Mr Rove Meet Mr Toby
Well, it seems that Toby has just taken the long, lonely walk. I can't say I'm surprised that it happened, as it was rather telegraphed in the episode prior. I agree with The Fat Charlie in that this episode was much better than others from this season. I too thought the moment with Babish and Toby outside the Oval Office was pointed and powerful. Yet another moment when we saw a bit of the west wing die.
My favorite moment was not Toby and Babish though. No, my favorite scene was CJ and Will. Will has been returned to us. Will isn't a jackass anymore. At least - that's what it looks like. While the rest of Toby's story is certainly quite blury to us now, it looks to me that Will's is a bit more in focus. Now if we can just let Josh and Donna get it on. Really... is anyone watching the show for any other reason than that?
It could be said that Toby is Rove, and Rove is Toby. I don't think this is absolutely true. Rove is pure evil; a man that lives on the blood of kittens and has no reflection. Toby is just cranky. Rove outed a CIA operative as political payback against her husband. Toby tried to save lives by telling the world that the US is bringing the bomb into space. Rove's boss is an idiot. Toby's boss has a once in a generation mind.
That being said, it is awfully cute that this story is going on while a grand jury investigates the White House on charges of leaking national security information. I know that they try to keep the topics of the show relevant to current events, but can we have a little subtlety? Is that too much to ask for?
The B story sucked. Yes, I get that they wanted to show that Josh was no longer just Bartlett's son. That as Bartlett has to let go of a trusted aid, so must Josh (acting for Santos). It's a nice little bit of symmetry. The B story still sucked though. Some guy we didn't know, let alone care about, got fired. You know what they forgot to do? They forgot to bring the drama.