S01E19: Let Bartlet Be Bartlet

If there's an episode that challenges Celestial Navigation for the season's best, it's this one, though it starts out oh so innocuously. Little do we know in the pre-credits sequence that a little piece of paper is going to throw the entire series a curveball, which will sow the seeds which produce the best ever season of The West Wing (season two).

While there are disparate elements in the episode they all tie into the main theme beautifully. The scene where Josh meets with the leadership guys is phenomenal, and the moment where he suddenly decides he's not playing anymore makes my hair stand on end. The equivalent plot strand for Toby and Sam involves gays in the military, and once again they know they're on a hiding to nothing. All this is just a preamble to the barnstorming final act.

Danny's confrontation with CJ is another exceptional scene, as it validates the memo and drives home the point that we've been gradually fed throughout the episode that Bartlet is indeed all bark and no bite, and the opening scene suddenly has us thinking that maybe Leo has been shepherding him to the centre. The rising sense of resignation in Leo's office as they all report back to him on their day's activities is enough to make you die a little inside.

And then we get "You drive me there." That sets up the jaw-dropping conclusion which changes everything. I'll sometimes be critical of the sentimentality the show occasionally drops into, and the "I serve at the pleasure of the President" scene is certainly laden with a heavy dose of the most syrupy kind of sentimentality, but here it just feels right, don't ask me why.

I guess the thing that floors me about this episode is that up to now I'd really liked PotUS, and thought he was doing a pretty good job under less than ideal circumstances, but this episode just shatters that illusion, while at the same time making us feel optimistic about what's to come.

Hand on heart, I'd have to say that I probably enjoy watching this episode even more than Celestial Navigation, but the thing that tips it in the latters favour is that I know just how devastatingly hard it is to nail comedy, and both Sorkin and the cast deliver in spades. However, you'll struggle to find 44 better minutes of drama anywhere than what we observe in Let Bartlet Be Bartlet.

Random observations:

Gail's bowl has a load of Easter eggs in it, which is pretty self-explanatory.

In a less densely plotted episode I'd wax lyrical about the raisin muffin fiasco, but this was just jam-packed with awesome.

Episode grade: A+

So what did you all think?

Spoilers for the future follow.

As much as we all may hate Mandy (and I think that's pretty much universal) and were thrilled that she vanished in season two, we have to concede that the foul-up which was the memo proves to be a catalyst for a real improvement in a show which was already great. We need to be grateful to her for that at least.

S01E18: Six Meetings Before Lunch

OK, I'm putting it out there - CJ's The Jackal really isn't very good. That would be OK if it weren't for the fact that they make such a huge thing of how fantastic it is.

Of all the meetings that take place in this episode by far the most interesting is the one Josh has with Breckenridge. Maybe it's just a high school civics lesson but the way the two actors deliver the lines is great, especially the increasingly tense reactions from Josh (you just know he wants to scream "what about the Jews in Nazi Germany?!" way before he actually raises it). The other meeting that I like is the one between Sam and Mallory about school vouchers. When you realise that Sam doesn't actually believe  anything he was saying it makes his argumentation even more impressive.

It was about this time during my first watch that I realised that I really didn't care much for the Zoe/Charlie plotlines at all. Zoe comes across as whiney and any time spent on her campus life is just stealing time from shenanigans in the West Wing.

On the whole I find this episode to be pretty lacklustre. Nothing of note really happens other than the potential white supremacist stuff being developed a little. I almost get the feeling that Sorkin has a bucket with all the ideas he had that weren't good enough to make into episodes, and once in a while he reaches into it, grabs three or four and says "if I put these all together it should fill a show". This is one of those episodes.

Random observations:

For the record, the six meetings are:
Mallory's meeting with Sam.
Josh's meeting with Breckenridge.
Mandy's meeting with Toby.
CJ's meeting with Zoe.
The meeting of secret service agents.
CJ's meeting with PotUS.

There are other random conversations between various characters, but these seem like the main six to me.

Episode grade: C+

So what did you all think?

Spoilers for the future follow.

Josh says in Noel that nobody shouts at the president in the Oval Office, but CJ has a good go at it here.

S01E17: The White House Pro-Am

First off, my apologies for the three week gap between recaps; what can I say, life gets in the way sometimes. I'll try to make up by doing a couple of episodes a week for the next two weeks.

The premise of this episode is quite interesting, and it makes me wonder how realistic the West Wing setup is. I can imagine that if the two staffs are as disconnected as portrayed here stuff like the snafu in this episode would be happening in real life all the time.

As an episode it strikes me as being an awful lot about nothing, and for the most part it's saved by a few really well-written little conversations I speak about in the next section. Of all of them the main highlight is the one between Jed and Abby towards the end of the episode in the oval office.

Random observations:

The conversations about CJ picking up on the "signs" the President gives off are really sweet.

Why are Donna and Zoe apparantly reading the same book (to mention nothing of Leo and Jed)?

I love the conversation between Danny and Charlie about "being the one guy in her life who is totally hassle-free", and it's advice that I've tried to apply in my relationships, with pretty good success.

The chat between Danny and Jed is another gem in a somewhat nondescript episode.

Episode grade: C-

So what did you all think?