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I posted a lot of West Wing meta/picspams over at ww_renaissance and I want to start transferring this stuff to my very own journal so I can have a body of meta. Starting with Night Five.
I’m a little disappointed to start here because Night Five is my least favorite episode of the Sorkin years and probably one of my least favorite of the show’s entire run. However, my criticisms should provide fruit for debate! Mind you, I’m a much bigger fan of West Wing than this post indicates. West Wing is my FAVORITE SHOW EVER!! Honest! This episode is just a bitter pill for me.
We begin our show with the arrival of Stanley Keyworth, fabulous in Noel, inoffensive in Posse Comitatus and Holy Night but pretty irritating here!
Josh: They'll be all right back there.
Stanley: Where should we go?
Josh: You ever seen the White House?
Stanley: Just the little I saw when we talked last year.
Josh: Follow me.
Josh receives Stanley and it’s clear that Stanley is under the impression that he was brought in to help Josh through a possible PTSD episode/emotional turmoil. Amazingly, Josh knows a lot about White House architectural history while Sam knows nothing. It’s not what you’d expect since Sam is more of a trivia geek while Josh is more a doer who knows enough trivia to get practical jobs done.
Josh: And here comes the actual Sam Seaborn. What's going on?
Sam: Leo's reading it, and we're going to send it out in about ten to fifteen
minutes so Toby's been banging around.
Josh: What are you doing?
Sam: Banging around.
Sam provides the only funny in the episode.
Sam: Did you have a good flight?
Stanley: Yes.
Sam: Anybody you know on the plane?
This exchange will become a Teaser-Theme!
Josh: That's the Resolute Desk. It was built from the timbers of the H.M.S. Resolute and given to Rutherford Hayes by Queen Victoria to thank the U.S. for finding the abandoned ship. We're going to go over to the residence, but I'm going to take you out through the portico.
Stanley: Josh?
Josh: Yeah?
Stanley: Wouldn't you like to sit someplace and talk?
Josh: Yeah.
Stanley: Why the tour?
Josh: You don't think this is interesting?
It is subtly intriguing that Stanley thinks that he was called to deal with Josh again and Josh is using his usual tactics of avoidance of emotional problems- distractions, the trappings of his elevated position, etc.
Josh: If somebody sees us, I'd like for them to see me giving you a tour.
Stanley: Who built the White House?
Stanley plays along.
Leo: Getting a tour of the place?
Stanley: Yeah.
Leo: You show him the North Portico?
Josh: Leo likes to show people the soot stains on the North Portico.
Leo: From when the British torched the place.
Stanley: They haven't repainted?
Leo: Not that. You know when Dolly Madison heard the cannon fire, she evacuated the building, but she already had the table set for a forty-person dinner party. So the British soldiers ate, then they set the building on fire.
Stanley: So... the food didn't go to waste.
Leo: [grinning] That's right.
I love how this melds three of Leo’s passions- food, government history and war. One of Leo’s most interesting traits is how he is a man of creature comforts, fine taste in food and clothes to the point of almost being a dandy. However, it’s balanced with being a hardened soldier in every sense of the world.
Leo: How was your flight?
Stanley: It was fine.
Leo: Did you know anyone on the plane?
Again, with the theme!
Stanley: You... didn't bring me here to talk to Josh, did you?
Leo: No.
Stanley: Who did you bring me here to talk to?
Bartlet: Dr. Keyworth…Did you know anyone on the plane?
Credits.
Leo and Josh beat a hasty retreat to give Jed and Stanley some privacy. I’d love to know what people think about Jed getting a shrink. I think that he could benefit from therapy but then I think that most people could benefit from talking out their emotions with the advice of a professional.
Although despite his disease, troubled childhood and awe-inspiring title and responsibilities, Jed handles himself very well. He’s remarkably well-adjusted, far more than Josh and Toby and Leo. I do think it’s interesting that West Wing and The Sopranos were heavily competing for awards and critical acclaim at this time. The Sopranos is very much built on its main character getting talk therapy. WW doesn’t really have a lead but it does seem like Sorkin and Co. are trying to capture the edge and easy narrative pillow to fall back on by putting its most recognizable and “big” character in talk therapy as well.
Suffice it to say, that I’m not a huge fan of Jed/Stanley scenes. I think that therapy with a professional was demanded in Josh’s case. However if the goal is to get down to Jed’s issues and have him talk about his feelings, I’d rather have those scenes with a member of the senior staff or Abbey, a character that we know and are following the journeys of. I enjoy Jed talking his Daddy Issues with Toby in the next episode a gazillion times more because Toby is a three-dimensional, main character who has a particular way of reacting to Jed’s emotions and forcing them out of him. This is different than Stanley who only knows Jed as a Public Person before this interview but acts, throughout his relationship with Jed, like he has some special personal insight brought on a few meetings.
Anyway….Jed gets down to the point of this session.
Bartlet: I'm Jed Bartlet.
Stanley: Stanley Keyworth.
Bartlet: I guess we knew that?
Stanley: Yes, sir.
This is a trope of Jed’s folksiness- introduce himself even though everyone knows him. It seems very fake and put-upon but realistically politician-like.
Jed gets down to business
Bartlet: I've been having trouble sleeping.
Stanley: I’m sorry?
Bartlet: You understand that this is an election here, right? I mean by itself who cares? The President's having trouble sleeping, he talks to a doctor, but with the MS and the hearings and you're a psychiatrist...
A lot of monotonous back and forth about Jed’s sleeping issues. I don’t feel like transcribing or analyzing it.
Bartlet: I'm sorry. Before we get to lifestyle factors, I'm just gonna turn this on.
Reporter: When do we see copies?
Bartlet: When we're done writing it.
C.J.: Sunday night.
I always enjoyed both seeing characters react to CJ’s briefings by talking to themselves. It’s a great contrast between the reality of the situation and what’s publicly presented. I also love any time the show makes a transition between what’s on TV to it occurring “live”.
CJ ends her very short, non-event briefing. Old, unattractive editor named Wallace runs up to her.
Wallace: Listen, I'm missing a reporter.
C.J.: Who?
Wallace: Bill Price.
C.J.: Isn't Billy in the Congo?
Wallace: Yeah.
C.J.: Come back here.
Wallace: He files story by satellite phone through the New York Bureau at a predetermined time. He's missed two deadlines in a row.
C.J.: Does he miss deadlines?
Wallace: Not one in seven years.
This storyline is uncomfortably life imitating art. Right before the show aired this storyline, journalist Daniel Pearl was famously kidnapped and killed by Al-Queda The show ended up airing the storyline but promotional material emphasizing the storyline was pulled for sensitivity reasons.
Cut to Leo and Toby. Leo is reading this big-time UN speech while Toby paces nervously. I like this exchange:
TOBY: This is the fifth time you're reading it. Are there words in there you don't understand?
Leo’s WTF look:
Toby: Of course there wouldn't be, 'cause you can't rise to a position like yours without…Look, this is exactly what we said we wanted it to be. We said we were tired of reading about the President's scattershot foreign policy. We said - you want to fillet me for this, fine - we said when we go to the U.N., we were gonna...
Leo: I think it's great.
Toby: We said we were gonna... Yeah?
Leo: I do. You know your wife's going to have something to say about it, though.
Toby: My ex-wife.
Leo: Yeah.
Toby: Why do you call her my wife?
Leo: It bothers you.
Toby: Everything bothers me.
Leo: Yeah.
Toby: But you pick that?
LOL @ Toby/Leo.
C.J.:Hey.
Toby: Did you read it?
C.J.: It's great.
Toby: Thank you.
C.J.: Someone's going to get an ass-kicking from the missus.
Toby: Listen-
C.J. shuts the door on him.
Toby and CJ have awesome interactions in under five seconds!
CJ fills Leo in on the Congolese situation. The storyline is really boring when you take away the real world parallels. I love storylines involving CJ, Leo and stuff of national security importance. A right-wing reporter turned sympathetic victim because he was kidnapped should be juicy stuff but the storyline lacks flair.
Toby: He liked it.
Sam: Yeah?
Toby: He liked it a lot. Mostly what I wrote. Not so much what you wrote.
Sam: Yeah? So how long do you think before the old lady comes by to give you a whooping?
Toby: Her office called already, didn't they?
Sam: You bet, baby.
Toby: You probably want to rethink calling me "baby," right?
Classic Toby/Sam.
Now, for the one entertaining storyline of the episode! Let’s hear it for our blonde, Republican sex kitten!
Ainsley: Hello.
Sam: Hayes, you could make a good dog break his leash.
Ainsley: I was at a social function.
Sam: Americans for the Preservation of Family Values and White People?
Ainsley: The Federalist Society.
Sam: A hootenanny.
Sam wants Ainsley to check for legal landmines in their UN dues appropriations act.
Ainsley: How about this? We drop out the U.N. entirely and use the 926 million to take everybody in the country out to brunch?
Sam: Why don't you write that suggestion in the margins?
LOL
Ainsley walks away.
Sam: Whoa. I didn't even see that thing from the back.
We see an irritated, serious face that we’ll later learn belongs the feminista, Celia.
I adore Sam/Ainsley interactions. However, I do agree with Celia that it’s not too much to ask that the men keep their cat-calling and flirtation out of the workplace. I’d be crosser with Sam if he was this inappropriately flirtatious in a more entertaining episode but here, I’ve got to take my jollies where I can.
Jed and Stanley go through room temperature, airplanes overhead, light in the room- anything that could stop Jed from sleeping. It’s very dull and they missed an opportunity for humor. I, for one, would have chortled if when assessing environmental factors affecting sleep, Stanely asked if Jed sleeps with a blankie or teddy bear or nightlight and if that was taken from him.
Anyway, we’ve arrived at the point of this damn session:
Stanley: Well, we've been through physical factors, lifestyle factors, and environmental factors. That leaves us with...
Bartlet: Psychological factors.
Stanley: Yes, sir.
Bartlet: What were the odds?
Jed Bartlet, New England denizen that he is, knows how to stoke a fire. Sadly, this fire isn't as homoerotic as the fire he shared between himself and Ted Marcus in LA.
Donna’s at a bar with a dot-commer named Casey. This storyline is stupid. Maybe it’s because I’m not a Donna fan (heresy!), but why should I care about Donna being offered some flakey job that she’s never going to take. I can see why Donna has marketable skills but if she’s the ultimate choice for Issues Director, than this site is no Huffington Post or Human Events. It just seems like another opportunity to tell why Donna is so special while not doing enough to show it- a consistent problem with her character.
Back to the White House. Celia gets her feminist on while Sam is charmingly obtuse.
Celia: I don't know her name. The 'dog on a leash'.
Sam: That was Ainsley Hayes. She's an Assicioate Counsel.
Celia: Yeah. It was rude, it was inappropriate, and it was offensive.
Sam: What did I do?
Celia: You demeaned her.
Speaking of spunky chicas making life tougher for the menfolk.
Andi: Where is he?
Sam: Congresswoman?
Andi: Where is he, Sam?
Sam: Toby?
Andi: Yes.
Sam: I do not know.
Andi: Liar.
Sam: You want to talk about the speech?
Andi: I and members of the House International Relations Committee, yeah. I couldn't help but notice that your fingerprints are all over this too. You and Toby want to be responsible for starting World War III?
Sam: No.
Andi: Well, you're gonna.
Sam: I was having a good night until, like, three minutes ago.
Andi: Where is he?
Sam: I don't know.
Andi: You said that already.
Sam: But, you've asked me again and I still didn't know.
Best exchange of the episode.
Andi: May I wait in his office?
Sam: Better his than mine.
Another entertaining moment brought to you by Sam in this episode.
Sam: Andi's in your office.
Toby: You let her in my office?
Sam: Yeah.
Toby: What the hell did you let her in my office for?
Sam: Okay, well, I'm going to step out for a minute and... not be in this area anymore.
I do enjoy Toby and Andi’s arguments. However, this is one of their worst ones. Toby is wildly OOC here. I could see Toby as a free-thinking, liberal man opposing radical and dictatorial Islamist theocracies. I can see him being obnoxiously self-righteous about it, as well. However, in these scenes, he seems much more hard-line and emotional about foreign policy than he should be. He also skates uncomfortably close to saying that America is ideaologically right because it’s militarily strong with, “They’ll like us when we win.”
The speech. Richard Schiff and Kathleen York are awesome here. You can really picture the arguments of their marriage. Love Toby's anguished expression!
Andi: “Freedom must run deeper than the free flow of capital. Freedom must mean more than the free trade of goods and services. The world will be free..."
Toby: I read it.
Andi: "The world will be free when we have freedom of speech for every nation..."
Toby: In fact I wrote it.
Andi: "The world will be free when there is freedom to worship for everyone. The world will be free..."
Toby: Andi...
Andi: "...When we finally shake off the rusted chains of tyranny..."
Toby: Yes.
Andi: "...Whether in the guise of facist dictatorships..."
Toby: You getting nervous?
Andi:"...Or economic slavery, or ethnic hostility..."
TOBY: A little nervous?
Andi: "...Or..." Wait for it... "the crushing yoke of Islamic fanaticism." Gentlemen, start your engines.
CJ and Leo meet the Congolese attaché.
C.J.:If his paper were in order, he wouldn't have been abducted at gunpoint?
Loboko: We haven't been introduced.
I’m inappropriately amused at the actor who plays Loboko’s flirtatious way of saying that even when CJ is yelling at him. I’d be more irritated with the “Every guy thinks CJ is hot” trope that this show has going on if I didn’t have a huge straight-girl crush on CJ Cregg as well.
C.J.:This is a shakedown, so tell us how much money, and where does it go.
Loboko: The Congolese government doesn't negotiate with murderers.
C.J.: The Congolese government is a myth.
Loboko: I can't talk to this woman.
Leo: Mr. Loboko... How much money and where does it go?
I’m not sure that CJ’s and Leo’s angry and condescending manner of dealing with Loboko is the right way to go about thing. No question, they’re in the moral right. I just thought that dealing with attachés required a little more panache and diplomacy even if they represent unstable, central African states. I mean, they're called "attachés". That indicates class from the get-go, right?
Josh and Donna have an irritating, passive-aggressive conversation about Donna’s future. However, annoyingness of the conversation aside, it's all very much in character for the two.
Donna: He has an internet start-up.
Josh: What kind of site?
Donna: Commentary. He asked me to be Issues Director.
Josh: Issues Director?
Donna: Yeah.
Josh: For an internet start-up.
Donna: Dot.coms aren't dying, just the hype.
Way to be a parrot, Donna.
Josh: Really?
Donna: Yeah.
Josh: Sounds like the hype's alive and well, too..
Sam and Ainsley have a dull conversation where she tries to get him to pay attention to the “Legalese in Sorkinese” but Sam just wants to preserve his feminista credentials, such as they are.
Toby sucks in this episode. However, this line rocks. It should be on bumper stickers.
Toby: It's fanaticism whether we call it that or not, so were going to call it that. We respect all religions, all cultures.
Andi: To a point.
Toby: Yes, to a point. Grotesque oppression isn't okay just because it's been institutionlised.
Meet Jane Pryce, soon to be widow of Billy Pryce.
This Congelese storyline sucks but I always admire how compassionate and charming CJ is even when there’s no way for her win.
More Stanley/Jed minus the slashy implications of that slash mark ;-) Anyway, Jed says he doesn’t feel stress even though he’s giving a victim speech about how stressful his life is and Stanley is acting like of course Jed feels stress.
I do love this very Bartletesque line:
Bartlet: I don't like the word "stress". It's a Madison Avenue word. It's something that can be cured with flavored coffee and bath bubbles.
After blather on stress, Arther Miller and Stanely’s lingerie, they get to the point.
Bartlet: I had a conversation with one of my aides that night after we got back from Iowa. He called me on something.
Stanley: What?
Bartlet: Well, I guess we talked about a lot of things. Who we think the Republican challenger is gonna be be, and imcumbency and campaign stategy, strategic overview, but the long and short of it is, my father never liked me at all.
Stanley: Well, at least we're closer to my area now.
Bartlet: Yeah, I'd thought you'd enjoy that.
Demoralized, in pain Charlie.
Anyway, Charlie is humiliated because his sister beat him at basketball. Sam mocks him for his sister beating him. They decide that while they’re being sexist about sports, let’s have a little fun being sexist about sexuality!
Sam: If your sister was getting ready for a night out, and I said, "Deanna, you're enough to make a good dog break his leash," would you think I was a cad?
Charlie: I'd think you were a hick.
Ainsley: Sam...
Sam: Hang on. Because of the sentiment or the expression?
Charlie: It's my sister?
Sam: Yeah.
Charlie: I'd beat you up.
Sam: You and how many Girl Scouts?
Charlie: If I could stand up...
Ainsley: Sam...
Sam: But if it wasn't your sister?
Charlie: Then you're fine.
Sam: He says I'm fine.
Amusing exchange is amusing.
But wait! Celia disapproves.
Celia: I said, I'm surprised you're willing to let you sexuality diminish your power.
Ainsley: I don't even know what that means.
Celia: I think you do.
Ainsley: And I think you think I'm made out of candy glass, Celia. If somebody says something that offends you, tell them, but all women don't have to think alike.
Celia: I didn't say they did, and when somebody said something that offended me, I did say so.
Ainsley: I like it when the guys tease me. It's an inadvertent show of respect that I'm on the team and I don't mind it when it gets sexual. And you know why? I like sex.
Charlie: Hello!
I can't believe I've never encountered a Charlie/Ainsley fanfic! There's material there!
Very cute. Although Ainsley doesn’t address Celia’s point- that she spoke up when she was offended. This conversation isn’t about how Ainsley wants the guys to interact with her. It’s about the right of female bystanders who perhaps, don’t appreciate workplace flirtation the way Ainsley does, to not have to hear it against their will. It’s also to some extent about whether even if Ainsley likes workplace flirtation, if that’s an acceptable and professional way of doing business.
Ginger amusingly weighs in:
Ginger: It's called Lipstick Feminism. I call it Stiletto Feminism.
Sam: Stilettos?
Ainsley: You're not in enough trouble already?
Sam: I suppose I am.
Donna and Ms. Pryce have a dull conversation. We learn that CJ loves reporters and their coverage isn’t going to affect how CJ feels about them in life-or-death situations. I don't like "Tell, don't show" exposition on characters' qualities.
To liven the scene up, here's Donna making a funny face.
Andi has a congressional-drafted insert to soften Toby’s hardline speech. Toby gets to be obnoxious but also pretty prescient in a certain way considering current events.
Andi: What's Egypt going to think? Or Pakistan?
Toby: That freedom and democracy are coming soon to a theatre near them, so get dressed.
He is prescient in the sense that major popular seismic shifts occurred in those countries since this episode. However, it isn’t at ideal as Toby is making it out to be and we'll see if anything results in long-term democracy in those nations.
Josh is the bearer of bad news.
Josh: Akin Wamba, who's the Maimai rebel commander, sent word through a crew that was filming in Goma.
C.J.: Oh, God.
Josh: Yeah. He was killed in an ambush. Embassy Kinshasa's going to get the body.
The scene of CJ and Wallace forcing Janet Pryce to sit down so she doesn’t faint or do anything dangerous is very effective.
Josh gives Donna an inscrutable stare.
We finally get the crux of the Stanley/Jed interaction.
Stanley: They keep moving the goalpost on you, don't they? Get A's, good college, Latin honors. Get into the London School of Economics. Get a good teaching job. Ivy League school, tenure. Now you gotta publish, now you gotta go to Stockholm.
Bartlet: It's not good for a person to keep setting goals?
Stanley: It probably is, but it's tricky for somebody who's still trying to get his father to stop hitting him.
Bartlet: Well, I'm told that most men lead lives of quiet desperation.
Stanley: Yeah, but that's most men. That's not you. That's the other people, the ones who feel stress. You're destined for something else.
Here’s where Stanley really irritates me.
Stanley: Right. This is a hell of a curve you get graded on now. Lincoln freed the slaves and won the Civil War. "Thank you. Next! And what will you be singing for us today, Mr. Bartlet?" "Well, we've had six straight quarters of economic growth."
...
Stanley: I think Lincoln did what he thought was right, even though it meant losing half the country. I think you don't do what you think is right if it means losing Michigan's electoral votes.
I’m all for speaking truth to power but this is bullshit. We’ve seen episodes of Bartlet making tough but moral decisions. Some of the time, he makes politically-centered or even self-centered decisions but his default is as an altruistic, wise leader. Bartlet’s almost unreal integrity and nobility is the crux of the show.This is really where I start thinking that Sorkin was trying to copy The Sopranos’s shrink format because I can’t imagine him writing an anti-Bartlet speech like that in any other type of scene.
Epic fail. I can deal with the boring storylines or sexist Sam but those lines really annoy me because it makes an effort to warp the entire point of Bartlet and the show in general with no cause.
I’m a little disappointed to start here because Night Five is my least favorite episode of the Sorkin years and probably one of my least favorite of the show’s entire run. However, my criticisms should provide fruit for debate! Mind you, I’m a much bigger fan of West Wing than this post indicates. West Wing is my FAVORITE SHOW EVER!! Honest! This episode is just a bitter pill for me.
We begin our show with the arrival of Stanley Keyworth, fabulous in Noel, inoffensive in Posse Comitatus and Holy Night but pretty irritating here!
Josh: They'll be all right back there.
Stanley: Where should we go?
Josh: You ever seen the White House?
Stanley: Just the little I saw when we talked last year.
Josh: Follow me.
Josh receives Stanley and it’s clear that Stanley is under the impression that he was brought in to help Josh through a possible PTSD episode/emotional turmoil. Amazingly, Josh knows a lot about White House architectural history while Sam knows nothing. It’s not what you’d expect since Sam is more of a trivia geek while Josh is more a doer who knows enough trivia to get practical jobs done.
Josh: And here comes the actual Sam Seaborn. What's going on?
Sam: Leo's reading it, and we're going to send it out in about ten to fifteen
minutes so Toby's been banging around.
Josh: What are you doing?
Sam: Banging around.
Sam provides the only funny in the episode.
Sam: Did you have a good flight?
Stanley: Yes.
Sam: Anybody you know on the plane?
This exchange will become a Teaser-Theme!
Josh: That's the Resolute Desk. It was built from the timbers of the H.M.S. Resolute and given to Rutherford Hayes by Queen Victoria to thank the U.S. for finding the abandoned ship. We're going to go over to the residence, but I'm going to take you out through the portico.
Stanley: Josh?
Josh: Yeah?
Stanley: Wouldn't you like to sit someplace and talk?
Josh: Yeah.
Stanley: Why the tour?
Josh: You don't think this is interesting?
It is subtly intriguing that Stanley thinks that he was called to deal with Josh again and Josh is using his usual tactics of avoidance of emotional problems- distractions, the trappings of his elevated position, etc.
Josh: If somebody sees us, I'd like for them to see me giving you a tour.
Stanley: Who built the White House?
Stanley plays along.
Leo: Getting a tour of the place?
Stanley: Yeah.
Leo: You show him the North Portico?
Josh: Leo likes to show people the soot stains on the North Portico.
Leo: From when the British torched the place.
Stanley: They haven't repainted?
Leo: Not that. You know when Dolly Madison heard the cannon fire, she evacuated the building, but she already had the table set for a forty-person dinner party. So the British soldiers ate, then they set the building on fire.
Stanley: So... the food didn't go to waste.
Leo: [grinning] That's right.
I love how this melds three of Leo’s passions- food, government history and war. One of Leo’s most interesting traits is how he is a man of creature comforts, fine taste in food and clothes to the point of almost being a dandy. However, it’s balanced with being a hardened soldier in every sense of the world.
Leo: How was your flight?
Stanley: It was fine.
Leo: Did you know anyone on the plane?
Again, with the theme!
Stanley: You... didn't bring me here to talk to Josh, did you?
Leo: No.
Stanley: Who did you bring me here to talk to?
Bartlet: Dr. Keyworth…Did you know anyone on the plane?
Credits.
Leo and Josh beat a hasty retreat to give Jed and Stanley some privacy. I’d love to know what people think about Jed getting a shrink. I think that he could benefit from therapy but then I think that most people could benefit from talking out their emotions with the advice of a professional.
Although despite his disease, troubled childhood and awe-inspiring title and responsibilities, Jed handles himself very well. He’s remarkably well-adjusted, far more than Josh and Toby and Leo. I do think it’s interesting that West Wing and The Sopranos were heavily competing for awards and critical acclaim at this time. The Sopranos is very much built on its main character getting talk therapy. WW doesn’t really have a lead but it does seem like Sorkin and Co. are trying to capture the edge and easy narrative pillow to fall back on by putting its most recognizable and “big” character in talk therapy as well.
Suffice it to say, that I’m not a huge fan of Jed/Stanley scenes. I think that therapy with a professional was demanded in Josh’s case. However if the goal is to get down to Jed’s issues and have him talk about his feelings, I’d rather have those scenes with a member of the senior staff or Abbey, a character that we know and are following the journeys of. I enjoy Jed talking his Daddy Issues with Toby in the next episode a gazillion times more because Toby is a three-dimensional, main character who has a particular way of reacting to Jed’s emotions and forcing them out of him. This is different than Stanley who only knows Jed as a Public Person before this interview but acts, throughout his relationship with Jed, like he has some special personal insight brought on a few meetings.
Anyway….Jed gets down to the point of this session.
Bartlet: I'm Jed Bartlet.
Stanley: Stanley Keyworth.
Bartlet: I guess we knew that?
Stanley: Yes, sir.
This is a trope of Jed’s folksiness- introduce himself even though everyone knows him. It seems very fake and put-upon but realistically politician-like.
Jed gets down to business
Bartlet: I've been having trouble sleeping.
Stanley: I’m sorry?
Bartlet: You understand that this is an election here, right? I mean by itself who cares? The President's having trouble sleeping, he talks to a doctor, but with the MS and the hearings and you're a psychiatrist...
A lot of monotonous back and forth about Jed’s sleeping issues. I don’t feel like transcribing or analyzing it.
Bartlet: I'm sorry. Before we get to lifestyle factors, I'm just gonna turn this on.
Reporter: When do we see copies?
Bartlet: When we're done writing it.
C.J.: Sunday night.
I always enjoyed both seeing characters react to CJ’s briefings by talking to themselves. It’s a great contrast between the reality of the situation and what’s publicly presented. I also love any time the show makes a transition between what’s on TV to it occurring “live”.
CJ ends her very short, non-event briefing. Old, unattractive editor named Wallace runs up to her.
Wallace: Listen, I'm missing a reporter.
C.J.: Who?
Wallace: Bill Price.
C.J.: Isn't Billy in the Congo?
Wallace: Yeah.
C.J.: Come back here.
Wallace: He files story by satellite phone through the New York Bureau at a predetermined time. He's missed two deadlines in a row.
C.J.: Does he miss deadlines?
Wallace: Not one in seven years.
This storyline is uncomfortably life imitating art. Right before the show aired this storyline, journalist Daniel Pearl was famously kidnapped and killed by Al-Queda The show ended up airing the storyline but promotional material emphasizing the storyline was pulled for sensitivity reasons.
Cut to Leo and Toby. Leo is reading this big-time UN speech while Toby paces nervously. I like this exchange:
TOBY: This is the fifth time you're reading it. Are there words in there you don't understand?
Leo’s WTF look:
Toby: Of course there wouldn't be, 'cause you can't rise to a position like yours without…Look, this is exactly what we said we wanted it to be. We said we were tired of reading about the President's scattershot foreign policy. We said - you want to fillet me for this, fine - we said when we go to the U.N., we were gonna...
Leo: I think it's great.
Toby: We said we were gonna... Yeah?
Leo: I do. You know your wife's going to have something to say about it, though.
Toby: My ex-wife.
Leo: Yeah.
Toby: Why do you call her my wife?
Leo: It bothers you.
Toby: Everything bothers me.
Leo: Yeah.
Toby: But you pick that?
LOL @ Toby/Leo.
C.J.:Hey.
Toby: Did you read it?
C.J.: It's great.
Toby: Thank you.
C.J.: Someone's going to get an ass-kicking from the missus.
Toby: Listen-
C.J. shuts the door on him.
Toby and CJ have awesome interactions in under five seconds!
CJ fills Leo in on the Congolese situation. The storyline is really boring when you take away the real world parallels. I love storylines involving CJ, Leo and stuff of national security importance. A right-wing reporter turned sympathetic victim because he was kidnapped should be juicy stuff but the storyline lacks flair.
Toby: He liked it.
Sam: Yeah?
Toby: He liked it a lot. Mostly what I wrote. Not so much what you wrote.
Sam: Yeah? So how long do you think before the old lady comes by to give you a whooping?
Toby: Her office called already, didn't they?
Sam: You bet, baby.
Toby: You probably want to rethink calling me "baby," right?
Classic Toby/Sam.
Now, for the one entertaining storyline of the episode! Let’s hear it for our blonde, Republican sex kitten!
Ainsley: Hello.
Sam: Hayes, you could make a good dog break his leash.
Ainsley: I was at a social function.
Sam: Americans for the Preservation of Family Values and White People?
Ainsley: The Federalist Society.
Sam: A hootenanny.
Sam wants Ainsley to check for legal landmines in their UN dues appropriations act.
Ainsley: How about this? We drop out the U.N. entirely and use the 926 million to take everybody in the country out to brunch?
Sam: Why don't you write that suggestion in the margins?
LOL
Ainsley walks away.
Sam: Whoa. I didn't even see that thing from the back.
We see an irritated, serious face that we’ll later learn belongs the feminista, Celia.
I adore Sam/Ainsley interactions. However, I do agree with Celia that it’s not too much to ask that the men keep their cat-calling and flirtation out of the workplace. I’d be crosser with Sam if he was this inappropriately flirtatious in a more entertaining episode but here, I’ve got to take my jollies where I can.
Jed and Stanley go through room temperature, airplanes overhead, light in the room- anything that could stop Jed from sleeping. It’s very dull and they missed an opportunity for humor. I, for one, would have chortled if when assessing environmental factors affecting sleep, Stanely asked if Jed sleeps with a blankie or teddy bear or nightlight and if that was taken from him.
Anyway, we’ve arrived at the point of this damn session:
Stanley: Well, we've been through physical factors, lifestyle factors, and environmental factors. That leaves us with...
Bartlet: Psychological factors.
Stanley: Yes, sir.
Bartlet: What were the odds?
Jed Bartlet, New England denizen that he is, knows how to stoke a fire. Sadly, this fire isn't as homoerotic as the fire he shared between himself and Ted Marcus in LA.
Donna’s at a bar with a dot-commer named Casey. This storyline is stupid. Maybe it’s because I’m not a Donna fan (heresy!), but why should I care about Donna being offered some flakey job that she’s never going to take. I can see why Donna has marketable skills but if she’s the ultimate choice for Issues Director, than this site is no Huffington Post or Human Events. It just seems like another opportunity to tell why Donna is so special while not doing enough to show it- a consistent problem with her character.
Back to the White House. Celia gets her feminist on while Sam is charmingly obtuse.
Celia: I don't know her name. The 'dog on a leash'.
Sam: That was Ainsley Hayes. She's an Assicioate Counsel.
Celia: Yeah. It was rude, it was inappropriate, and it was offensive.
Sam: What did I do?
Celia: You demeaned her.
Speaking of spunky chicas making life tougher for the menfolk.
Andi: Where is he?
Sam: Congresswoman?
Andi: Where is he, Sam?
Sam: Toby?
Andi: Yes.
Sam: I do not know.
Andi: Liar.
Sam: You want to talk about the speech?
Andi: I and members of the House International Relations Committee, yeah. I couldn't help but notice that your fingerprints are all over this too. You and Toby want to be responsible for starting World War III?
Sam: No.
Andi: Well, you're gonna.
Sam: I was having a good night until, like, three minutes ago.
Andi: Where is he?
Sam: I don't know.
Andi: You said that already.
Sam: But, you've asked me again and I still didn't know.
Best exchange of the episode.
Andi: May I wait in his office?
Sam: Better his than mine.
Another entertaining moment brought to you by Sam in this episode.
Sam: Andi's in your office.
Toby: You let her in my office?
Sam: Yeah.
Toby: What the hell did you let her in my office for?
Sam: Okay, well, I'm going to step out for a minute and... not be in this area anymore.
I do enjoy Toby and Andi’s arguments. However, this is one of their worst ones. Toby is wildly OOC here. I could see Toby as a free-thinking, liberal man opposing radical and dictatorial Islamist theocracies. I can see him being obnoxiously self-righteous about it, as well. However, in these scenes, he seems much more hard-line and emotional about foreign policy than he should be. He also skates uncomfortably close to saying that America is ideaologically right because it’s militarily strong with, “They’ll like us when we win.”
The speech. Richard Schiff and Kathleen York are awesome here. You can really picture the arguments of their marriage. Love Toby's anguished expression!
Andi: “Freedom must run deeper than the free flow of capital. Freedom must mean more than the free trade of goods and services. The world will be free..."
Toby: I read it.
Andi: "The world will be free when we have freedom of speech for every nation..."
Toby: In fact I wrote it.
Andi: "The world will be free when there is freedom to worship for everyone. The world will be free..."
Toby: Andi...
Andi: "...When we finally shake off the rusted chains of tyranny..."
Toby: Yes.
Andi: "...Whether in the guise of facist dictatorships..."
Toby: You getting nervous?
Andi:"...Or economic slavery, or ethnic hostility..."
TOBY: A little nervous?
Andi: "...Or..." Wait for it... "the crushing yoke of Islamic fanaticism." Gentlemen, start your engines.
CJ and Leo meet the Congolese attaché.
C.J.:If his paper were in order, he wouldn't have been abducted at gunpoint?
Loboko: We haven't been introduced.
I’m inappropriately amused at the actor who plays Loboko’s flirtatious way of saying that even when CJ is yelling at him. I’d be more irritated with the “Every guy thinks CJ is hot” trope that this show has going on if I didn’t have a huge straight-girl crush on CJ Cregg as well.
C.J.:This is a shakedown, so tell us how much money, and where does it go.
Loboko: The Congolese government doesn't negotiate with murderers.
C.J.: The Congolese government is a myth.
Loboko: I can't talk to this woman.
Leo: Mr. Loboko... How much money and where does it go?
I’m not sure that CJ’s and Leo’s angry and condescending manner of dealing with Loboko is the right way to go about thing. No question, they’re in the moral right. I just thought that dealing with attachés required a little more panache and diplomacy even if they represent unstable, central African states. I mean, they're called "attachés". That indicates class from the get-go, right?
Josh and Donna have an irritating, passive-aggressive conversation about Donna’s future. However, annoyingness of the conversation aside, it's all very much in character for the two.
Donna: He has an internet start-up.
Josh: What kind of site?
Donna: Commentary. He asked me to be Issues Director.
Josh: Issues Director?
Donna: Yeah.
Josh: For an internet start-up.
Donna: Dot.coms aren't dying, just the hype.
Way to be a parrot, Donna.
Josh: Really?
Donna: Yeah.
Josh: Sounds like the hype's alive and well, too..
Sam and Ainsley have a dull conversation where she tries to get him to pay attention to the “Legalese in Sorkinese” but Sam just wants to preserve his feminista credentials, such as they are.
Toby sucks in this episode. However, this line rocks. It should be on bumper stickers.
Toby: It's fanaticism whether we call it that or not, so were going to call it that. We respect all religions, all cultures.
Andi: To a point.
Toby: Yes, to a point. Grotesque oppression isn't okay just because it's been institutionlised.
Meet Jane Pryce, soon to be widow of Billy Pryce.
This Congelese storyline sucks but I always admire how compassionate and charming CJ is even when there’s no way for her win.
More Stanley/Jed minus the slashy implications of that slash mark ;-) Anyway, Jed says he doesn’t feel stress even though he’s giving a victim speech about how stressful his life is and Stanley is acting like of course Jed feels stress.
I do love this very Bartletesque line:
Bartlet: I don't like the word "stress". It's a Madison Avenue word. It's something that can be cured with flavored coffee and bath bubbles.
After blather on stress, Arther Miller and Stanely’s lingerie, they get to the point.
Bartlet: I had a conversation with one of my aides that night after we got back from Iowa. He called me on something.
Stanley: What?
Bartlet: Well, I guess we talked about a lot of things. Who we think the Republican challenger is gonna be be, and imcumbency and campaign stategy, strategic overview, but the long and short of it is, my father never liked me at all.
Stanley: Well, at least we're closer to my area now.
Bartlet: Yeah, I'd thought you'd enjoy that.
Demoralized, in pain Charlie.
Anyway, Charlie is humiliated because his sister beat him at basketball. Sam mocks him for his sister beating him. They decide that while they’re being sexist about sports, let’s have a little fun being sexist about sexuality!
Sam: If your sister was getting ready for a night out, and I said, "Deanna, you're enough to make a good dog break his leash," would you think I was a cad?
Charlie: I'd think you were a hick.
Ainsley: Sam...
Sam: Hang on. Because of the sentiment or the expression?
Charlie: It's my sister?
Sam: Yeah.
Charlie: I'd beat you up.
Sam: You and how many Girl Scouts?
Charlie: If I could stand up...
Ainsley: Sam...
Sam: But if it wasn't your sister?
Charlie: Then you're fine.
Sam: He says I'm fine.
Amusing exchange is amusing.
But wait! Celia disapproves.
Celia: I said, I'm surprised you're willing to let you sexuality diminish your power.
Ainsley: I don't even know what that means.
Celia: I think you do.
Ainsley: And I think you think I'm made out of candy glass, Celia. If somebody says something that offends you, tell them, but all women don't have to think alike.
Celia: I didn't say they did, and when somebody said something that offended me, I did say so.
Ainsley: I like it when the guys tease me. It's an inadvertent show of respect that I'm on the team and I don't mind it when it gets sexual. And you know why? I like sex.
Charlie: Hello!
I can't believe I've never encountered a Charlie/Ainsley fanfic! There's material there!
Very cute. Although Ainsley doesn’t address Celia’s point- that she spoke up when she was offended. This conversation isn’t about how Ainsley wants the guys to interact with her. It’s about the right of female bystanders who perhaps, don’t appreciate workplace flirtation the way Ainsley does, to not have to hear it against their will. It’s also to some extent about whether even if Ainsley likes workplace flirtation, if that’s an acceptable and professional way of doing business.
Ginger amusingly weighs in:
Ginger: It's called Lipstick Feminism. I call it Stiletto Feminism.
Sam: Stilettos?
Ainsley: You're not in enough trouble already?
Sam: I suppose I am.
Donna and Ms. Pryce have a dull conversation. We learn that CJ loves reporters and their coverage isn’t going to affect how CJ feels about them in life-or-death situations. I don't like "Tell, don't show" exposition on characters' qualities.
To liven the scene up, here's Donna making a funny face.
Andi has a congressional-drafted insert to soften Toby’s hardline speech. Toby gets to be obnoxious but also pretty prescient in a certain way considering current events.
Andi: What's Egypt going to think? Or Pakistan?
Toby: That freedom and democracy are coming soon to a theatre near them, so get dressed.
He is prescient in the sense that major popular seismic shifts occurred in those countries since this episode. However, it isn’t at ideal as Toby is making it out to be and we'll see if anything results in long-term democracy in those nations.
Josh is the bearer of bad news.
Josh: Akin Wamba, who's the Maimai rebel commander, sent word through a crew that was filming in Goma.
C.J.: Oh, God.
Josh: Yeah. He was killed in an ambush. Embassy Kinshasa's going to get the body.
The scene of CJ and Wallace forcing Janet Pryce to sit down so she doesn’t faint or do anything dangerous is very effective.
Josh gives Donna an inscrutable stare.
We finally get the crux of the Stanley/Jed interaction.
Stanley: They keep moving the goalpost on you, don't they? Get A's, good college, Latin honors. Get into the London School of Economics. Get a good teaching job. Ivy League school, tenure. Now you gotta publish, now you gotta go to Stockholm.
Bartlet: It's not good for a person to keep setting goals?
Stanley: It probably is, but it's tricky for somebody who's still trying to get his father to stop hitting him.
Bartlet: Well, I'm told that most men lead lives of quiet desperation.
Stanley: Yeah, but that's most men. That's not you. That's the other people, the ones who feel stress. You're destined for something else.
Here’s where Stanley really irritates me.
Stanley: Right. This is a hell of a curve you get graded on now. Lincoln freed the slaves and won the Civil War. "Thank you. Next! And what will you be singing for us today, Mr. Bartlet?" "Well, we've had six straight quarters of economic growth."
...
Stanley: I think Lincoln did what he thought was right, even though it meant losing half the country. I think you don't do what you think is right if it means losing Michigan's electoral votes.
I’m all for speaking truth to power but this is bullshit. We’ve seen episodes of Bartlet making tough but moral decisions. Some of the time, he makes politically-centered or even self-centered decisions but his default is as an altruistic, wise leader. Bartlet’s almost unreal integrity and nobility is the crux of the show.This is really where I start thinking that Sorkin was trying to copy The Sopranos’s shrink format because I can’t imagine him writing an anti-Bartlet speech like that in any other type of scene.
Epic fail. I can deal with the boring storylines or sexist Sam but those lines really annoy me because it makes an effort to warp the entire point of Bartlet and the show in general with no cause.