Just the one The West Wing ep
Feb. 16th, 2024 08:31 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shallownessThe West Wing - 6.10 Faith-Based Initiative
I hadn’t been paying attention, so it took The West Wing Weekly to point out to me that Bradley Whitford wrote this!
Although the episode hung around fighting the amendment to the budget and CJ dealing with a rumour that she was a lesbian, it kept on with the various strands of recent episodes, from Bartlet’s ill health (again, I found myself wondering that Sheen didn’t get an Emmy this season either) to the race to replace him and what that meant for the staff.
Not all that much Santos in this ep, but his every appearance left a mark, with the first sighting of the missus as she realised he was thinking about Josh’s offer, despite having turning it down. The last one with the speech about hope now really screamed Obama to me, when I don’t think I’d heard of him when I first saw this. After listening to the podcast, though, I don’t think they had heard about him and it was Whitford the writer who went big on hope.
Josh, having returned to the White House, was being terrorised by the temp assistant, about which I was both amused, because she didn’t let him bully her, but I’m not sure that her bullying him, her boss, was conducive to a good working relationship either. At first, he was sucking up the rejection by Santos enough to…offer to help Rogers. And then Santos turned up and it all changed.
I very much liked the dynamic with Toby, who acted out his hurt about Josh leaving them, but as the one to have to deal with the Veep and sniff out Hoynes’s involvement in getting this tricky amendment (yeah, Hoynes, I totally believe how devastated you were that CJ was collateral damage), he maybe got a glimmer of why Josh might go fight for someone else, someone who could be better.
That tied into Toby and CJ banding together (Toby not realising that CJ was asking Leo to stay) to protect their (ailing) President. We had the first and last iteration of this senior staff meeting (Will was there, with his own agenda, as well as Kate and Annabeth). Oh, before that, of course, we’d had the moment of CJ and the very dated technology – was that a pager trying to be a mobile phone? It would be reiterated by how they talked about the blog carrying the story.
Janney pulled off the running gag about very tall CJ being constantly surprised by very short Annabeth beautifully. I was less enamoured by Margaret being overinvested in this guy who CJ worried was put off by the rumours, mainly because of the grisly flashbacks to Carol and the ranger guy. But then, CJ opening up way too much to Leo about her love life anxieties, and John Spencer’s pitch perfect response was funny, and the answer she gave to the press pack was elegant and heartfelt. (Although as if all the old lags didn’t know about her and Danny!) Interesting and sad that Whitford was inspired to write this by something that had happened to Janney.
There were grace notes for Josh, continuing to get Leo’s guidance about how to say goodbye, and that he did go talk to the President before leaving him. I’ve been thinking about Donna’s goodbye, and I really hope the other assistants (organised by Margaret) gave her a good send-off, at least. We learned that she was whole-heartedly going to work for the Veep and Will’s campaign, not knowing Josh’s reservations about both. And hey, she wasn’t going to be an assistant any more, which was all she needed to hear. (It’s an elegant way to give her career and personal growth while keeping her on the show.) Interesting that Josh had learned all this.
I liked the complication that Bartlet was torn between his beliefs over the marriage amendment, and that his own words had, in part, inspired this Republican, and that he wasn’t quite where Toby was (or the Veep), but that this was a thorny issue in the middle of needing the budget to pass for legacy reasons while wrestling with the current state of his MS. It certainly didn’t turn out to be a restful rest day (and underlined the almost comic reactions by Abbey, Charlie and CJ to the medical suggestions about what he should and shouldn’t do, going forward.) Also notable that Whitford was inspired by his experiences of his father’s sickness in how he wrote Bartlet. Huh, he only wrote another episode of TWW, nothing else, despite lauding it as one of his best creative experiences. They were relatively light on him on the podcast, but deservedly so, my only big quibble was the repeat of an assistant getting overinvested in CJ’s love life, although their point about using ‘girl’ in reference to a black adult woman and why nobody in the writer’s room/making of the episode was entirely valid (it shouldn’t be on a guest actress to go, ‘Um, about this…’)
I hadn’t been paying attention, so it took The West Wing Weekly to point out to me that Bradley Whitford wrote this!
Although the episode hung around fighting the amendment to the budget and CJ dealing with a rumour that she was a lesbian, it kept on with the various strands of recent episodes, from Bartlet’s ill health (again, I found myself wondering that Sheen didn’t get an Emmy this season either) to the race to replace him and what that meant for the staff.
Not all that much Santos in this ep, but his every appearance left a mark, with the first sighting of the missus as she realised he was thinking about Josh’s offer, despite having turning it down. The last one with the speech about hope now really screamed Obama to me, when I don’t think I’d heard of him when I first saw this. After listening to the podcast, though, I don’t think they had heard about him and it was Whitford the writer who went big on hope.
Josh, having returned to the White House, was being terrorised by the temp assistant, about which I was both amused, because she didn’t let him bully her, but I’m not sure that her bullying him, her boss, was conducive to a good working relationship either. At first, he was sucking up the rejection by Santos enough to…offer to help Rogers. And then Santos turned up and it all changed.
I very much liked the dynamic with Toby, who acted out his hurt about Josh leaving them, but as the one to have to deal with the Veep and sniff out Hoynes’s involvement in getting this tricky amendment (yeah, Hoynes, I totally believe how devastated you were that CJ was collateral damage), he maybe got a glimmer of why Josh might go fight for someone else, someone who could be better.
That tied into Toby and CJ banding together (Toby not realising that CJ was asking Leo to stay) to protect their (ailing) President. We had the first and last iteration of this senior staff meeting (Will was there, with his own agenda, as well as Kate and Annabeth). Oh, before that, of course, we’d had the moment of CJ and the very dated technology – was that a pager trying to be a mobile phone? It would be reiterated by how they talked about the blog carrying the story.
Janney pulled off the running gag about very tall CJ being constantly surprised by very short Annabeth beautifully. I was less enamoured by Margaret being overinvested in this guy who CJ worried was put off by the rumours, mainly because of the grisly flashbacks to Carol and the ranger guy. But then, CJ opening up way too much to Leo about her love life anxieties, and John Spencer’s pitch perfect response was funny, and the answer she gave to the press pack was elegant and heartfelt. (Although as if all the old lags didn’t know about her and Danny!) Interesting and sad that Whitford was inspired to write this by something that had happened to Janney.
There were grace notes for Josh, continuing to get Leo’s guidance about how to say goodbye, and that he did go talk to the President before leaving him. I’ve been thinking about Donna’s goodbye, and I really hope the other assistants (organised by Margaret) gave her a good send-off, at least. We learned that she was whole-heartedly going to work for the Veep and Will’s campaign, not knowing Josh’s reservations about both. And hey, she wasn’t going to be an assistant any more, which was all she needed to hear. (It’s an elegant way to give her career and personal growth while keeping her on the show.) Interesting that Josh had learned all this.
I liked the complication that Bartlet was torn between his beliefs over the marriage amendment, and that his own words had, in part, inspired this Republican, and that he wasn’t quite where Toby was (or the Veep), but that this was a thorny issue in the middle of needing the budget to pass for legacy reasons while wrestling with the current state of his MS. It certainly didn’t turn out to be a restful rest day (and underlined the almost comic reactions by Abbey, Charlie and CJ to the medical suggestions about what he should and shouldn’t do, going forward.) Also notable that Whitford was inspired by his experiences of his father’s sickness in how he wrote Bartlet. Huh, he only wrote another episode of TWW, nothing else, despite lauding it as one of his best creative experiences. They were relatively light on him on the podcast, but deservedly so, my only big quibble was the repeat of an assistant getting overinvested in CJ’s love life, although their point about using ‘girl’ in reference to a black adult woman and why nobody in the writer’s room/making of the episode was entirely valid (it shouldn’t be on a guest actress to go, ‘Um, about this…’)
