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October 24, 2005
We Treat Toby This Way But Not Karl Rove? or "A la Maison Blanc"
West Wing: triv will disagree, I'll state that up front, but I dug this one, too. Let me put in the qualified disclaimer: in no way is this as good as prime WW 1-4 seasons. It doesn't even share the dancefloor with it. But it's not bad. Not bad at all.
If for nothing else, the final scene with Toby, Bartlet and Babish. The Kate Harper thing was crap. Santos, who cares, except we got to see the bald guy get all pissy with Josh in the end. We now know that this actor's agent isn't very good. Having been spoiled, I know that all the firings lead into Donna coming back, which should be a bit tasty with all the tension. But enough tension. Time for some sex. If the tension leads to sex, I'm all for it. If John Wells is setting us up for tension, tension, tension and no sex, then he's not answered what is the most important and relevent question on every viewer's mind: Do Donna and Josh actually make it to the bed the first go round or is it up against a wall?
But the final scenes were in my mind the best of the season thus far. Bartlet giving it to Toby, as he HAS to. Counsel's in the room, dude, you can't hug the guy who just stabbed your administration in the back. Not that Bartlet isn't justifiably actually pissed. Sad that Bush just isn't intelligent enough and has too much riding on some unrealistic bullshit of "loyalty" to actually do such a thing to a real WH leaker, like Rove or Libby.
But what got me, totally and completely in perhaps my favorite post-Sorkin moment, was Babish telling Toby in the outer office that someone should thank him for his years of service. I don't know why, it was just really beautiful and sad to me. In this fictional world, this will be Toby Ziegler's legacy now. Everything he's worked for washed away. Not that I agree with what the following examples did in most cases, but do we remember Ron Ziegler, Halderman, Erlichmann, Robert Bork, Oliver North, BILL CLINTON, RICHARD NIXON, John Dean, Alger Hiss, Robert MacNamara, Gen. Westmoreland, Speaker Wright for their years of service to their country? We remember them from breaking some law or some screw up that made their names live in infamy. All the good gets forgotten (not that many of them DID much good, but some did). Nixon passed the Clean Water act. Do we remember that at all?
That's besides the point. The point is is that Schiff, as usually, rocked it out last night and Janney was phenomonal. But is it even "A La" without Toby? Toby was the heart and soul... you can lose the idealist (Sam) the pragmatist (Josh) but when you lose the heart and soul, all you're left with is the spleen.
Posted by emily at October 24, 2005 12:50 PM