OTH: The West Wing- "College Kids" / "The Red Mass"
Maybe this should have came out in, like, October.
Season 4, Episode 3
Aired October 2, 2002
Directed by Alex Graves
Story by Debora Cahn and Mark Goffman, Teleplay by Aaron Sorkin
Synopsis: The situation in Qumar hits a violent turn, and it’s agreed between the President, Leo, and Fitzwallace is that it’s time to call an attorney. Luckily, Leo has just the person- his current fling, Jordon Kendall, who he brings into the Situation Room to tell her what’s going on, including being candid about their attack on Shareef. Jordon has significant experience with international law, which makes her expertise welcome, although this is unprecedented territory. Before she agrees to take on the White House or the President agrees to accept her, Fitzwallace suggests a misinformation campaign and has the White House leave false evidence that Shareef is alive and well. While we don’t see how that turns out, we do catch up with Jordon, who has a serious discussion with the President as she reveals that she’s uncomfortable with the information she’s been processed and reminds both Bartlet and Leo of the severity of their actions and the unprecedented nature of this scenario, down to their reluctance to go to court.
Regarding the other tragedy the White House is dealing with, while the FBI is looking for a lead on the Iowa bombing, Josh and Toby, who took a brief (four hour) vacation following their hectic journey back to D.C., are considering the conversation they had before returning home and come up with an idea that can hopefully appeal to the moment- making college tuition tax deductible. After all, if CEO bonuses can be tax deductible, why not something that actually benefits the country? While the senior staffers hang at the Rock the Vote event at the local House of Blues, Special Agent Casper finds the white nationalist group responsible for the university shooting and trap them before shooting, which they won’t engage on without the President’s orders. Back at the venue, the staffers continue discussing their push for deductible tuition, and decide to ask Leo in the morning.
Also at House of Blues, Josh runs into Amy Gardener, who is currently working on the Stackhouse campaign. This is part of another tussle the White House has been dealing with- it’s recently been ruled that alternate parties have access to upcoming election debates, a move that both President Bartlet and Governor Richie share trepidation over. While sparks fly, Josh is furious over Stackhouse supposedly going back on his promise to endorse the Bartlet campaign and leaves Amy cold.
Debbie Fidderer is going through security clearance for her new job as the President’s secretary, but hits a snag when it’s discovered that 1) she donated to a radical organization to shut down the government (according to her, to prove a point) and 2) she reportedly suggested that President Bartlet should drink water laced with arsenic. A pretty serious threat, which Debbie profusely apologizes for even as she explains her reasoning- she admits that she wants the job and is willing to talk to whoever she has to. Charlie has Debbie meet with President Bartlet, who doesn’t approve of the quote or her reasoning, but agrees to give her the job anyway, because he likes her.
Why did Debbie get the job? Because she’s played by Lily Tomlin, and you don’t say no to Lily Tomlin. Unless you’re David O’Russell, apparently.
But actually, let’s talk about Debbie Fidderer a little. The character is a bit of a firecracker, not unlike the beloved Mrs. Landingham, and I think that’s both the dynamic the show craves and what President Bartlet is looking for in a secretary. Mrs. Landingham was the first person after his wife to say no to Jed, someone who recognizes his title but knows when he needs a kick in the pants, and Debbie appears to offer much of the same, even if she doesn’t have the same history Delores did with him. Season 3 left the role intentionally empty as a gesture to the fan favorite character (of course, Kathryn Joosten was still alive and active despite the character’s death), but it’s time for both the characters and the show to move on. The White House has a big year ahead of it.
While the campaign does come up in “College Kids”, it’s the other early threads of the new season that take greater precedence over that story, most notably the attacks on the fictional country Qumar and fictional Kennison State. I think both these dilemmas show the duality of the Oval Office, how the President has to enact brutal decisions (sometimes committing the occasional war crime) while having to deal with domestic terrorism when least expected. There’s no such thing as a slow day at the White House, and if it is, you should be worried.
Sorkin often seems conflicted about the President’s responsibility for peace, flip-flopping between whether he seems to support Bartlet’s occasional forays or condemning them, while “College Kids” comes off as particular inconclusive. I think it’s a bad look that Admiral Fitzwallace believes that deliberate misinformation is the right step, but there’s no pushback from any corner. At least not this week, and to be fair, I don’t think it’s up to The West Wing to condemn war crimes for the audience- I don’t need my entertainment to tell me why something I know is bad is bad. If the people responsible think that it’s necessary to start an intentional incident out of speculation with little probable cause, that’s on them.
The university bombing bringing up issues of domestic terrorism and tuition, however, seem more interesting and relevant to me. We’ve discussed white nationalism earlier in the show when Charlie’s courtship with Zoey Bartlet caused an assassination attempt that wounded and nearly killed both the President and Josh, which Charlie mentions with notable anger this week; with what feels like an ever-rising surge of white supremacy in the country, fueled in part by a never-ending quest for disinformation fed by the CEO of the former Twitter and doubled down by the president elect, this only feels too timely. This recent push for white nationalism only makes me think that more Americans would have supported the Third Reich during WWII than they’d care to admit.
I can’t emphasize enough how important it is to vote, and of course the show about American government agrees, which is why we have an extended Rock the Vote sequence, complete with small concert bits from such exciting artists as the Barenaked Ladies and Aimee Mann. I’m not sure how much good concerts like these or undeniably liberal productions like The West Wing do, especially when Bush will easily win reelection in due time, but any push to support the youth vote is welcome in my book. It’s their future, after all.
Anyway, “College Kids” is fine, but I think we’re still in boilerplate season-building time. Hopefully, when the ball keeps rolling, things will get more exciting.
Season 4, Episode 4
Aired October 9, 2002
Directed by Vincent Misiano
Story by Eli Attie, Teleplay by Aaron Sorkin
Synopsis: On the eve of the Red Mass (a yearly special Catholic Mass dedicated to all members of the legal profession, right down to the government), Senator Stackhouse, still running third party despite the President’s wishes, is planning to respond to Governor Ritchie’s comments regarding the needle exchange, which means that the President is now expected to respond as well. It’s here that it becomes apparent that Ritchie has a serious chance at winning the election, although the reason as to why varies. C.J. believes that Ritchie has the power of lowered expectations on his side, as his push for only two debates versus the White House’s hope for five, but Josh and Sam have something else in mind- they both believe that Stackhouse is going to cannibalize Bartlet’s votes against Ritchie. This is why Josh meets with Stackhouse and his crew, including Amy, as he hopes for the Senator to stand down, although Stackhouse stands his ground. Amy later meets with a visibly angry Josh and tries to have a conversation with him, who refuses. She asks Josh to stop being angry with her as she’s able to keep her calm despite losing her job from a strategy he was responsible for. This looks like a bad day for the White House as Josh comes back with Stackhouse still in the running, and later confirmation that there will only be two Presidential debates, with the Ritchie campaign actively refusing to compromise. Not only that, but the debate format that has been approved is asinine, to the point that the President would almost rather have none than go on with it. Ultimately, however, Sam suggests that they come up with a compromise- cut the debate number down from two to one, but change the format to a more traditional one. As Ritchie’s team supposedly wanted no debates at all, this may work, so Bartlet signs on despite the sacrifice. Toby is initially against the idea, but ultimately agrees if he gets 24 hours to prepare with the President. We do end with some good news, however- Senator Stackhouse is impressed with President' Bartlet’s Red Mass speech, including an addition he personally ad-libbed, to the point that he agrees to announce his resignation and support for the President in the morning. Inspired, Bartlet agrees to stay late after mass to discuss the needle exchange.
Also this week- Leo meets with Israeli Foreign Minister Ben Yosef, who is wary about the Qumar situation as Israel is currently being blamed for Shareef being MIA. While Leo claims that he doesn’t want the “Holy Land” to take the fall, he asks that they cooperate for the time being until more information is released. Later, the White House receives good news that the soldiers who have found the Kennison State bombers have them either dead or wounded with no casualty on our side, as well as saving a sick child in the premises, but we do still run into bad news- a plane heading into Israel has gone missing, which had Yosef in it. Josh also has Donna use her day off to go to a motivational speaker who has worked for Ritchie in the past to get notes on him. It turns out that the speaker is a fraud who condenses philosophy and poetry to brief supplements for easily-impressed audiences, which sounds right up the Governor’s alley.
Governor Ritchie’s refusal to meet with debate expectations reminds me of our most recent election, where (then) former President Trump ultimately only had one debate with Vice President Harris. By all accounts, she wiped the floor with him, and that should have said it all, yet here we are…
The fact is that Trump is hardly the first unqualified person to run for the highest office in the world, and any fictional parallels to real-world politics is less coincidental but intentionally timeless. If anything, a good percentage of voters like unqualified, if not genuinely unintelligent candidates like Trump, or Bush, or, well, Ritchie, because they disrupt the corrupt systems many Americans are sick of and say what they want to hear. Presidents like Bartlet, who promise plenty but only delivers on parts of what they speak about, tend to disappoint (see: Obama), in part of how they won’t stoop to the other team’s level, for better or worse.
It’s not very fun talking about politics considering what’s going on in the real world, is it? The reason Ritchie doesn’t want to have multiple, or ideally any, debates against Bartlet is because he’s a bumpkin who knows that he’ll look like a bumpkin when going against an Ivy League-graduate New Englander. But at the same time, how often do debates change the minds of already-decided voters?
These are mostly for the undecided, but that seems to be Senator Stackhouse’s tactic. In theory, having additional parties run for the candidacy is a good idea, offering voters multiple opportunities to see themselves represented and make up their mind. That is seldom the case in reality, though, as American voters live in a two party system, and votes for independents or campaigns like the Green Party traditionally just cannibalize the real candidates. At least Stackhouse actually does work for the government and has been shown to put his money where his mouth is in the series past, as opposed to grifters like Jill Stein, who run away to Russia when it’s not a presidential election year.
“The Red Mass” is titled and ultimately concludes at a real-life service, but is mostly focused on the other sides of the show’s fictional campaign, as the Bartlet administration is trying to weigh their options on both ends while still dealing with the early season tragedies. The university shooting is all but dealt with this week as Clark Gregg’s Agent Casper is able to have his team take down the bombers (unfortunately this isn’t the kind of show where we see that sort of action up close, but hey, 24’s second season would start later that month), while the attack on Shareef is currently being scapegoated by Israel, which works for now. I’d rather talk about Trump some more than delve into Israel, so let’s leave it at that.
There isn’t much time for personal material in “The Red Mass”, with even Donna’s storyline being condensed to two seasons, but I appreciate the return of Amy Gardner, who’s ultimately too good for Josh OR the Bartlet administration, despite clearly wanting a job there. Mary-Louise Parker deserves the world, or at least an Emmy, which she’ll get later that television season for her excellent work in Angels in America, but here she primarily exists to remind us that Josh Lyman, as charming as his spirit can be, is a louse and doesn’t deserve someone as cute and as intelligent as her. For now, anyway. That said, Amy is wrong when she disagrees that Stackhouse isn’t going to take away the President’s votes- he will, and they were his. Everyone knows that running third party is useless in America unless you’re running third party. Just give her a job already, Josh, don’t let Amy go to Mandytown.
But hey, not only is that door not closed yet, but an even more important one opens when Stackhouse agrees to step down and endorse Bartlet. Good, right?
Presidential Records:
I’m sorry that these are taking so long now, I think West Wing in particular is difficult for me to cover post-election. It’s hard to look for the good in politicians and the people they look over when we keep giving power to pure evil. Still, Jimmy Carter’s recent passing reminds me that there are some in politics, some who even made it to the highest offices possible, who ultimately mean to do well, and that should be worth celebrating… right?
Single Cell Paramecium sounds like a pretty cool band name, someone should get on that.
But in terms of real musicians, Barenaked Ladies play the only song of theirs that you’re familiar with besides the Big Bang Theory theme song, while Aimee Mann does a nice cover of James Taylor’s “Shed a Little Light”. I’d have rather seen Chrissie Hynde, though.
Leo received the fictional Medal of David from Foreign Minister Yosef, because why not?
I cannot find confirmation if Mary-Louise Parker did the balloon animal herself or not, but still, Amy has to be a keeper, right?
Next Time: First off, flashback time! We get to see bits from the earliest days of the first Bartlet campaign. And that’s followed by the first debate between President Bartlet and Governor Ritchie.