The West Wing revisited: Some gun control, any gun control
Welcome back to Kheiro Magazine’s West Wing recap, where we look at a funhouse mirror representation of Washington and realize everything old is new again
When I think of a quintessential episode of The West Wing, this is the one. Laws getting passed, personal problems getting shunted away in favor of policy discussions, Josh’s fangirls, talking down to Black people — this ep has it all. And of course it starts with a walk-and-talk.
Pres. Bartlet has just concluded a rousing speech about how his new gun control legislation is in the bag. Unfortunately, it’s not. As will be oft-repeated in this episode (S1E4, “Five Votes Down”), the Bartlet administration is five House votes shy of passing a, please excuse my French, pussy-ass gun control law. Rather than ban automatic and semi-automatic weapons altogether, HB 802 bans certain assault rifles if they have a shorter grip, or the barrel is too long.
What I wouldn’t give for pussy-ass gun control measures at this point.
I don’t have to tell you keyed-in intelligentsia that the lack of gun control is a serious problem in America. SNL subjected us to a Tom Petty cover about it not even two weeks ago. Las Vegas shooter Stephen Paddock unloaded thousands of rounds during his 10-minute attack on the Route 91 Harvest Music Festival, 200 of which were directed at the leg of Mandalay Bay security officer Jesus Ocampo before the attack even began in earnest. An overwhelming majority of Americans support tighter gun control laws, yet in the real world, those laws continue to not pass.
In West Wing world, the crew strategizes late into the night over Chinese food. When Leo finally gets home, a brand new watch from his wife is waiting for him: an anniversary present. Yep, Leo forgot his anniversary.
Here’s the thing about The West Wing: the men are in a Greek tragedy, where their greatest character strength is also their weakness that will inevitably bring them down. The women are in a romcom where girls fall off treadmills and anniversaries are forgotten. Every man is Robert DeNiro and every woman is Zooey Deschanel.
Back to the votes! The five reps who have switched their votes are: three Dems in the pocket of the NRA who vote together, one razzefrazzen Texas senator, and an old frat buddy of Josh. The three NRA stoolies are easily cowed by Josh. He approaches one of the dissenters, Rep. Katzenmoyer of Wisconsin, and explains that the Bartlet administration will crush him at midterms if he doesn’t fall in line:
Josh: See, you won with 52 percent, but the president took your district with 59. And I think it’s high time we come back and say thanks. Do you have any idea how much noise Air Force One makes when it lands in Eau Claire, Wisconsin? We’re going to have a party, Congressman. You should come, it’s gonna be great. And when the watermelon’s done, right in town square, right in the band gazebo. You guys got a band gazebo?
Katzenmoyer: Josh…
Josh: Doesn’t matter, we’ll build one. Right in the band gazebo, that’s where the president is going to drape his arm around the shoulder of some assistant DA we like. And you should have your camera with you. You should get a picture of that. ’Cause that’s gonna be the moment you’re finished in Democratic politics.
It is mostly awesome, but when Josh puts on his sunglasses and walks backwards out of the scene, the rails kind of come off. These are powerful men, but they are goobers at heart.
Meanwhile, CJ uses the annual financial disclosure press releases as a distraction so the press doesn’t catch wind of HB 802’s tenuous position. Remember when financial disclosures were expected, nay, mandatory? A simpler time. Toby could use some of the old Trump flim-flam, though, because he kinda sorta accidentally manipulated the stock market so he could make a hundred grand, nearly twice as much as what the Secret Service has already paid Mar a Lago for golf carts this year. But I digress. (OK one more: Mike Pence used campaign funds from his first failed Congressional run to pay his mortgage and golf club memberships. The rule of law means nothing.)
Toby is in hot water because people on TV care about malfeasance. He bought $5,000 of one internet stock a few days before his childhood friend testified to Congress. This testimony — which he organized — was at least partially responsible for the stock’s value increasing 25-fold. And Toby claims he did all of this not really understanding how finance even works. OK, if that’s how you want to play it Toby. Everyone on The West Wing is a know-it-all, but Toby is the knowiest of the lot. This is a man who knew the model of the plane he was flying in back in the pilot ep. But maybe he’s like Sherlock Holmes and has decided some things, apparently anything concerning money, just aren’t worth storing in his brain.
Josh meets with Rep. Chris Wick, his old frat dude. We find out that Josh pretty much got this dude elected, and now he’s withholding his 802 vote because he hasn’t gotten enough face time with the president. What a baby. Josh agrees to set up a chess game between Wick and Bartlet in front of some cameras, but he is not impressed by the childish games of his (former) friend.
That leaves Rep. Cal Tillinghouse, a Texan played by a guy doing an impression of Bill Hader’s impression of James Carville. Who is from Louisiana. The only way they’re going to get Tillinghouse is by going through fellow Texan VP Hoynes. This is not Leo’s favorite idea, as Hoynes is a power hungry manipulator. Instead, he goes to the head of the Black caucus, Rep. Mark Richardson, and tries to instruct him about the problems facing inner city youth today. It sucks. It sucks real bad. Richardson is not feeling it.
“You write a law that can save some lives. I’ll sign it,” he tells Leo. “In the meantime, please don’t tell me how to be a leader of Black men. You look like an idiot.”
All other options having been exhausted, Leo schedules a meeting with Hoynes — at the same time as his make-up anniversary dinner, kind of like that episode of Boy Meets World where Corey had to be on a date with Topanga but also needed to help the school bully reconnect with his dad at Wrestlemania. It goes about as well for Leo as it did for Corey, and his wife Jenny announces that she’s leaving him.
John Spencer and Sara Botsford act the hell out of this scene. You really believe these people care for each other but just cannot do it anymore. But Sorkin’s writing…leaves something to be desired.
“It’s everything, it’s the whole…thing,” Jenny says at one point.
Love that witty Sorkin dialogue. Later in the scene, Jenny argues that helping the President of the United States can’t possibly be more important than their marriage. Lady, of course it is. From a utilitarian perspective, from a deontological perspective, from every angle it’s more important. I just don’t believe a human being would make such a wack claim.
Leo goes to meet with Hoynes, still reeling from the dissolution of his marriage. Hoynes says he’ll help get Tillinghouse, and even invites Leo to his super-secret-government-honchos-only Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. Maybe Hoynes isn’t such a bad dude after all! JK, he twists the whole thing in the media so it looks like the VP brought the 802 victory instead of the President. Honestly this seems a little false, too. Victories for the VP bring glory to the whole administration. I can’t remember hearing about Joe Biden’s anti-rape campaign and thinking, “That’ll show Obama!” To lay people, what the vice president does is assumed to be at the behest of the president. Unless we’re talking about Dick Cheney, where it was always assumed to be the other way around.
In the final sitcom moment of the episode, Pres. Bartlet is hopped up on goofballs! He took both his back pills and we get a very fun scene of him being completely unfit to lead. Speaking of troubling parallels with the world we live in today, I’m convinced Trump really is a pillhead. I know he doesn’t drink because of his brother or whatever, but I have an abiding suspicion that the rumors are true and Trump is on every prescription pill.
In the “You Must Remember This” episode about the Mia Farrow/Andre Previn affair, songwriter Dory Previn talks about how she wrote the theme to Valley of the Dolls in the fragmented speech patterns of someone deep in the throes of pill dependency.
“Gotta get off/Gonna get/Out of this merry-go-round,” there’s never a complete sentence. Now watch Trump talk.
I also fully believe that, like Elvis Presley before him, Trump thinks there’s nothing wrong with all the drugs he’s taking because he has prescriptions for each one, most likely from this man:
Back to our fictional, benevolent, temporarily drug-addled president. Once again, I gotta praise the acting. Martin Sheen swings wildly between the gravitas we’re used to and some of the best stoned acting I’ve ever seen. This is the good/bad/only thing about The West Wing: no problem is too severe that there can’t be a weird drug trip scene in the middle of it. Also, nothing is so frivolous or fun that it can’t be interrupted by a monologue about Ancient Rome or some nonsense. It’s tonally bananas. Every episode of The West Wing is that episode of Mad Men when the guy gets his foot lawn-mowered off. And I love that.
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