TWW: Woo! CJ-centric episode!
Oct. 16th, 2024 08:43 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shallownessThe West Wing - 7.11 Internal Displacement
Noted it was written by Brad Whitford, and thought if it was his idea to write a day in the life (of a dying administration) of CJ Cregg, good on him! (He confirmed that it was on the podcast, and made the obvious-in-hindsight point that it spoke to what he was processing as an actor seeing the end of the show coming. Lots of wit, lost of callbacks, and a more serious cause of international diplomacy as the bedrock. Also a cliffhanger that made me almost rue the fact that it was a night of just watching the one episode, not a double-bill, for once.
The previouslies had suggested who we’d be seeing (if we’re cycling through all the Bartlet daughters, I’ll be expecting Zoey to return soon), and that weird little flashforward at the start of the season had tipped us off that CJ and Danny would reconnect. We were reminded of how they worked, and didn’t (because being a chief of staff is what does CJ does now, and she was being very much a chief of staff to the waitress, having been in post for quite a while.) Both were awkward and falling into the old rhythm that had more to do with work, although Danny wasn’t entirely going out on a limb with trying to make it a date. But he dropped the bombshell about the rumours about Doug, Liz’s husband and the President’s son-in-law, and lost the attention of CJ the woman to the concerns of the chief of staff…
Those rumours would be discussed in slightly dated language and a slightly dated way. Will ogling over the picture of the nanny (who we never saw) was unedifying, while, although it was fun to see Kate respond to it like a hot bit of gossip, the way she talked about all this from a woman’s perspective was verging on caricature. (Malina pointed out that this spoke to Will and Kate’s compatibility, though.) And although there was a bit of loyalty to Liz, CJ was mainly looking at it from the perspective of protecting the President. I liked that one of the reasons she asked Will to look into it was because he had made contacts in New Hampshire during the Democratic primaries.
Danny had also dared her to do something with her remaining time in the White House, and it was diplomacy to try to do something to avert genocide in Sudan (where there is still so much bloodshed today, even if other areas are higher up the news agenda and the word ‘genocide’ is being used about them too.) She sketched out a plan with Kate, didn’t get Bartlet’s agreement, got lectured by a guy from a refugee charity, but used the Khazakstan thing to lean on the Chinese. The conversation with that ambassador was dense and interesting, although I was bringing nearly two decades of ‘what happened next’ to it. And it was all pretty grubby for a small win, maybe.
(I was impressed with Janney and CJ’s ability to sit and stand gracefully in her skirt. See also the fish rescue!)
Josh was in town, being a pain about an announcement that he was sure was coming to Texas, which would help Santos, while CJ had agreed to hold the announcement until after the election for someone else. He got his way, partly assisted by the fact that it was increasingly clear that the rumour was true, Doug Westen had slept with the nanny, and CJ did not need the President to be anywhere around when that story broke. And the story was only of national interest because of Doug’s connection to Bartlet.
CJ was great in the interviews with a cowed Doug and an angry Liz, and actually seeing all the grief that she was going through to do her high-wire job (mostly well) made CJ so, so sympathetic. Of course, we didn’t see her tell Bartlet about Doug’s infidelity before the news broke. So, she kind of needed a date that she knew was a date, with someone who could still see the person doing the job but deal in truth. Alas, poor Danny, he put his heart on the line and never got an answer, although given CJ’s job and reaction, it was always likely what she was being paged about was Very Serious, and he knew it. I’m not sure if I buy that writing a tawdry story about Doug was the final straw for Danny the journalist, although he was pitching it as a midlife thing and I do buy that being with CJ is a prize worth changing your life for. Kudos to Brad Whitford as the writer (interesting that he cited Sorkin a lot as an inspiration), and it’s a shame we haven’t seen more of his screenwriting in addition to his acting since.
Noted it was written by Brad Whitford, and thought if it was his idea to write a day in the life (of a dying administration) of CJ Cregg, good on him! (He confirmed that it was on the podcast, and made the obvious-in-hindsight point that it spoke to what he was processing as an actor seeing the end of the show coming. Lots of wit, lost of callbacks, and a more serious cause of international diplomacy as the bedrock. Also a cliffhanger that made me almost rue the fact that it was a night of just watching the one episode, not a double-bill, for once.
The previouslies had suggested who we’d be seeing (if we’re cycling through all the Bartlet daughters, I’ll be expecting Zoey to return soon), and that weird little flashforward at the start of the season had tipped us off that CJ and Danny would reconnect. We were reminded of how they worked, and didn’t (because being a chief of staff is what does CJ does now, and she was being very much a chief of staff to the waitress, having been in post for quite a while.) Both were awkward and falling into the old rhythm that had more to do with work, although Danny wasn’t entirely going out on a limb with trying to make it a date. But he dropped the bombshell about the rumours about Doug, Liz’s husband and the President’s son-in-law, and lost the attention of CJ the woman to the concerns of the chief of staff…
Those rumours would be discussed in slightly dated language and a slightly dated way. Will ogling over the picture of the nanny (who we never saw) was unedifying, while, although it was fun to see Kate respond to it like a hot bit of gossip, the way she talked about all this from a woman’s perspective was verging on caricature. (Malina pointed out that this spoke to Will and Kate’s compatibility, though.) And although there was a bit of loyalty to Liz, CJ was mainly looking at it from the perspective of protecting the President. I liked that one of the reasons she asked Will to look into it was because he had made contacts in New Hampshire during the Democratic primaries.
Danny had also dared her to do something with her remaining time in the White House, and it was diplomacy to try to do something to avert genocide in Sudan (where there is still so much bloodshed today, even if other areas are higher up the news agenda and the word ‘genocide’ is being used about them too.) She sketched out a plan with Kate, didn’t get Bartlet’s agreement, got lectured by a guy from a refugee charity, but used the Khazakstan thing to lean on the Chinese. The conversation with that ambassador was dense and interesting, although I was bringing nearly two decades of ‘what happened next’ to it. And it was all pretty grubby for a small win, maybe.
(I was impressed with Janney and CJ’s ability to sit and stand gracefully in her skirt. See also the fish rescue!)
Josh was in town, being a pain about an announcement that he was sure was coming to Texas, which would help Santos, while CJ had agreed to hold the announcement until after the election for someone else. He got his way, partly assisted by the fact that it was increasingly clear that the rumour was true, Doug Westen had slept with the nanny, and CJ did not need the President to be anywhere around when that story broke. And the story was only of national interest because of Doug’s connection to Bartlet.
CJ was great in the interviews with a cowed Doug and an angry Liz, and actually seeing all the grief that she was going through to do her high-wire job (mostly well) made CJ so, so sympathetic. Of course, we didn’t see her tell Bartlet about Doug’s infidelity before the news broke. So, she kind of needed a date that she knew was a date, with someone who could still see the person doing the job but deal in truth. Alas, poor Danny, he put his heart on the line and never got an answer, although given CJ’s job and reaction, it was always likely what she was being paged about was Very Serious, and he knew it. I’m not sure if I buy that writing a tawdry story about Doug was the final straw for Danny the journalist, although he was pitching it as a midlife thing and I do buy that being with CJ is a prize worth changing your life for. Kudos to Brad Whitford as the writer (interesting that he cited Sorkin a lot as an inspiration), and it’s a shame we haven’t seen more of his screenwriting in addition to his acting since.
