TWW: Home and Away
Sep. 9th, 2023 03:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shallownessThe West Wing - 3.20 No Exit
Really good bottle episode that gave a lot of great actors meaty one-on-one scenes. (Although according to the podcast it wasn’t so much a bottle episode to save money as a chance for the writers to make up time, with the bonus of being able to film it more quickly.) I wanted to get haughty at Will for pedantically pointing out that it was Sartre, but unlike Toby, I was thinking it was Camus, not known for his plays, so I needed the schooling. As was pointed out on the podcast, huge restraint in not using the episode title for once this season.
Mostly I thought they pulled this off, with Toby and Will being the most hostile duo, but Leo and Abbey are always, always good value, and the Donna and CJ scenes went somewhere really interesting, somewhere almost shocking. (I suspect CJ hasn’t stopped to think about how maybe she’s clipping Carol’s wings, although she’s not cramping Carol’s love life, even if Carol has been over invested in hers.) The dynamic between Debbie-Bartlet-Charlie, with Charlie ordering the President to do the sensible thing, was great.
The more I think about it, the more impressed I am with how they handled the question of whether it was a real national security threat or not. The references to lockdowns past, a few of which we’ve seen and how that impacted characters’ reaction and whether they bought it being another false alarm added layers. I’m glad that, given it was an airborne threat that merited masks, I watched it at the end of August ‘23, not closer to the acute phase of the pandemic. So, only we, the Prez, Ron Butterfield and people like Kate knew it was a real threat (though there was space for Charlie and Debbie to wonder, as Toby and perhaps Josh did) although I think I did mutter ‘when was the Unabomber?’ when Bartlet made his speech about terrorism not being what they thought it was before he took office. (I was with Josh, not Hrishi on this. My understanding was that it was a real threat, they chose to lie to Debbie and Charlie that it was a live drill, and to lie to everyone else that it was a false alarm.)
And this added edge to Toby’s problems with Russell (if Toby only knew what the real world has been through…) It was really good to have a lot of Will time, arguing his case. The scenario had made Toby’s case for him: I’d rather the Veep was up to the top job tops partisanship. Will did look small there. For the podcast, it was Will 12, Toby 0.
Of course, all that I could think was that this would end up being Josh’s plotline in the future, and noting that Santos wasn’t on anyone’s radar in universe (the writers hadn’t come up with him yet, and this was probably before Obama had come to the national consciousness.) Not that Josh was covering himself in glory, although some of that must have been to smooth over the introduction of Kate and make us like her for her comparative competence. It felt like a big win that Donna listened to CJ’s advice and ignored him (after all, getting exercised with why his joke had been cut was petty. Toby’s bile was coming from somewhere more serious.)
I really liked how everyone referred back to the speech(es) that had just been made.
Donna looked beeyootiful, the informality of CJ’s ponytail made a nice change, and at the end, seeing Debbie pick up her swish wrap over the clothes she’d been forced into made me realise that she’d never see the fancy gown again. We kept being reminded what an extraordinary place this was to work, and Abbey had just reminded us of what extraordinary pressures they all were under.
Ooh, and Reed Diamond looked so young!!
5.21 Gaza
Tackling the Middle East, specifically the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was…brave, and within the constraints of it being a single episode of a TV drama, I agree with the podcasters, they did a fairly stellar job of nodding to many of the complexities. (It struck me that there were fictional stand-ins as well as actual groups being mentioned. I hadn’t recalled that they’d named Arafat in the past, but were now talking about another Palestinian leader, and I suspect it was just because they were paying more attention to the conflict and wanted the narrative freedom of referring a fictional figure.) Again, I agree with the podcast, they dramatized the conflict so well, with the explosion and personal ramifications for our characters – losing Fitz! – and the use of various timelines.
So, Donna had taken CJ’s advice to have a fling (and I’m of the camp that will allow flings with characters played by Jason Isaacs. Especially because of the way Donna played it.) I was curious about the choice for Colin to have a Northern Ireland accent. On the podcast, Isaac suggested that was his idea because he had hoped to be able to change the dialogue. Innocent. For me, it was striking that Colin never talked about how his personal experiences affected his views of what was going on. He really might as well have been American, a Westerner who’s job was to know what was what.
At the same time as Donna’s fling was burgeoning, we could see Josh’s reaction to the news or lack thereof about the explosion and her condition, and, of course, she had sent him long e-mails that went beyond her brief, so she wasn’t cutting the connection. (When the podcast pointed out that Donna had suffered a ruptured lung, just like Josh had, my shippy response was a bit embarrassing.)
The contrast between Toby’s relief that Andi was safe and Josh not knowing about Donna was rich. I loved that moment Schiff played Toby realising he was waving back to Andi and she couldn’t see it! But actually all of Bradley Whitford’s perfect physical acting choices deserve a mention. And when they played some of Donna’s voiceover on the podcast, it made a case for their argument that you could interpret it as the voice of someone dying/not in full health, or someone reacting to the seriousness of what they were learning, because they’d never thought much about the situation before.
I though they slightly retconned a relationship between Kate and Fitz (wasn’t she in the army?) Having her in the confab with Leo was a novelty because we hadn’t really had a national security viewpoint in the past, the closest being Will. (Being a military brat and a reservist of some sort, so I kind of bought him taking a pro-Israeli hawkish line, although Malina’s comments about wondering what John Wells had taken from a conversation about his personal views was instructive. More instructive on that point was Isaac talking about the depiction of Israeli soldiers and how the actor playing one had recently been one, and had been told by his former commander to just do his jobs and say his lines.) Unlike Hrishi, I felt sorry that Kate was so adept at handling Leo’s difficulties with using gendered terms. My take was that she really seemed to have internalised the army’s sexism.
And of course the Israeli-Palestinian situation is still what it is.
Really good bottle episode that gave a lot of great actors meaty one-on-one scenes. (Although according to the podcast it wasn’t so much a bottle episode to save money as a chance for the writers to make up time, with the bonus of being able to film it more quickly.) I wanted to get haughty at Will for pedantically pointing out that it was Sartre, but unlike Toby, I was thinking it was Camus, not known for his plays, so I needed the schooling. As was pointed out on the podcast, huge restraint in not using the episode title for once this season.
Mostly I thought they pulled this off, with Toby and Will being the most hostile duo, but Leo and Abbey are always, always good value, and the Donna and CJ scenes went somewhere really interesting, somewhere almost shocking. (I suspect CJ hasn’t stopped to think about how maybe she’s clipping Carol’s wings, although she’s not cramping Carol’s love life, even if Carol has been over invested in hers.) The dynamic between Debbie-Bartlet-Charlie, with Charlie ordering the President to do the sensible thing, was great.
The more I think about it, the more impressed I am with how they handled the question of whether it was a real national security threat or not. The references to lockdowns past, a few of which we’ve seen and how that impacted characters’ reaction and whether they bought it being another false alarm added layers. I’m glad that, given it was an airborne threat that merited masks, I watched it at the end of August ‘23, not closer to the acute phase of the pandemic. So, only we, the Prez, Ron Butterfield and people like Kate knew it was a real threat (though there was space for Charlie and Debbie to wonder, as Toby and perhaps Josh did) although I think I did mutter ‘when was the Unabomber?’ when Bartlet made his speech about terrorism not being what they thought it was before he took office. (I was with Josh, not Hrishi on this. My understanding was that it was a real threat, they chose to lie to Debbie and Charlie that it was a live drill, and to lie to everyone else that it was a false alarm.)
And this added edge to Toby’s problems with Russell (if Toby only knew what the real world has been through…) It was really good to have a lot of Will time, arguing his case. The scenario had made Toby’s case for him: I’d rather the Veep was up to the top job tops partisanship. Will did look small there. For the podcast, it was Will 12, Toby 0.
Of course, all that I could think was that this would end up being Josh’s plotline in the future, and noting that Santos wasn’t on anyone’s radar in universe (the writers hadn’t come up with him yet, and this was probably before Obama had come to the national consciousness.) Not that Josh was covering himself in glory, although some of that must have been to smooth over the introduction of Kate and make us like her for her comparative competence. It felt like a big win that Donna listened to CJ’s advice and ignored him (after all, getting exercised with why his joke had been cut was petty. Toby’s bile was coming from somewhere more serious.)
I really liked how everyone referred back to the speech(es) that had just been made.
Donna looked beeyootiful, the informality of CJ’s ponytail made a nice change, and at the end, seeing Debbie pick up her swish wrap over the clothes she’d been forced into made me realise that she’d never see the fancy gown again. We kept being reminded what an extraordinary place this was to work, and Abbey had just reminded us of what extraordinary pressures they all were under.
Ooh, and Reed Diamond looked so young!!
5.21 Gaza
Tackling the Middle East, specifically the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was…brave, and within the constraints of it being a single episode of a TV drama, I agree with the podcasters, they did a fairly stellar job of nodding to many of the complexities. (It struck me that there were fictional stand-ins as well as actual groups being mentioned. I hadn’t recalled that they’d named Arafat in the past, but were now talking about another Palestinian leader, and I suspect it was just because they were paying more attention to the conflict and wanted the narrative freedom of referring a fictional figure.) Again, I agree with the podcast, they dramatized the conflict so well, with the explosion and personal ramifications for our characters – losing Fitz! – and the use of various timelines.
So, Donna had taken CJ’s advice to have a fling (and I’m of the camp that will allow flings with characters played by Jason Isaacs. Especially because of the way Donna played it.) I was curious about the choice for Colin to have a Northern Ireland accent. On the podcast, Isaac suggested that was his idea because he had hoped to be able to change the dialogue. Innocent. For me, it was striking that Colin never talked about how his personal experiences affected his views of what was going on. He really might as well have been American, a Westerner who’s job was to know what was what.
At the same time as Donna’s fling was burgeoning, we could see Josh’s reaction to the news or lack thereof about the explosion and her condition, and, of course, she had sent him long e-mails that went beyond her brief, so she wasn’t cutting the connection. (When the podcast pointed out that Donna had suffered a ruptured lung, just like Josh had, my shippy response was a bit embarrassing.)
The contrast between Toby’s relief that Andi was safe and Josh not knowing about Donna was rich. I loved that moment Schiff played Toby realising he was waving back to Andi and she couldn’t see it! But actually all of Bradley Whitford’s perfect physical acting choices deserve a mention. And when they played some of Donna’s voiceover on the podcast, it made a case for their argument that you could interpret it as the voice of someone dying/not in full health, or someone reacting to the seriousness of what they were learning, because they’d never thought much about the situation before.
I though they slightly retconned a relationship between Kate and Fitz (wasn’t she in the army?) Having her in the confab with Leo was a novelty because we hadn’t really had a national security viewpoint in the past, the closest being Will. (Being a military brat and a reservist of some sort, so I kind of bought him taking a pro-Israeli hawkish line, although Malina’s comments about wondering what John Wells had taken from a conversation about his personal views was instructive. More instructive on that point was Isaac talking about the depiction of Israeli soldiers and how the actor playing one had recently been one, and had been told by his former commander to just do his jobs and say his lines.) Unlike Hrishi, I felt sorry that Kate was so adept at handling Leo’s difficulties with using gendered terms. My take was that she really seemed to have internalised the army’s sexism.
And of course the Israeli-Palestinian situation is still what it is.
