OTH: The West Wing- "A Proportional Response" / "Five Votes Down"
Season 1, Episode 3
Aired October 6, 1999
Directed by Marc Buckland
Written by Aaron Sorkin
Synopsis: C.J. knows. She found out about Sam’s encounter with Laurie the call girl, and she’s waiting in Josh’s office, furious that the two of them, along with Toby and Leo, have kept this from her. It is her job after all, being the President’s voice to the press. After she and Josh get some words in, the two catch up with Toby, and C.J. promptly gives Toby a piece of her mind for the same reason. After a meeting with Leo, C.J. asks Sam to meet her in her office, and he’s already suspicious. Toby confirms his suspicions, and when he enters, he doesn’t allow C.J. to lollygag the proceedings- she’s upset not only because of how his history with a call girl, one that wasn’t a single experience, will look, but because he didn’t come to her first. She tells Sam that from now on, she is the first to know about anything that could be remotely damaging to his, or really, the President’s reputation. Speaking of which, President Bartlet is upset that it’s taken so long for him to lay an attack on Syrian forces after their recent bombing in Jordan, suggesting that the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the State Department are dragging their feet. Leo tries his best to calm the President, but notes when Bartlet brings up that they shot “him” down, not “it” or “them”, and warns him that it will look bad if the President appears to be out for blood for the friend he lost, and to mind the difference. Bartlet and Leo arrive in the Situation Room to meet with the Joint Chiefs of Staff to discuss a proportional response, which isn’t good enough. Syria bombed American military in Jordan, and he wants to fight back tenfold to prove a point. While his point is sound- Bartlet doesn’t want to look meek-milled to outside forces- he’s looking intense and unbalanced, doubly so when he suggests bombing Hassan Airport. Admiral Percy Fitzwallace has to talk Bartlet down from this and reason with him to consider sticking to their initial plan, which will harm as few civilians as possible. Bartlet agrees and backs off. As their briefings occur, Josh interviews a young man named Charles (or Charlie) Young, who applied and interviewed for a messenger job. The thing is that the interviewer, as well as Josh himself, both see something more in Charlie- and his GPA doesn’t hurt, either- and think that he’s better suited for another job- as the presidential aide. Charlie seems content with the messenger position, but Josh won’t hear anything about it. Except for one factor- Charlie is Black, and he worries that it will look bad if he’s at the President’s beck and call as a young Black man. When Leo calls Josh and the others in for a meeting to discuss the President’s upcoming broadcast involving his response to Syria, Josh asks if Leo thinks it’s a good idea to give the position to a Black man, which Leo sees no problem with if he’s qualified for the job. He even asks Admiral Fitzwallace, another Black man, if he sees a problem, and he doesn’t as long as Charlie is treated with respect and paid adequately for the job, which he will be. Before the President’s broadcast, Josh has a run-in with Mandy, arriving to her new job a week early to give him a gift as a way of saying thank you and to give her something to do when the episode doesn’t call for it. By this point, Josh is ready to show Charlie around the White House and introduce him to the President, who is having a meltdown because he can’t find his glasses. While trying to retrace his steps, Charlie speaks up and suggests that he may have left them in his study, where he was reading an earlier draft of his briefing. While we have an answer now, Bartlet is nonplussed to discover a new face when he’s about to announce his first planned attack as Commander in Chief and sends him away before discovering who he is. Leo decides that enough is enough and takes the President into his office and tells him to take a step back, noting that Bartlet has been at everyone’s neck recently, from his staff to his wife and now to people who aren’t even officially employed by him yet. If Bartlet wants to set a good example, he needs to take a step back. The President comes out and offers Charlie the position as his aide as he begins his address to the nation.
We’re another step closer to The West Wing becoming the show it’s known for, with Dulé Hill now joining the show as Charlie Young. While he doesn’t get a whole lot to do here, Hill gives the audience a younger face to latch onto in hopes of enticing more than just older viewers onto the show. Will it work? Who knows, although I don’t think Charlie is name-dropped as a fan favorite as often as a couple of others.
Still, I think the most important element about “A Proportional Response” is how it puts Bartlet front and center, making his attempts to measure his attack on Syria. As we can see from his first appearance, the President has taken a 180 from his inability to exert military command in the previous episode and is being talked down by the Joint Chiefs from using excessive forces. After all, while Syria’s attack was unfortunate, they didn’t harm any civilians, and it would be unfair for the President to do the same. Attacking innocents or harming their supplies for the sake of a power trip would border on war crimes, and the President needs to be bigger than that.
This is what critics of The West Wing probably have in mind when they call the show a liberal wet dream, considering how trigger happy even the most supposedly left-leaning Presidents have been. But if anything, “A Proportional Response” shows how Bartlet may not be the perfect leader he’s implied to be elsewhere, that even the calmest and most even-minded people are capable of aiming for blood when the right (or wrong) person is involved. This side was hinted at in the pilot, when we see a furious Bartlet upset that the religious group he’s talking to won’t condemn another one who sent his granddaughter a doll with a knife attached when she spoke about being pro-choice, but now he’s nearly bordering on war crimes. It’s a big jump.
Still, I find it interesting that The West Wing has done its darnedest to prove how perfect Bartlet’s staff is, how even their mistakes, like Sam hooking up with a call girl or Josh’s feisty response to an evangelical, is for the greater good (and I’ll give Josh his point, but Sam’s storyline continues to not work out, and I’d expect more from C.J. than to buy his Pretty Woman-izing), but Bartlet is quick to be shown that he’s infallible. Considering the show’s reputation and how it will eventually handle him, it’s worth noting.
At the end of the day, though, I think Admiral Fitzwallace, portrayed in an especially dignified manner by TV legend John Amos, offers a solid take on the series at whole when he says that “The President doesn’t make new friends, so they try to hang onto their old ones.” Bartlet lost someone he could look up to in a manner that didn’t have to happen, and he’s showing remorse and anger. It’s not pretty, but it’s justified.
Marc Buckland, in his only directorial work for the series (he’ll switch over to John Wells’ other show and fellow OTH program ER soon enough) does a fine job of emulating Thomas Schlamme’s style and keeping Sorkin’s rapid-fire pacing alive. Not the most exciting directorial work, but perfectly solid television.
Which does describe “A Proportional Response”, which finds new shades to our lead character but doesn’t entirely rock the boat otherwise.
Season 1, Episode 4
Aired October 13, 1999
Directed by Michael Lehmann
Story by Lawrence O’Donnell Jr and Patrick Caddell, Teleplay by Aaron Sorkin
Synopsis: It’s Monday evening, and President Bartlet is delivering a passionate speech about regulating gun control, backed by an exciting new bill he’s waiting for congress to pass. It’s going well, even if Toby is incensed that the President is skipping through the script he wrote, but a bigger problem occurs when Josh receives a call that the bill is going to be five votes short from passing. Leo calls an emergency staff meeting right after, where he and his crew try to build a plan of who they need to address to get those votes, which needs to be kept a secret from the President above all else. A few different senators are namedropped, but Josh suggests that they need to convince Vice President Hoynes in, as he is likely to convince a congressman from Texas who would otherwise be impossible to reach. However, Leo and C.J., who recall the veep’s behavior during last week, aren’t happy with this move. To stage a cover for their strategy, Leo suggests that they blow up the staff’s annual financial disclosure report while he and the rest of the staff try to convince enough senators to change their vote. When Leo realizes how late they’ve been delegating this over, he rushes home and finds his wife, Jenny, upset that he’s arrived so late on their anniversary.
It’s Tuesday morning, and the financial report is not doing many of the staff any favors. Josh is revealed to have been quite popular with a former employer, who bought a very expensive smoking jacket for him and Toby gets under hot water when it’s revealed that a piece of stock he bought for five grand ballooned to be worth over $120 thousand, which also occurred just before a friend with insider information testified about that particular company. But it’s okay, the crew has a few leads to get back those votes, with Josh meeting a congressman who’s on the fence and strongarms him into switching his vote or will be at risk of being campaigned against his position by another Democrat in the next election. He does just as well when meeting with an old college buddy-turned-congressman, Christopher Wick, who stalled his vote in hopes of getting a photo-op with the President. Josh berates his long-time friend, but reluctantly agrees to have Wick play a game of chess with cameras nearby if it will get him the result he wants, and it does. Two more congressmen have been met with and willingly changed their tunes, so we just need one more, and rather than meeting with Hoynes, Leo tries a different approach and meets with a Black congressman, who he tries to convince by suggesting how this gun bill will help the community. The congressman shoots this down, finding the bill to be insufficient and doesn’t approve of Leo’s race-baiting strategy, and won’t side with the White House unless they come up with more substantive legislature. He has no choice but to meet with the Vice President and has Margaret, his secretary, set up a meeting for later that evening. When he stops home, Leo discovers that this meeting, which Jenny discovers after Margaret phones the house, is the last straw for his wife, who doesn’t appreciate the flowers or pearl necklace he bought for her. She’s packing her things and leaving, not being able to come second to the White House, which Leo can’t even deny is the case. After she leaves, Leo arrives at Hoynes office, shaken up, which the VP recognizes right away. He agrees to speak to the congressman Tillinghouse from Texas about the vote, but also asks Leo to join a secret AA group that he and a few members of staff have at evenings, which is set up more like a card game. Leo considers it.
It’s Wednesday morning, and Leo calls a meeting in the Oval Office, assuring his staff that the President is staying home with a bad back. Before he can tell everyone the news about his success with Hoynes and Jenny, though, Bartlet arrives in normal clothes and tries to go about his normal day, despite the pain in his back and accidentally taking both of his medication at the same time. None of this matters, though, as we see Hoynes meet with Congressman Tillinghouse and convinces him to change his vote, suggesting that he’s not doing this for Bartlet but for another friend- himself, as Hoynes will some day be President. He goes one step further and has Tillinghouse call up the other four senators who recently changed their position, so they can appear on the news together as they allow the VP to take the credit for getting this bill passed. While the staff is incensed to see the trick Hoynes pulled, they still call it a victory. But before the day is done, Josh meets with Hoynes and “congratulates” him. The episode ends with Leo arriving into the “card game”.
By now the show’s steadycam movement has become well-defined, just as vital as a reference point to The West Wing as Sorkin’s rapid-fire dialogue. Seeing two or more characters move from point A to B in one wide take is just how the show does things. But “Five Votes Down” offers a big one that takes us from the ballroom hallway to the motorcade in an effective four minute manner, which feels a little more impressive than previous outings. If anything, this feels like a direct statement from the show, including Sorkin and Schlamme, that they know what the show is about to become and how it will better itself, so follow us for the ride.
“Five Votes Down” is notably directed by Michael Lehmann, who has an impressive resume on both the big and small screen, but his most recognized work may be the film Heathers, although I’m personally more partial to Airheads (“Trick question- Lemmy is God”). While Thomas Schamme did an important job earlier with defining the show’s visual vocabulary, Lehmann may be the strongest director we’ve had to date, aligning the show accurately and correctly as needed. This still doesn’t quite look cinematic, especially compared to The Sopranos on HBO or arguably even Buffy or ER, which were also on the networks, but Lehmann’s touch allows the show to feel a little more authentic and achieves some more dynamic shots, especially outside of the White House.
An early draft of the episode was written by political correspondent Lawrence O’Donnell Jr, who will return to the show at a later date in another manner, along with the late Patrick Caddell, who, among other candidates, became an adviser to Donald Trump in 2016 and coined his belief that media (particularly of the left-leaning variety) is the enemy of the American people. A pretty mixed pairing, although Caddell was still associated with the left by this point in time. Their expertise is welcome, but the episode still feels like Sorkin’s, who delivered the final script.
Personally, I never loved how Aaron Sorkin took over virtually every writing credit, even the ones he had little say on. It’s not unheard of for showrunners and/or story editors to take many an earlier draft and finetune them to fit the show’s standards- Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David are very open on how much they would rewrite the average Seinfeld script, and this was also a common occurrence for Joss Whedon and later Marti Noxon back on Buffy the Vampire Slayer- but in those cases, the show largely allows the original writers to keep their credits. Here, Sorkin makes known that he had a hand in virtually every teleplay the show delivered during its era, which comes off as a little conceited and in some cases, unfair. While his style and ear for character is what defined the series, television, like film, is a collaborative force, and I guarantee you that even the most dedicated auteurs will take inspiration from someone or something else to bring their work to life.
Even in my recent hermit stage, no man is an island, and Sorkin couldn’t bring much of the show alive without a cast who was as into their roles as their writer, directors who can bring his words to life on schedule, or a network poised to challenge television expectations, and to see him suggest otherwise is unfair to the crew at large, even if the other writers still get some credit. Whatsmore, he wasn’t the sole executive producer, sharing duties with director Schlamme and John Wells, nor is he the showrunner who was most active on set, as Schlamme handled the day-to-day business while Sorkin stayed in his office pounding out scripts. The show is clearly more than just his, even if the dialogue is what audiences latch onto first. I’d say that they’d notice the camera movements, particularly the use of steadicam, above it.
So how’s “Five Votes Down”? I’d say this is worth noting as Leo’s first big episode, being John Spencer’s submitted episode for Emmy voters. He’d lose to Richard Schiff, although Spencer will eventually take home an Emmy for portraying the Chief of Staff. Until then, we see Leo in an unenviable position, one where he has to tread the line between his job and personal life. I generally find this kind of story tiring, as it usually leaves the woman in the picture to appear unreasonable and demanding about her place, because it’s such a needy thing to want your partner to meet you half way, isn’t it?
And I think there’s an additional element that should be subtext, but I find missing- Leo’s friendship with the President. Earlier, Leo has suggested that he’s known Jed Bartlet for short of 40 years, and clearly the two have a personal rapport that we haven’t seen him share with anyone else. On one level, Leo is doing his job to ensure that the President achieves as many of his goals as possible in the most efficient way manageable, but on the other, this is one friend looking out for another, and that can become a conflict of interest if you don’t properly set a line.
We also see more of Leo’s faults as his attempt to court a Black congressman only falls on his face as he appears out of touch and racist on his own. It’s a tough line for a white man in his 60’s to not fall off from, and I think Leo at least means well even if his attempt comes off as desperate and cloy.
There’s definitely potential for more from Leo, however, like his willingness to join AA. The character’s alcoholism hadn’t been addressed before this point, so it’s one that I hope is discussed more, if he really suffers from any sort of substance abuse or if he simply needed some kind of outlet.
Vice President Hoynes’ invitation offers a rare moment of kindness from a character who is shaping up to become some sort of antagonist. This is also one point where I’m willing to say that Leo was correct for being iffy on, since he was right. Hoynes used this opportunity to secure himself a victory for himself above all else, which doesn’t make him look good… but to be fair, it’s not like the President and his staff are above political favors themselves. Josh had to secure a vote by promising chess and brandy to another senator. What appears to be the difference is that we’re supposed to like Josh, but not Hoynes, so it’s okay when one does it over the other.
As for Bartlet’s gun legislature? It does sound a little lightweight, but banning excessive assault rifles is still the way. I wish Biden would try to pass something like this.
I think we’re getting closer to the show audiences love here, although I wonder how many were already hooked on The West Wing by this point. Even my own personal objections are slowing down as I go through these episodes again, enjoying the way these political matters are addressed.
Presidential Records:
Come on, Donna, insuccessful isn’t a word.
And today Annie becomes Abbey. We won’t see the First Lady for some time yet, but it’s nice to hear her properly named.
Besides introducing Charlie, “A Proportional Response” is also the first episode to feature Danny Concannon, a journalist who will appear frequently, most notably as… well, we’ll see later.
it’s a small world: We’ll be seeing a lot of Admiral Fitzwallace during the show’s run, and this is just one of many noteworthy stops on television that John Amos has visited during his long career, appearing as recently as last year on The Righteous Gemstones (which I hear is great, but who has time for every show on TV?). While his most famous role outside of Roots, James Evans Sr. from Good Times, isn’t currently a part of the Our Television Heritage curriculum (although it’s sister… or cousin (?) show, All in the Family is), he’ll show up here again as Gordy the weatherman on The Mary Tyler Moore Show. Unfortunately, Mr. Amos was the show’s only recurring person of color, Black or otherwise, but he remained a memorable part of the show during his run, often holding his own to Ted Baxter’s idiotic, if harmless prejudices.
Next Week: With a nuclear catastrophe on the rise, Josh gets privileged access to safety that not everyone else will receive. That, and the President’s daughter comes into the forefront in a manner that he would not prefer her to.