sYou can tell we're approaching the end of the season
The West Wing 1.19 Let Bartlet Be Bartlet
What did date this was Margaret breaking the late nineties e-mail. (<3 Margaret.)
The first episode where the weather felt like a real presence with the storm and some use of pathetic fallacy.
We saw moments where CJ, Sam and Josh got really frustrated, but this has all been building up for a while. The administration went down in popularity in a week where they’d done nothing, but that was it, they’d done nothing. Josh was having a futile meeting, where he got wound up, understandably enough. Sam was having his own futile meeting, and thouh Fitz had A Moment, coming in and owning the room, the politican was right that they all knew it was futile. As Toby said, they’d only had the one win, but Donna spoke truth to Josh about his snappishness (her watching him through the window is both romantic and unprofessional) and indeed about everyone’s already defeated mood.
Meanwhile, in a slight break, Mrs Landingham mothering the president’s lunch was amusing.
I realised (or subconsciously remembered) before CJ did that Danny/his paper had Mandy’s memo. Though if what Mandy said about the press getting it off her hard drive is right, whoah, that’s a bit rifling through people’s rubbish for what I presumed was a well-regarded paper. Although of course it was still news, and Danny was absolutely right that they should have asked Mandy about this before hiring her. (I can’t be the only one tasteless enough to be making ‘don’t ask don’t tell’ jokes.) But they were too busy getting their kicks from sending Josh to hire his ex and watching the ensuing power play? The events of this episode speak to the character’s redundancy that it’s not the presentation that they needed to work on, but what they were doing that needed to be presented.
And so it fell to Leo to call Bartlet out, Leo who hadn’t wanted to read the memo, which those that had felt contained a fair critique. Or perhaps not entirely, given what Leo said about Bartlet’s exact orders and directions to him, to Josh and to all of them, and thus his dissatisfaction with being President.
Actually, the rousing music felt almost dated, too and the ‘serving at the pleasure of the President’ was cheesy, but it was such a relief to have them get a call to arms and to respond to it enthusiastically that I didn’t care.
1.20 Mandatory Minimumslinked really well, as I got to see them starting to deliver on the new direction straight away. A long 24 hours, though.
I didn’t remember Andy being introduced this early. For me, as she overlaps with Mandy, the similarity in names is striking (even if Joey seems like the more obvious replacement as someone who’s a love interest for Josh and now working at the White House, with, again, everyone fully aware of the two things, thanks to Donna.) The similarity in names is one of those things that could happen IRL, but it’s the kind of thing fiction would avoid, so you’ve got to wonder if this was Sorkin’s subconscious at work. (I know there’s a lot of similarities in character names to actor names or real people, but this is the first time it’s been really striking with character names.)
Oh, and is Danny the senior correspondent of the whole press room, or just for his (unnamed) paper? It obviously was personal, and CJ deserved the ‘do unto others’ lecture later (although some of it was totally reaction to getting reamed out by Leo) but I don’t think that shutting him out temporarily was massively out of line as he had written the Mandy story.
And, okay, she was showing anger towards Mandy, as was Josh, and some of it was orders from Leo, but even if they’d been nicer to her, the fact they weren’t ever considering bringing Mandy into the inner circle of the new mission said it all, especially as they were using the press in a couple of ways to get the message out.
But yeah, it was satisfying to watch the team dazzle from the beginning of pointing to the speech and building up Josh’s phone call. And though that guy who met with Sam is obnoxious, his boss was the worst.
We got another walk and talk that went too far with Toby and Sam.
There was something nice (and unusual) about seeing the team (sans CJ) outdoors, eating together. Margaret’s obsessing was adorable. Leo’s exasperation with the irrelevancies too.
Then Josh was an absolute dork to the point where he was terrible around Joey (the scenes with Al Kiefer not seeming to be under Toby’s control and just being awful made ne go ‘But still, GOOD CALL dumping him.’) Take Charlie’s advice, Joshua!
This was matched by learning Toby had a hitherto unmentioned ex wife, (no, I hadn’t noticed the ring) who was a proper politician, and making the same arguments as Sam about the drugs policy, but also a total contrast to Toby - another outdoor scene related to food. She got a good introduction.
Meanwhile Leo’s move on the list of names and their staff tied in beautifully to his drugs issues in the past, and was as slamdunk a moment as Jed’s speech. I was a bit like Sam, clueless about the unspoken threat about Laurie that Josh and Toby read immediately. (And it was inevitable that that would come back to bite him, but given all the ’ugh’ moments this subplot/relatonship has provided, I’m not that enthused about its return.)
But the way they were clearly all so energised and interrupting Bartlet’s much needed sleep was amusing and heartwarming, and he was obviously in a better place because of his decision about the direction of his administration, not just in his speech about the dream, but the relatively mellowness around the general excitedness.
This entry was originally posted at https://shallowness.dreamwidth.org/456206.html.
What did date this was Margaret breaking the late nineties e-mail. (<3 Margaret.)
The first episode where the weather felt like a real presence with the storm and some use of pathetic fallacy.
We saw moments where CJ, Sam and Josh got really frustrated, but this has all been building up for a while. The administration went down in popularity in a week where they’d done nothing, but that was it, they’d done nothing. Josh was having a futile meeting, where he got wound up, understandably enough. Sam was having his own futile meeting, and thouh Fitz had A Moment, coming in and owning the room, the politican was right that they all knew it was futile. As Toby said, they’d only had the one win, but Donna spoke truth to Josh about his snappishness (her watching him through the window is both romantic and unprofessional) and indeed about everyone’s already defeated mood.
Meanwhile, in a slight break, Mrs Landingham mothering the president’s lunch was amusing.
I realised (or subconsciously remembered) before CJ did that Danny/his paper had Mandy’s memo. Though if what Mandy said about the press getting it off her hard drive is right, whoah, that’s a bit rifling through people’s rubbish for what I presumed was a well-regarded paper. Although of course it was still news, and Danny was absolutely right that they should have asked Mandy about this before hiring her. (I can’t be the only one tasteless enough to be making ‘don’t ask don’t tell’ jokes.) But they were too busy getting their kicks from sending Josh to hire his ex and watching the ensuing power play? The events of this episode speak to the character’s redundancy that it’s not the presentation that they needed to work on, but what they were doing that needed to be presented.
And so it fell to Leo to call Bartlet out, Leo who hadn’t wanted to read the memo, which those that had felt contained a fair critique. Or perhaps not entirely, given what Leo said about Bartlet’s exact orders and directions to him, to Josh and to all of them, and thus his dissatisfaction with being President.
Actually, the rousing music felt almost dated, too and the ‘serving at the pleasure of the President’ was cheesy, but it was such a relief to have them get a call to arms and to respond to it enthusiastically that I didn’t care.
1.20 Mandatory Minimumslinked really well, as I got to see them starting to deliver on the new direction straight away. A long 24 hours, though.
I didn’t remember Andy being introduced this early. For me, as she overlaps with Mandy, the similarity in names is striking (even if Joey seems like the more obvious replacement as someone who’s a love interest for Josh and now working at the White House, with, again, everyone fully aware of the two things, thanks to Donna.) The similarity in names is one of those things that could happen IRL, but it’s the kind of thing fiction would avoid, so you’ve got to wonder if this was Sorkin’s subconscious at work. (I know there’s a lot of similarities in character names to actor names or real people, but this is the first time it’s been really striking with character names.)
Oh, and is Danny the senior correspondent of the whole press room, or just for his (unnamed) paper? It obviously was personal, and CJ deserved the ‘do unto others’ lecture later (although some of it was totally reaction to getting reamed out by Leo) but I don’t think that shutting him out temporarily was massively out of line as he had written the Mandy story.
And, okay, she was showing anger towards Mandy, as was Josh, and some of it was orders from Leo, but even if they’d been nicer to her, the fact they weren’t ever considering bringing Mandy into the inner circle of the new mission said it all, especially as they were using the press in a couple of ways to get the message out.
But yeah, it was satisfying to watch the team dazzle from the beginning of pointing to the speech and building up Josh’s phone call. And though that guy who met with Sam is obnoxious, his boss was the worst.
We got another walk and talk that went too far with Toby and Sam.
There was something nice (and unusual) about seeing the team (sans CJ) outdoors, eating together. Margaret’s obsessing was adorable. Leo’s exasperation with the irrelevancies too.
Then Josh was an absolute dork to the point where he was terrible around Joey (the scenes with Al Kiefer not seeming to be under Toby’s control and just being awful made ne go ‘But still, GOOD CALL dumping him.’) Take Charlie’s advice, Joshua!
This was matched by learning Toby had a hitherto unmentioned ex wife, (no, I hadn’t noticed the ring) who was a proper politician, and making the same arguments as Sam about the drugs policy, but also a total contrast to Toby - another outdoor scene related to food. She got a good introduction.
Meanwhile Leo’s move on the list of names and their staff tied in beautifully to his drugs issues in the past, and was as slamdunk a moment as Jed’s speech. I was a bit like Sam, clueless about the unspoken threat about Laurie that Josh and Toby read immediately. (And it was inevitable that that would come back to bite him, but given all the ’ugh’ moments this subplot/relatonship has provided, I’m not that enthused about its return.)
But the way they were clearly all so energised and interrupting Bartlet’s much needed sleep was amusing and heartwarming, and he was obviously in a better place because of his decision about the direction of his administration, not just in his speech about the dream, but the relatively mellowness around the general excitedness.
This entry was originally posted at https://shallowness.dreamwidth.org/456206.html.