The Crackpots And These Women

[Admin]

From NBC:
Josh (Bradley Whitford) is troubled when he receives a special card informing him of where to safely go in the event of a nuclear attack -- a privilege denied to most of his White House co-workers -- while Leo (John Spencer) instructs the senior staff to meet with various special interest groups, some of whom have wacky agendas. Prior to an important press conference, Toby (Richard Schiff) voices strong opposition to many of President Bartlet's (Martin Sheen) plans for an upcoming California trip and later checks out the rumor that he was not the chief executive's first choice for the job. The President, meanwhile, virtually orders his staff to sample his prized chili when he arranges a reception for his Georgetown-bound daughter, Zoey (Elisabeth Moss).

[Admin]

"When we were kids, he [Martin Sheen] whipped us on the basketball court every day. He was proud of that. We have a court here on the lot, and we had a rematch for the first time in 12 years, and it took me back to when I was 15. I won't say who won this time." - Rob Lowe

"The Rob Report"
By Michael Hammer
September 1999
Smoke Magazine

Sorkin had a drink with Stephanopoulos at the Four Seasons Hotel near Georgetown while researching The American President. The aide pulled what looked like a bus pass from his wallet. The card contained instructions as to where George would be evacuated to help the president run the nation in the event of nuclear war. On The West Wing, Josh Lyman, the deputy chief of staff, becomes unnerved by his card, and guilt-stricken when he learns his colleagues aren't slated to be saved. The real fun came off camera. "Dee Dee actually came to me and said, 'You know, they don't have these cards,'" Sorkin recalls. Turns out they did, but that Myers didn't.

"The Real White House"
By Matthew Miller
March 2000
Brill's Content

Georgetown was originally chosen during the first season of the show to be the school of the president's daughter. "We wanted to tell a story about how her starting college would affect the president and first lady," Wells said. "We picked Georgetown because Bartlet is Catholic and Georgetown is a great university and a great place to send her to school in our fictional world."

"'West Wing' Graduates at Georgetown"
By Justin Dickerson
April 29, 2003
Hoya

[DarkHoarse]

"One of the most beautiful pieces of television ever made. A life-affirming story about friendship, trust and integrity. When Josh gives his security card back and Bartlet talks about absent friends and 'these women' you'll want to kiss the screen. The episode that will turn you from a casual viewer into a bona-fide fan."

(Keith Topping, 'Inside Bartlet's White House')

I swear this episode gets better every time you see it.

[Joey Lucas]

This is one of the best episodes. I end up crying everytime I watch it.

N

[Joey Lucas]

From The Official Companion:

On a crisp, autumn night, the Secret Service stands guard discretely as the senior staff plays a pickup game of three-on-three basketball outside the White House. It’s game point and the President won’t concede. Toby’s not afraid to resort to trash talk and tells the President there’s no shame in calling it quits.

TOBY: This is perfect, you know that? This is the perfect metaphor. After you’re gone and the poets write The Legend of Josiah Bartlet, let them write you as a tragic figure. Let the poets write, “He had the tools to be a leader of men, but the voices of his better angels were shouted down by his obsessive need to win.”

Refusing to be beaten, Bartlet brings in the reinforcements, namely, a towering ringer called Rodney Grant. Toby rolls his eyes – this is like the time he was playing doubles tennis with C.J. in Florida and the President introduced his new partner, Steffi Graf. Bartlet assures them that Mr. Grant is on the President’s Council on Physical Fitness. As Grant swats away the shots righteously, Toby recognises Grant as a member of Duke’s Final Four team. Toby tells Charlie to guard the new guy.

Donna is prepared to divulge the dirt on a new Romeo she met, but Josh isn’t interested in the revolving door of local gomers she sees. Shut down, she goes back to business: Leo wants him to see someone from the National Security Council, and C.J. wants him read an article in The New Yorker about smallpox.

Much to the chagrin of the staff, Leo announces the anniversary of Big Block of Cheese Day honouring President Andrew Jackson, who kept a two-ton hunk of cheese in the main foyer of the White House for any and all who might be hungry. Leo says Jackson wanted the White House to belong to the people. In this spirit, Leo asks senior staff to meet with organisations who wouldn’t ordinarily get access. Josh says it’s “Total Crackpot Day,” which earns him a slap on the head.

As the staff disperses to see their assigned groups, Leo pulls Josh aside. He introduces Lacey (David Fabrizo) from the National Security Council, who gives Josh a laminated card like a bus pass. His heart rate quickens as he reads his instructions in the event of a nuclear attack. The NSC has to get select people up in Air Force One or in an underground shelter as fast as possible. Josh asks, “And my staff comes with me, or they have separate . . .” Lacey shakes his head. They don’t get to go. Josh is stunned.

Bartlet is prepping for a press conference and Toby wants him to discuss gun control and the recently passed bill. Bartlet blows off the suggestion, as he will if he’s asked any questions about guns. The bill was popular – they shot up eight points after it was passed. Toby says he hopes “none of our new fans are among the thirty thousand this bill won’t protect from a gun this year.”

The Big Block of Cheese Day appointments are arriving, and Leo insists everyone keep them. So instead of working on briefing questions with the President, Sam gives his ear to a guy who wants the government to concentrate on the existence of UFOs. Josh turns his attention to smallpox. While it was eradicated in the fifties, countries like Iraq, Syria, Korea, and China have stockpiles of it.

The President cheers up when he hears his daughter, Zoey, is coming to dinner. She’s in town looking at student housing for Georgetown, and in celebration Bartlet is making a batch of his famous chilli. Enthusiastically, he invites the entire staff to attend, but gets a lukewarm response. Bartlet tells them to look at the big seal on the carpet, then back at him. He asks them again and they’re much more excited.

Toby doesn’t want the President attending a fund-raiser Mandy’s arranging at a Hollywood mogul’s house. The President is due to give a speech about violence in the media twenty-four hours before the party and Toby declares they can’t admonish Hollywood one day and take their money the next. “Why not?” asks the President. He says the problem with the movies is not that they’re violent, it’s that they suck, and if people didn’t go, they wouldn’t be made. Problem solved. Toby flips one hundred and eighty degrees and argues that it’s a hose job, the target is ridiculous, and coming at Hollywood wit a list of things that are un-American might sound “eerily familiar.”

BARTLET: Do I look like Joe McCarthy to you, Toby?
TOBY: Nobody ever looks like Joe McCarthy, Mr. President, that’s how they get in the door in the first place.

Josh can’t take his mind off the laminated NSC card burning a hole through his wallet. He takes his thoughts to Sam, asking him how he felt when he received the card. But when Sam asks, “What card?” the blood drains from Josh’s face. He’s one of the select few, and the rest of the staff merely gets to fend for themselves in the face of a nuclear disaster.

In the spirit of Cheese Day kindness, Mandy goes to Toby to discuss the fund-raiser, but Toby doesn’t want to hear it. Rebuked, she gives up kindness and announces she’s glad David Rosen passed on the Communications job, Toby really deserved it. Feeling as though he’s been slapped, Toby pulls C.J. out of her cheese meeting about a wolves-only roadway. He’d asked her before if he was Bartlet’s first choice and C.J. called him a “paranoid noodnik,” but now he’s asking her again. C.J. dismisses him; she’s never heard anything about David Rosen. Switching gears, Toby asks C.J. for help with the gun issue. He feels like the kid in class who waves his hand furiously but never gets called on.

Josh is noticeably absent from the speech run-through. Donna makes the excuse that he’s at the dentist but really he’s gone to see his therapist, Stanley Maxwell. Maxwell says he hasn’t seen Josh in ten months, why has he come now? Josh mentions he read an article about smallpox. And he can’t get “Ave Maria” out of his head, a song his sister used to play over and over. Maxwell asks if he means his sister who died? “Yes,” Josh says, “Joanie.” He admits what this is really about – he was thrown off when he got the NSC card, and more disturbed to learn he was the only one of his friends who got one. Josh continues, “Joanie and Toby and C.J. and Sam were . . .” Maxwell interrupts him. “Joanie?” Josh stumbles over his words, mumbling that he can’t talk about the card, and he tries to leave.

Maxwell soothingly mentions that Josh never told him how Joanie died. Josh shrugs his shoulders, claiming it’s not a big deal. She was baby-sitting for him and there was a fire, a popcorn maker or something. Maxwell repeats that the house caught fire. “Why aren’t you dead?” Josh’s memories of the night are vague, but he knows he ran out the house. “You were just a little boy, Josh. That’s what you were supposed to do.” Maxwell gently chides Josh that this is not not a big deal.

Later, Josh is back in his office, sitting alone, and listening to Schubert’s “Ave Maria.” C.J. comes to fetch him for the chilli party but his mood is far from enthusiastic. Josh confides in C.J. about the card he got from the NSC and that he knows C.J., Sam, and Toby didn’t get one. C.J. realises this knowledge has been hanging over his head and upsetting him and says, “You’re really very sweet sometimes.” C.J. casually tells Josh, of course they don’t want her and the other guys. They’re not going to need a lot of press releases after the bomb goes off. What Josh is most worried about is that the end of the world is not going to come with the red phone and nuclear bombs. It’s going to be something like smallpox. If a hundred people in New York get smallpox it’s going to HIV look like the cold season. He says there are only seven doses of vaccine in this country. C.J. tells him to come have chilli and repeats herself: He really is very sweet sometimes.

[Joey Lucas]

From The Official Companion (cont.):

In the residence, Bartlet is having a good time at his chilli party and he’s trying to make sure everyone else is too. Toby has a lot hanging on his mind, though, and finally concedes to the President that their professional and personal relationships have hit a rough patch. Bartlet agrees with that. Toby ventures that he’s been irritating the President, and Bartlet agrees with that too. Toby asks what’s really been on his mind: if David Rosen was Bartlet’s first choice for the communications director. Bartlet admits that he was, bur Rosen turned him down. Thank God.

BARTLET: I couldn’t live without you, Toby. I’d be in the tall grass, I’d be in the weeds. I know I disappoint you sometimes, I mean, I sense your disappointment and I get mad ‘cause I know a lot of times you’re right. You’re not the kid in the class with his hand raised and whatever it was you said to C.J. You’re a wise and brilliant man, Toby. Don’t ever wait for me to call on you.

Josh sees Zoey Bartlet (Elisabeth Moss) and introduces Charlie to her. They seem to get along well, although Charlie keeps calling Zoey “ma’am.”

The President, Leo, and Josh look around the room. Bartlet says he loves seeing colleagues having a good time together. Bartlet says he can’t get over these women. There’s C.J., who’s “like a fifties movie star. She’s so capable. So loving and energetic.” He points out Mandy, going at it toe-to-toe with Toby. And look at Mrs. Landingham, who lost her two boys in Vietnam and hasn’t missed a day of work in fourteen years. He says look at Donna, Cathy, and Margaret. Look at Zoey.

Josh admits there’s something that’s been troubling him. He says he serves at the pleasure of the President, but can’t keep his NSC card. Josh takes out his wallet and carefully removes the card. He says he wants to be a comfort to his friends in tragedy and to celebrate with them in triumph. Josh wants to be able to look them in the eye. He wants to be with his family, friends, these women.

Bartlet smiles and quiets the room. He says the first lady is in Pakistan, he’s not sure why, but Zoey is here and starting Georgetown before medical school and a life of celibacy. He says there’s always one or two converts on “Big Block of Cheese Day.” He wonders if C.J. and her wolves, or Sam and his UFOs. He asks what the next challenge will be. Smallpox has been eradicated once and, Bartlet says, “Surely we can do it again.”

[DarkHoarse]

These summaries in the official companion frustrate me sometimes. This one is a classic example: why, when it quotes Toby's "shouted down by the demons" line from the basketball game, is this not followed up by his quote from the party about it being a fair fight between Bartlet's demons and his better angels? Also, there is NOTHING on the whole Pluie saga.

You may argue that Pluie is irrelevant to the overall plot, and you may be right. But then I would cite the summary for the other 'block of cheese' episode: "Somebody's Going To Emergency, Somebody's Going To Jail". In that one there is no mention whatsoever of CJ's meeting with Cartographers for Social Equality and the discussion of the Peters projection map. And there's no way you can tell me that's irrelevant to the plot: it's the perfect metaphor for what Sam is going through (in simple terms, seeing the world in a completely new way), as is made explicit in his final comment about longitude and latitude. I would have strong words with whoever made the decision to cut all of that!

Perhaps this belongs on the companion books thread really, but here goes anyway!