Been a little while
The West Wing - 3.19 The Black Vera Wang & 3.20 We Killed Yamamoto
It was tough not to press play for the next episode, because the various plots are so building up to an end-of-season crescendo. (In hindsight, I should have, as there’s only one episode left of the season,but I thought there’d be two at the time. Oh well, had I done so, this post would have taken even longer.)
First episode first, I got tired of the moose jokes very fast, but on and on they continued. Also, I rolled my eyes at Sam for trying to cover himself over the porn joke and Ginger Being Okay With It So That’s Okay, Unreasonables, and me sitting in judgment in 2021 and probably when I first saw it. (Sam probably would come to wish the mystery tape had been porn )
Because he was very clearly told not to have anything to do with his Republican friend, but oh no, he gets the phone call, he arranges the lunch, probably feeling it was his decision (but it turned out there was a reason the attack video was sent to him) and played into his less handsome friend’s hands. Also, it definitely hadn’t trickle down to Sam that the President’s on-mike ‘gaffe’ wasn’t one. Cue explosive anger from him (and Simon) in this episode.
CJ and Special Agent Simon were bickering, driven by UST, as she felt cramped by the continuing protection, except, of course, it was warranted. Then there was that moment where she worked out, in conversation with Carol, that she was attracted to Simon, what with emphasising her niece’s youth (and that niece might have been the niece she was meeting who got snapped by the stalker.) I hadn’t really thought that one of CJ’s siblings and family was in Washington.
The audience and Hogan learned before CJ that he’d been at the end of season 1 shooting. And there he was, studiously not noticing CJ in the very flattering titular dress. The West Wing Weekly’s podcasters went on about Simon inappropriately touching 15-year-old Hogan. I have to admit that I hadn’t got vibes off that at all, but the point that he’d just said he needed to keep his hands free was valid.
Less problematic for me was the little Bruno/Margaret moment, aww. That’s Bruno who has been absent for I haven’t counted how many episodes, but now was suddenly in and out of meetings, showing Sam exactly how very much he’d screwed up by giving the opposition an excuse to play their video blamelessly, plus pointing Toby towards the way of shutting up the news directors. That whole conversation about network TV really dated the show for me, because certainly in the UK, we have dedicated channels for such coverage (and from what Toby was proposing, the conference programme didn’t seem like it was going to develop people’s knowledge of politics.)
Leo was busy protecting Bartlet from the re-election campaign as a proper terrorist threat emerged, with less information than you’d get in a more typical thriller, but there was a charge to the White House being a target. The line about Bartlet’s feet only occasionally hitting the ground resonated, either I remembered it or it was referencing something else or has been itself referenced a lot over the years. But it was a potent reminder of the difference between campaigning to govern and actual governance.
Josh and Donna were particularly flirty at their reunion, and that in an episode where Amy played a decent part. But the conflict from his bringing his work home and her being a player to whom the compromise the administration would swallow wasn’t good enough worked.
I liked that Donna had won the argument over not sacking the intern before she’d finished making it, and then she was stern in taking him to task - he could have eaten the moose and spent that money on his rent, surely? In the midst of all this, we also saw Donna and Margaret as the boss assistants telling the other assistants to keep quiet while the press sniffed around their salaries and to take it up through appropriate channels. This scene would inform a plotline in the next episode.
Which also had titlecards, and was only a few days after the end of ‘The Black Vera Wang’ IIRC, so the propulsion continued. Donna got sent to North Dakota to show off poise but mainly to get a message to deliver to Sam.
Toby and Leo seemed really tolerant of his screw-up, even as Sam was clearly stewing. I’d been left wondering what he was going to do at the end of the previous ep. Actually, when he’d gone back to see his ‘friend’, I wondered if he was taping him, but the conversation didn’t offer any killer blows politically. So, at the start of this ep, he was shutting down some random (? or have we seen them before?) women who were proposing a vaguely environmental policy. Of course.
Josh would get shouted at by the President (mainly because of other things), which felt as if it was only partly deserved. Yes, the knew that screw-ups were the last thing they needed, but as the podcast pointed out, Leo had okayed some of it, though not handling Amy badly, but Sam surely came under Toby, and, as Leo said, he’d okayed pulling Bartlet away from the gala too.
I wouldn’t be able to answer what Plantagenet Bartlet reminded me of either.
Amy was being a better political operator on this one battle, although Josh was right about the election year rules. But as was said on the podcast, Josh could have handled her better/more maturely.
So, a year after Mrs Landingham’s death, Bartlet finally decides to tell Charlie to start the search for a new secretary for him. I was amused by Charlie replying that he knew Bartlet wasn’t going to like his first candidates to his face - the podcasters were more sympathetic to Bartlet’s grieving process than I was, seeing that Charlie’s had to do two people’s demanding jobs. And in the absence of an executive secretary, Margaret and Donna have been stepping up in the ecosystem. With it being an election year, that was an act of self-confidence on President Bartlet’s part, no? Granted, of all the people an American would want to be secretary to, POTUS ought to be right up there, however short a gig, but it could be a job for just a few months, or that and four years.
CJ and Simon continued to be equally (un)professional, with him being even more worried abut her after the latest death threat, and charmed. (Hey, she just directed a few seconds of being almost flirty at Josh about performing the play for her at her home, to which Whitford reacted perfectly, suggesting Josh felt the pull of CJ but also awe and terror because he knew he couldn’t handle it. Plus he had feelings for two women already.)
Janney would go on to match that acting-wise with one of her gorgeous pratfalls (CJ had that one coming), as Simon stepped up the protection one moment - making her go to their gym - but not the next. They didn’t play the teaching CJ how to shoot scene in the traditional way, but the wager (what was she thinking, of course he wouldn’t have been on the President’s detail or a Special Agent in charge of her protection if he wasn’t an excellent marksman?) showing off his prowess and then undercutting it in his own way, or worse in the walking home, not so much the letting her walk home because he corrected her for walking the wrong side, but in the almost kiss. I did have to suspend disbelief that the potential stalker didn’t see it or the agent who was taking over from him. But CJ likes his height, and he likes hers (but there’s a very real threat ot there, guys.)
Meanwhile, although I felt this was still very much The West Wing wrestling with September 11 as much as the whole USA was at the time, the terror threat Bartlet was facing was reasonably layered. I think I mentally noted that the Chechen informer the Russians were so helpfully sharing about would likely not have been chatting away to the nice Russian police of his own volition, but Barlet was still dealing with the fact that his so-called ally (if CJ hadn’t been busy flirting with her bodyguard, and out of this loop, she might have quite understandably been pointed about Qumari alies) was a terrorist leader. Some of the ‘why us? Why are these terrorists not fighting by the old rules of engagement?’ seemed a bit emotional and naïve from the characters, but that was representative, I guess. So, they couldn’t haul their guy in front of the courts. Well, that’s what you have the CIA for, I said flippantly, but nobody was suggesting those options, they were too busy trying to get non-combatant Bartlet to let their guy come to the country for maximum drama, I mean to let them come up with some options. Leo had to have A Talk with Jed about that, and won his point.
That’s a lot lof tantalising storylines to be continued/tied up.
This entry was originally posted at https://shallowness.dreamwidth.org/484284.html.
It was tough not to press play for the next episode, because the various plots are so building up to an end-of-season crescendo. (In hindsight, I should have, as there’s only one episode left of the season,but I thought there’d be two at the time. Oh well, had I done so, this post would have taken even longer.)
First episode first, I got tired of the moose jokes very fast, but on and on they continued. Also, I rolled my eyes at Sam for trying to cover himself over the porn joke and Ginger Being Okay With It So That’s Okay, Unreasonables, and me sitting in judgment in 2021 and probably when I first saw it. (Sam probably would come to wish the mystery tape had been porn )
Because he was very clearly told not to have anything to do with his Republican friend, but oh no, he gets the phone call, he arranges the lunch, probably feeling it was his decision (but it turned out there was a reason the attack video was sent to him) and played into his less handsome friend’s hands. Also, it definitely hadn’t trickle down to Sam that the President’s on-mike ‘gaffe’ wasn’t one. Cue explosive anger from him (and Simon) in this episode.
CJ and Special Agent Simon were bickering, driven by UST, as she felt cramped by the continuing protection, except, of course, it was warranted. Then there was that moment where she worked out, in conversation with Carol, that she was attracted to Simon, what with emphasising her niece’s youth (and that niece might have been the niece she was meeting who got snapped by the stalker.) I hadn’t really thought that one of CJ’s siblings and family was in Washington.
The audience and Hogan learned before CJ that he’d been at the end of season 1 shooting. And there he was, studiously not noticing CJ in the very flattering titular dress. The West Wing Weekly’s podcasters went on about Simon inappropriately touching 15-year-old Hogan. I have to admit that I hadn’t got vibes off that at all, but the point that he’d just said he needed to keep his hands free was valid.
Less problematic for me was the little Bruno/Margaret moment, aww. That’s Bruno who has been absent for I haven’t counted how many episodes, but now was suddenly in and out of meetings, showing Sam exactly how very much he’d screwed up by giving the opposition an excuse to play their video blamelessly, plus pointing Toby towards the way of shutting up the news directors. That whole conversation about network TV really dated the show for me, because certainly in the UK, we have dedicated channels for such coverage (and from what Toby was proposing, the conference programme didn’t seem like it was going to develop people’s knowledge of politics.)
Leo was busy protecting Bartlet from the re-election campaign as a proper terrorist threat emerged, with less information than you’d get in a more typical thriller, but there was a charge to the White House being a target. The line about Bartlet’s feet only occasionally hitting the ground resonated, either I remembered it or it was referencing something else or has been itself referenced a lot over the years. But it was a potent reminder of the difference between campaigning to govern and actual governance.
Josh and Donna were particularly flirty at their reunion, and that in an episode where Amy played a decent part. But the conflict from his bringing his work home and her being a player to whom the compromise the administration would swallow wasn’t good enough worked.
I liked that Donna had won the argument over not sacking the intern before she’d finished making it, and then she was stern in taking him to task - he could have eaten the moose and spent that money on his rent, surely? In the midst of all this, we also saw Donna and Margaret as the boss assistants telling the other assistants to keep quiet while the press sniffed around their salaries and to take it up through appropriate channels. This scene would inform a plotline in the next episode.
Which also had titlecards, and was only a few days after the end of ‘The Black Vera Wang’ IIRC, so the propulsion continued. Donna got sent to North Dakota to show off poise but mainly to get a message to deliver to Sam.
Toby and Leo seemed really tolerant of his screw-up, even as Sam was clearly stewing. I’d been left wondering what he was going to do at the end of the previous ep. Actually, when he’d gone back to see his ‘friend’, I wondered if he was taping him, but the conversation didn’t offer any killer blows politically. So, at the start of this ep, he was shutting down some random (? or have we seen them before?) women who were proposing a vaguely environmental policy. Of course.
Josh would get shouted at by the President (mainly because of other things), which felt as if it was only partly deserved. Yes, the knew that screw-ups were the last thing they needed, but as the podcast pointed out, Leo had okayed some of it, though not handling Amy badly, but Sam surely came under Toby, and, as Leo said, he’d okayed pulling Bartlet away from the gala too.
I wouldn’t be able to answer what Plantagenet Bartlet reminded me of either.
Amy was being a better political operator on this one battle, although Josh was right about the election year rules. But as was said on the podcast, Josh could have handled her better/more maturely.
So, a year after Mrs Landingham’s death, Bartlet finally decides to tell Charlie to start the search for a new secretary for him. I was amused by Charlie replying that he knew Bartlet wasn’t going to like his first candidates to his face - the podcasters were more sympathetic to Bartlet’s grieving process than I was, seeing that Charlie’s had to do two people’s demanding jobs. And in the absence of an executive secretary, Margaret and Donna have been stepping up in the ecosystem. With it being an election year, that was an act of self-confidence on President Bartlet’s part, no? Granted, of all the people an American would want to be secretary to, POTUS ought to be right up there, however short a gig, but it could be a job for just a few months, or that and four years.
CJ and Simon continued to be equally (un)professional, with him being even more worried abut her after the latest death threat, and charmed. (Hey, she just directed a few seconds of being almost flirty at Josh about performing the play for her at her home, to which Whitford reacted perfectly, suggesting Josh felt the pull of CJ but also awe and terror because he knew he couldn’t handle it. Plus he had feelings for two women already.)
Janney would go on to match that acting-wise with one of her gorgeous pratfalls (CJ had that one coming), as Simon stepped up the protection one moment - making her go to their gym - but not the next. They didn’t play the teaching CJ how to shoot scene in the traditional way, but the wager (what was she thinking, of course he wouldn’t have been on the President’s detail or a Special Agent in charge of her protection if he wasn’t an excellent marksman?) showing off his prowess and then undercutting it in his own way, or worse in the walking home, not so much the letting her walk home because he corrected her for walking the wrong side, but in the almost kiss. I did have to suspend disbelief that the potential stalker didn’t see it or the agent who was taking over from him. But CJ likes his height, and he likes hers (but there’s a very real threat ot there, guys.)
Meanwhile, although I felt this was still very much The West Wing wrestling with September 11 as much as the whole USA was at the time, the terror threat Bartlet was facing was reasonably layered. I think I mentally noted that the Chechen informer the Russians were so helpfully sharing about would likely not have been chatting away to the nice Russian police of his own volition, but Barlet was still dealing with the fact that his so-called ally (if CJ hadn’t been busy flirting with her bodyguard, and out of this loop, she might have quite understandably been pointed about Qumari alies) was a terrorist leader. Some of the ‘why us? Why are these terrorists not fighting by the old rules of engagement?’ seemed a bit emotional and naïve from the characters, but that was representative, I guess. So, they couldn’t haul their guy in front of the courts. Well, that’s what you have the CIA for, I said flippantly, but nobody was suggesting those options, they were too busy trying to get non-combatant Bartlet to let their guy come to the country for maximum drama, I mean to let them come up with some options. Leo had to have A Talk with Jed about that, and won his point.
That’s a lot lof tantalising storylines to be continued/tied up.
This entry was originally posted at https://shallowness.dreamwidth.org/484284.html.