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shallownessThe West Wing - 7.05 Here Today
Rightly enough, this started with the end of the last episode and just rolled on, with everything changing between CJ and Toby, and his revelation meaning that they couldn’t talk (a recurring motif) which meant some great silent acting between Janney and Schiff, with all we knew about these characters’ history adding layers. Toby was nearly all for explaining what he'd done and facing the consequences, although a bit of him had remembered to call his lawyer when unsupervised, so Babbish got out that CJ had discussed the secret shuttle with him. This tied into CJ trying to call Leo to discuss something she really shouldn’t have, because her instinct was to get support from her inner circle and Leo’s, her mentor now. Toby’s lawyer turned up and stopped all that, pointing out that knowledge was bargaining power, reeling off prison time and reminding us and him of his kids (which led to the thought…Andy is going to kill him.) Thanks to The West Wing Weekly, I was informed that both the initial lawyer from the counsel’s office and Toby’s lawyer were recurring characters.
Apart from the intimacy of Toby’s interaction with CJ, the lawyers and eventually the President, how people were turfed out of a meeting in the Roosevelt Room, his being extra abrupt with Ed and Larry, everyone being able to see Toby’s room being emptied and Kate drawing her own conclusions added to the sense of how major this was. When Kate tried to ask, we learned that CJ really had learned not to discuss it.
Kate was in the meantime acting as the intermediary between Mr Frost, who was arrogant, and the Sit Room over what these assassinations meant, which led me to think that too much of her job involves listening to male bluster. She did find a few allies so that when CJ asked for a brief, they put forward the theory that it was Russia (um, setting off the tinderbox that is Israel-Palestine, tho?) But then, she told Frost that she had another theory that was even more apocalyptic and I got confused.
The direction for this episode was extremely fancy, with characters being shown from strange angles, or through cameras or glasses, often keeping the viewer at a distance or focusing on unexpected areas. I don’t always consciously notice this.
For light relief (?), we had Abbey and Jed meeting their future son-in-law, and I’ll give him some allowance for it being daunting that the in-laws are POTUS and FLOTUS, but he seemed unimpressive. Ellie did seem to be the most take charge one in the relationship. Sheen and Channing were droll and arch, but in hindsight, the whole ‘phew, Ellie isn’t a lesbian’ and all came off as judgey, as they learned they’d be getting another grandchild sooner than expected, hence a rush wedding. The podcast dissected and critiqued their dialogue, which might well be at the root of my problem with this plotline.
Anyway, her father was pulled away from that relatively light moment to be informed of Toby’s guilt. Never mind my former ‘the chess grandmaster guessed’, although Bartlet’s line about being both surprised and not rang true. Before listening to the podcast, I will say that they did the legwork over his astronaut brother and tying it into the past tensions between Toby and Bartlet about the moral high ground gave them plausible cover, but would Toby really betray his work family this way? Of course, that makes for fertile dramatic ground, as the personal ran up against very serious criminal charges. Having listened to the podcast, it seems that the personal with Schiff affected the way they treated Toby, and coloured how Schiff felt about the handling of the storyline, as if the producers had predetermined that it was going to be about the leak and worked backward from there.
Anyway, the scene between Toby and Bartlet was charged by all the past times they’ve interacted in that very Oval Office, with Babbish as an interloper. I liked the part where he – who Toby had pointed out was far from polite in his initial interrogation –
recognised Toby’s service. Kinda.
We ended on CJ, who’d also had to deal with Margaret feeling guilty for nothing, as she’d been specifically told to tell the truth at the hearing. I can’t have been the only one who went ‘oh, Will’s office is a real place’ after all the episodes where he was lurking in corridors. I also went ‘and this is how they brought Will back into the action for the rest of the series’ (which kinda makes sense of him turning up for the library opening at the start of the season.) A wretched CJ told him he’d have to replace Toby, because, yeah, Toby was the leak.
On the campaign, Lou got Josh to ditch Ned (and others) too. I thought Josh was asking for too much when he asked if Santos would sack/shift him personally. Always going to be your job, Joshua. But they were stuck. It took the podcast to point out that the whole campaign segment was stuck on a plane, making it contained, and that they were flying at night making the mood simpatico with what was going on in the White House, perhaps more so than Ellie’s pregnancy subplot.
7.06 The Al Smith Dinner
This was mainly a campaign episode, but in the White House, some lightness was brought about by Will learning that replacing Toby meant being the replacement Press Secretary too, and getting thrown into that lion’s den repeatedly. He seemed to have enough of an ego to withstand it, but it also seemed mean, although ex Press Secretary CJ knew what she was doing and the press eventually stopped asking questions they weren’t going to get an answer to. For me, the final scene with the ribbon round the ball and the pratfall in Toby’s office, now his, epitomised that throughline. Although, as they asked in the podcast, who did wrap the ribbon round the ball? I think I intuited CJ at the time, but they also pointed out that it was strange that the feds left it in the emptied office in the first place.
Also, Margaret got herself a new haircut – I bet it was in response to her hearing (and everything else that happened that day.)
It wasn’t entirely clear what the media narrative was – I suppose the idea was that the Toby situation was the main story, but the abortion ad and the lack of agreement on the candidates’ debate(s) was about to overtake that. Anyway, on the campaign, both Santos and Vinick, broadly in agreement on abortion and the Al Smith dinner (helpful exposition about what it was at one point) at the start, if coming from different starting points, got dragged elsewhere throughout. And the way they were dragged said something about both men.
Josh was getting nowhere on the debate negotiation, and we got both teams’ assessment of the press write-up. Would the abortion attack ad on Santos lead to negative attack ads, which Santos and Josh didn’t particularly want? Vinick had to clarify where it had come from and it turned out to be paid for by socially conservative Republicans. The strains of his coalition were laid bare, with Bruno having his centrist vision, Sheila being more pragmatic, and Vinick having to decide where he stood with the religious right.
The other big thing was a progressive pro-abortion group (surprisingly NOT represented by Amy!) who would normally be pro-Democrat saying they were thinking of supporting Vinick. Of course, the striking thing was that once this group reached out to Vinick’s campaign, he thought they were a Democrat Trojan horse, whereas we knew they weren’t. Bruno was visibly frustrated that nobody was representing 60% of the public, and it certainly looked as if both candidates were being hemmed in by their parties’ long-held positions in this issue (I’m not going to touch what’s shifted in recent years.) I loved the tenor of all Santos and Leo’s discussions in this ep, they seemed to have gelled, even as Leo was learning more about Santos.
Lou suggested that she should go negotiate on the debate, as Bruno and Josh were in deadlock and it looked bad for Santos, desperate for the debate as the one behind in the polls. She took in her hostile energy and it certainly made Bruno (already under pressure as the outsider to many Republicans’ way of thinking) have to recalibrate.
There were one or two new faces around in the Santos campaign, but Josh was rocked when the spokeswoman they had to rebut the ad, as Vinick wouldn’t (couldn’t?) was…Donna. Who was effective, as Lou saw. So she threw them into a room together and told them to make up without any idea of the epic scale of the Josh-and-Donna of it all. Josh rehashed his previous contentions, Donna got in a few swipes about how he’d always held her back career wise, and Lou and time didn’t wait for them, Donna got the job. She would later make an useful observation that Josh had to listen to.
It cumulated in a very nice scene where both Santos and Vinick were finally in the same room, about to be announced at the dinner, and they got to directly address the attack ad and agree to a debate, with Santos edging it slightly, having argued his case with the interest group, while Vinick was caving to his party’s traditional instincts more. On the podcast, they pointed to the fact that the two of them alone getting an agreement after a whole episode where their staff had failed was effective, and that ending with a reminder that they were opponents avoided any sentimentality. Like the podcasters, I thought it was a good episode.
Rightly enough, this started with the end of the last episode and just rolled on, with everything changing between CJ and Toby, and his revelation meaning that they couldn’t talk (a recurring motif) which meant some great silent acting between Janney and Schiff, with all we knew about these characters’ history adding layers. Toby was nearly all for explaining what he'd done and facing the consequences, although a bit of him had remembered to call his lawyer when unsupervised, so Babbish got out that CJ had discussed the secret shuttle with him. This tied into CJ trying to call Leo to discuss something she really shouldn’t have, because her instinct was to get support from her inner circle and Leo’s, her mentor now. Toby’s lawyer turned up and stopped all that, pointing out that knowledge was bargaining power, reeling off prison time and reminding us and him of his kids (which led to the thought…Andy is going to kill him.) Thanks to The West Wing Weekly, I was informed that both the initial lawyer from the counsel’s office and Toby’s lawyer were recurring characters.
Apart from the intimacy of Toby’s interaction with CJ, the lawyers and eventually the President, how people were turfed out of a meeting in the Roosevelt Room, his being extra abrupt with Ed and Larry, everyone being able to see Toby’s room being emptied and Kate drawing her own conclusions added to the sense of how major this was. When Kate tried to ask, we learned that CJ really had learned not to discuss it.
Kate was in the meantime acting as the intermediary between Mr Frost, who was arrogant, and the Sit Room over what these assassinations meant, which led me to think that too much of her job involves listening to male bluster. She did find a few allies so that when CJ asked for a brief, they put forward the theory that it was Russia (um, setting off the tinderbox that is Israel-Palestine, tho?) But then, she told Frost that she had another theory that was even more apocalyptic and I got confused.
The direction for this episode was extremely fancy, with characters being shown from strange angles, or through cameras or glasses, often keeping the viewer at a distance or focusing on unexpected areas. I don’t always consciously notice this.
For light relief (?), we had Abbey and Jed meeting their future son-in-law, and I’ll give him some allowance for it being daunting that the in-laws are POTUS and FLOTUS, but he seemed unimpressive. Ellie did seem to be the most take charge one in the relationship. Sheen and Channing were droll and arch, but in hindsight, the whole ‘phew, Ellie isn’t a lesbian’ and all came off as judgey, as they learned they’d be getting another grandchild sooner than expected, hence a rush wedding. The podcast dissected and critiqued their dialogue, which might well be at the root of my problem with this plotline.
Anyway, her father was pulled away from that relatively light moment to be informed of Toby’s guilt. Never mind my former ‘the chess grandmaster guessed’, although Bartlet’s line about being both surprised and not rang true. Before listening to the podcast, I will say that they did the legwork over his astronaut brother and tying it into the past tensions between Toby and Bartlet about the moral high ground gave them plausible cover, but would Toby really betray his work family this way? Of course, that makes for fertile dramatic ground, as the personal ran up against very serious criminal charges. Having listened to the podcast, it seems that the personal with Schiff affected the way they treated Toby, and coloured how Schiff felt about the handling of the storyline, as if the producers had predetermined that it was going to be about the leak and worked backward from there.
Anyway, the scene between Toby and Bartlet was charged by all the past times they’ve interacted in that very Oval Office, with Babbish as an interloper. I liked the part where he – who Toby had pointed out was far from polite in his initial interrogation –
recognised Toby’s service. Kinda.
We ended on CJ, who’d also had to deal with Margaret feeling guilty for nothing, as she’d been specifically told to tell the truth at the hearing. I can’t have been the only one who went ‘oh, Will’s office is a real place’ after all the episodes where he was lurking in corridors. I also went ‘and this is how they brought Will back into the action for the rest of the series’ (which kinda makes sense of him turning up for the library opening at the start of the season.) A wretched CJ told him he’d have to replace Toby, because, yeah, Toby was the leak.
On the campaign, Lou got Josh to ditch Ned (and others) too. I thought Josh was asking for too much when he asked if Santos would sack/shift him personally. Always going to be your job, Joshua. But they were stuck. It took the podcast to point out that the whole campaign segment was stuck on a plane, making it contained, and that they were flying at night making the mood simpatico with what was going on in the White House, perhaps more so than Ellie’s pregnancy subplot.
7.06 The Al Smith Dinner
This was mainly a campaign episode, but in the White House, some lightness was brought about by Will learning that replacing Toby meant being the replacement Press Secretary too, and getting thrown into that lion’s den repeatedly. He seemed to have enough of an ego to withstand it, but it also seemed mean, although ex Press Secretary CJ knew what she was doing and the press eventually stopped asking questions they weren’t going to get an answer to. For me, the final scene with the ribbon round the ball and the pratfall in Toby’s office, now his, epitomised that throughline. Although, as they asked in the podcast, who did wrap the ribbon round the ball? I think I intuited CJ at the time, but they also pointed out that it was strange that the feds left it in the emptied office in the first place.
Also, Margaret got herself a new haircut – I bet it was in response to her hearing (and everything else that happened that day.)
It wasn’t entirely clear what the media narrative was – I suppose the idea was that the Toby situation was the main story, but the abortion ad and the lack of agreement on the candidates’ debate(s) was about to overtake that. Anyway, on the campaign, both Santos and Vinick, broadly in agreement on abortion and the Al Smith dinner (helpful exposition about what it was at one point) at the start, if coming from different starting points, got dragged elsewhere throughout. And the way they were dragged said something about both men.
Josh was getting nowhere on the debate negotiation, and we got both teams’ assessment of the press write-up. Would the abortion attack ad on Santos lead to negative attack ads, which Santos and Josh didn’t particularly want? Vinick had to clarify where it had come from and it turned out to be paid for by socially conservative Republicans. The strains of his coalition were laid bare, with Bruno having his centrist vision, Sheila being more pragmatic, and Vinick having to decide where he stood with the religious right.
The other big thing was a progressive pro-abortion group (surprisingly NOT represented by Amy!) who would normally be pro-Democrat saying they were thinking of supporting Vinick. Of course, the striking thing was that once this group reached out to Vinick’s campaign, he thought they were a Democrat Trojan horse, whereas we knew they weren’t. Bruno was visibly frustrated that nobody was representing 60% of the public, and it certainly looked as if both candidates were being hemmed in by their parties’ long-held positions in this issue (I’m not going to touch what’s shifted in recent years.) I loved the tenor of all Santos and Leo’s discussions in this ep, they seemed to have gelled, even as Leo was learning more about Santos.
Lou suggested that she should go negotiate on the debate, as Bruno and Josh were in deadlock and it looked bad for Santos, desperate for the debate as the one behind in the polls. She took in her hostile energy and it certainly made Bruno (already under pressure as the outsider to many Republicans’ way of thinking) have to recalibrate.
There were one or two new faces around in the Santos campaign, but Josh was rocked when the spokeswoman they had to rebut the ad, as Vinick wouldn’t (couldn’t?) was…Donna. Who was effective, as Lou saw. So she threw them into a room together and told them to make up without any idea of the epic scale of the Josh-and-Donna of it all. Josh rehashed his previous contentions, Donna got in a few swipes about how he’d always held her back career wise, and Lou and time didn’t wait for them, Donna got the job. She would later make an useful observation that Josh had to listen to.
It cumulated in a very nice scene where both Santos and Vinick were finally in the same room, about to be announced at the dinner, and they got to directly address the attack ad and agree to a debate, with Santos edging it slightly, having argued his case with the interest group, while Vinick was caving to his party’s traditional instincts more. On the podcast, they pointed to the fact that the two of them alone getting an agreement after a whole episode where their staff had failed was effective, and that ending with a reminder that they were opponents avoided any sentimentality. Like the podcasters, I thought it was a good episode.
