes over after Josh returns from California. Not to talk, but for sex. Afterwards, she lays down her (perfectly reasonable) timeline to Josh:

Donna: "Be still and listen to me. I don't know what this is. And you don't either, which is perfectly fine and understandable. Whatever the buildup, it's all happening at absurdly heightened emotional circumstances, the election, Leo's death, there's been ... no moment to so much as, take a breath, much less figure any of this out. And now this roller coaster's plunging into the transition, with its time-pressure demands, and then the inauguration and it's hit the ground running and first hundred days and before you know it the midterms and the new Congress ... and then we're running again and four years becomes eight, and we've never had the talk. And you can lose that look of panic in your eyes, we're not gonna have it now, we don't ever have to have it. But there's a window. I'd say four weeks. If we can't get it together in that time and figure out what we want from each other, then clearly it's not worth the trouble."

So there's one ultimatum. He soon faces another ... but first, hey, I mentioned Sam! Yes, Sam Seaborn is back! His story with the Bartlet administration began in In The Shadow Of Two Gunmen, when Josh showed up at his New York law firm to convince him to leave the job he hated and come help Josh on the campaign. Of course, Sam was a key part of the West Wing staff until Season 4, when his thoughts turned more to getting his hands dirty making policy instead of writing speeches for those who were making it. He left the White House to run for Congress in a special election in California, losing that election and leaving the series in Red Haven's On Fire. And after that, apparently, he returned to practice law in a high-powered Los Angeles firm.

 

That's where Josh finds him at the start of the episode, giving us all kinds of flashbacks to that first time Sam left the law for politics, as Josh asks him to be his Deputy Chief of Staff, "your me to my Leo." But this time, Sam is less eager to leave. He's making a ton of money, he's gotten the firm to do a lot of good things, and he's engaged. Josh doesn't let up, though - he keeps after him, telling him to just come out to DC and get a feel for the Santos bunch before he decides.

 

Naturally, being Josh, once Sam does arrive, he jumps eight steps and anoints him with the job.

Josh (handing a pile of binders to Sam): "I've got a thing. I've starred which are meetings, I've X-ed out which are blow-offs."

Sam: "I haven't officially said I'm in."

Josh: "Yeah, no, absolutely. (to everyone) Ladies and gentlemen, Sam Seaborn, our new deputy chief of staff. (they applaud) Knock 'em dead, tiger."

Sam's path and Josh's headlong race into exhaustion and collapse come together near the end of the episode. Josh, frantic as the pace of what he sees as his essential nonstop work just keeps ramping up, explodes at Otto, for no reason, and all because of that damn Blackberry.

 

Josh (frantically searching for something): "Otto!"

Otto (enters the office): "There's an intercom."

Josh: "Yeah, if I wanted to use the intercom, I'd use the intercom, I can't find my Blackberry."

Otto: "I've got it."

Josh: "What?"

Otto: "I'm updating it."

Josh: "I've been looking for it for an hour!"

Otto: "I just took it ten minutes ago --"

Josh: "Were you planning on telling me?"

Otto: "You handed it to me."

Josh: "Why would you think it would be okay for me to be cut off from the world like that?"

Otto: "Well, I figured you had your office phone --"

Josh: "Don't figure, okay? Don't use initiative. It's a highly overrated quality when it comes to assistant work."

Otto: "Well, I don't want to be an assistant --"

Josh (yelling): "You want to know how to get to not be an assistant, by doing it great. Not by leaving your boss electronically stranded for ten minutes, it feels like an hour, this isn't a campaign, this isn't airplanes and hotels and 'guess where I am now, ma,' this is grind-it-out time! It's three yards and a cloud of dust, and if you can't hack what I need from you now you sure as hell aren't going to be asked to do anything more, get the Blackberry now. Go."

Otto, who's been trying his best to show his worth and gain a position of responsibility in the administration, is crestfallen.

 

The rest of the staff watches in silent amazement and fear at Josh's outburst. Sam steps in, taking the Blackberry from Otto and laying down yet another ultimatum to Josh.

Sam: "I didn't come here cause you're such a silver-tongued recruiter or cause I got tired of summer in January. Santos may be a future this country wants: for all the partisan noises made on the margin we're a nation of centrists, and he may just be the right man with the right message at the right time and if he is - I want to be a part of it. But he can't do it without you. Liberal Democrats are going to try to force him left, moderate Republicans are going to fence-sit as long as they can, you're the one who's gotta make this go, who's gonna cut through the reflexive demagoguery and timidity and make people do what they were sent here to do - actually govern. Serve the voters' interests. Instead of striking poses and playing gotcha. And it's going to be next to impossible if you're at your best and, what may only be news to you at this point, you are nowhere near your best.

"Take the vacation. I haven't said I'm signing on but I can tell you this: I won't stay unless you go. One of us is getting on a plane tonight. If it's you, you're back in a week, if it's me I'm gone, adios, for good. Your call."

That finally gets through Josh's head. Both Louise's comment and Sam's threat to leave if he doesn't take a break dawn on him, he'll be no good to Matt or to the administration if he stays on the path he's been on. He'll take that week off, if it's okay with Matt (spoiler alert: it is).

Josh (explaining his plan to take a week off): "Lou's right, I have no life. And I don't know if that's really how I want it or if it's just some borderline, or not-so-borderline pathetic pathologic avoidance thing. If it's, you know, okay with you."

Matt: "If it didn't involve a motorcade, I'd drive you to the airport myself."

And quite smartly, Josh also realizes he can meet both Sam's and Donna's ultimatums with the same move.

Donna: "May I just say, a truly excellent notion."

Josh: "Sam's."

Donna (chuckling): "Of course."

Josh: "The vacation. Going with you part was all me."

There are a couple of other storylines in this episode. Helen, overwhelmed by the oncoming rush of what it means to be a First Lady, asks Donna to be her Chief of Staff. And Matt, who has never been comfortable with President Bartlet's military adventure in Kazakhstan that's laid on the new President's doorstep, goes outside the bounds of protocol to complain about Bartlet's move to the President of China - a complaint that's intercepted by the National Security Agency and quickly relayed to the President as a serious breach of international relations and a possible betrayal of the current administration's foreign policy.

It's a neat little trick when we eventually learn Matt and the President have cooked up this little maneuver together. Both of them are frustrated by Russia and China refusing to negotiate, even with American troops in between their forces, and they figured having the incoming President make his displeasure known and hint that he might give those American forces something offensive to do in Kazakhstan might help bring them to the table. Knowing the NSA was listening in on calls to the Russian and Chinese governments also gives cover to the whole deal; any checks by the Chinese or Russian security people to their counterparts in the administration are going to confirm that Matt is being a loose cannon and could mean what he says, there's no chance of someone leaking the fact it's a planned gambit, because they don't know. I like that secret calculated move; it keeps President Bartlet out of it, but gives Russia and China a real incentive to solve their differences before a new President starts pushing their armies around.

But this is all about Josh, and his slow realization that both his political goodwill and his emotional, relationship goodwill can only suffer if he doesn't take a breath, step back from the breakneck pace, and relax while working on what it means for him and Donna. The final shot is inspired - Josh's Blackberry, left behind, buzzing away with messages and calls ... and finally falling off the desk. 

Tales Of Interest!

- The most specific mention we have of a setting is that it's ten weeks until the inauguration. Given that would be Saturday, January 20, 2007, we are somewhere in mid-November. The previous episode, Requiem, was specifically set three days after the election (so Friday, November 10) ... this must be sometime in the following week.

- Sam makes the statement that his fiancée would have to take the bar exam again, if she picked up and moved from California to DC. I only know this because my attorney son passed the DC bar (and California, too, actually) - but the District of Columbia offers what's called reciprocity for all 50 states plus Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands. If an attorney is accredited in any of those jurisdictions, they can practice in DC without having to pass the DC bar exam.

- The exterior scenes with Josh and Sam outside of Sam's law firm were shot at Warner Bros. headquarters on Warner Boulevard in Burbank. The Warner Bros. Studio Tour is literally across the street from where this was filmed. The "Wilshire Studio Plaza" sign was added, no such place actually exists.

The Warner Bros headquarters entrance from Google Street View

- We get a fleeting glimpse of Gail's fishbowl when Josh comes to visit. It's hard to see what's in there, except for half a fishbowl of sand ... is that the White House on the sand?

- Why'd They Come Up With Transition?

The obvious meaning is the Presidential transition between administrations, from November's election to the January inauguration, but there's a lot more going on here. Josh is dealing with the transition from the campaign to governing; Helen is dealing with the transition from Congressman's wife to First Lady; Sam is dealing with the transition from private practice to the Santos administration; and of course, there's the whole transition of Josh/Donna from "fling" to perhaps something more long-term and serious.

Quotes    

Sam: "I thought you'd never call."

-----

Donna (as her phone rings): "Excuse me, ma'am."

Helen (reacts): "Did you just 'ma'am' me?"

Donna: "I, I seem to have."

Helen (smiling): "Don't do that again."

----- 

Helen: "You get all the cool names."

Matt: "Mr. President."

Helen: "Hmm."

Matt: "Commander in Chief."

Helen: "That one, that's kinda hot."

Matt: "Yeah?"

Helen: "Mmm ... got time for a little incursion?"

(Matt looks at his watch, Helen pushes his arm down)

Helen: "No."

Matt: "Not even for a surgical strike."

Helen: "I had in mind more of, shock and awe."

Matt: "Oh, yeah? After fifteen years of marriage I'd be shocked if you were awed."

-----

Sam: "When was the last time you took a vacation?"

(Josh looks at Sam blankly)

Sam: "Vacation? Time off from labor? Thought to be restorative, salubrious for body and soul? Not to mention, mental health."

Josh: "I don't remember."

Sam: "Okay, if I'm your boss that's really the wrong answer."

-----

Donna: "One thing I know for sure is I can't work for you. If something's happening with us personally, it won't work, and if something isn't, well, that won't work so good, either."

Josh: "Yeah, about that, um, things are insane, there's no way I'm going to be able to get a handle on what's going on between the two of us in the time frame you laid out."

Donna: "Three weeks, six days to go. We'll see."

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

• Sam Seaborn (Rob Lowe) returns to The West Wing, for the first time since losing his California congressional special election in Red Haven's On Fire.

• Secretary of Defense Miles Hutchinson and (former?) National Security Adviser Nancy McNally are both seen in the Situation Room. Hutchison has been Secretary of Defense through probably the entire Bartlet presidency (his name first came up in A Proportional Response, but he was first seen onscreen in Inauguration: Part I). Before Leo's funeral, McNally was last seen in Liftoff, and was referred to as the "former" NSA in Welcome To Wherever You Are (Kate Harper seems to have taken over for her in the White House, but here's Nancy again).

 

• When Sam tells Josh he's getting married, Josh replies, "I've heard it before." Sam was engaged when Josh came to his New York workplace to convince him to leave and work for the Bartlet campaign in In The Shadow Of Two Gunmen - which also leads to Sam's comment about it having "a nice nostalgic symmetry." We actually saw Sam's former fiancée writing an article about him and the State of the Union speech in 100,000 Airplanes.
  

• CJ tells President Bartlet he isn't going to be happy with the numbers for the San Andreo cleanup. The nuclear power plant in San Andreo, California, almost had a catastrophic release of radiation in Duck And Cover.
  

• Donna working with Helen on finding temporary residences - as well as Helen's offer to Donna to be her chief of staff - reminds us of the connection they seemed to have over the tattoo/thong incident in Running Mates. 
  

• Helen, in flirting with Matt, says she was thinking of "shock and awe." That's a military tactic first outlined in 1996 and made famous by the US invasion of Iraq in 2003.
  

• We have references to both Russian President Chigorin and Chinese President Lian. Chigorin first came to power around the time of Enemies Foreign And Domestic, and has come up multiple times since then. Lian's name first came up in A Change Is Gonna Come, and we actually saw him meet with President Bartlet in Impact Winter. 
  

• Oliver Babish's name is mentioned as a possible Attorney General candidate. Babish first arrived as White House Counsel in Bad Moon Rising, when he had to deal with the legal side of the reveal of Bartlet's MS, and was last seen pestering CJ over the leak of the military space shuttle in Here Today. Matt brings up both the MS (a storyline begun in He Shall, From Time To Time ...) and the Toby Ziegler leak.
  

• Speaking of Attorneys General, Josh says (of Babish) that "it'd be nice to have an Attorney General who didn't hate us." The conflicts between the Attorney General and President Bartlet have been an ongoing thing, brought to a head in Abu el Banat when Bartlet stood up to AG Alan Fisk over contradicting the administration's position on assisted suicide. The Attorney General has been an oddly inconsistent Cabinet position throughout the series: in Debate Camp we saw flashbacks to the problems Bartlet's staff had in their 1998-99 transition, having to withdraw their original AG choice, Cornell Rooker; the AG was referred to as "Black" in A Proportional Response, then we saw a man named Dan Larson, who was definitely not Black (and also definitely not Alan Fisk), introduced as Attorney General in Lies, Damn Lies And Statistics.  
  

• CJ makes an offer to Josh for incoming Santos staffers to stop by and spend some time with the Bartlet staffers who are leaving, to help pick up some tips about their jobs. We saw something similar happening in the flashback scenes of Debate Camp, including Donna getting pranked by her predecessor over a secret nuclear missile silo under the White House.
  

• CJ's flustered kinda-sorta dismissal of Josh's offer of a job in the Santos White House reminds us of Charlie convincing her to look over some job offers from outside government in Election Day Part 1. It seems she really hasn't come to terms with what to do next yet.
  

• Josh makes a callback to President Bartlet's Nobel Prize in Economics. The award for economics isn't technically one included in the original prizes started in 1901, but an Nobel-adjacent award created in 1969 and administered by the Nobel Foundation does exist.

DC location shots    

• We see a scene with Josh on the phone as he walks along Pennsylvania Avenue outside the White House. The scene actually does reflect how Josh might have walked from the White House back to the transition offices in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building (although in reality that walk probably wouldn't be along Pennsylvania Avenue and 17th Street NW - the EEOB is literally across a parking area from the West Wing).
  

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

• Josh compares his receding hairline to Napoleon being routed out of Moscow. 
  

• The comments about outgoing administrations sabotaging offices for the incoming staffers are based on reports that members of the outgoing Bill Clinton administration engaged in some vandalism aimed at the incoming George W. Bush administration on their way out in January 2001, including removing "W" keys from computer keyboards, cutting phone lines, and gluing filing cabinets shut. Some anonymous Clinton staffers claim they faced similar light vandalism upon taking over from the George H.W. Bush administration in 1993. 
  

• Helen refers to herself as "The Lady Of Shalott," the subject of a tragic poem by Tennyson in 1832 about a noblewoman stranded in a tower. 
  

• After considering staying at homes offered by donors, the Santos family plans to move into Blair House, which is located on Pennsylvania Avenue across from the White House. Called "the President's Guest House," the residence has served as a place for visiting foreign dignitaries to stay in Washington since the 1940s, and has also been a residence for many incoming presidents before their inaugurations.
  

• The situation in Kazakhstan first sprang from an offhand comment by an odd national security adviser to Vinick in Message Of The Week; of course that has grown into a full-blown crisis as armies of both China and Russia have moved into the country, and President Bartlet has sent in US troops to serve as a buffer between them. Matt has made his concerns with the operation known ever since he and Vinick were first told about it in The Cold.
  

• Otto is having a breakfast of a doughnut and a Diet Pepsi.

• Josh is knocking back the Alka Seltzer, along with some Red Bull, a Coca-Cola, and a Starbucks drink on his desk.
  

 

• Josh's talk on economics includes the term "post-Keynesian."
  

• Josh's reliance on his Blackberry is a large part of the plot.

• We can see CNN Headline News anchor Chuck Roberts onscreen in the background.

End credits freeze frame: President Bartlet and Matt meeting in the Oval Office.

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Next episode: The Last Hurrah