Entry 037 - The West Wing 106 (Mr. Willis of Ohio)
In which the facts shouldn't get in the way of a good story
SERIES: The West Wing
EPISODE NUMBER: 106
TITLE: Mr. Willis of Ohio
PREMIERE: 3 Nov 1999
DIRECTOR: Christopher Misiano
It still eludes me from an execution perspective how Mr. Sorkin and Mr. Schlamme were able to pull off two television shows for two separate television networks in the same television season. Certainly there were compromises made, as evidenced by the writing credits on the last episode of Sports Night up to this point — and I suppose it’s telling that such a writing arrangement was first performed on the Sports Night side before coming up on the West Wing side (to detrimental effect… but we’ll get to that later). That isn’t to say Mr. Sorkin was working in a void for The West Wing, however — he had, for example, a consultant in Lawrence O’Donnell, Jr., who would come to understand through working this episode that being completely accurate to reality was not necessarily a top priority for Mr. Sorkin when writing. If you don’t already know what I mean, you’ll see when we get there. Let’s start going through the episode.
TOBY: (V.O.) Previously on The West Wing…
Man, could you sound any more bored saying that, Mr. Schiff?
RETURNING Plot Bunny: Poker at the office
Previous instance: Sports Night 110
RETURNING Dialogue Motif: Dave of Love™
Previous instance: Sports Night 110
C.J.: Nine, no help; Jack, no help; eight, possible flush; King, possible flush; ace, no help; six, possible straight; Dave of Love for the dealer, ace bets.
Surely your average dealer doesn’t actually make a habit of calling out possible hands as they’re dealing cards, right? That seems like activating cheat codes for people who have a hard time assessing others’ hands.
BARTLET: There is one fruit whose seeds are on the outside. Name it, please.
C.J.: Is it the kumquat?
BARTLET: (through everyone’s laughs) No.
…
BARTLET: It’s the strawberry.
(everyone assents)
TOBY: Well, thank you, sir, I just raised your bet.
BARTLET: Yes, you did, Toby — and I thought it was a bold move when you consider that Leo is holding the six you’re looking for.
Woah, hold up — is the President counting cards? How would he know Toby doesn’t have a different six for his hand? (sigh) I don’t like poker…
BARTLET: There are fourteen punctuation marks in standard English grammar.
FOURTEEN!
BARTLET: Can anyone name them, please?
C.J.: Period.
JOSH: Comma.
MANDY: Colon.
SAM: Semicolon.
JOSH: Dash…
SAM: Hyphen.
LEO: Uh… apostrophe.
BARTLET: (beat) That’s only seven, there are seven more.
TOBY: Question mark, exclamation point, quotation marks, brackets, parentheses, braces, and ellipsis.
Of course the professional writer in the room is the one to show off his command of English punctuation.
BARTLET: There are three words in the English language and three words only that begin with the letters D-W.
JOSH: This is a pretty good illustration of why we get nothing done.
Ouch — and not long after getting an incrementally important piece of gun legislation into law to boot. You really wanna call that ‘nothing’, Josh?
SAM: Three words that begin with the letters D-W.
BARTLET: Yes.
SAM: Dwindle.
BARTLET: Yes.
TOBY: Dwarf.
BARTLET: Yes.
(general mumbling)
TOBY: C’mon, Princeton, we’ve got dwindle, we’ve got dwarf.
I do belive this is the first instance of the backstory drop that Sam Seaborn went to Princeton. If you ask me, Princeton could use better representation…
BARTLET: “Witches brew a magic spell, an enchanted forest where [fairies —”]
TOBY: [Fairies] dwell, dwell, dwell! Dwindle, dwarf, and dwell.
BARTLET: Well, the answer’s correct, but let’s check with our judges and see — oh nooooo, I’m sorry, time expired.
TOBY: What, what time?
BARTLET: My time.
JOSH: You have your own time?
Yeah, didn’t you hear, Josh? He’s renaming the month of January after himself. foreshadowing detected
TOBY: Take your money, sir. (beat) You’d dwell to report that to the IRS, ‘cause god knows I will.
Er… I don’t think you’re using that word correctly, Toby.
LEO: Alright, I’m done. I’m gonna head home.
BARTLET: Kiss Jenny for me.
LEO: Yeah, I will.
Oh, okay, Leo’s continuing with the Jenny lie from two episodes ago, I see. I suppose he’s wanting to wait until it’s only him and the President in the room before he spills the beans?
JOSH: Sam, I’m going back to the office, they got the commerce report ready for me. What are you doing?
SAM: I was gonna go home.
JOSH: Sam? I’m going back to the office, they got the commerce report ready for me. What are you doing?
SAM: I’m going to go back to you office with you and make sure you understand the commerce report.
WARNING: CONTINUITY ERROR DETECTED!!
It’ll be three seasons before we see this continuity error come home to roost, but it’s a continuity error nonetheless: the implication that Sam is smarter than Josh in some capacity. That implication is directly reversed much later on, thus providing further fodder to the understanding that Mr. Sorkin had no patience for show bibles.
BARTLET: Charlie, I’m headed over to the Residence, you’re done for the night.
CHARLIE: Thank you, sir, I’m gonna stay a bit to do some paperwork.
BARTLET: Don’t stay up too late, son.
He called him “son”! I’ve literally never noticed that until now! What took me so long?!
BARTLET: What body of water in South America is formed by the confluence [of —]
TOBY: [Excuse] me, Wink Martindale? Do you really think this is the time?
For those who had to look it up like I did: Wink Martindale was a television game show host in the ’70s and ’80s, with shows like Gambit and Tic-Tac-Dough, where contestants had to answer trivia questions in order to draw cards for a blackjack hand or fill out a tic-tac-toe board, respectively.
MANDY: This is the kind of thing that didn’t used to happen at my old job.
Why does that line sound ADR’d? Surely she didn’t chunk the second half of the line when they filmed the take that was used, did she?
TOBY: Does anybody have a copy of the Constitution? (silence) This is discouraging.
You mean to tell me you don’t have your own pocket copy of the Constitution, Toby? I find that more discouraging.
BONNIE: Is it still in print?
TOBY: Oh, for crying out loud! Try Amazon-DOT-com…
“And it’s very important that you do Amazon-DOT-com, not Amazon-COLON-com or Amazon-COMMA-com — seriously, don’t do Amazon-comma-com, I’ve seen some things…”
C.J.: I’m here to see Sam.
TOBY: Go ahead.
C.J.: It’s not a big deal, I’m just, you know, here to see him about something.
TOBY: What do I care?
C.J.: Absolutely no reason that you should.
C.J.: Hey, that was all great, what you just said there.
SAM: What’d I just say?
C.J.: Not so much what you said, but the way you said it.
Aaron Sorkin in a nutshell, ladies and gentlemen!
C.J.: Did you get a haircut?
SAM: No.
C.J.: You look good today.
SAM: Thank you — you, too.
C.J.: New suit?
SAM: No.
C.J.: You look good.
SAM: Whatcha need, C.J.?
Yeah, she kinda telegraphed that, didn’t she?
SAM: You don’t understand the census.
C.J.: I don’t understand certain nuances.
SAM: Like what?
C.J.: Like, the census.
SAM: C.J., we’ve been working on this commerce bill for three weeks, I hear you talk about the census all the time.
…
C.J.: I’ve been faking it.
SAM: You’ve been faking it.
Get your mind of the gutter, dear reader.
SAM: Okay, let’s — I tell you what, let’s forget about the fact that you’re coming a little late to the party and embrace the idea that you showed up at all.
Hey, are we finally getting the “Sam stops being an asshole” arc?
RETURNING Verbal Tic: You think?
Running count: 8
SAM: You’ve been faking it?
C.J.: Yes.
SAM: The President?
C.J.: I know, I probably shouldn’t do that.
SAM: You think?
(sigh) I guess not.
DONNA: There’s a 30 billion dollar budget surplus.
JOSH: It’ll actually shake out to about 32 billion.
DONNA: Whatever.
JOSH: Well, you know what they say.
DONNA: What do they say?
JOSH: A billion dollars here, a billion dollars there, sooner or later it starts to add up to real money.
DONNA: That’s a nifty saying, Josh.
JOSH: I didn’t coin it or anything.
He’s right — though who originally coined it is a bit of a tricky question. The full quote is attributed to Everett Dirksen, a senator from Illinois from 1959-1969, but according to the Congressional research center in his name he never actually uttered those words in full. Purportedly, the man once quipped that a “newspaper fella” attributed the words to him and he never bothered to correct the record. To further complicate matters, a suspiciously similar line can be found in a 1938 issue of The New York Times: “Well, now, about this new budget. It’s a billion here and a billion there, and by and by it begins to mount up into money.” I think it’s fair to say this is one of those “fruit flies like a banana” mix-ups.foreshadowing detected
DONNA: Republicans in Congress want to use this money for tax relief, right?
JOSH: Yes.
DONNA: Essentially what they’re saying is we wanna give back the money.
JOSH: Yes.
DONNA: Why don’t we wanna give back the money?
JOSH: ‘Cause we’re Democrats.
Oof — you better come up with an argument better than that, Joshua.
LEO: Twelve million dollars to establish an Appa-lay-shin transportation institute…
“CUT! You pronounced Appalachian wrong, Johnny boy, do better next time!”
MANDY: Two million dollars for a volcano monitor in Alaska to warn passing airplanes about ash?
LEO: By the way, the FAA doesn’t know what that is.
…
MANDY: Could somebody please remind me what’s in this for us?
TOBY: Power zones, US rail, and federal funding for a hundred thousand new public school teachers.
Ah, those were the days — people clown on the concept of pork barrel spending, but honest to goodness it was basically the only reason shit got done back then. Compromise was as much a financial skill as it was a philosophical one, which resulted in considerably less hard-assery.
NEW Sorkin Name: Skinner
MANDY: We have a meeting with Gladman and Skinner, they represent two of the three swing votes on the Commerce Committee.
…
LEO: You said three swing votes — Gladman, Skinner…
TOBY: Janice Willis’s husband.
Uh oh — why is the man referred to in this way? There’s something fishy going on here…
LEO: Just don’t do anything to screw up or in any way embarrass me, okay?
JOSH: Leo, Knute Rockne — sometimes I get them mixed up.
Is it intentional or a coincidence that the name-drop is specifically for a Notre Dame football coach when the President attended Notre Dame? You decide!
BARTLET: What tripped the alarm?
RON: Well, there are alarms in the ground here, here here, here here here, and here. She tripped it here.
BARTLET: ‘She’?
Oh, dear — shall I restrain myself from ranting about how utterly garbage the “she?” question trope is? Mr. Sorkin isn’t the only writer to fall into this trap, unfortunately — even Elementary, undoubtedly the best television show not written by Aaron Sorkin that never won an Emmy, does that shit multiple times, despite its (relatively) feminist setting. (sigh) Restrain yourself, Jesse…
RON: It was a mentally unbalanced woman in her forties.
BARTLET: Well, you know, just trying to kill me isn’t necessarily evidence of being mentally unbalanced.
RON: Sir, it appears from her statement you weren’t the target.
Whoops! That sense of humor can get you in trouble, Mr. President — in fact, it already has, now that I mention it…
NEW Sorkin Name: Ron
LEO: Good morning, Mr. President.
BARTLET: You know Ron Butterfield?
Here we go again — we’re well past halfway through the first year of this administration, and we’re still getting moments as if they just started last month. There’s legitimately zero chance the White House Chief of Staff has not yet met the head of the President’s Secret Service detail.
RON: We’re still reviewing the frame-by-frame, Leo.
I’m sorry? “Frame-by-frame”? You mean to tell me you got an instant-replay capability on unforeseen security incidents? Color me skeptical.
LEO: This may be the wrong time, Mr. President, but I wanted to speak to you about… as the game was breaking up last night, you mentioned I should say hello to Jenny.
BARTLET: Hang on a second — what’ve you got, Ron?
RON: You’ll be happy to know our security system worked exactly the way our security system’s supposed to work.
Alright, I’m actually gonna have to accuse Mr. Sorkin of lazy writing here. He needed to have Leo almost tell the President the truth about Jenny but get interrupted, and this is what he came up with: a thoroughly obvious statement from his Secret Service detail head. If I were in the same position, I would have had Leo get interrupted by Ron’s arrival rather than have Leo come in the middle of the meeting with Ron to achieve the same effect. I’m not a professional writer, though, so take what I’m saying with a grain of salt.
GLADMAN: Mandy — if I’d known you were going to be here, I would have brought my sword and shield.
MANDY: Champagne and flowers would’ve done the trick.
What about chocolates and nylons?foreshadowing detected
WILLIS: My wife was Janice Willis.
JOSH: I know.
WILLIS: She passed away last month, so I’ve taken over her seat in Congress.
Uh oh! That ain’t what the Constitution allows, buddy! When a member of the House of Representatives dies, there has to be a special election to fill the vacancy. Direct appointments to fill a vacancy only applies to the Senate, not the House. Mr. O’Donnell let Mr. Sorkin know as much during the writing process, and after letting a circuit break in his head Mr. Sorkin returned with what essentially amounts to an “oh, well”. To his credit, he knew that the Constitution mandates budgets originate in the House of Representatives, which is probably part of why he stuck to his guns.
TOBY: This represent [sic] the latest draft of the House appropriations bill. It is seven thousand pages long and weighs over 55 pounds. It includes 1.2 million dollars for a lettuce geneticist in Salinas, California and 1.7 million dollars for manure handling in Starkville, Mississippi.
Place your bets on whether Mr. Sorkin wrote that line just to hear Richard Schiff say “lettuce geneticist”.
TOBY: Eight states will divide five million dollars to research the uses of wood.
SKINNER: (laughs) Yeah, we, uh, we saw that one.
TOBY: I’m thinking of some uses for it right now.
Ayo?
GLADMAN: I thought we were here to talk about the census.
JOSH: We are, the White House just wanted to take this opportunity to point out that you are criminals and despots.
Nah, come on, Josh — you know the budget isn’t going to get through without that shit. You should be familiar with the benefits of the “pork barrel” paradigm already, you’ve been at this career for quite a while now, as we hear later.
MANDY: The three of you represent the swing vote [sic] on the Commerce Committee. You drop the census amendment and the appropriations bill goes through without a hitch. Insist on the law prohibiting sampling and you can count on a long floor fight followed by an almost certain veto.
It bears repeating that Mandy is not an employee of the White House, but rather a consultant paid for by the DNC. Why is she the one explicitly introducing the threat of a veto instead of Josh or Toby?
TOBY: I would like to emphasize the long floor fight of it all, and remind you that I have absolutely no conscience when it comes to exploiting the fact that you have non-refundable airline tickets for the weekend. With that in mind —
WILLIS: Ah, excuse me.
TOBY: Yes, sir?
WILLIS: I’m not leaving town.
TOBY: (beat) I’m sorry?
WILLIS: I’m not leaving town this weekend. I was gonna stay and see some of Janice’s friends — so there’s no need to rush on my account. You can take as much time as you like.
Oh, boy — Mr. Willis is too nice for his own good. I can only imagine the embarrassment going through Gladman’s and Skinner’s minds at that offering.
C.J.: Pretend for the purposes of this conversation that I’m dumb.
SAM: Let me try and [sic] conjure an image of you as a stupid person.
#SamSeabornIsAnAsshole
C.J.: It’s hard to admit you don’t know something, that makes me submissive.
Ayo?
SAM: What is it exactly you’re asking me to do?
Okay, good, I’m not the only one who caught that.
C.J.: I’m admitting to you that there are things I do not know.
SAM: And I’m telling you that I don’t think anybody would have any trouble imagining that there are things you do not know.
#SamSeabornIsAnAsshole
SAM: The Constitution mandates that every ten years we count everybody.
C.J.: Why?
SAM: Because representation at the various levels of the government — federal, state, and municipal — is based on population. The only way to find out how many Congressmen [sic] California gets is to count the people in California. Got it?
Well… it’s actually a little more complicated than that these days, because there’s actually a hard cap on the number of representatives in the US House. It’s therefore more accurate to say the number of Congresspeople California gets is dependent on the number of people in California relative to the number of people in all the other states.
SAM: The decennial census has always been done by a door-to-door headcount. Some nine hundred and fifty thousand professionals are hired. The process costs approximately 6.9 billion dollars. The process is also very inaccurate. It tends to be significantly disadvantageous to inner city populations, recent immigrant populations, and of course the homeless.
And this was even before the days where people could respond to the Census online! That can’t have helped the disadvantaged problem!
MALLORY: I just wanted to bring you some stuff from home.
LEO: Oh, you didn’t have to do that.
…
MALLORY: You’re okay at the hotel?
LEO: I wanted Mom to have the house.
Man, Leo McGarry is such a mensch…
LEO: Mallory, this thing with your mother and me, it’ll blow over.
MALLORY: No, it won’t, Dad. You understand that, right?
Ouch — do you suppose Leo actually didn’t understand that, or was he just trying to shield the reality from his daughter who just happened to know the reality already? Jury’s out for me.
DONNA: What’s wrong with me [sic] getting my money back?
JOSH: (beat) You won’t spend it right.
DONNA: What do you mean?
JOSH: Let’s say you cut of the surplus is $700. I want to take your money, combine it with everyone else’s money, and use it to pay down the debt and further endow Social Security. What do you want to do with it?
DONNA: Buy a DVD player.
JOSH: See?
DONNA: But my $700 is helping to employ the people who manufacture and sell DVD players, not to mention the people who manufacture and sell DVDs.
I’m sure those DVD player manufacturing workers enjoy the seventeen cents you gave them while they struggle to find affordable health insurance because the government can’t afford to do what’s right.
JOSH: The problem is, the DVD player you buy might be made in Japan.
That, too.
DONNA: I’ll buy an American one.
JOSH: We don’t trust you.
DONNA: Why not?
JOSH: We’re Democrats.
DONNA: (sighs) I want my money back!
JOSH: You shouldn’t have voted for us.
Must you treat this like a joke, Josh? There are people out there who actually believe the shit Donna is spouting, I don’t think what you’re saying is going to convince any of them.
BARTLET: I’m on a conference call with the postmaster general.
JOSH: What’s it about?
BARTLET: I honestly couldn’t tell you.
That’s not really something you want to hear from the President of the United States…
BARTLET: Take Charlie out for a beer tonight.
JOSH: Take him out for a beer?
BARTLET: Yeah — the kid has no life, you’re the only guy around here he knows at all. Take him out for a couple of beers, you guys come back, we’ll all watch the vote in Leo’s office.
I would like to remind everyone that the President referred to Charlie as “son” earlier in the episode — and here he is showing genuine interest in his subordinate’s wellbeing. How well should we expect the implied father-son dynamic to be established in the future, based on what we’ve seen so far?
BARTLET: Let me give you some cash.
JOSH: No, sir, I don’t need —
BARTLET: Don’t be silly.
JOSH: I have money, Mr. President, I’m fine.
BARTLET: You sure?
JOSH: Yes, sir.
BARTLET: Truth be known, I don’t have any cash on me.
“Perhaps it would be better if the bar bills me for the drinks, I’m sure it’ll be alright with the bartender’s boss.”
JOSH: You got plans tonight?
CHARLIE: No.
JOSH: You don’t have to sit with your sister?
CHARLIE: She’s having a sleepover at a girlfriend’s.
Well, isn’t that convenient…
JOSH: Tonight, we’ll go to a bar in Georgetown, we’ll speak as men do.
CHARLIE: We will?
JOSH: Yeah.
CHARLIE: Um… what kind of bar is this, Josh?
That’s… actually a valid question.
LANDINGHAM: Josh, aren’t you a little old to be leering at college co-eds?
JOSH: I’m a Fulbright scholar, Mrs. Landingham, I don’t leer. Also, there’ll be plenty of grad students there.
That’s not exactly a confidence-inspiring response, Josh!
NEW Dialogue Motif: Camp counselor
ZOEY: Take us with you.
JOSH: Where?
MALLORY: Out tonight.
ZOEY: Your plans with Charlie.
JOSH: How do you know I’m going out with Charlie?
ZOEY: My Dad just told us.
MALLORY: He said you should take us with you.
JOSH: The man is like a camp counselor.
Okay, we need to figure out how exactly Zoey and Mallory found out about Josh’s plans with Charlie, because they are quite clearly lying about the President’s having told them. The first possibility that comes to mind is that the President told Leo his plan to have Josh take Charlie out and Mallory then heard from Leo, but that’s contingent on Leo’s telling Mallory, which is a big stretch considering what we saw them talking about previously. The more likely explanation is that Zoey and Mallory eavesdropped on Josh’s conversation with Charlie — but that doesn’t account for how they would know the invitation from Josh came out of an ask from the President. Did they somehow eavesdrop on Josh’s conversation with the President in a way Charlie didn’t notice? I would think the Secret Service wouldn’t allow something like that to happen, but what do I know?
ZOEY: Sounded kinda like an order, Josh.
Oh, good lord…
MALLORY: Bring Sam Seaborn.
JOSH: Sam’s got enough going on in his life right now without you [sic] making a booty call.
MALLORY: I’m not making a booty call. We had an interesting conversation that got interrupted, and I’d like to finish it with him.
That’s… one way to describe it, I suppose.
Also, is it a school holiday or something? Why isn’t Mallory teaching a class right now?
JOSH: The President’s daughter, the Chief of Staff’s daughter, a Georgetown bar, and Sam — what could possibly go wrong?
Tempting fate, anyone?foreshadowing detected
SAM: Headcounts have proven staggeringly inaccurate.
C.J.: Why?
SAM: How’re you gonna count the homeless? There’s a large and growing population of people who don’t speak English — and there are plenty of people, particularly in the inner city, who don’t want to answer questions when you knock on their door. Plus, it’s always been hard. Sampling, statisticians have told us, is a much more effective way of getting a good census.
I agree with the premise on principle, but I do have a potential objection from a mathematician’s perspective. One of the principles of survey statistics is that your sample cannot exceed 10% of the sample’s population, otherwise the sample is less likely to be an accurate representation of the population the sample intends to represent. If the entire point of the census is to count just how many people there are in the population, however, then how can you ever know when you’ve reached that 10% mark? This is probably one of those “I know just enough to think I know what I’m talking about but not enough not to be wrong” things, to be honest — I’d appreciate the input of any statisticians who may be reading.
C.J.: But if sampling’s really against the law, why would Congress be trying to pass legislation saying sampling’s against the law?
SAM: You see how good it feels to understand what you’re talking about?
C.J.: And you see I’m able to do it without being patronizing?
Yeah! Tell him, sister!
JOSH: I’m taking Charlie for a beer tonight before the vote. Zoey and Mallory are coming.
SAM: Sounds good.
C.J.: I like [beer.]
JOSH: [Uh,] if you want to come, I guess that’d be okay.
C.J.: Why, Josh, y-you’ve swept me off my feet.
(beep) Sarcasm Self Test complete! (beep)
TOBY: Sampling will give a count that bears a much greater relationship to reality and’ll do it to the tune of four billion dollars less than a door-to-door headcount.
MANDY: Sampling will cost 2.7 billion, and an inaccurate headcount will cost 6.9.
I tried looking up exact figures on how much the 2000 Census cost and came across a New York Times article from February 1999 where a recent Supreme Court ruling prompted the Census Bureau to revise its cost estimate for the following year’s census up by $2 billion from its original estimate of $5 billion. The savings numbers from Toby and Mandy are therefore quite inflated, but at least the principle was still correct.
SKINNER: The Constitution’s very clear on this.
TOBY: I don’t think it is.
SKINNER: Until a court rules that sampling is Constitutional —
TOBY: The article is arcane.
SKINNER: Oh, come on, Toby, the article is not arcane.
…
MANDY: “Representatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned among the several states, which may be included within this union according to their respective numbers, which shall be determined by adding the whole number of persons including those bound to service for a term of years.”
SKINNER: Well, you said it right there. It says, “which shall be determined by the whole number of persons.” ‘The whole number of persons’ — n-n-not the end of an equation that some statistician got off of a computer, it says so right there!
Anyone gonna tell him?
TOBY: Actually, that’s not what it says.
Yep.
TOBY: Mandy left out a few words — didn’t she, Mr. Willis?
WILLIS: Yes.
TOBY: Mr. Willis teaches eighth grade social studies, and Mr. Willis knows very well what the article says. It says, “which shall be determined by adding the whole number of free persons, and three fifths of all other persons.” ‘Three fifths of all other persons’ — they meant you, Mr. Willis, didn’t they?
WILLIS: Yes.
Well, strictly speaking, they meant his ancestors, but I think we can grant the premise.
TOBY: Mr. Willis, you are asking to enact a law, which will limit the ability of those people who need to be counted the most to be counted as people at all, and their only refuge is the argument that Article 1 Section 2 is not arcane.
Toby must find it refreshing to be in the presence of someone who will actually listen to what he has to say rather than obstinately oppose it. His effort to take advantage of that certainly pays off:
WILLIS: I think we should drop it.
GLADMAN: Joe —
WILLIS: That’s my choice, right?
SKINNER: Joe, Joe, the chairman of our committee recommends that we —
WILLIS: No, I saw what he recommended, and I appreciate his help — but it’s still my choice, right?
Fuck yeah, it is!
TOBY: Absolutely, sir, it is your choice.
Ope, sorry, didn’t mean to step on you, Toby.
SKINNER: Well, looks like you snuck one in the back door, eh, Toby?
TOBY: I go through whatever door is open to me.
Ayo?
TOBY: If you don’t mind me [sic] asking sir, what changed your mind?
WILLIS: What do you mean?
TOBY: Well, I know it wasn’t expediency, sir. I was wondering what changed your mind.
WILLIS: You did. I thought you made a very strong argument.
That Toby felt the need to ask certainly speaks volumes — volumes that are given explicit verbalization in his next line:
RETURNING Verbal Tic: I would think/imagine
Running count: 5
TOBY: I’m smiling because, well, around here the merits of a particular argument generally take a back seat to political tactics.
WILLIS: I would imagine.
TOBY: Yeah.
WILLIS: It worked on me.
TOBY: I was taking advantage of you, sir.
WILLIS: I know.
“And I don’t care.”
TOBY: There are some things I did not mention. First of all, it is partisan. Second of all, I’m not wild about the precedent.
WILLIS: You mean…?
TOBY: What’s to stop us from saying, “we don’t need elections, we’ll just use polling data — eleven hundred and fifty people with a sampling error of plus or minus three will decide who runs the country.”
Airdate: 3 Nov 1999 — we honestly could have used a system like that nine years ago…
WILLIS: It’s okay by me — as long as it’s not the same people who decide what’s on television.
Uh oh — biting the hand that feeds us, perhaps?
WILLIS: I think the problems that we’re going to face in the new century are far beyond the wisdom of Solomon, let alone me — but I think the right place to start is to say, “fair is fair. This is who we are. These are our numbers.”
That feels like something that sounds good but doesn’t mean anything.foreshadowing detected
NANCY: Would you like the Tokyo Exchange sent to your bedroom?
BARTLET: Yeah, sure.
LANDINGHAM: And the call from the secretary?
BARTLET: Yes?
LANDINGHAM: (beat) Would you like it during [sic] the dining room?
BARTLET: I’ll take the call wherever I am when he calls, I guess.
LANDINGHAM: There’s no need to adopt a tone, Mr. President.
BARTLET: I’m not adopting a tone, I’m just trying to get out of here.
LANDINGHAM: Will there be anything else, sir?
BARTLET: I’m saying no, I just want to go home.
LANDINGHAM: And there’s that tone again.
There’s a familiarity between these two established herein that leaves us begging to hear more about their shared backstory. Let us count the episodes before we get it.
LEO: I moved out of the house. Jenny’s asking me for a divorce.
…
BARTLET: What happened?
LEO: Nothing happened, Mr. President, it’s just one of those —
BARTLET: Don’t tell me nothing happened, Leo. I know you, I know Jenny — married couples like you don’t just get divorced, [not ‘cause nothing happened!]
LEO: [Nothing happened!]
Do you suppose nothing happened?
BARTLET: Marriage needs attention, Leo. It can’t run on autopilot.
Says the man whose wife has been conveniently out of the country every time we’ve heard about her so far…
BARTLET: We’re talking about your family!
LEO: Well, Mr. President, thank you for pointing that out. I tried to squeeze in as much time as I could between my wine tasting club and running your White House.
Um… excuse me, what the fuck?
BARTLET: You can’t blame this on me.
LEO: (beat) I’m not blaming you for it, sir.
Then why did you make a crack about a wine tasting club when you’re an alcoholic? I’m not sold.
LEO: Honestly, I know how you feel about Jenny. I thought you’d think that somehow you were responsible for it, and you’d turn that guilt into an inappropriate anger toward me, which frankly I can live without right now. (under his breath) I can’t imagine what made me think all that.
Ah, sarcasm, the grumpy man’s wit…foreshadowing detected
BARTLET: Fix this, Leo.
LEO: It’s not as simple as that.
BARTLET: It is as simple as that. You’re the man, fix it.
Are you fucking kidding me, sir? You really want to be trotting out this heteronormative bullshit while your best friend is in pain? Some friend you are…
RETURNING Dialogue Motif: Insistent night job terminology
Previous instances: The West Wing 101, 102
MALLORY: So, your friend couldn’t come tonight?
SAM: My friend, of course, you’re talking about…
MALLORY: Your special friend.
…
JOSH: His special friend that [sic] Zoey can’t know about.
ZOEY: The hooker!
(awkward pause)
SAM: Okay… she’s not a hooker, she’s a call girl, and how do you know about this?
ZOEY: Mallory told me.
I’d like to point out once again that Mallory is a school teacher while Zoey is only just about to start college — and yet they’re as thick as thieves as any two similarly-aged daughters of good friends would be. Is Mallory this chummy with Zoey’s older sisters?
C.J.: How does Mallory know about that?
SAM: I told her.
C.J.: You told our boss’s daughter that you slept with a call girl?
SAM: I didn’t know she was Leo’s daughter at the time, I thought she was a school teacher who came in with her class.
JOSH: So you thought you were telling a complete stranger that you slept with a call girl.
SAM: Accidentally slept with a call girl.
Do you enjoy digging your own grave, Sam?
SAM: Mallory, does your father know?
MALLORY: No.
SAM: Zoey… does your father know?
ZOEY: Not yet.
Oh, dear…
C.J.: She didn’t bring my grasshopper.
…
ZOEY: I’ll get it.
C.J.: I’ll get it.
ZOEY: I want to see them make it. Could you hold these?
JOSH: What?
ZOEY: Just lipstick and stuff, my panic button — ruins the line of my outfit.
This action will have consequences.
JOSH: Did you have a good time tonight?
CHARLIE: Yeah, I appreciate it.
JOSH: Seems like you’re not really having a good time.
C.J.: He’s having a good time!
…
JOSH: I just want to make sure he’s having a good time tonight.
C.J.: He’s having a good time!
I think your talking about having a good time is killing his buzz, I’mma be real with you…
GUY 1: What’s your name?
ZOEY: What?
GUY 1: I said what’s your name?
ZOEY: (beat) You’re kidding, right?
Wow, alright — if you feel the need to ask that question of them, then they’re almost certainly not your type. Move along…
ZOEY: It’s Cassandra.
… or not — Cassandra Not-So-Truthful on the job.
CHARLIE: Come on, let’s go back to the table.
GUY 1: Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa — what’s up, Sammy?
Here we go…
GUY 1: Hey, we’re just trying to buy the girl a drink, man.
CHARLIE: She’s nineteen years old, man, you’d have to take her to Maryland.
Uh oh! That isn’t correct, Charlie — the drinking age in Maryland has been 21 since 1982. Do better next time.
CHARLIE: Look, guys, you don’t know who this is. You don’t want any trouble. Be cool, alright?
GUY 1: ‘Be cool’.
CHARLIE: Yeah, I’m just saying, I’m looking out for you.
GUY 1: I understand, you just want me to be cool, alright?
CHARLIE: Can I buy you guys a round?
GUY 2: Like LL Cool J, man, like Ice Tea.
GUY 3: Ice cube, Ice tray, man.
What in the fucking world — were there actually university-aged racists back then who were that rock stupid with their verbal racism? This segment feels a bit much to be realistic to me.
CHARLIE: Would you let us by, please?
GUY 1: You know, no — you know, what are you doing here with this girl, huh? Huh? ‘Cause you know what, to me you look to be Dr. F****t!
No, please, Mr. Sorkin, fuck off with the f-bomb…
JOSH: How’s everybody doin’?
GUY 1: Oh good, more fairy boys.
JOSH: Excuse me?
GUY 1: I said, “more fairy boys.”
JOSH: Oh, this is too good to be true.
Boy, I’m glad you’re able to let that vicious homophobia slide off of you, Josh, because I would have been tempted to punch the guy.
GUY 3: Hey, I recognize this guy… yeah, and she looks familiar, too.
Took you long enough…
AGENT: Shut up! I swear to god I’ll blow you head off.
What the fuck?! No way a federal agent would actually say that out loud, right?
GUY 1: Hey, I ain’t done with you, Sammy.
CHARLIE: My name is Charlie Young, jackass — and if that bulge in your pocket’s an 8-ball of blow, you’re spending Spring Break in a federal prison.
(agents take the guys away)
CHARLIE: Now I’m having a good time.
And he was worried people would notice he doesn’t go to college!
BARTLET: Did you do anything at all to provoke these guys?
ZOEY: Like what?
BARTLET: Were you flirting with them?
ZOEY: Dad…
BARTLET: Zoey, you flirt with guys.
ZOEY: Yes, Dad, I am nineteen years old. I was not flirting with these guys…
What exactly constitutes your definition of flirting, Zoey? You purposefully emptied your pockets to preserve your ‘line’, then let the guys go through a guessing game for your name and egged them on by providing them with a false name. That seems like flirting to me, albeit not a textbook case.
ZOEY: … and even if I was, it certainly wasn’t justification for their behavior.
Well, at least she’s correct on that point.
BARTLET: I’m gonna up your protection.
ZOEY: No.
BARTLET: Yes.
ZOEY: Dad?!
BARTLET: Starting tomorrow.
ZOEY: I’m starting college in a month!
BARTLET: Well, you’ll have plenty of friends to walk you to class.
“They won’t be the most talkative friends, but hey, sometimes you just need a good listener.”
BARTLET: Look, the Secret Service [have their hands full —]
ZOEY: [The Secret Service should worry] about you [sic] getting shot.
BARTLET: They are worried about me [sic] getting shot — I’m worried about me [sic] getting shot — but that is nothing compared to how terrified we are of you. You scare the hell out of the Secret Service, Zoey, and you scare the hell out of me too. My getting killed would be bad enough, but that is not the nightmare scenario. The nightmare scenario, sweetheart, is you [sic] getting kidnapped. You go out to a bar or a party in some club, and you get up to go to the restroom, somebody comes up from behind, puts their hand across your mouth, and whisks you out the back door. You’re so petrified, you don’t even notice the bodies of two Secret Service agents lying on the ground with bullet holes in their heads — then you’re whisked away in a car. It’s a big party with lots of noise, and lots of people coming and going, and it’s a half hour before someone says, “Hey where’s Zoey?” Another 15 minutes before the first phone call — it’s another hour and a half before anyone even thinks to shut down all the airports, and now we’re off to the races! You’re tied to a chair in a cargo shack, somewhere in the middle of Uganda, and I’m told that I have 72 hours to get Israel to free four hundred and sixty terrorist prisoners. So I’m on the phone pleading with Ben Yabin and he’s saying, “I’m sorry, Mr. President, but Israel simply does not negotiate with terrorists, period. It’s the only way we can survive.” So now we’ve got a new problem, because this country no longer has a Commander in Chief, it has a father who’s out of his mind because his little girl is in a shack somewhere in Uganda with a gun to her head! Do you get it?!
A moment of silence for Martin Sheen’s vocal chords after probably having to do that line multiple times… unless, of course, he was One Take Bartlet™ in this moment.foreshadowing detected
BARTLET: Honey, I want you to have your freedom and your youth, I want you to have common everyday experiences with girls your own age — but don’t ever forget, this is a privilege… and it is an experience that must be cherished beyond measure, and proper protection and security, thought at times I admit it’s a drag, is never too high a price to pay.
“Never too high a price”, you say — I wonder how that phrase would play if IT Security departments used it to deal with the ire of impatient software engineers.
BARTLET: Before, when I was being an idiot, there was something I forgot to say.
LEO: What?
BARTLET: I’m sorry.
Now that’s some fantastic self-awareness out of the President — too bad he didn’t have that awareness on him before he said those shitty things to Leo.
RETURNING Verbal Tic: Let me tell you something
Running count: 12
JOSH: Let me tell you something, I could have taken the two guys on the left.
SAM: Those were my guys.
JOSH: Which guys?
SAM: The guys on the left.
JOSH: The guys on the left as you’re facing the bar?
SAM: Yeah — no, no. So you’re me, I’m facing toward the bar…
This shit is exactly why we have ‘stage left’ and ‘stage right’ terminology.
RETURNING Dialogue Motif: That was nice, a little…
Previous instance: Sports Night 118
JOSH: How much were the sandwiches?
DONNA: Twelve ninety-five.
JOSH: I gave you a twenty.
DONNA: Yes — as it turns out, you actually gave me more money than I needed to buy what you asked for. However, knowing you as I do, I’m afraid I can’t trust you to spend the change wisely. I’ve decided to invest it for you.
JOSH: That was nice, that was a little parable.
DONNA: I want my money back.
Oh, go slip on a tangerine peel, would you?
JOSH: Okay, there’s the one guy with the blonde hair.
SAM: Facing away from the bar.
CHARLIE: There were no two guys that either one of you could have taken.
Thank you for shutting down that conversation, Charlie.
BARTLET: What were you doing taking my daughter out to a bar?
JOSH: (pause) You told me to, sir.
Are you kidding me? You still haven’t seen through Zoey’s lie, Josh?
RETURNING Verbal Tic: Musical theatre appeal
Running count: 8
BARTLET: When Zoey said she was going, I just assumed you were gonna go have malteds or something.
JOSH: Malteds, sir?
BARTLET: Yes.
JOSH: What is this, Our Town?
First thing that comes to mind for me with ‘malteds’ is Scooby Doo, actually. How old does that make me at heart?
RETURNING Dialogue Motif: Whatever it is you do/did
Previous instances: A Few Good Men; The West Wing 103
BARTLET: Thank you for doing whatever it was you did.
JOSH: Matter of fact, I didn’t do anything, but… for what it’s worth, I should tell you that Charlie didn’t blink before he put his body between danger and Zoey.
Josh is being decidedly unselfish here considering he was the one who pushed the panic button in that situation. Charlie deserves the praise, though, so I won’t keep a bull pup.
BARTLET: You know, I once played the stage manager in a production of Our Town.
The President was a theatre kid? Yeah, that checks out.
BARTLET: Charlie — you a good poker player?
CHARLIE: No, sir.
BARTLET: Excellent, get your money out and take a seat.
Woah, hey, what? You know how tight money is for Charlie and you still challenge him to a game of poker? I know poker’s partly a camaraderie thing for you, but that still seems rather irresponsible.
TOBY: I understand you all had a very interesting evening.
JOSH: Yes.
TOBY: So did I.
JOSH: What happened?
TOBY: I met an unusual man.
BARTLET: C.J., deal the cards.
TOBY: He didn’t walk into the room with a political agenda, he didn’t walk in with his mind made up. He genuinely wanted to do what he thought was best. He didn’t mind saying the words “I don’t know”.
I suppose it says something rather rancid that Toby’s waxing philosophical here feels as dated as it does — nowadays the concept of having anyone in politics actually practice politics in the classical sense of the term is just straight up unthinkable rather than simply considered rare. Maybe it’s time to start a movement of WingNuts challenging incumbents…
C.J.: By the way, I now know everything there is to know about the census. Go ahead, you can ask me anything.
BARTLET: How many people live in the United States?
(pause; SAM looks at C.J., C.J. looks at SAM)
SAM: There is some material we haven’t covered yet.
And that subplot just peters out, I guess…
ROLL CALL: (on TV) Mr. Willis — Mr. Willis of Ohio votes yea.
Toby, I know exactly what’s going on in that dirty mind of yours, and I just want to say: I approve.
Alright, well, I unfortunately have to say this represents the first episode of The West Wing that is a mixed bag for me. The main plot surrounding Mr. Willis (despite its Constitutional impossibility) makes for a heartwarming story, though the last we get from the man himself doesn’t serve the occasion as well as I think it could have; giving Charlie his first certified moment of awesome serves to prop up his character quite a bit, but the framing surrounding the moment feels a little questionable; Sam’s being an asshole to C.J. continues an unfortunate trend, as does Josh’s being unnecessarily condescending to Donna (as “cute” as it may seem to some); and the mini-plot of the President’s momentarily being a dick to Leo feels rather tacked-on. Framing this episode in the light of Mr. Sorkin’s doubled workload at the time makes me more forgiving of his shortcomings in this episode, though — and given that framing, the episode is far from bad. If someone is going through this series for the first time, though, that framing may serve as something of a double-edged sword — but I suppose future entries will give that sword its due attention.
In the meantime, you should see to it that you subscribe to this blog so that you have a front row seat to that continuing slog of interweaving television shows. Coming up next: the Yeti arrives.
Comments powered by Disqus.