Entry 032 - The West Wing 104 (Five Votes Down)
In which governing is choosing
SERIES: The West Wing
EPISODE NUMBER: 104
TITLE: Five Votes Down
PREMIERE: 13 Oct 1999
WRITING CREDITS: Aaron Sorkin (teleplay), Lawrence O’Donnell Jr. & Patrick Caddell (story)
DIRECTOR: Michael Lehmann
DRAFT SCRIPT: PDF
Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to introduce you to one of the most ominous screenplay production notes ever written and published:
Important Note: This draft contains language which is obviously unsuitable for network broadcast. It is intended only for the use of the director, producers, cast, crew and [sic] staff of The West Wing. Any and all inappropriate language will be altered or deleted prior to photography.
Truth be told, this production note seems a bit much to me, considering the “language” it references — but better safe than sorry when dealing with network goons, I suppose. I’ll leave it to the reader whether they think it necessary when we get there. In the meantime:
LEO: (V.O.) Previously on The West Wing…
Let’s get into it.
BARTLET: One night, he went in and set the briefcase down and he said, “Bess, why do you suppose it is only sonsabitches know how to lick a stamp?”
I went on a journey and could not for the life of me find a first-hand source indicating Harry Truman actually asked this question of his wife. Everything I found was either an apocryphal-style quotation (akin to Abraham Lincoln telling you not to trust anything written on the internet) or a citation of this episode. If anyone has anything better to offer, do please leave a comment.
BARTLET: The point is, friends, you gotta write a letter, you gotta to send a fax, you gotta to pick up a phone and call Western Union.
So thrown off was I by the Western Union reference here that I had to look it up, and as it turns out Western Union was still in the communications game until 2006. I am such a whippersnapper…
LEO: We lost five votes.
JOSH: What?
LEO: We lost five votes.
JOSH: Give me names.
LEO: I don’t got them yet. Get on the phone.
What? How do you not have names yet? Surely the guy who called you with the nose count in the first place would have had some names on hand, no? Sounds to me like you need a new liaison to the whip’s office.
BARTLET: You know, I had a civil procedure professor who said once…
TOBY: Take a beat. (beat) There you go.
How much should I bet what Toby did here was what a certain writer did on a movie set?
Alright, folks, it’s time to go on a journey! I got a timestamp of 2:47 on my video player, let’s go!
C.J.: Sam, nice going.
SAM: Thank you. (indicates TOBY) Tell him.
C.J.: Why?
SAM: Well —
TOBY: Because Sam wrote two and a half paragraphs and I wrote 37 pages.
C.J.: Still…
TOBY: He blew the D section.
C.J.: I thought it was inspired.
“Cut! Roll it back, Janney said ‘inspired’ instead of ‘lovely’ again.”
TOBY: Why do you keep saying stuff like that to me?
C.J.: Just to watch your face turn that color.
Is that the same sort of thing as how Adam Savage can tell the mood of Jamie Hyneman by the color of his head?
JOSH: We lost five.
C.J.: What do you mean?
JOSH: 802 — five votes jumped the fence.
Yet again, we’re treated to deliberately unspecific jargon — “802” — though in this case we’ll come to learn the jargon refers to an actual centerpiece to the plot. For now, though, “802” hits the ear much like “A3C3” in previous episodes.
Also, pay no attention to the camera guy visible in a reflection off the fridges…
SAM: “Happy Days Are Here Again”?
MANDY: He likes it.
SAM: Who?
MANDY: The President.
SAM: We try to avoid having the President make aesthetic decisions.
Airdate: 13 Oct 1999 — the Kennedy Center would like a word…
TOBY: Couldn’t help but notice you got a little extemporaneous there in the D section.
BARTLET: Oh, you noticed that, did you?
TOBY: Yes, sir, I did.
BARTLET: Yes — I did a little polish right up there on my feet.
TOBY: Yes, indeed.
BARTLET: Right in front of everybody. (beat) I looked to the side at one point, you know, I half expected to see you coming at me with a salad fork.
TOBY: Well, but for the Secret Service agents restraining me, sir…
BARTLET: Yeah — thank god for the Secret Service.
TOBY: Bless their hearts…
Man, I’ve watched this show many times and it’s just now hitting me how comfortable this camaraderie between the President and Toby is early on — we heard last episode how Toby actually dined with the President, now we see them talking casually with each other about one’s contemplating threatening the other’s life. I suppose this level of comfort could theoretically be considered a continuity error, now that I think about it, but I’ll leave that topic for when it’s more relevant.
BARTLET: Hey there, fella — she deserves a nice room and some supper!
TOBY: You like doing that, don’t you, sir?
BARTLET: Yeah.
(TOBY laughs)
Oh, yes, please, give me more of Richard Schiff’s musical laugh.
BARTLET: What’d you think of the speech?
CHARLIE: Me?
BARTLET: Yes, you.
CHARLIE: Uh, I thought it was —
TOBY: He means the text of the speech, Charlie, discounting the little improv in the D section.
BARTLET: I mean the entire speech, Charlie, and in particular the delivery.
CHARLIE: I thought it was excellent.
BARTLET: (simultaneously) [See?]
TOBY: (simultaneously) [See?] (laughs)
BARTLET: See, I think what Charlie’s trying to say is that in this case, the singer outdistanced the song.
TOBY: Really? Well, what I heard Charlie say was that the text was user-proof, although you did you level best to disprove that in the D section.
I cannot for the life of me determine whose side Mr. Sorkin is taking in this argument — which really says something in and of itself about his writing!
BARTLET: You’re what my mother calls a pain in the ass.
TOBY: Well, that’s what my mother calls it too, sir.
Hold up — your mother openly calls you a pain in the ass, Toby? Not something more polite, like a “pill”? Heck of a family Toby must have…
(somewhat noticeable pause)
CHARLIE: Oh, Mr. President.
BARTLET: Yes, Charlie — by the way, did the First Lady call?
CHARLIE: The First Lady called at 8:40, sir.
No, Dulé Hill did not nearly ruin the take — this exchange is pretty much how it was written, aside from Martin Sheen slightly rewriting his line on the fly the way he likes to do: Charlie calls out to the President, then the President asks if his wife called. The pause beforehand makes the exchange seem a little awkward, but the exchange is intentional — and for what it’s worth, as originally written the scene was projected to reach the outdoors by the time Charlie starts the exchange, which may have contributed to the awkwardness.
CHARLIE: Mrs. Bartlet seemed quite adamant. I’d describe her tone as being —
BARTLET: You don’t have to describe her tone to me, Charlie. I’ve been married to it for 32 years.
“Cut! Come on, Martin, you know it says ‘28’ in the script!”
NEW Dialogue Motif: It helps not to know me/him
GROUPIES: We love you, Josh!
JOSH: Thanks!
C.J.: It helps not to know him!
AGENT: Here we go, move it out!
Imagine if that Service Service agent had flubbed his line at the last moment. … Oh, who am I kidding, they would have just ADR’d the line if that happened.
… In fact, now that I’m watching it… is that ADR’d?
Alright, I have a timestamp of 5:46 on my video player — almost three minutes of one continuous shot! Having a stage playwright in television makes for some glorious cinematography.
NEW Dialogue Motif: Here it comes
MANDY: C.J., you have got to try this.
C.J.: Oh, thanks — try some of this.
TOBY: (to himself) Here it comes.
…
MANDY: (to TOBY) Wanna try the spicy crispy beef?
TOBY: I’m really very happy with the food that I’ve got.
Toby is rightfully defending himself against the spread of disease through food sharing — good on you, my guy.
RETURNING Sorkin Name: Chris
Previous instances: Sports Night (recurring); The West Wing (recurring)
C.J.: Botrell?
LEO: It’s not Botrell. I’ve only got two, but Botrell isn’t one of them — Katzenmoyer and Wick.
…
JOSH: Everyone’s someplace else. All I got was O’Bannon.
LEO: I didn’t get O’Bannon. That’s three.
JOSH: Who’d you get?
SAM: Katzenmoyer and Christopher Wick.
JOSH: Chris Wick?
The name porn for this episode begins — and unlike last episode with Cashman and Berryhill, the length of the song increases over the course of the episode, as we’ll see later.
LEO: The President just told a ballroom full of people and anyone who reads a newspaper that we’re gonna pass 802 on Wednesday. We’ve got a 72-hour fight.
TOBY: How do we do that without making noise?
MANDY: What do we care about noise?
LEO: There are two things in the world you never wanna let people see how you make ‘em — laws and sausages.
Honestly, this analogy has probably come to bite this country in the ass — because people don’t get a good look at how laws are actually made (rather than just the 10000ft view of Schoolhouse Rock) we’ve ended up with a bunch of people getting elected to high office who have no fucking clue what they are doing. Some honest Congressperson could do a lot of good by publishing a day-to-day play-by-play online, and probably would gain a massive following in doing so.
… That’ll have to wait until we have a functioning government again, of course…
C.J.: Financial disclosures.
TOBY: That time again?
C.J.: It’s that time again.
JOSH: What are you worth there, Toby?
TOBY: (beat) Well, I own this tuxedo, and I’ve got twenty-three bucks in my pocket.
Write down the exact date and time you said that, Toby.foreshadowing detected
MANDY: That’s good.
LEO: Financial disclosure it is.
MANDY: No, I mean, that’s good.
JOSH: She’s right.
Cut between draft script and episode is Josh qualifying his agreement with “words you won’t hear come out of my mouth too often”. A little heavy-handed, if you ask me, so I don’t miss it.
SAM: Katzenmoyer and O’Bannon I buy. I’m going to guess the other two are Tillinghouse and LeBrandt. That’s what we’re going to hear tomorrow. Now, the two of them are going to vote together on this, so we’re really only going to need to get to one, and whether it’s Tillinghouse or LeBrandt — and it should be Tillinghouse — we’re gonna need help.
JOSH: Yeah.
LEO: (beat) Who?
SAM: You’re not going to like it.
LEO: Who?
SAM: The Vice President.
LEO: No way.
JOSH: Leo —
LEO: No way.
JOSH: Tillinghouse and the Vice —
LEO: I’m not using Hoynes.
We have continuity from two episodes ago where Leo clearly has some underlying distrust of the Vice President — or, as we’ve once again seen a White House staffer refer to him, “Hoynes”, indicating Leo and Josh have similar feelings and/or familiarity with the Vice President in some capacity. Unlike last time, however, we’ve already had it established that Leo was at least previously friendly with the Vice President, though in something of a throw-away capacity in the form of idle small-talk before Leo starts ripping into the Vice President about blowing off C.J.
LEO: Toby, Sam, beautiful work.
SAM: Thank you.
TOBY: (points chopsticks at SAM) Two and a half paragraphs. (points at himself) Thirty-seven pages.
Cut after this moment from the draft script is Mandy continuing with demanding everyone try each other’s food, to which Toby responds by confiscating her fork. The joke honestly already felt overdone as is, so I don’t mind the cut.
JENNY: Where’ve you been?
A trio of lines at the start of this scene got cut in which Leo indicates he didn’t mean to wake her and tells her she should go back to sleep after she says she heard the car pull up. I suppose the episode was long on time and needed some nip-and-tuck, because the intro seems perfectly harmless to me.
RETURNING Sorkin Name: Jennifer/Jenny
Previous instances: Sports Night 114; The West Wing 101
LEO: We’re five votes short on 802.
JENNY: And what could you possibly do about that at two o’clock in the morning that you can’t do during normal business hours?
LEO: I can do things, Jenny. I wake people up. I meet with key staff. It’s a long [work —]
JENNY: [Leo]… (beat) come to bed.
Now what got cut here I don’t consider harmless: in the draft script, Jenny responds to Leo’s insistence on the things he can do with a retort that she’s Associate Director of the American Red Cross — “don’t talk to me like I spend my days eating bon-bons,” she continues. This cut ends up draining a later moment of a good deal of color, which I’ll explain when we get there.
LEO: What’s this?
JENNY: (sighs) It’s a wristwatch.
LEO: (beat) For me?
JENNY: Yes.
LEO: From you?
JENNY: Yeah.
LEO: For what?
I must not pull out my engraving software, I must not pull out my engraving software, I must not pull out my engraving software…
JENNY: Our anniversary.
… Oops.
TOBY: I’m a total novice at this.
LEELA: Toby —
TOBY: I have never owned a share of stock until last year.
LEELA: What make you buy the stock?
TOBY: I use the website, I like the company.
LEELA: Five thousand dollars worth?
TOBY: That’s right.
You spend five thousand dollars on a website?! I know this episode takes place in the midst of the dot-com bubble, but even so that sounds utterly ridiculous! “Total novice”, indeed…
TOBY: Leela, I’ve got 48 hours to a crucial floor vote. Is there any [way that —]
LEELA: [Toby…]
Strangely, this line from Toby got expanded from how it is in the draft script — in the draft, Toby is only able to get out Leela’s name before she interrupts him. So much for my nip-and-tuck theory earlier…
Side note — we have another instance of a character’s receiving a surname in a script but never getting it spoken aloud. The draft script refers to Leela as Leela Radner. Any relation?
RETURNING Sorkin Name: Ted
Previous instance: Sports Night 102
LEELA: … you’re the one who arranged for McGregor to testify in front of Commerce in the first place.
TOBY: I grew up on the same block as Ted McGregor, he’s very well respected.
LEELA: No, I understand — but market analysts widely attribute the jump in technology stocks to the testimony of, among others, your boyhood friend.
We went from McGregor’s being a college roommate in the draft script to his growing up on the same block as Toby — and that can’t be chalked up to Richard Schiff’s botching the line, either, since Leela’s follow-up is similarly changed for a separate shot. I don’t really know what to make of that change, to be honest — maybe Mr. Sorkin thought “college roommate” was musically clunky?
LEELA: Are you telling me you didn’t know what he was going to say to the committee?
TOBY: I’m telling you that not only didn’t I know what he was going to say to the committee, not only didn’t I care what he was going to say to the committee, but if he had sat in my office while I typed up his testimony for him, (raising his voice) I wouldn’t have understood what he was going to say to the committee!
One of these days, I’m going to give the bass section of the chorus I’m in a lecture on how to sing the way Richard Schiff talks, I swear to crap…
SAM: Votes are expensive. O’Bannon’s going to want the farm subsidies revisited; Katzenmoyer’s gonna go back to federal tax-exempt for MetroLink; we’re talking about unions, defense contracts, possibly agency appointments…
There’s really something kind of freakish about you, you know that?foreshadowing detected
JOSH: Sam, L.B.J. never would’ve taken this kind of crap from Democrats in Congress. He’s have said, “You’re voting my way, in exchange for which it is possible that I might remember your name, pal.” We need to win, and I mean win.
I’ve transcribed the above with the sentence structure used in the draft script, but to be honest, with the way the line is spoken, it’s not entirely clear to me if Josh intended the ‘pal’ to be included as part of the quote or to qualify the “we need to win” following it. I’m a little curious as to why a better take wasn’t demanded for this line.
Also, I suppose it should be noted it’s quite interesting how LBJ is used as the example for Josh’s point, considering the President-Vice President relationship in this show is purportedly modelled after LBJ’s relationship with JFK during the latter’s presidency. Perhaps the moment is intended as a subtle bit of foreshadowing in that regard — definitely in the short term with this episode if so, and arguably also in the long term in a considerably darker context.
SAM: And Chris Wick?
JOSH: Chris Wick, I own his ass.
Josh’s line here? Not in the draft script! The addition almost certainly covers for their arriving at the next scene later than originally expected. Whether the line was written for him or if Mr. Whitford improvised it is an open question for me — I could see it either way.
DONNA: You won our award for Best Gift Valued Over $25 on the Financial Disclosure Report.
JOSH: Really?
DONNA: Yeah.
JOSH: What won it for me?
DONNA: The eleven hundred and eighty-nine dollar Vianatelli silk smoking jacket from Miss Sarah Wissinger.
JOSH: Ah, yes.
DONNA: You’re also the runner up, by the way, with the $345 dollar antique scrimshaw cigarette holder, also from Miss Sarah Wissinger.
Vianatelli does not appear to be an actual brand of silk or smoking jackets, so the word choices for the descriptions of these gifts are definitely purely for the music — and I’m all for it, with how well Ms. Moloney rolls with the music.
JOSH: Alright, this was fun, but Sam and I are busy making critical decisions, and I’m sure you have a lot of typing to do…
What the fuck, Josh?! You sure you want to trot out that casual bit of sexism there?
SAM: Where are you going?
JOSH: Where are you going?
SAM: I was following you.
JOSH: I was following you. (beat) Alright, don’t tell anyone this happened, okay?
Are we sure we want to lampshade our walk-and-talk habit this hard this early into the series? I would think you’d want to wait until the series is more fully established first.
LEO: It can be Dom, it can be Cristal. She likes them both.
MARGARET: Which do you like?
WARNING: CONTINUITY ERROR DETECTED!!
I find this line from Margaret to be a very disturbing oversight, especially considering where the rest of this episode goes. There’s no way Margaret doesn’t already know Leo abstains from champagne for very good reason, why is she asking this question?
… Actually, come to think of it, what the hell is Leo’s wife doing still drinking in the presence of her husband? That seems rather thoroughly insensitive, if you ask me. Questions aplenty…
RETURNING Sorkin Name: Harry
Previous instance: The American President
LEO: Harry Winston’s sending down the choker.
MARGARET: It’ll be here this afternoon.
…
LEO: My wife’s got a great neck.
MARGARET: This will certainly call attention to it.
LEO: Would you stop?
MARGARET: You spend too much money.
RETURNING Dialogue Motif: Any ten people I know
Previous instance: Sports Night 114
LEO: And you can squeeze the life out of a nickel better than any ten people I know.
MARGARET: Well, excuse me for not having made forty thousand a pop on the lecture circuit.
Forty thousand dollars for a single lecture? No way that’s a real figure, right? Leo only just became the White House Chief of Staff earlier this year, it’s not like he’s on the level with real-life guest lecturers like Hillary Clinton.
LEO: Josh, do women like violinists?
JOSH: You thinking about taking lessons?
LEO: No, I mean to listen to next to the table.
…
JOSH: Is it Jenny’s birthday?
LEO: I forgot our anniversary.
JOSH: In that case, I’d shift into gear and bring on the Julliard String Quartet.
“I hear they’re available for weddings as well.”foreshadowing detected
LEO: You want to dangle his job in front of him?
…
JOSH: I wanna let him hear the branch creak.
LEO: We do that, it doesn’t work, we can’t do it again.
JOSH: If it doesn’t work, I back off. If it doesn’t work, we give Katzenmoyer a MetroLink and we let O’Bannon order off the menu. If it does work, I think we get the other four votes no problem when word gets out we’re not screwing around.
LEO: (pause) I should sell tickets to this meeting.
What happened to wanting people not to see how laws are made, Leo?
KATZENMOYER: You gotta understand the people in my district, Josh.
Interesting change made here: this meeting between Josh and Katzenmoyer was originally written to take place indoors in the Congressman’s office. I suppose this is to make up for Congressman Millman’s not being able to ride the treadmill for his meeting?
RETURNING Topical Signature: Gun control
Previous instance: The American President
KATZENMOYER: The NRA makes me a target in the next election, I lose, plain and simple. Ask me two years from now, I’ll be there for you.
You’ll be in the exact same situation two years from now, what the fuck are you talking about?
JOSH: Fifty-five thousand more people will be shot and killed with guns two years from now, but that’s very much beside the point.
No, no, Josh, I think that’s exactly the point. Stuff all the statistics you got down his throat!
JOSH: You’re going to lose in the primary.
KATZENMOYER: There’s no Democrat running against me.
JOSH: Sure, there is.
KATZENMOYER: Who?
JOSH: Whomever we pick.
KATZENMOYER: (beat) You’re bluffing.
JOSH: (pause, then shrugs) Okay. (starts walking away)
Bluff success in three… two… one…
KATZENMOYER: I’m in your own party!
We got one, boys.
JOSH: Do you have any idea how much noise Air Force One makes when it lands in Eau Claire, Wisconsin? We’re going to have a party, Congressman. You should come, it’s gonna be great. And when the watermelon’s done, right in town square, right in the band gazebo — you guys got a band gazebo?
KATZENMOYER: Josh —
JOSH: Doesn’t matter, we’ll build one.
Woah, hey, Josh — money for that sort of project requires Congressional approval, my guy! I don’t think that sort of thing will pass, do you? Beside which, I would think building the gazebo specifically for the occasion would ruin the surprise.
JOSH: President Bartlet’s a good man. He’s got a good heart. He doesn’t hold a grudge. (puts on sunglasses) That’s what he pays me for.
If you listen closely, you can hear Roger Daltrey in the background.
By the way, another change between draft script and episode: this scene and the next were originally reversed from how we see them — and were both placed before the first commercial break. That shifting of scenes likely was made to compensate for another bigger change that we’ll touch on in a few moments.
SAM: A hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars?
TOBY: Could you stop saying that?!
Y’all who think I was kidding about using Richard Schiff as a voice coaching guide: I can tell you the man is not yelling here, as much as it may sound like it. That’s the power of using your head resonance space!
RETURNING Verbal Tic: To say nothing of [the fact]
Running count: 4
SAM: We’ve done nothing wrong, yet the perception of those who would choose to glance only at a snapshot would be embarrassing.
TOBY: To say nothing of damaging to the President.
SAM: Indeed!
Oh, boy…
TOBY: Why are you talking like this?
SAM: Because I can’t help but be reminded of a bright and energetic young White House deputy who took no end of admonition and grief because of a woman he was friends with.
TOBY: I totally backed you up on that!
You did? I seem to remember the sum total of what you did for Sam being (unsuccessfully) pass-blocking the information from C.J. Did something happen off-screen to which the audience is not privy?
SAM: Who else knows about this?
TOBY: Anyone who saw the report.
SAM: Everybody has the report, but you really have to study it to [have any sense —]
C.J.: (arrives at doorway) [Excuse me], Toby? I was heading out for lunch and I’m a little short. You wouldn’t happen to have (dissolving into laughter) $125,000 I could borrow, would you?
Bring me the finest continuous Gilligan cut in all the land.
SAM: I got your back on this, buddy.
TOBY: I am so… completely screwed.
Wow, Toby, way to express having no confidence in your deputy at all…
Alright, with this scene and the previous scene stuffed before the commercial break, the draft script for top of Act II instead has a scene with… Sam and Laurie eating sandwiches with each other! The scene is placed with them sitting under a tree rather than in a restaurant, but the flow is nonetheless familiar: Sam attempts to tell Laurie some about his day — in this case, expressing concern about Josh’s strategy — which Laurie attempts to ignore in order to study for con law. If you’re getting a sense of déjà vu, that’s because the scene as cut will make an only slightly altered appearance in a later episode — keep count on how many episodes later.
C.J.: A $145 Armani cravat, which I’m pretty sure is a necktie — it was a gift from his brother-in-law. He gave it away to the Salvation Army, information I’m sure the President would prefer his brother-in-law did not have.
I’ll say — I’d be mad as well if I heard someone in my immediate family willingly gave something to that piece of shit, gay-bashing organization.
REPORTER: C.J., I’m curious with [sic] the President’s farm in Manchester. The property value increased seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars. What’s that due to?
C.J.: Secret Service improvements.
REPORTER: Can you go into detail, please?
C.J.: The property now includes a helipad and the ability to run a global war from the sun porch.
(the press laughs)
Good, they took that as a joke even though it’s entirely possible it’s true.
JOSH: I got Katzenmoyer.
C.J.: He’s back?
JOSH: Along with O’Bannon and LeBrandt.
Oh, okay, looks like Josh did some work off-screen. I suppose it would have been too much to show every single Congressperson’s flipping, but considering how little time seems to have passed it does make for a stretch in believability that Josh personally hit every single one. The American President showed a tag team of Lewis and Leon talking to Congresspeople and their staff about getting their gun bill across the finish line, so Josh’s going it seemingly alone is technically a bit of a downgrade.
Also! Season 1 briefing room location entry #2: upstage right (relative to lobby entrance) — that ain’t the same as last time!
DONNA: Congressman Wick is waiting in the Mural Room.
JOSH: I know.
DONNA: He’s been waiting twenty minutes.
JOSH: I know.
DONNA: You have a legislative liaison meeting in fifteen minutes.
JOSH: I know.
DONNA: And then the East Asia briefing.
JOSH: I know.
DONNA: Alright, well, then this entire conversation served only as a reminder.
“I know.”
JOSH: Actually, it only served as a colossal waste of time and energy.
Ope, sorry, the repetition ended there, my bad.
JOSH: Congressman!
WICK: Dude!
Oh, dear…
JOSH: Shove it, “dude”, we’re not in a frat house anymore.
Ah, okay, these two have a past!foreshadowing detected No wonder Josh thinks he “owns his ass”…
JOSH: You know, I realize as an adult not everyone shares my view of the world, and with an issue as hot as gun control I’m prepared to accept a lot of different points of view as being perfectly valid, but we can all get together on the grenade launcher, right?
Recent sources point to no, somehow.
JOSH: I put you in your seat. I got you elected to the House of Representatives.
WICK: Yeah, and now you guys think I’m on a leash.
I’m sorry? You’re refusing to do your job of serving your consistuents because you think it would serve to belittle you? What fantasy world are you living in, “dude”?
JOSH: You’re voting down a measure that would restrict the sale of deadly weapons because nobody invited you to the cool kids’ table?
WICK: (beat) Got your attention.
JOSH: (beat) You know, I’m so sick of Congress I could vomit.
Preach it, brother.
JOSH: What do you want?
WICK: Round of golf.
JOSH: The President doesn’t play golf.
Oh, thank fuck — I’ve had enough of presidents’ playing that environmental abomination of a sport already, I’m happy to see a president who doesn’t play it… even if the president is fictional.
JOSH: Chris, you’re a Congressman. You gotta make that real. This time it was me in the Mural Room. Trust me when I tell you, you do not want to have this conversation with the guy who works next door.
“It was at this moment that he knew… he fucked up.”
JOSH: You guys take care.
“Cut! Roll it back, Brad, the line is, ‘you can go back in now.’”
SAM: Excellent choice, my friend.
LEO: Stop looking at me like that, you’re talking about Jenny.
Hey, look at that, continuity from the pilot!
SAM: Yeah, my point being only th-that it should flatter her neck in ways that should please you.
Another toe jam connoisseur, I see…
JOSH: This needs a Texan.
LEO: I had a different idea.
JOSH: What?
LEO: I go to Richardson.
MANDY: We’ve already been through this with Richardson.
JOSH: The entire caucus — let’s not get ‘em any more pissed off at us than they are already.
Strangely, this lack of specificity from Josh appears to be either a mistake or a change between draft script and shoot — as written in the draft, Josh specifically says “the entire Congressional Black Caucus” rather than just “the entire caucus”. I’m on the fence as to whether the ambiguity better serves the situation, to be honest — I’ll leave that exercise to the reader.
RETURNING Sorkin Name: Mark
Previous instance: Sports Night 103
LEO: I need to see Mark Richardson out of the office.
SAM: (indicated the choker) You know, Toby, you could afford to buy one of those now if you want.
TOBY: There’s literally no one in the world that I don’t hate right now.
(everyone else chuckles)
Man, y’all have the sensitivity of a pile of bricks. Why in the world are you laughing at that?
RETURNING Sorkin Player: Thom Barry
Character: Mark Richardson
Previous appearance: The American President
RICHARDSON: Let me guess — Josh got Katzenmoyer and the rest of ‘em back in the boat. You came to me instead of Tillinghouse because you don’t wanna use Hoynes.
Again with people referring to the Vice President as simply “Hoynes”! No one in the White House lets anyone get away with an unqualified “Bartlet”, but the Vice President doesn’t get the same courtesy. Something’s rotten in the District of Columbia.
RETURNING Verbal Tic: And you know it
Running count: 3
RICHARDSON: I’m voting no, Leo.
LEO: Mark, it’s all we could get right now and you know it.
RICHARDSON: You didn’t work hard enough.
…
LEO: We have to do this inch by inch.
Indeed — as I personally like to say, all lasting change is gradual. If a change seems sudden, either it happened gradually and no one noticed until now, or it won’t last. The trick, of course, is figuring out how to the tell the difference — still working that one out on my end.
NEW Dialogue Motif: If not X, it doesn’t matter what’s second
LEO: Guns are number one on my list of priorities and I’ve never moved the President off of that.
RICHARDSON: No, keeping the White House strong is number one on your list of priorities.
LEO: If the White House isn’t strong, it doesn’t really matter what number two on my list is.
“… and I can’t believe I still have to explain that to people.”foreshadowing detected
LEO: God, Mark, the bodies being wheeled into the emergency rooms are Black. These guns aren’t going to Scottsdale, Mark, they’re going to Detroit, they’re going to Philadelphia. An entire generation of African American men are being eaten alive by drugs and poverty.
RICHARDSON: Well, I’m encouraged to hear the White House has discovered there’s a drug problem in this country. I mean, your penetrating insight is matched only by the courage displayed in the authorship of this bill.
Ouch…
Side note: as written in the draft script, Leo’s overheating line here starts with “Jesus Christ” rather than “God”. Is that perhaps part of what prompted the “important note” at the top of the draft? Given what we hear much later down the line, it’s entirely possible the network prompted that change, but if that were the case then I would think the “important note” wouldn’t have been written in the first place. I’m probably reading too much into this change…
RICHARDSON: Not the three-inch grip, but the two-inch grip, with the forty-gauge barrel, and the thirty round clip, not the twenty round clip, with a three day wait to run a check to see if you’re crazy — as if wanting the gun wasn’t a pretty good heads up in the first place.
Preach it, brother! Some people forget the second amendment was written back when guns had to be manually reloaded with shot and powder after every fire. If you’re needing to fire faster than that, then something is fucking wrong with you — there’s no getting around saying that without lying in some capacity.
RETURNING Verbal Tic: To say nothing of [the fact]
Running count: 5
RICHARDSON: … I think it’s an unconscionable waste of the taxpayers’ money to have it printed, signed, and photocopied, to say nothing of enforced. No, I want the guns, Leo.
Fuck you for saying that last sentence out loud.
RETURNING Plot Bunny: Black faux pas
Previous instances: Sports Night 102, 111
RICHARDSON: You write a law that can save some lives, I’ll sign it. In the meantime, please don’t tell me how to be a leader of Black men. You look like an idiot.
JOSH: What happened? (listens, then sighs)
MANDY: That’s it, he needs to talk to Hoynes. We’ll set up a meeting.
JOSH: Yeah, Leo, we’re going to set up a meeting for you with the Vice President.
Wait, what? Why are you setting up the meeting? Shouldn’t you be calling Margaret to set up the meeting instead? Or is the ‘we’ in the wholly collective sense rather than the royal?
LEO: I’m sorry about the anniversary. I just [have work —]
JENNY: [It’s not the] anniversary, it’s everything, it’s the whole thing.
LEO: (beat) This is the most important thing I’ll ever do, Jenny. I have to do it well.
JENNY: It’s not more important than your marriage.
LEO: (beat) It is more important than my marriage right now. These few years while I’m doing this, yes, it’s more important than my marriage!
Alright, here’s where the lack of Red Cross context for Jenny comes to roost: without that context, Jenny comes off as a lot more selfish than I think was intended. With that context, we could at least get the sense of a working woman of arguably equal stature to her husband who is looking to prioritize their marriage alongside their jobs. Losing that particularly sours Jenny’s response to Leo’s affirmation that his work is important — which, let’s be honest, what the hell made her think he wouldn’t answer that way? He’s literally working as the right-hand man to the most powerful person in the country, there’s no way any marriage could be more important than doing that well.
LEO: I’m five votes down, Jenny, and I need to win. I met with the staff —
JENNY: You made the time.
LEO: (beat) I made the time tonight.
JENNY: You didn’t make the time tonight.
LEO: I hired a whole —
JENNY: Margaret phoned to confirm your nine o’clock meeting with the Vice President.
LEO: (beat) I was going to slip out for 45 minutes…
Oh, boy — honestly, I’d say Josh is to blame for this moment. Josh already knew about Leo’s plans to make up with his wife that evening, yet still he had the meeting scheduled on top of it. Shame on you, man.
JENNY: I have to go now.
LEO: Okay.
JENNY: (beat) I’ll be at the Watergate.
LEO: Okay.
JENNY: And I’ll… talk to you later.
LEO: You’ll call me?
JENNY: Yeah.
LEO: Y-you want me to carry that to the cab?
JENNY: (beat) It’s okay.
LEO: (beat) Call me before you go to sleep.
Holy shit, man, I can feel those tears through the screen.
JANEANE: Excuse me, sir, Leo McGarry’s here.
More cuts between draft script and episode — here, the draft has the Vice President flirting with his assistant:
DRAFT JANEANE: Sir…
DRAFT HOYNES: Janeane, did you know there’s a town in Iowa with 843 residents, each and every one of whom are named ‘Miller’?
DRAFT JANEANE: (smiling) I didn’t know that.
DRAFT HOYNES: How do you suppose they get their mail delivered?
DRAFT JANEANE: (very good at flirting) I don’t know.
No, I’m not kidding, that’s the actual parenthetical for that last line in the draft. You may recall the concern about the many Millers of Iowa was previously present in the original pilot script for The West Wing, so it’s been twice now we’ve been denied this factoid. Whenever shall we finally hear it?
LEO: I came in to talk to you about 802. We lost five votes.
HOYNES: I know.
LEO: We got four of them back, but, uh… I was stupid with Richardson, and now it’s Tillinghouse, so I wanted to talk to you about that and —
HOYNES: Leo, are you feeling okay? Sit down.
You know, it’s easy to forget with how adversarial the Vice President has been set up to be up to this point that he and Leo clearly have a past friendship of some sort, and this moment shows the Vice President to have some actual concern for Leo’s well-being. I suppose you could say he had an ulterior motive, but the way the moment plays I don’t know if I necessarily buy that.
LEO: If I could just have a glass of water.
What about fruit juice?foreshadowing detected
HOYNES: Janeane, could you get me a glass of ice water, please?
Cut from the draft is Janeane offering to call for a doctor — that would have been an over-the-top ask, if you ask me, so I don’t miss that.
LEO: Anyway —
HOYNES: I’ll see Tillinghouse.
LEO: Yeah?
HOYNES: I’ll see him tomorrow morning.
LEO: You’ll deliver him?
HOYNES: It’s a done deal.
Okay, if you told me at this moment that the Vice President has an ulterior motive, I’d believe you. Still, at the moment of genuine concern earlier I don’t think it had crossed his mind yet — he just saw the opportunity at this moment and took it.
HOYNES: When was the last time you went to a meeting?
LEO: A.A.?
“Cut! You’re not supposed to say ‘A.A.’ explicitly, John, only — well, actually, keep it, I think you just gave me an idea…“foreshadowing detected
LEO: What meeting could I possibly go to?
HOYNES: Mine.
LEO: (beat) John, tell me you are not showing [your face at a —]
HOYNES: [Leo, I have got] my own meeting — every week, the downstairs office here at the OEOB at 11pm. There are nine of us — three senators, two cabinet secretaries, one federal judge, and two agency directors. There’s an agent outside, the whole thing looks like a card game.
That’s… actually a good idea, having a private A.A. meeting setup for elected officials away from the public eye. I wouldn’t be surprised if that were something that’s actually done in real life — in fact, I desperately hope it is a thing.
HOYNES: Are you driving?
LEO: Uh, no, I’ve got my guy.
Your “guy”? Who is this guy and why do we never see him?
RETURNING Verbal Tic: How ya doin’
Running count: 22
MANDY: Hi, there.
JOSH: How ya doin’?
MANDY: Sarah Wissinger?
JOSH: Yes — a smoking jacket and a cigarette holder, both declared items. I am clean as a whistle.
MANDY: You received these gifts on July 3rd.
JOSH: I’m sensing trouble, but I [can’t quite think —]
MANDY: [You and I didn’t] break up until July 9th.
Hold on… July of this year? You’ve been a partner at Lennox-Chase up until about a month ago. You mean to tell me you and Josh were having a long-distance relationship for most of that time? That doesn’t seem like Josh to me. Are these financial disclosure reports done for the past two years, perhaps? That would make Mandy’s timeline make more sense, but not having the disclosures be annual would be strange. (sigh) Don’t think about it too hard…
JOSH: Hey.
TOBY: What’s going on?
Cut before this moment is a short exchange among the already present trio before Josh arrives:
DRAFT C.J.: What if he came clean and fessed-up [sic]?
DRAFT TOBY: Fessed-up [sic] to what?
DRAFT C.J.: Your whole nefarious life of crime.
DRAFT SAM: You think the press’d take pity on him?
DRAFT C.J.: They would if he sang a little number.
“As long as the number wasn’t from Sweeney Todd.”
C.J.: Leo, how’d it go?
LEO: What do you mean?
JOSH: Last night.
LEO: (beat) Oh, uh, great.
C.J.: She like the choker?
LEO: Yeah.
JOSH: And the violinist?
LEO: Uh, y-you’re right, after a couple of minutes it’s strange having him there, but, uh, you know, um… she ate it up, so…
Here we see a career politician gets in his lying practice.
NEW Plot Bunny: The Stoner Mix™
BARTLET: Hey!
LEO: Mr. President — I thought you were staying in bed.
BARTLET: Oh, I feel fine.
LEO: Uh, maybe you should get back to the residence.
BARTLET: (pause) Hmm?
…
C.J.: Mr. President, did you by any chance take your back pills?
BARTLET: Well, I don’t mind telling you, C.J., I was in a little pain there.
LEO: Which did you take, sir, the Vicodin or the Percocet?
BARTLET: (pause) I wasn’t supposed to take ‘em both?
I’m sorry? What the hell is the President’s doctor doing prescibing both painkillers to him instead of just one or the other if this could have happened? I smell a pending malpractice suit.
C.J.: Mr. President, we’re going to have someone take you back to bed.
BARTLET: No, no, no — sit, sit, sit.
Hey, Martin stuck to the script! Those are the exact numbers of ‘no’ and ‘sit’ as written! Props!
RETURNING Verbal Tic: Missed a name
Running count: 4
BARTLET: So, tell me what the problem is, Toby.
(BARTLET drops a hand on SAM’s knee, much to SAM’s surprise)
SAM: I’m Sam, sir.
BARTLET: Sam, of course you are.
(BARTLET pulls in SAM for a hug)
That hug wasn’t in the draft script, but who really gives a damn? Certainly doesn’t seem like Rob Lowe did, given his facial expressions in the moment!
TOBY: I arranged for a friend to testify to Commerce on internet stocks while simultaneously, but unrelated to that, bought a technology issue which, partly due to my friends’ testimony, shot through the roof.
BARTLET: Toby. (beat) Toby, Toby, Toby. (pause) Toby’s a nice name, don’t you think?
It sure is, sir — very musical, especially the way you just said it!
TOBY: Could we possibly do this meeting at another time?
BARTLET: No, no, no, no, no…
Ah, dang it, Martin went off script — there’s only the one ‘no’ in the draft for this line.
BARTLET: I know my body. I mean, you know, I know my muscles are not, you know, but m-my mind is sharp. I can focus, I’m focused, you all know that about me. Here’s what I think we oughta do. (long pause) Was I just saying something?
Man, Mr. Sorkin really knows how to write someone high — and Mr. Sheen definitely knows how to play it, too.
MANDY: Let’s start at the bottom.
SAM: What do you mean?
MANDY: There’s always resignation.
BARTLET: How damn, now you’re talking!
TOBY: I think she meant me, Mr. President.
BARTLET: Ah.
And might I just add, this scene is much better served by this show’s not having a laugh track! (Yes, I will keep complaining about laugh tracks until they’re no longer relevant. Get used to it.)
SAM: I got it!
MANDY: What?
SAM: Counsel’s office releases a statement though C.J. — using the strongest possible language we make it very clear that there has been no wrongdoing of any kind.
TOBY: Yes.
SAM: But to avoid even the appearance of impropriety, Toby has agreed to reduce his salary for one year to one dollar, and immediately cash out his stock issue, thereby relieving the taxpayer of the burden.
BARTLET: (clasps his hands) Done.
TOBY: Wait.
LEO: Good, Sam.
Yeah, that… actually is a pretty good idea.
TOBY: No, no, it’s not good, actually, it stinks.
Oh, lighten up, Toby, this is what you get for making poor financial decisions. Be grateful you’re cashing out before the bubble bursts.
CHARLIE: Mr. President, I left you alone for two minutes.
Two minutes? Damn, the President’s got some moves if he’s able to lose his personal aide completely in a matter of two minutes.
BARTLET: Before I go, please let me just say this. (sighs) I’m seriously thinking about getting a dog.
Nope, I don’t buy that, that’s the drugs talking. There’s absolutely no way you’re going to have the time to care for a dog while being the leader of the free world. How any president in real life has actually managed to keep a dog as a White House pet is thoroughly beyond me.
NEW Dialogue Motif: Screw with pants on
SAM: How do you feel there, big guy?
TOBY: Like I just got screwed with my pants on.
SAM: Excellent.
Ayo?
TILLINGHOUSE: Two hundred and forty million guns out there — how’re you gonna get them back?
HOYNES: You can’t.
Objection! Yes, you can! It’s called gun buyback programs! We just need infinitely more of them than we currently have!
TILLINGHOUSE: You might wanna mention to Josh Lyman that Congressmen don’t appreciate being bullied like ill-behaved school children.
HOYNES: Yes.
TILLINGHOUSE: Katzenmoyer, O’Bannon, LeBrandt, this, uh, new kid, uh, Christopher Wick — these are grown men with pride and dignity.
All evidence to the contrary…
TILLINGHOUSE: Reality is reality.
Yet another edition of Null Semantics Theatre, ladies and gentlemen!
NEW Sorkin Name: Cal
HOYNES: … I’d like very much for you to do the following, Cal — I want you to vote yes on the resolution.
TILLINGHOUSE: John?
HOYNES: And you might want to mention this conversation to Representatives Katzenmoyer, O’Bannon, LeBrandt, and Wick.
Be honest with us, Tim, how many takes did that take? We’ve seen the blooper.
TILLINGHOUSE: … why am I handing you a personal political victory?
HOYNES: Because I’m going to be President of the United States one day, and you’re not.
Now that’s an ego the size of his supposed home state!
By the way, I just gotta say this: the way this scene plays out makes me a little loathe to believe Tillinghouse was a vote they “lost” for 802. Everything he says indicates he almost certainly wasn’t going to vote for it in the first place — unlike Richardson, who actually shows interest in gun control but won’t vote for it anyway. I suppose this will just have to be another suspension-of-disbelief moment.
REPORTER: (V.O.) Mark Richardson, leader of the Congressional Black Caucus — a man, I should add, who’s seldom at a loss for words — had no comment tonight, none. You have to ask yourself, is this an intentional snub to his old friend Jed Bartlet?
This report on Mark Richardson was rewritten from how it is in the draft script — where the episode leaves a question mark on the slight against the President, in the draft it’s made explicit (through an aide) that the Congressman is letting the Vice President have his moment. A necessary change, I’d say — given he opposed the bill, it would have been strange to have him underhandedly congratulate the Vice President on his victory.
C.J.: Sorry, Leo — you saw this one coming through the Holland Tunnel.
Cut after this line is Josh offering a mea culpa:
DRAFT JOSH: It’s my fault. I pissed ‘em all off and they’re payin’ us back by giving Hoynes the curtain call.
I’m honestly a little confused as to why this line got cut, to be honest — it would have made for a nice character development beat after his song-and-dance on LBJ and his Congressional strategy.
LEO: We got what we deserved. It was hubris and we got what we deserved.
Alright, let me ask you something: why do you give a shit? A very important piece of legislation got passed that will likely save lives, why do you care who gets the credit for it? Be actual politicians in the classical sense rather than “politicians” for once, will you please?
HOYNES: Josh — nice victory.
JOSH: Are you talking about the bill or are you talking about my smoking jacket?
HOYNES: (laughs) I heard about that. No, I was talking about the bill.
JOSH: It’s a crappy law.
HOYNES: Nah.
JOSH: No, it is. I should know, I helped write it.
You did? Isn’t that supposed to be strictly the purview of the legislature? (sigh) Don’t think about it too much…
JOSH: I’d say it’s roughly the equivalent of fighting the war against tobacco by banning certain color matchbook covers.
HOYNES: (laughs) Well, these things happen slowly.
No fucking kidding! It’s been 26 years since this episode and we still don’t have proper federal gun control laws! What the fuck is taking so long?!
JOSH: I’d say you did well, sir. In fact, you might be the only one who did. I just came by to say congratulations.
Ladies and gentlemen, the moment you’ve all been waiting for — the rare Aaron Sorkin stage direction:
HOYNES looks at JOSH and smiles a little bit, admiring the deftness and courtesy with which he just told the Vice President, “Fuck You.”
Note that the precision F-strike here is present in a stage direction rather than a line — and yet, the “important note” at the top was still considered necessary. Surely the studio S&P department wouldn’t have been so jumpy as to demand that ‘fuck’ be removed immediately? I have a hard time believing they wouldn’t have been aware of the context of its placement. I think Mr. Sorkin may have been overly cautious here, personally.
NEW Dialogue Motif: “NFL” analogy
HOYNES: Josh?
JOSH: Yes, sir?
HOYNES: Welcome to the NFL.
Once again, we’re nearly a year into the administration yet its staff are still being treated like rookies. Apparently jack shit happened before the start of this series.
AGENT: Something I can help you with, Mr. McGarry?
LEO: (beat) Yeah, I’m here for the card game.
I gotta say, I’m not wild about the ‘card game’ smoke screen. For one, the cover makes out these officials to be gambling addicts rather than alcohol addicts, which is honestly probably a worse addiction to have. For two, if it’s intended more as a password than an actual cover it lacks imagination — it’s not like ‘Saggitarius’ or anything.foreshadowing detected
Okay, let’s start out this outro with what I don’t like about this episode: … uh, well, nothing actually. This episode brings forth a musical tour-de-force that also makes for a satisfying weaving of plot as well, which is an attribute Mr. Sorkin has been hit-and-miss on achieving in television. The balance of drama and humor still feels especially natural, making the gulf between having Leo nearly cry as his wife leaves him and having the President high on back medication essentially unnoticeable — a feat not many television writers can pull off well. Having seen the draft script, I still find myself wishing Jenny’s backstory hadn’t been dropped, but in the long run I suppose that won’t matter much. All in all, it’s another fantastic episode for a fantastically established series.
Also, huge props to Dave Chameides for walking backwards for three minutes straight, good lord…
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