The West Wing - 1.14 Take This Sabbath Day

[shallowness]

Such an excellent episode. I very much appreciated how funny it was, especially, say, in the first half, before the gravity of the decision President Bartlet had to make naturally took over. Our favourite workaholics – and the Sabbath day is meant to be a day of rest in Judaism and Christianity – are on the verge of a weekend, until Sam dumps a meeting on Josh (and Donna) and breaks his own perfectly legitimate plans to walk out of the office sans phone and (snerk) pager. (We’ve already seen the extraordinary demands of the job on various characters.) But as we already know, the call is about a man being sentenced to death first thing Monday and asking for the President to commute this sentence. Sam will end up getting chastised for telling his old schoolfellow where Toby worships (which, yeah) and by Leo for trying to make the case for pardoning, though I thought Sam’s response about how could they have been prepared for this specific case was fair, and isn’t this one of the decisions a President has to face?

I think I accidentally deleted my first thoughts here about watching Bartlet come to his decision (and understanding why if not agreeing with it.) And I think I commented on how Toby did get to express his view to the President, but then he’s more senior than Sam, even though I made derisory noises when he claimed to his rabbi that he didn’t influence policy, because he so does. Anyway, I appreciated his commenting on the singer practicing in the temple, partly because it hadn’t occurred to me but the show was being clever enough to draw attention to its tricks, which you accept in TV drama as a viewer, and because it absolutely would have occurred to Toby.

Meanwhile, it was striking that Mandy did not engage with the question at all (for that matter neither did Josh, but he had a whole other subplot.) She turned up and confabbed with CJ, who had to wrestle emotionally with her role in all this. I say this was striking because this is the episode that introduced Joey Lucas, and what an entrance, spitting fire, with the dissonance for the hearing viewer of her strong signing and body language and the voice of her male interpreter. Let alone the absurd scenario of hungover Josh in fishing clothes at the receiving end. I don’t know if it’s because I know she’s going to be a love interest for Josh (eh, it’s seeded here, though, he may be hungover, but he notices her legs), and that was part of the deal with Mandy, as the ex who got under his skin, but it’s an equally explosive introduction to Mandy’s terrible driving in the pilot, another female political operative fighting for her (male) candidate (but Joey isn’t dating him.) But in the interaction with President Bartlet – loved her awe at entering the Oval Office, while he padded around in more casual clothes - and the fact that she’s asked to seriously ponder the question of capital punishment already gives her more to do than Mandy ever got, and this viewer was all for the talent spotting at the end.

What jumped out at me in the final scene was how did Jed’s priest know Bartlet had talked this over with a Quaker? Obviously, he knew about Jed talking to him (and the Pope!), and knowing Toby (and Josh) was Jewish made the rabbi a reasonable inference, but Joey crossing paths with him…not quite the moment to be leaving the viewer think ‘divine inspiration’ so I found that a bit jarring after watching the characters wrestle with the morality, the politics and the justice of what was being done.

Comments

[vialethe]

Such a good ep! I feel like I could say this about a lot of them, but really, it's one of my favs of the season.

Good points about Mandy and how she doesn't say anything at all on her personal views - on one hand, I think that's supposed to be part of the point of Mandy, that her PR role leads to her personal feelings and opinions being less at the forefront than some of the others - but on the other, I think it's clear that by this point in the season, Sorkin felt that the character just wasn't working, and was starting to push her out. (Though she is in one of my favorite exchanges of the ep, that being the, "No, Mandy, Burt Lincoln," one.)

Joey Lucas, on the other hand, is one of the best secondary characters on the show! Fabulous entrance, as you said. I've watched the show so much at the point that it's odd to me to watch or listen to interviews with Marlee Matlin and not hear Kenny as her voice! It's such a great role.

Good point about Jed's priest knowing more than he logically ought to - the best fanwank I've seen about that is that he'd spoken with Charlie or Mrs Landigham before that, either of whom may have mentioned it? But really yeah, it's just because it made the line sound better. Sorkin rarely lets logic stand in the way of poetry, after all.

[shallowness]

Yo're right that at this point they've given up on the character of Mandy, I've just watched the next two episodes and her role is even more negligible. For a recurring main character, we needed more than the PR angle. She was fighting so hard to get attention and then, though she had valid points at times, at others she came off the weaker side in a conflict where we generally sided with the others, and certainly there's little personal stuff for the audience to engage with.
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Good point about Jed's priest knowing more than he logically ought to - the best fanwank I've seen about that is that he'd spoken with Charlie or Mrs Landigham before that, either of whom may have mentioned it?

Yeees, except my sense was that Mrs Landingham wasn't there on that day - we don't see her and IIRC it's Nancy assissting the President. Which is a shame, as I'd buy it more that Mrs Landingham who would be more likely to know the priest if she's worked with Bartlett for years would tell him this than Charlie, given what we can infer of his views on the death penalty and that he'd never met the priest before. And in both cases it would be indiscreet .

I totally take the point from a writing perspective. Well, I say 'totally', but a TV drama is not as a play or poetry so my inner editor still feels it was too jarring and should have been cut.
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[vialethe]

a TV drama is not as a play or poetry

I don't disagree, but I think you'd have had a hard time convincing 1999-Aaron Sorkin of that! Even if it was occasionally to the show's detriment, as it was here.

Poor Mandy - there really was just no there there for the audience to engage with. I've often heard Moira Kelley blamed for the role's failure, for not being a 'natural' with the Sorkin dialogue, but I don't feel that's entirely fair - the character wasn't well written from the start, so she didn't have a lot to work with. And while Mary Louise Parker will do a better job with a very similar character type in Amy Gardner several seasons down the line, her writing shows a lot of the same flaws, imo - Sorkin really wanted to have that spunky woman who was sometimes against our heroes despite being on their side, but he really wasn't great at writing it.

[shallowness]

you'd have had a hard time convincing 1999-Aaron Sorkin of that!

Heh, yes indeed.

I wouldn't say it was the performance that was the problem, I don't think Kelly had a problem with the dialogue, but rather what lay or didn't lie beneath it. It'll be interesting to rewatch Amy with this in mind. Writing someone who is often on the outs with the people the audience is generally siding, especially when they're meant to be on the same side, with was always going to be tricky.