The West Wing – yet another double bill
Mar. 13th, 2021 04:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shallowness1.17 The White House Pro-Am
Abby Bartlet is such a vibrant presence here that it feels weird that she’s been on foreign trips for so much of the season so far. I completely accepted that Lily, her chief of staff/media person had been a member of Bartlet’s team in the campaign. I remember mumbling that I hoped Bartlet wasn’t holding out on announcing Ron Erlick as the successor merely because he’d once dated his wife, but as far as I can tell, he did, and there was more worrying about Abby than vetting him or taking soundings.
Sam worrying about his fitness after someone with a history of coronary issues died of a heart attack was very Chris Traeger (up 'til now I could have done without the podcast constantly referring to Rob Lowe’s later role.) Toby really, really was a grumpy bear in the meeting.
Meanwhile Zoey and Charlie felt the pressure of white supremacists’ hating on their relationship. I took it that Zoey’s life was in more danger than Charlie’s from what her father had said, but hey, he’s her father, that’s where he’d emphasise it, and she’s the secret service’s priority and she was probably right in her extrapolation. Charlie’s anger was completely understandable – I don’t think Gina’s stepping in helped much, until Danny talked some sense into him. Though when I wasn’t having nostalgic flashbacks to videos and video stores, I thought that was a lot of make-up gifts. Abby seemed to be more sanguine about their littlest girl dating a young man than Jed. (Well, she’s a medical doctor as well.)
The Jed/Abby fight was great! They utterly convince as a long-married couple, and I loved how Abby was wrestling with being the First Lady and the politics of it and her responsibilities within the role. And where she drew the line over child labour, it felt fair.
The whole ‘hundred years ago’ thing nagged at me. Though I did appreciate the exchange over sewing machine pedals, for Leo to have also somehow read it (it sometimes feels as if both Leo and Jed get to know stuff by no apparent means, just preternatural osmosis) AND Zoey was also studying or reading it? I agree that it lent more to her conversation with Charlie, and as it was all a bit much and probably an example of poetry versus logistics, I’d have left it there (and maybe Donna/Josh as that was a contrast.)
On CJ’s anxiety about reading the President’s signals wrong, I had just taken him at face value, although the possible amendment to the trade Bill meant that Sam needed to go talk to Lily again anyway. And then I very much enjoyed Sam fronting up with Abby.
1.18 Six Meetings Before Lunch
I gave up trying to see whether there were six meetings before lunch (it’s like the five armies in that battle) when I realised the episode was starting the night before lunch.
Anyway, out of context, CJ doing ‘the Jackal’ has been one of my abiding memories of the show for always, it gets talked up so much within the ep, but Janney’s performance totally deserves it. In fact, I think I was always disappointed that she never reprised it at any other point in the run. So, I was a bit surprised at the podcast response, but my focus was on CJ, not the others, and I thought it worked as an in-joke for the cast replicating a thing from the campaign trail that meant a lot to the people who were there? As so much of American civics was new to me on this show, I wasn’t likely to bother about not recognising a song, either.
Toby’s superstition about tempting fate was both amusing and entirely understandable as they start with Mendoza’s confirmation, and it felt like a victory to share in, and wa more mellow than their precipitate celebrations over the other guy.
I was unsure about Josh getting the job of another difficult confirmation of a hugely qualified person of colour that discussed racism explicitly straight after the Mendoza plot, although that’s kind of baked into why Leo gave him this job. I don’t recall if this develops in other episodes. The BSG casting link amused me, having recently watched Carl Lumbly appear opposite Edward James Olmos.
But it’s in that context that I got a bit ‘eh’ about the discussion being the point, after watching Josh get squirmy as the Top Civil Rights Lawyer argued his case persuasively about reparations, and we wondered if he was going to die on this hill. Yet in the middle of that, the revelation that Josh’s father had died during the presidential campaign made me think ‘trauma magnet, you poor baby’.
For light relief, we had Toby transformed after his victory, freaking Margaret and other staffers out with his demeanour, heh. I liked that Josh was smart enough to send Mandy his way over the panda (and Mandy missed that. Poor Mandy, she hasn’t even got that edge any more.)
More of Zoey’s attempt to have a life collided with the reality of being the First Daughter. Although Gina had an excellent point about her life involving looking for two teen Nazis on her break to CJ, that is two episodes she’s whined about her job in a row now. But I loved CJ ‘getting into the President’s face’ something fierce, because she was right, she made him see she was right and indeed used the President’s own argument from '20 Hours in LA’ against him – although I could entirely see why all his protective paternal feelings had overridden his political brain.
Meanwhile, more of Sam/Mallory with interference from Leo continues to be cute, but they lampshaded the fact they haven’t actually started dating yet (take lessons from the kids who have the same dating your boss’s daughter issues!) What stuck out for me from my own background, I suppose, was Mallory not owning her own privilege if she went to private school.(I don’t think we know about Sam.) It was only a detail in the overall structure of their arguing and the dynamics were different, but Josh definitely was confronted by his own privilege in his meeting (as well as complicating the discussion by raising his Jewishness).
Huh, I didn’t think I had much to say about these two episodes before I first started typing.
Abby Bartlet is such a vibrant presence here that it feels weird that she’s been on foreign trips for so much of the season so far. I completely accepted that Lily, her chief of staff/media person had been a member of Bartlet’s team in the campaign. I remember mumbling that I hoped Bartlet wasn’t holding out on announcing Ron Erlick as the successor merely because he’d once dated his wife, but as far as I can tell, he did, and there was more worrying about Abby than vetting him or taking soundings.
Sam worrying about his fitness after someone with a history of coronary issues died of a heart attack was very Chris Traeger (up 'til now I could have done without the podcast constantly referring to Rob Lowe’s later role.) Toby really, really was a grumpy bear in the meeting.
Meanwhile Zoey and Charlie felt the pressure of white supremacists’ hating on their relationship. I took it that Zoey’s life was in more danger than Charlie’s from what her father had said, but hey, he’s her father, that’s where he’d emphasise it, and she’s the secret service’s priority and she was probably right in her extrapolation. Charlie’s anger was completely understandable – I don’t think Gina’s stepping in helped much, until Danny talked some sense into him. Though when I wasn’t having nostalgic flashbacks to videos and video stores, I thought that was a lot of make-up gifts. Abby seemed to be more sanguine about their littlest girl dating a young man than Jed. (Well, she’s a medical doctor as well.)
The Jed/Abby fight was great! They utterly convince as a long-married couple, and I loved how Abby was wrestling with being the First Lady and the politics of it and her responsibilities within the role. And where she drew the line over child labour, it felt fair.
The whole ‘hundred years ago’ thing nagged at me. Though I did appreciate the exchange over sewing machine pedals, for Leo to have also somehow read it (it sometimes feels as if both Leo and Jed get to know stuff by no apparent means, just preternatural osmosis) AND Zoey was also studying or reading it? I agree that it lent more to her conversation with Charlie, and as it was all a bit much and probably an example of poetry versus logistics, I’d have left it there (and maybe Donna/Josh as that was a contrast.)
On CJ’s anxiety about reading the President’s signals wrong, I had just taken him at face value, although the possible amendment to the trade Bill meant that Sam needed to go talk to Lily again anyway. And then I very much enjoyed Sam fronting up with Abby.
1.18 Six Meetings Before Lunch
I gave up trying to see whether there were six meetings before lunch (it’s like the five armies in that battle) when I realised the episode was starting the night before lunch.
Anyway, out of context, CJ doing ‘the Jackal’ has been one of my abiding memories of the show for always, it gets talked up so much within the ep, but Janney’s performance totally deserves it. In fact, I think I was always disappointed that she never reprised it at any other point in the run. So, I was a bit surprised at the podcast response, but my focus was on CJ, not the others, and I thought it worked as an in-joke for the cast replicating a thing from the campaign trail that meant a lot to the people who were there? As so much of American civics was new to me on this show, I wasn’t likely to bother about not recognising a song, either.
Toby’s superstition about tempting fate was both amusing and entirely understandable as they start with Mendoza’s confirmation, and it felt like a victory to share in, and wa more mellow than their precipitate celebrations over the other guy.
I was unsure about Josh getting the job of another difficult confirmation of a hugely qualified person of colour that discussed racism explicitly straight after the Mendoza plot, although that’s kind of baked into why Leo gave him this job. I don’t recall if this develops in other episodes. The BSG casting link amused me, having recently watched Carl Lumbly appear opposite Edward James Olmos.
But it’s in that context that I got a bit ‘eh’ about the discussion being the point, after watching Josh get squirmy as the Top Civil Rights Lawyer argued his case persuasively about reparations, and we wondered if he was going to die on this hill. Yet in the middle of that, the revelation that Josh’s father had died during the presidential campaign made me think ‘trauma magnet, you poor baby’.
For light relief, we had Toby transformed after his victory, freaking Margaret and other staffers out with his demeanour, heh. I liked that Josh was smart enough to send Mandy his way over the panda (and Mandy missed that. Poor Mandy, she hasn’t even got that edge any more.)
More of Zoey’s attempt to have a life collided with the reality of being the First Daughter. Although Gina had an excellent point about her life involving looking for two teen Nazis on her break to CJ, that is two episodes she’s whined about her job in a row now. But I loved CJ ‘getting into the President’s face’ something fierce, because she was right, she made him see she was right and indeed used the President’s own argument from '20 Hours in LA’ against him – although I could entirely see why all his protective paternal feelings had overridden his political brain.
Meanwhile, more of Sam/Mallory with interference from Leo continues to be cute, but they lampshaded the fact they haven’t actually started dating yet (take lessons from the kids who have the same dating your boss’s daughter issues!) What stuck out for me from my own background, I suppose, was Mallory not owning her own privilege if she went to private school.
Huh, I didn’t think I had much to say about these two episodes before I first started typing.
no subject
Date: 2021-03-13 10:24 pm (UTC)Love Abbey, of course - though as you note with Ron Erlick, Jed can be petty, especially with her. You do get the sense that he's the kind of man who would never have wanted to marry a woman who didn't stand up and spar with him, though. He needs that energy, as much as Abbey might frustrate him at times.
The 100 years ago thing definitely strikes me as one of those things someone brought up in the writer's room and Sorkin got a little too enamored with, yeah. I can almost buy that it was a thing all the assistants were reading (an assistants' book club of sorts?) and that Leo had been getting tidbits from Margaret just as Josh had from Donna. And of course Bartlet could have gotten it from Zoey. But it takes a lot of behind the scenes work to get that coincidence beyond the suspension-of-disbelief point.
The Jackal strikes me as much the same - I'm sure it was cute in Allison Janney's trailer, but it's a deeply strange thing to have put in the show. I'm willing to accept it as a bizarre campaign ritual because it does make them feel more like a group of people with a long connection and inside jokes, but there's a reason bringing an inside joke to an outside audience usually falls flat! Add in the goofy white dude 'dancing' of the others to it and I have to side with Josh and Hrishi here.
Poor Mandy, she hasn’t even got that edge any more.
About as many edges as a panda! Poor Mandy, indeed. Her time is almost up.
no subject
Date: 2021-03-14 09:35 am (UTC)Both true, plus, of course, their relationship is under unique strains.
it takes a lot of behind the scenes work to get that coincidence beyond the suspension-of-disbelief point.
Yes, one can almost see a path, like the one you sketch out, as these are people whose lives overlap, but without the writing showing some of it, all those references within such a short period of time didn't quite work.
Her time is almost up.
And no one will miss her.