shallowness (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
shallowness) wrote2024-04-23 08:16 am
shallowness) wrote2024-04-23 08:16 am
Entry tags:
And The West Wing storylines diverge again
The West Wing
6.18 - La Palabra
Back to a campaign episode, with Josh’s link to the White House this time being Leo, the veteran of many campaigns. The Santos campaign were in California, the Russell and Hoynes campaigns were in New York. Hoynes was on the margins of the episode, only seen a couple of times, but much mentioned. Vinick was even more marginal, but it seemed like he was the Republican favourite.
Santos was a bit pod Santos, all smooth politician and Josh was starting to learn that you should be careful what you wished for. They were third everywhere, despite some wins, and the very bad news was that the funding was running out, so they had to focus what was left for Super Tuesday and had to exceed expectations to get donations so the campaign could continue to Texas, Santos’s home state.
I was curious from the off as to why Santos didn’t want to say anything about the Bill that targeted illegal Latino immigrants, so the slow dig and eventual answers on that were satisfying. (They got someone who’d campaigned on this issue back then to provide context, and she seemed to be saying that his attitude was credible for the time.)
I loved Helen’s role, with some frustration at being Mrs Politician’s Wife, and every right to a sharp intake of breath at Santos unilaterally being willing to mortgage their home and go back to Congress to pay it off to keep the campaign running until Texas. That was a decision for both of them, and his saying he wouldn’t do it if she vetoed it wasn’t fair either. Okay, I know he had the figleaf that he was only ‘considering’ it, but still.
It was floated that Josh had brought Santos as far as he could, and that Santos had done enough to earn a place on the ticket as Veep (although I could not imagine him standing as Russell’s Veep given his disdain for him.) And Josh had just said as much when, in a relief to us all, something external saved the Santos campaign. (Because this was a rewatch, I didn’t feel any tension about whether this was it for the Santos campaign.)
I liked the quirk of the press and Santos team contacting each other via oranges on their plane. (Apparently a real thing.)
I was amused at Donna marching into various men’s hotel rooms – well, two. I was mean enough to grin at how she woke Will to share her insomnia and the question that was keeping her awake. I was also amused that she’d strung Hoynes’s guy along enough so that she could see that he was definitely not packing for California. (There was a recurring motif of characters not being fully clothed or starting to change in scenes because they were living on the campaign trail, which meant hotels.)
Very interesting to see Donna again disagree with Russell about Hoynes’s private bizness staying private. I…could see her point. Hoynes had been banging on about values (which felt hypocritical given what we knew, and turned out to be dangerous – it seemed strongly implied that this was a sting. But the downfall of candidate Hoynes was in keeping with what we already knew of the character.) Another example of her not being in total sympathy with Russell was not so much on the unfunny joke as her not being all that worried that her name was in the press. She hadn’t known what was going on with Hoynes, she’d just known he wasn’t going to California, and it had been valid to ask why. She seemed like she could live with the press attention. Will shouldn’t take full credit for creating a monster, she had had seven years in the White House! But good on him for quickly promoting her.
Even if they hadn’t earned Hoynes’s implosion removing him from contention, the Santos team took it and ran with it. I thought the Californian Governor was very plausible, (I had not realised that he was the guy that Will secretly wrote a speech for way back when until they pointed it out on the podcast.) Santos stuck to his guns about not being ‘the Latino candidate’ (although it was clearly historic that he was the first serious Latino candidate), but proved his political chops in their meeting and got the Governor to go beyond what he’d asked. He’d also won Josh over to grant him the campaign he wanted in Texas. And so, he won California, and had done enough for it to be down to two candidates for the Democratic candidacy, really.
6.19 - Ninety Miles Away
Back to the administration, with Toby having to do a komedy call with Josh and Donna (really, I don’t know how they resisted him accidentally putting them on the same call.) And I didn’t love this, so I was relieved to find that they didn’t on The West Wing Weekly either, noting some fails that hadn’t even occurred to me.
The acoustic strings cue set my teeth on edge, some of the ep was played for comedy, but only bits involving Margaret were successful, and I didn’t feel that we got to the heart of anything. Sure, Bartlet could announce an important new direction in the States’ relationship with Cuba, but I tended to believe that all three old men, Bartlet, Leo and Castro (of all the real people to bring into your fiction) were hunting a legacy, and the warning that Castro was using them for cash and would let them down seemed likely to come true. It also seemed to turn out that Leo’s recollection of who’d got who drunk might be unreliable (do you trust the alcoholic or the problem drinker?) raising questions about whether what he thought they were achieving in 1995 was do-able, especially if, as was possibly suggested, the CIA was interfering.
I don’t know whether it would have been better if we’d had Cuban-Americans of various generations talking for themselves, instead of white American men talking for them. Was Kate’s old colleague Cuban-American? The lack of clarity or resolution about Kate was very frustrating. Much trauma was hinted at, it was never clear if this was when she’d been in lockdown. Certainly something had gone wrong or her colleague wouldn’t have apologised, and it looked to me as if she had been in a fight when she met Leo. That encounter that he didn’t remember felt like a letdown (although in one sense I was relieved he was clearly so drunk that nothing would happen once she decided to drive him somewhere to sober up instead of letting him crash the car.) If that’s the past interaction behind the onscreen interactions – the previously had him accusing her of having an agenda in the Sit Room when she was basically disagreeing with him professionally - it’s hardly a revelation that changes much. Hrishi’s indignation as he pointed out that this should have all happened in 1993, not 1995 was justified!
(CJ totally ignored the top secret nature of Kate’s file when she discussed it with Leo.)
CJ had every right to be annoyed at Bartlet and Leo for keeping her out of the loop. Kate should probably have been in the loop too, and Bartlet and Leo’s attempts at being cloak and dagger were quickly undermined. I didn’t mind Cliff being out of the loop and CJ sending him on an errand; he was smart enough to get the gist of what he was being told and to pass it on. Telling that in the end Bartlet leant on Toby and CJ, ignoring Kate the foreign affairs expert in the room and new boy Cliff, the Republican who still needs to prove himself, for validation.
Ah well, at least you didn’t have Charlie’s termite subplot, Cliff! And that’s all I’m going to say about that. Toby had little to do. At least one of the reporters who’d been following the Santos campaign was back in the White House for his press briefing, which says more about the show’s budget than likely newspaper staffing allocation. Maybe Schiff should have directed the episode after this, instead.
Margaret was amusing, though. Her family tree seems to be quite something. She (or was it Debbie) said welch! I reflexively twitched. I think CJ was a little too okay with Margaret forging signatures in an episode where everyone seemed to accept that the CIA had been running the policy over the relationship with Cuba in the 1990s. (Bartlet thinking that Santos didn’t know himself what he thought about Cuba was a thought-provoking line. Does that mean that Bartlet thinks he’s not ready, or was that speaking to how a Latino might view the situation with Cuba differently?) I admit, I was aware I wasn’t on top of all the context here, but I did think it was a weird way of tackling a live issue, and after listening to the podcast’s takedown, that it was a pretty shoddy episode all round.
6.18 - La Palabra
Back to a campaign episode, with Josh’s link to the White House this time being Leo, the veteran of many campaigns. The Santos campaign were in California, the Russell and Hoynes campaigns were in New York. Hoynes was on the margins of the episode, only seen a couple of times, but much mentioned. Vinick was even more marginal, but it seemed like he was the Republican favourite.
Santos was a bit pod Santos, all smooth politician and Josh was starting to learn that you should be careful what you wished for. They were third everywhere, despite some wins, and the very bad news was that the funding was running out, so they had to focus what was left for Super Tuesday and had to exceed expectations to get donations so the campaign could continue to Texas, Santos’s home state.
I was curious from the off as to why Santos didn’t want to say anything about the Bill that targeted illegal Latino immigrants, so the slow dig and eventual answers on that were satisfying. (They got someone who’d campaigned on this issue back then to provide context, and she seemed to be saying that his attitude was credible for the time.)
I loved Helen’s role, with some frustration at being Mrs Politician’s Wife, and every right to a sharp intake of breath at Santos unilaterally being willing to mortgage their home and go back to Congress to pay it off to keep the campaign running until Texas. That was a decision for both of them, and his saying he wouldn’t do it if she vetoed it wasn’t fair either. Okay, I know he had the figleaf that he was only ‘considering’ it, but still.
It was floated that Josh had brought Santos as far as he could, and that Santos had done enough to earn a place on the ticket as Veep (although I could not imagine him standing as Russell’s Veep given his disdain for him.) And Josh had just said as much when, in a relief to us all, something external saved the Santos campaign. (Because this was a rewatch, I didn’t feel any tension about whether this was it for the Santos campaign.)
I liked the quirk of the press and Santos team contacting each other via oranges on their plane. (Apparently a real thing.)
I was amused at Donna marching into various men’s hotel rooms – well, two. I was mean enough to grin at how she woke Will to share her insomnia and the question that was keeping her awake. I was also amused that she’d strung Hoynes’s guy along enough so that she could see that he was definitely not packing for California. (There was a recurring motif of characters not being fully clothed or starting to change in scenes because they were living on the campaign trail, which meant hotels.)
Very interesting to see Donna again disagree with Russell about Hoynes’s private bizness staying private. I…could see her point. Hoynes had been banging on about values (which felt hypocritical given what we knew, and turned out to be dangerous – it seemed strongly implied that this was a sting. But the downfall of candidate Hoynes was in keeping with what we already knew of the character.) Another example of her not being in total sympathy with Russell was not so much on the unfunny joke as her not being all that worried that her name was in the press. She hadn’t known what was going on with Hoynes, she’d just known he wasn’t going to California, and it had been valid to ask why. She seemed like she could live with the press attention. Will shouldn’t take full credit for creating a monster, she had had seven years in the White House! But good on him for quickly promoting her.
Even if they hadn’t earned Hoynes’s implosion removing him from contention, the Santos team took it and ran with it. I thought the Californian Governor was very plausible, (I had not realised that he was the guy that Will secretly wrote a speech for way back when until they pointed it out on the podcast.) Santos stuck to his guns about not being ‘the Latino candidate’ (although it was clearly historic that he was the first serious Latino candidate), but proved his political chops in their meeting and got the Governor to go beyond what he’d asked. He’d also won Josh over to grant him the campaign he wanted in Texas. And so, he won California, and had done enough for it to be down to two candidates for the Democratic candidacy, really.
6.19 - Ninety Miles Away
Back to the administration, with Toby having to do a komedy call with Josh and Donna (really, I don’t know how they resisted him accidentally putting them on the same call.) And I didn’t love this, so I was relieved to find that they didn’t on The West Wing Weekly either, noting some fails that hadn’t even occurred to me.
The acoustic strings cue set my teeth on edge, some of the ep was played for comedy, but only bits involving Margaret were successful, and I didn’t feel that we got to the heart of anything. Sure, Bartlet could announce an important new direction in the States’ relationship with Cuba, but I tended to believe that all three old men, Bartlet, Leo and Castro (of all the real people to bring into your fiction) were hunting a legacy, and the warning that Castro was using them for cash and would let them down seemed likely to come true. It also seemed to turn out that Leo’s recollection of who’d got who drunk might be unreliable (do you trust the alcoholic or the problem drinker?) raising questions about whether what he thought they were achieving in 1995 was do-able, especially if, as was possibly suggested, the CIA was interfering.
I don’t know whether it would have been better if we’d had Cuban-Americans of various generations talking for themselves, instead of white American men talking for them. Was Kate’s old colleague Cuban-American? The lack of clarity or resolution about Kate was very frustrating. Much trauma was hinted at, it was never clear if this was when she’d been in lockdown. Certainly something had gone wrong or her colleague wouldn’t have apologised, and it looked to me as if she had been in a fight when she met Leo. That encounter that he didn’t remember felt like a letdown (although in one sense I was relieved he was clearly so drunk that nothing would happen once she decided to drive him somewhere to sober up instead of letting him crash the car.) If that’s the past interaction behind the onscreen interactions – the previously had him accusing her of having an agenda in the Sit Room when she was basically disagreeing with him professionally - it’s hardly a revelation that changes much. Hrishi’s indignation as he pointed out that this should have all happened in 1993, not 1995 was justified!
(CJ totally ignored the top secret nature of Kate’s file when she discussed it with Leo.)
CJ had every right to be annoyed at Bartlet and Leo for keeping her out of the loop. Kate should probably have been in the loop too, and Bartlet and Leo’s attempts at being cloak and dagger were quickly undermined. I didn’t mind Cliff being out of the loop and CJ sending him on an errand; he was smart enough to get the gist of what he was being told and to pass it on. Telling that in the end Bartlet leant on Toby and CJ, ignoring Kate the foreign affairs expert in the room and new boy Cliff, the Republican who still needs to prove himself, for validation.
Ah well, at least you didn’t have Charlie’s termite subplot, Cliff! And that’s all I’m going to say about that. Toby had little to do. At least one of the reporters who’d been following the Santos campaign was back in the White House for his press briefing, which says more about the show’s budget than likely newspaper staffing allocation. Maybe Schiff should have directed the episode after this, instead.
Margaret was amusing, though. Her family tree seems to be quite something. She (or was it Debbie) said welch! I reflexively twitched. I think CJ was a little too okay with Margaret forging signatures in an episode where everyone seemed to accept that the CIA had been running the policy over the relationship with Cuba in the 1990s. (Bartlet thinking that Santos didn’t know himself what he thought about Cuba was a thought-provoking line. Does that mean that Bartlet thinks he’s not ready, or was that speaking to how a Latino might view the situation with Cuba differently?) I admit, I was aware I wasn’t on top of all the context here, but I did think it was a weird way of tackling a live issue, and after listening to the podcast’s takedown, that it was a pretty shoddy episode all round.
no subject
I also love Donna in La Palabra! One of the best things about Will is the way he's willing to recognize Donna's ability and take advantage of it in a way Josh was always too selfish to do.
no subject
the way he's willing to recognize Donna's ability and take advantage of it in a way Josh was always too selfish to do. Thus doing what CJ told Donna someone would if she got away from him.