Take This Sabbath Day

[Admin]

From NBC:
After the Supreme Court refuses to stay the execution of a Federal prisoner convicted of killing two drug kingpins, President Bartlet (Martin Sheen) must decide whether or not to commute his sentence in less than 48 hours, so he calls upon his sagacious childhood priest, Father Thomas Cavanaugh (Karl Malden) for guidance. Meanwhile, even Toby (Richard Schiff) feels the heat over the controversial issue when he hears a sermon on capital punishment from his rabbi (David Proval). Elsewhere, a hearing-challenged, combative campaign manager, Joey Lucas (Marlee Matlin) demands an audience with the President when her Democratic congressional candidate has purposely been underfunded by his party before the upcoming election to unseat an incumbent.

[DarkHoarse]

I just wanted to say that this has the greatest final scene in any WW episode and possibly the greatest in TV history. I'm trying to think of a better one and I can't. If I had to show a sceptic one scene to convince them how great this programme is, it'd be Bartlet and Cavanaugh.

[Joey Lucas]

From The Official Companion:
On a Friday night, a Supreme Court justice is perfunctorily reciting a verdict in a fairly empty gallery to three dejected lawyers. The application for a stay of execution has been denied. The petitioner will be executed at the federal facility in Terre Haute, Indiana, on Monday morning at 12:01 A.M. The lawyers, exhausted and numbed, want to call the White House for support, but it’s a federal case, so the President is the last resort. Bobby Zane (Noah Emmerich), one of the lawyers, speaks up: he knew Sam Seaborn in high school. He’ll call him.

As the sun sets over the White House, Sam is packing up for a weekend getaway of yacht racing. To his delight, Ginger has packed him bright yellow foul-weather gear. Unwilling to be outdone, Josh announces he’s going to a bachelor party. Donna clucks her tongue – she’s worried that Josh will drink too much and he’ll harass the strippers.

JOSH: There aren’t going to be any strippers. Men don’t like that anymore.
DONNA: Men don’t like naked women anymore?
JOSH: No, we still like naked women a lot, it’s just looking at them with a room full of your best friends that makes you feel a little –
DONNA: Sleazy?
JOSH: – uncomfortable.

Before Sam can free himself of the West Wing he has to persuade Josh to take a meeting the next morning with the campaign manager of a candidate named O’Dwyer, a guy named Joey Lucas. They’ve never heard of him. After much haranguing, Josh agrees to see Lucas. Sam procrastinates just long enough to be there when the phone rings. He clearly doesn’t want to answer it and defiantly takes a step out of the office. Then a step back in. He stands there, then heads out the door. The phone’s still ringing when Sam walks back in, drops his bag, and picks up the receiver.

There are no pleasantries exchanged between the high school acquaintances. Zane tells Sam his client killed two drug kingpins, and he won’t let the President run from this one. The President has the authority to grant a pardon, but Sam explains that Bartlet is a firm believer in the separation of powers and the judicial branch has spoken. Regardless of any moral concerns, Bartlet’s on a plane coming back from Europe and is not due back until seven in the morning. Zane is insistent, a man’s life is at stake, and Sam promises he’ll talk to Toby when he returns from temple.

Sam eyes his yellow rain gear with longing and goes in search of Leo with a sigh. Leo tells him the administration has been following the case of Simon Cruz, although they thought it would be sent back to the Sixth Circuit. The President’s not going to want this ball in his court. Having unloaded the case from his shoulders, Sam tells Leo he’s going sailing for the weekend. Leo’s booked now – he’s curious why they’re waiting until Monday to execute Cruz. Sam explains to him that people are not executed between sundown on Friday and sundown on Sunday. Not on the Sabbath. Sam returns to his office to pick up his gear. Again, he walks out, and is drawn back. He flicks on a light, throws his sail bag in a corner, and grabs a law book.

The following morning, fresh from his visit to Scandinavia, Bartlet is torturing C.J. with his encyclopaedic knowledge of the natural world, fjords in particular. C.J. says she’d like to drop kick the President into a fjord.

Donna comes to work to find Josh asleep in his office, his head resting on his balled-up suit jacket. The party died down a couple of hours ago, and Josh didn’t go home because he couldn’t find his keys or remember where he lived. He moans that there might have been strippers before closing his eyes again. He’s a real mess. Donna reminds him he has a meeting, and he swears he knows that – but what’s it about again? Donna gives him a cup of old coffee and Sam’s foul-weather gear to wear while she gets his suit cleaned.

At temple, Toby is listening to a sermon about violence. “Vengeance is not Jewish,” says Rabbi Glassman (David Proval). Embarrassingly, Toby’s beeper goes off, and he’s acutely conscious of the loud clacking of his shoes as he scouts for a quiet place to answer his page. He testily calls Sam, clearly aggravated at the interruption of his religious service. Undaunted, Sam asks if his rabbi is giving a sermon on capital punishment. Toby knows something is wrong, and Sam tells him the appeal was denied. Toby says he’ll be right in. To complete his performance, Toby knocks over a stack of folding metal chairs as he goes back to his seat to retrieve his coat.

Josh, horribly hung over and wearing Sam’s garish yellow sailing gear, is fast asleep on his office again. The door is flung open, crashing into the wall. Josh sits up with a start and is confronted with a young woman signing with her hands and a man rapidly translating for her. “Are you the unmitigated jackass who’s got the DNC choking off funding for O’Dwyer’s campaign in the California Forty-Sixth?” Josh doesn’t know what’s hit him. The woman sign; the man announces, “I’m Joey Lucas.” Josh says to the translator Kenny (Bill O’Brien), “You’re Joey Lucas?” “I’m Joey Lucas,” says the woman tenaciously. Josh, dumbfounded, says he was expecting a man. As he stumbles out of his office to change into his suit, Josh tells Donna that Joey Lucas (Marlee Matlin) clearly isn’t a guy – she’s a woman and she’s deaf.

Toby charges into the West Wing demanding to know how his rabbi penned up such a timely sermon. Sam thinks Bobby Zane got to him. Toby has two main concerns at this juncture: why did Sam tell a lawyer where he goes to temple and what the hell is Josh wearing? The three men discuss the politics of the death penalty. Sam, newly knowledgeable on the ins and outs of execution, says the last federal execution was 1963. More important, Josh intervenes, the last President to commute a death sentence was Abraham Lincoln. Sam is ready to provide Bartlet legal coverage if he wants to commute the sentence. Toby knows Bartlet won’t do it.

His European trip just a lazy memory, Bartlet gets his first briefing on the case from Leo. Leo says it’s a federal case, because the U.S. Attorney tried Cruz under legislation allowing for the death penalty in drug-related crimes. The ball is firmly in his court, but Bartlet admits he’s not going to be any good at this, he’s going to need help. He asks Charlie to find Father Thomas Cavanaugh, a priest from Hanover, and bring him to the White House. After a moment of silence, Bartlet speaks his mind. He asks Charlie if they caught the guy who killed his mother, would Charlie want to see him executed?

CHARLIE: I wouldn’t want to see him executed, Mr. President. I’d want to do it myself.

It’s not the time for games, and Josh tells Joey Lucas that they’re cutting her candidates funding because there’s a chance he might win. The incumbent is an entrenched reactionary who is useful right where he is, sounding off on immigration and gun control and providing material for Democratic fund-raisers. Joey’s not satisfied with blunt honesty, and says she won’t leave unless she sees the President. Just as Josh is explaining there’s no chance of that, Bartlet appears at the door. He’s been wondering the halls, thinking, and offers Joey a tour of the White House.

Joey tells the President she’s of Dutch ancestry, Quaker, and she attended ACLU and Stanford. Bartlet’s beyond small talk, and picks her brain about the impending execution. Joey says he should stay the execution. “The state shouldn’t kill people.” Bartlet asks if she studied St. Augustine and Thomas Aquinas at Stanford, because they were two pretty smart guys, and believed the Bible allowed a life for a life. Joey added that Kant said that capitol punishment is a categorical imperative, but these writings are from another century.

BARTLET: I’ve got a Harris poll says seventy-one percent of the people in this country support capitol punishment.
JOEY: That’s a political problem.
BARTLET: I’m a politician.

Bartlet is ready for this impromptu meeting to draw to a close, but Joey takes a chance and brings up O’Dwyer. Bartlet says he’s an empty shirt. “Get yourself a live one and I’ll get interested.” Clearly, her White House excursion is over, and as she leaves, she signs a couple of things to Josh that her translator doesn’t need to spell out.

Sunday dawns with a cold sun, and Toby returns to his temple where a female cantor is practicing a haunting funeral song. Toby’s rabbi explains that his sermon was a catalyst in getting Toby to ponder his feelings on the death penalty. Toby is not looking for a debate, but points out the Torah preaches an eye for an eye. Yes, but it also says that homosexuality is punishable by death and that polygamy and slavery are acceptable. “Ancient teachings can be just plain wrong by any modern standard,” he says. Toby thinks the rabbi laid on the cantor for his benefit. He did. “She’s our communications director.”

C.J. has the unfortunate job of alerting the President when Cruz is dead. She maintains she has no position on capitol punishment and doesn’t care about the life or death of Cruz. But she’s haunted by the visuals of death by lethal injection – the twitching, the straining against the restraints, the head snapping back, the convulsions. She can deal with the death of a murderer, but is unnerved that she knows Cruz’s mother’s first name.

[Joey Lucas]

From The Official Companion (cont.):
Toby can’t offer much advice or solace to Bartlet, but volunteers that regardless of the Torah, rabbis always made sure there were so many legal restrictions, it was impossible for the state to kill someone. Bartlet wishes he could simplify the issue that easily, but if he pardons Cruz just because he doesn’t like the death penalty, the next President will have “Eighth Amendment problems up the ass.” It would be cruel and unusual to execute some people and not others depending on the mood of the Oval Office. Leo says if that’s the only thing stopping him from saving this man’s life, he should guiltlessly give the next guy the problem. But the President has made his mind up.

Sam is patiently waiting to put forth his case. Leo tells him Bartlet’s done. Sam is not ready to admit defeat and argues that they can sell commuting the sentence. Leo wants him to let it go – the case was bungled and the White House was severely unprepared. The tension in the room slowly diffuses until only disappointment is left. “There are times when we are absolutely nowhere,” he laments.

Josh slinks to see Joey at her hotel before she returns to California. She wonders if he’s come to ask her on a date, but Josh explains that the President wanted him to apologize for his abruptness. While the political strategy was definitely at play, Bartlet really does think O’Dwyer’s a schmuck. Joey admits she does, too, but she needs the work. Josh continues that Bartlet meant it when he said he’d be interested if she found a live one. Joey asks if he had any suggestions. “Yes,” Josh says, “you.”

As the sun sets on Cruz’s last night of life, Father Cavanaugh (Karl Malden) arrives at the White House. A bit intimidated by his surroundings and the issue at hand, Cavanaugh tells Bartlet he doesn’t know whether to call him Jed or Mr. President. Not unfeelingly, Bartlet would prefer the latter: there are times when it’s better to think of the office, not the man. Bartlet says he had his staff look for reasons to save Cruz. A technicality, evidence of racism in the court proceedings. Father Cavanaugh compares Bartlet to the kid in right field who doesn’t want the ball hit to him. He’s just looking for a way out. Bartlet reminds the priest that he is the leader of a democracy and 71% of people support the death penalty.

“Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord,” Cavanaugh quotes as he explains that God is the only one who gets to kill people. Cavanaugh mentions that he spoke to some of Bartlet’s staff; Toby told him about the rabbi, Josh about the young woman who’s a Quaker. Bartlet says he prayed for wisdom and none ever came. Cavanaugh tells him a parable about a man in the middle of a flood who turns down various offers of help, choosing to rely on God to save him. He drowns, not realising God was behind the offers of assistance the whole time.

CAVANAUGH: He sent you a priest, a rabbi, and a Quaker, Mr. President, not to mention his own son Jesus Christ. What do you want from him?

C.J. brings Bartlet the dreaded note. Cruz is dead. Now Father Cavanaugh is a priest and the President a sinner like any other man. Cavanaugh calls him Jed, and asks if he wants him to hear his confession now. Bartlet nods yes.