Hollywood & Politics Interim: How During the 21st Century TV Explored The Presidency As Never Before – And The Messages They Sent Their Viewers That May Have Resonated by 2016

 

When The West Wing became both a critical and popular hit just prior to the 2000 election it broke the unwritten rule that shows involving politics could be popular hits. Because this was Hollywood, countless imitators arrived on network, cable and eventual streaming in the nearly quarter of a century that followed.

In the years since the 2016 election there have been countless books trying to argue why certain artistic trends in the industry may have led the groundwork of Trump's political rise. The majority focus on the popularity of reality TV, some discuss superhero comics, some discuss the rise of action movies and apocalyptic TV shows. Yet oddly enough none of them are willing to look at the most direct link: how much political TV series began to dominate the landscape and frequently become critical and popular hits. As I said in regard to the 2003 recall election of Grey Davis and the election of Arnold Schwarzenegger, there may be a very good reason for that. In this case, it's slightly subtler but it's definitely there.

Some of this change was felt in The West Wing itself in the aftermath of Aaron Sorkin's departure in May of 2003. Prior to that it had always been a show that leaned heavily into the staff at the Bartlet White House being more responsible for what happened that anything else. One rarely saw members of the cabinet during the first four seasons (and less during the three that followed) and understandably there was little mention of the Supreme Court after Season 1 except in passing. But Congress did show up throughout the first four seasons and it was seen primarily as adversarial, though the Democrats were seen as just as much an obstacle, if not more so, then the Republicans.

As soon as John Wells took over he completely changed that relationship, essentially turning the new Speaker into the enemy, essentially doing more to shape the Bartlet administration's day to day battles then ever before.  He would reject their candidate for Vice President and force them to take one they felt was inferior, which in turn led to the administration increasingly backing away from battles with Congress and the staff retreating more and more from them.

This was arguably the worst decision in Wells' entire tenure (and he made some pretty bad ones going forward). The administration had once been full of erudite, intellectual figures: now they seemed smaller and less intelligent, willing not merely to compromise but to avoid fights altogether. From a dramatic standpoint it made sense but considering that Bartlet was now a lame duck he should have been willing to charge ahead harder without having to worry about reelection.  This had been the mood that Sorkin had begun during the second half of Season Four and it had the affect of having the staff grousing more and more about what they couldn't do anymore. When Bartlet attempted to negotiate a settlement between Israel and Palestine in the fifth season finale it was the kind of ambitious step the Sorkin show had considered – and it was by and large treated by everyone on the staff as out of touch, something they were basically refusing to get behind.

This would have been interesting had Wells been willing to follow up on it but by the sixth season he was essentially focusing on the next election and the Bartlet administration was increasingly becoming a side note. By this point other shows set in and around the White Housew were being formed – but they were sending similar messages.

24 is by far one of the greatest shows of the 2000s and much of its power came from how well, after Season 1, it incorporated the White House as being equally important as to what Jack Bauer and CTU were dealing with every day. Much of the brilliance in the show was how evenly it treated both Democratic and Republican Presidents with the same level of fairness: whether David Palmer or Alison Taylor was President they were equally capable of rising to great levels or being deeply flawed. Issues such as race and gender had nothing to do with how they governed.  To grade the White House on realism would be genuinely petty: this wasn't the kind of show 24 was.  What is worth mentioning is that you got the idea, particularly in the second half, of the idea of the President leading without involving the other two branches.

This wasn't true of David Palmer (Dennis Haysbert) a man who from the moment we saw both as incredibly moral but also governed by realpolitik. This was particularly true during Day 2: when he learned that a nuclear bomb was on American soil, his first priority was finding the weapon and preventing it from going off rather than rushing to a military engagement. He was also more than willing to do whatever was necessary no matter how much his turned his stomach: famously he asked one of his secret service agent to torture the head of the NSA in order to find if it had a link to the weapon being on American soil.  (It did.)  When it ended up being something that could have undone his Presidency he stood by it as a necessary evil.

But even so there was a certain level of unreality. During Day 3 he was in the midst of his reelection campaign (the day took place during the Presidential debate against his Republican challenger). During the second half of the day the main story involving him was how his brother Wayne (DB Woodside) White House Chief of Staff had an affair with the wife of one of his biggest donors. In order to try and save his Presidency David turned to his ex-wife Sherry (Penny Johnson Jerald) who the previous day had played a role in the nuclear weapon ended up on US soil. Palmer had rejected her even before he became President with good reason and his turning to her even in this time of travail was unrealistic.

When it inevitably backfired the President agreed to cover it up. Sherry would then go to his opponent and tell him to use it as leverage in exchange for a place on his staff after he won the election. Both David and Wayne would try to solve it but it would backfire even more and Sherry would end up dead. The day ended with David Palmer telling Jack he wasn't going to stand for reelection.

In hindsight this part may be the only part that I believe something left-wing entered 24. Every other President that was to follow (how many is a matter of debate) believed in the importance of political power. Moreover every President that followed kept in with the mission statement of 24: the ends justify the means. David Palmer backing away from the Presidency – and consequently destroying any chance his party has to holding on to power in the election to follow -  can be seen as the kind of moral good the left believes that goes against politics in general.

To be fair to 24 the Presidents that followed (Republican and Democrat alike) were more than willing to use the full force of the White House to achieve their goals however bloodthirsty they could be achieving them. This would frequently lead to truly incredible drama, particularly in Day 5 both the shows finest hour and one of the finest season's in TV history. (At some point I will be writing about 24 on a separate entry for that reason.) But one wonders if in a sense it was arguing for a kind of grand unitary theory of the executive as a result: the idea that the President had absolute power to do whatever they wanted. To be sure the show argued against that quite a lot.

Indeed in Day 5 when it is clear that President Logan (Gregory Itzin) has committed a series of treasonous acts including the assassination of David Palmer his Secretary of Defense (William Devane) confronts him and demands he resign. Logan tells him that he can't argue if you don't sit in this chair. The Secretary tells him cooly: "Your chair is not a throne."

For all that you always got the feeling that the Presidency was basically being held in check not by Congress but by Jack Bauer. Despite the grey area he frequently occupied due to his actions you could tell that Jack had a sincere love of country and that nobody – not even the President – was above the law. That was not a feeling one got in what was the most prominent show set in the White House to follow: Scandal.

Its clear by the average reader as to how little regard I hold all things Shondaland so I'll try to keep my moralizing to a minimum and report as dispassionately as possible her political views.  That said I maintain that Olivia Pope was never anything that an African-American female Ray Donovan (this show debuted on Showtime just before Scandal's first season.) For the purposes of this article I'll saw the biggest difference between them is that it took Olivia and the show the entire series to make a realization about themselves that Ray knew by the time of the Pilot: that they weren't the heroes of the story but the villain.

It's worth remembering that by the time the second season has barely begun Fitzgerald Grant III (Tony Goldwyn) is not the legitimate President of the United States. Olivia and four other people engaged in a conspiracy to rig voting machines in at least one state so that he could become President. Olivia is the last person to be convinced to go along with the fraud but she's more than willing to cover it up so that she can have a job in the administration (and you know, screw the President). It's only when potential whistleblowers are killed that she chooses to leave the administration and become a 'fixer'.  To be clear she's fine with the crime and the coverup but not people dying to maintain that coverup.

For all  the show's threats about 'bringing down the Republic' – something, I would point, many members of the left would be fine with -  Olivia Pope is fine with the status quo. There's never any real reason why Fitz deserves to be President so much that it's fine to steal an election to make him so: Grant is a Republican and while he does give great speeches, there's never any sign during the show that he makes either any landmark policy or does immense good. If he did Scandal might have been a better show, arguing whether the ends justify the means. But Rhimes is not interestingly in telling that kind of story; she wants to tell a soap opera about the forbidden love between Fitz and Olivia. (The fact that this has the unfortunate parallels between so many white politicians and black women having no say, from Thomas Jefferson to Strom Thurmond, apparently never occurred to Rhimes or indeed so many fans of her work.)

 Indeed Rhimes has a brutal vision of democracy that is constant throughout the series: its too important to be left in the hands of the voters. Even before the 2016 election she's made it very clear that both of Grant's elections have been rigged, the first politically, the second by assassinating his son to create a sympathy vote.  Olivia and everyone else on Scandal cares nothing for the average person and little use for political power beyond simply having it.  All of the people in Grant's DC seem to want political power as if it’s a status symbol, a shiny bauble.

Which brings us to House of Cards a series that understandably has fallen into immense disregard because of the fate of Kevin Spacey by the end of Season Five. This series, at least for the first two seasons, had more realism in it then Scandal when it came to politics. Spacey had spent much of his time shadowing his real life counterpart: majority whip Kevin McCarthy. (That a Hollywood star would talk to a Republican in the halls of power for the purpose of a role is something that is now unthinkable, as I'll get to in the next entry in this series.) Watching Frank Underwood walking through the halls of Congress and the White House (aided by Claire) manipulating those around him to achieve first the Vice Presidency and then the Presidency was, frankly, a lot of fun and created some extraordinary drama.

The problem came, I'd argue, when Underwood became President. It was easy to believe that Frank could manipulate his underlings in Congress but now that he had the power he'd been seeking he had to get legislation through Congress, deal with foreign policy and then win reelection. And this was a lot more difficult to make entertaining while realistic. So the show started to lean really hard into its soap opera tendencies and that ended up doing something incredibly unrealistic with Claire.

Through the first two seasons the show had done an incredible job making it clear how brilliantly matched Claire and Frank were. But once Claire became First Lady, a job that was pure ceremony, it was going to work. So first they made her Ambassador to the UN, absent any approval from Congress. This was treading on thin ice in terms of realism. Then they essentially spent much of Season 4 turning Claire into first a force against Frank's administration, then running the White House when he was shot and finally deciding to have her become his running mate, something that the Constitution doesn't allow. It says something that even as much as Rhimes was tearing every part of reality down and made clear that Mellie Grant had political ambitions of her own the show never even considered making her Fitz's Vice President despite the fact his original one ran against him as a third party candidate and he had two others during his term. When Shonda Rhimes is sticking closer to reality then you are, you've really lost your purpose.

So why did they do it? Honestly for the same reason that Mellie Grant was running for President during the last seasons of Scandal, that Selina Meyer became President on Veep in the fourth season and Tea Leoni eventually became Vice President on Madame Secretary. They were all expecting Hilary Clinton to be the next President of the United States. And it's here I want to get to the major issue with Hollywood and their perception of how they drive the conversation.

While I'm willing to acknowledge that Dennis Haysbert's portrayal of David Palmer made it somewhat easier for Obama to attain the Presidency in 2008 I don't believe for a second it was the main or even one of the most important factors. So much of Hollywood's dealing with politics has always been based on their liberal wish fulfillment rather than the reality of politics. I don't think they wanted Obama to become President; I think they wanted David Palmer to become President and to govern like the Bartlet administration did.

Hollywood, like so many other leftists, believe that the President can just press a button and make government bring about left-wing social policy. The fact that it doesn't is merely because the President lacks the moral will to do so. So during the 21^st century they created a series of TV shows where the Presidents basically did just that. Either they did the right thing, regardless of the political cost (as David Palmer did at the end of Day 3) or if do they do the wrong this it is for a greater reason.  And because they are played by actors with great writers, they do so looking good and with not a hair out of place.

These Presidents were seen, I should add, by millions of Americans on a weekly basis on shows that were nominated for Emmys year in and year out and were acclaimed by some of the most prominent voices in television. Some, I should add, were watched by as many people as The Apprentice was, which debuted during this period long before Donald Trump was considering politics. (I will get to Hollywood's reaction to his candidacy, trust me.) If you argue that the latter made his candidacy more acceptable you must also argue that these same shows had to make it believable that these kinds of political shows had a similar impact on America, albeit at a subtler level.

And because of the bubble that Hollywood lives in perhaps that the reason they never truly accepted the groundbreaking candidacies of so many of these political candidates. A black President by 2008? We've already had two on 24 alone! They didn't want Sarah Palin to be Vice-President; they wanted Alicia Florrick. And it explains why they never liked Hilary. They might want a woman to be President but they wanted her to have the compassion of Alison Taylor and ruthless willingness to get things done that Claire Underwood had. And if she could be as funny as Selina Meyer, that would be good too. And if you're having trouble getting legislation passed, why get Frank Underwood to get it through the House and use Olivia Pope to handle any holdouts

That has to have been at least a factor in the way Hollywood looked at politics  before the 2016 election. They still thought you could pass legislation if you did multiple takes and that you could get the right candidate if you did an appropriate casting call. Their version of democracy was the one they wanted. The fact that it had no basis in reality, well, then you fix in rewrites.

First Article For The Coalition for The Sane (To Begin After I Officially Reach 1000 Readers)

 

 

First of all, a sincere thank you to all of my readers on Medium. (Yes, I'm aware the official term is 'followers' but as I've said that really makes me sound like a leader of a cult and society is tribal enough as it is.) When I began writing here nearly ten years ago never in my wildest dreams did I believe that I would have this many readers, almost none of whom are among my immediately family and friends.

Now to the purpose of this article and the ones that follow. I address this series ostensibly to all my readers but far more to those who I've spent much of the last two to three years subscribing to because I consider them part of what I'm only consider half in jest 'the coalition of the sane'. I would mention those of you who I mean by name but I should let you know I expect this series to be greeted with hostility by quite a bit of the readers at this site. While by this point in my life I am perfectly capable of handling them, I don't wish to unduly burden you with their rhetoric by association. I suspect many of you have already been attacked by those same people and are more than capable of handling them but as this series is not directed to them, why allow them to take up any more space in our heads?

Here's a warning to those who are new readers. I'm going to be saying some things that certain people on this site and elsewhere absolutely need to hear but have made it painfully clear they have no interest in hearing it or anything that dares penetrate the echo chamber they occupy with a slightly different perspective. If this doesn't interest you, get out now and find another column. Some of you might actually want to block me right now if the thought of reasonable  dissent is considering giving aid and comfort to the enemy. I'll be doing my TV and other forms of criticism soon enough but for now I'm going to get political and not in the way the overwhelming majority of writers on this site like.

You gone? Well, for now let's just assume they are. I'll find out soon enough. Let's proceed.

Let's start with some information about me personally. Most of my readers know this because I've said as much in the comments section of many, many articles on this site but it's worth restating.

I'm a centrist Democrat which means, to quote the immortal Chris Rock "I got shit I'm liberal about and shit I'm conservative about." That being said I'm in accord with somewhere between 75 to 90 percent of the values argued by the various identity groups that make up the majority of what is discussed in political articles in this site, which we all know is majority left-wing. (It's officially ranked 'center-left' by sites who do so.) Like them, I am basically appalled by the those on the far right and much of the Republican base that follows them as to how elected officials from that party across the country and elsewhere are doing much to suppress their basic rights. It doesn't matter whether they are African-American, LatinX, female or part of the LGBTQ+ community: at my core I completely support their rights and like I would believe most rational people are, want them protected. I am fully aware how much of the extremists are not rational in any sense of the word as well.

And even coming from my position as a cis, white male which I know causes many in all of these identity group to view me as suspect before they even meet me, I feel for them because I am a human being and have empathy.

I also agree that many of the systems in America, including capitalism, the criminal justice system and even our democracy are broken. I may differ with them as to how irreparable the system is (I'll get to that) but I won't dispute it needs serious repairs. And I can understand why so many in this country and the world feel this sense of despair and impending doom about our society and feel the need to share that hopelessness on this site and others to express their feelings. Its either this or go mad and I don't judge them for that.

So for years on this site when I saw many of these columnists express their rage or despair about the world, I asked them: "What can we do to fix it?" Because I do believe that if there are ills in our society it is our duty as a society to find a way to repair them. And that's where its clear I differ from the overwhelming majority of those writers.

Because for more than a year and a half I asked them over and over, how do we fix it? What would you do if you had the power? I asked them first in pragmatic fashion and eventually I was willing to give them king-like if not god-like powers to ask. And over and over, I got the same response.

Silence.

None of the most blatant abusers of these themes (none of you are among them, I want to assure you) ever came up with a plan, logical or even fantastic, as to solve the problems of today. What they did, over and over, was restate how badly broken society was and how there was no motivation to fix it.  Eventually I became more sarcastic though even then I tried to keep it in the boundaries of constructive criticism because I did and do still feel empathy and sympathy for their causes.

I never got as much as a clap for my responses.

It was only when I started to express the ideas that I didn't think were that radical: that people in red states were human beings and should be treated with respect, that free speech has to apply to everybody, even the people you disagree with and the very real fact that Republican voters were not going to magically disappear by ignoring them. Then I started getting responses – all of which basically called be either a MAGA or a DINO, sometimes in the same comment. (That's a neat trick, honestly.)

All of this I should be clear took place during Biden's administration and it was by the midterms that I realize what really should have been obvious: many of these people were incapable of seeing reason. Now I didn't expect his election to make all of these people swear eternal loyalty to the Democratic Party but at the very least I figured they'd finally admit that there was a difference between the two parties.

That never happened. And the closer we got to the 2024 election and the more so many of them refused to commit to first Biden's reelection or Harris becoming the President, I genuinely doubted both their sanity and mine. Did they not live through the first Trump administration? Did they not remember just how horrible it had been and all the causes they claimed to fight for? I understood, reluctantly, why the Republicans were willing to go off a cliff with Trump in 2024; I couldn't comprehend why so many seemingly intelligent people really seemed to think that there wouldn't be a difference no matter who won that November?

And I have to be clear I didn't just see it here but in so many other left-wing magazines. I saw in The Nation, Harper's, The Atlantic and especially Daily Kos which is supposedly in favor of electing Democrats across the nation. Its striking how, even now, there are many left-wing writers who still seem unwilling to commit to the idea that the Democratic Party is at least an improvement over one that they will spend pages is destroying everything America ever was. But by and large, many will rarely go that far, and its half-hearted at best.

None of this is anything new, by the way, all of these writers are descendants of a left wing movement that pre-dates the protestors in Vietnam, pre-dates those who think FDR didn't go far enough with the New Deal and goes back, as you might expect, to the kind of people who will tell you to this day that the Soviet Union was a failed experiment and that socialism would work if it was implemented correctly. They're the kind of people who have made it clear that the reason the Democrats have struggled to win elections is because they embraced 'neoliberalism'  - a term I need to be clear coined by a Marxist scholar.  They will tell you in no uncertain terms that the Democratic Party can't win elections because they haven't gone far enough to the left and therefore millions of people are rejecting them. Why so many people would choose to embrace a party that these same people have always equated as fascism as an alternative is a circle they never seem fit to square. But they will tell you that if the Democrats embraced 'true liberalism' the voters would come.

To be clear, and I suspect many of you know this, there is no statistical evidence that the average voters wants the positions that are embraced by the so-called Justice Democrats and that are built in the Bernie Sanders campaign. This was proven multiple times in the countless elections the McGovern's and Mondale's lost in landslide to increasingly conservative candidates; by the fact that so many of the policies that they advocate for have never been passed in legislatures where they've been put on the ballot as a referendum and when they have many have been repealed by the states later on; by the fact that the Justice Democrats movement itself has essentially been repudiated by the electorate ever since 2018 when they ran their first slate. The voters have sent a very clear message that they don't want what the left is selling and the Democrats have lost a lot of elections – and in effect, given the Republicans carte blanche to put their agenda across the country as a result – by trying to sell even a half-baked version of it to their voters. This has done nothing to convince so many of these writers that it’s the Democratic Party's moral duty to do so. It's an argument they make with the same fervor communism would work if it were tried properly.

The people on this site who make arguments like this have no real facts or figures to back up that the masses want what they are selling or lacking that, how they intend to win hearts and minds to convince them to endorse it. I've told them that multiple times, again under the label of constructive criticism, and they have made it perfectly clear that I am a white supremacist, manosphere troll, homophobe, et cetera, et cetera.  They seem proud by the number of people they push away, even if its into the hands of the enemy. How this is going to help them build this left-wing utopia they continuously insist the people want is something they ignore; far too many would rather call you the worst names possible then even concede for a moment you have a point. When I tell them that this exact same kind of fanaticism I have seen on Fox News and other right wing articles – and which they themselves argue is repulsive and must be rejected by all rational people -  they push it aside.

I'm unaware when it comes to many of the people on this site whether their attitude is generational, identity based or political. I suspect it is a combination of all three. What I have come to the ultimate realization of is that they are not part of the solution but part of the problem and unless they can be made to see reason (something I increasingly doubt with too many of them) we can't count on them as useful in finding a way to solve the problems of our society that they rage against.

None of this is new in America. As a student of history one finds a direct link through every aspect of what the left in this country has been like, stretching from the days of the abolitionist writings and anger from those such as William Lloyd Garrison to the No Kings Protests of today. With few exceptions it is led by loud, belligerent rhetoric about the injustices of society combined with an utter refusal to engage in any actions to bring about the changes needed to end these injustices. This rage and anger has the overall effect of pushing potential allies into the camp of the opposition which organizes based on society's construct to maintain their political and economic power and maintain these injustices.

What can be the most maddening, personally as well as from a historical perspective, is so many times those involved know what the other side is doing, knows what they need to do to bring about change – and stubbornly will not engage in it anyway. Famously in 1964 Malcolm X said: "Change is coming. Either by the ballot or by the bullet." This was the kind of rhetoric that could and was easily used by the opposition to mobilize its base to make sure that it could maintain its hold on the electorate.

But the bigger problem is even when they were given these two very blunt, basic choices of how to realize change during the sixty years that have followed almost every aspect of the left in any identity group has been 'none of the above'.  They are just as stubbornly adamant about voting as a solution to their problems and while their protests may move into violence every so often they are basically unwilling to use that as a method of change. So they march every so often, write their articles in publications like this, and post on social media. And then they have the gall to be upset that somehow society has not realized how horrible things are. That's the left's problem in a nutshell: reform is too slow and they're too lazy to carry out a revolution. Based on the times I've mentioned this to them on this site and others, they don't like me reminded of this basic reality.

So to quote John Oliver in a context he would never accept: "What can we do?" These articles will be an attempt to figure it out. They will deal in a philosophical context to illustrate flaws in the left's dogma, how it mirrors the extreme right and where they've basically failed. I will use historic examples to why liberalism historically worked and how its redefinition has led the Democratic party and liberal causes essentially off a cliff in my lifetime. And eventually I will attempt to make an argument as to how reform, slowly but surely, must be done in order to bring about the changes that those on the far left advocate for but have proven themselves incapable of bringing about.

These articles, I hope, will be part of a larger conversation between myself, the writers who I have agreed to follow and who have been kind enough to return the favor, and those who do agree about the injustices in society and want to do something to bring about change. We must accept it will not be easy but I believe it is not impossible. I have never believed in the doomcrying of these writers at any point in my life and I refuse to give into their despair or accept their rage. There is still a small part of me that hopes some of them will read these articles, feel heard and maybe, maybe be  willing to walk the walk instead of just talking and no action.  I believe in their causes, but not their attitude. And it is that part that will give us a way forward in the years to come.

 

 

 

Jamie Ding Is A Better Player Then He Looks And He's Already One of the Greatest Players in Jeopardy History

 

Yesterday Jamie Ding officially took his place on Jeopardy's Leader Board of Legends. By winning his sixteenth game he tied Scott Riccardi and Ryan Long for tenth place all time in number of games won in Jeopardy history. There are only nine players ahead of him in games won: Ken Jennings, Amy Schneider, Matt Amodio, James Holzhauer, Mattea Roach, Cris Panullo, Julia Collins, Jason Zuffranieri and David Madden.

Furthermore on Friday his total  of $462,401 officially puts him eighth place in terms of money won by players in their original run behind (in order) Jennings, Holzhauer, Schneider, Amodio, Panullo, Roach and Zuffranieri.

Last Friday Jamie was unofficially one of the greatest Jeopardy players. Today we can remove the 'un'.  Indeed its relatively clear that Jamie is the greatest champion to play the game since Cris Panullo in Season 38. But even those admittedly great numbers don't really do justice to him.

As I said in my original review in just his third win Jamie responded correctly on 44 clues, a number that only Ken Jennings himself managed to do better then. Furthermore, while I don't pretend to understand the significance of the Coryat score, one of those measures that is uninterpretable to me as sabermetrics or physics the fact is that day Jamie set the all time record for Coryat.

He hasn't done that well since but not for lack of trying. This Wednesday he responded correctly on 43 clues with zero incorrect responses and on Thursday got 43 correct response, though he did get two incorrect as well as one Daily Double. This week alone he's gotten at least thirty correct responses in every he's played this week. He's also managed to runaway with 11 out of his sixteen victories to this point, which is very much the kind of thing that Amy Schneider and Cris Panullo or Jennings himself did so well.

But even that's not the scariest part. Had Jamie had better luck or conversely had he been more savvy in wagering he might be in the top five of money right now. Anyone who saw him play this week knows what I mean.

Wednesday he had one of the greatest games in Jeopardy history, responding correctly on 43 correct clues. At the end of Double Jeopardy he'd amassed $55,800 to his nearest opponent's $5200. There was clearly a possibility for him to make history and he took the opportunity. It just didn't go his way.

The Final Jeopardy category was THE CALENDAR. "Mark Twain wrote the quip that on this day of the year, "we are reminded of what we are on the other 364." The correct response was: "What is April Fool's Day?" This game aired on April 1^st. But Jamie seems to have forgotten that fact: he wrote down   "What is Labor Day?" He wagered $44,200. Had he responded correctly he would have finished with $100,000 and become the first player not named James Holzhauer to reach that high a total. Instead he dropped to $11,600, still enough to win.

The next day he was just as good and already had $48,800 when he found the last Daily Double in Double Jeopardy in INTERNATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC. With a lot of room to maneuver he bet $21,200, hoping to finish Double Jeopardy with $70,000.

"Situated among mountain peaks, this small country has the highest average elevation of any in Europe at about 6,600 feet."

For the first time in a while he hesitated on a Daily Double: "What is Lichtenstein?" It was actually Andorra. He dropped to a 'mere' $27,600. As if to make up for this 'embarrassment' he responded correctly on the final six clues. And that day he got Final Jeopardy right and had his biggest payday to date: $56,400.

This decision to go big on his runaways has somewhat surprised me because on his very first defense of his title he had the game locked up with $34,000 in Final Jeopardy. The category was 20^th CENTURY NOVELS:

One of its epigraphs is from Genesis 30, about Leah, Rachel & Rachel's servant Bilhah.  Humble brag: I figured out the correct response: "What is The Handmaid's Tale?"  Astonishingly Jamie wrote down: What is Song of Solomon?" It cost him $30,067 and he dropped to $3933. To be fair the next day he learned from it and wagered relatively small. But I had assumed the lesson would have stuck with him two weeks later.

Had Jamie been more conservative in wagering in this game and last Wednesday's and he bet somewhat less on the last Daily Double on Thursday's game, it's safe to assume he'd have anywhere $75,000 to $90,000 more. Of course had he been right on either of those Final Jeopardys or that last Daily Double we'd all be astounded at his ability. Hindsight is always 20/20.

And it's not like he's had a lot of room to maneuver on some of his other runaways. In his first win he had almost no room at all to maneuver; on last Friday's game and this Monday he had almost none. And let's not forget this Friday his streak could have come to an end thanks to the superb play of Emmett Laurie who ended Jamie's streak of six consecutive runaway victories with a superb second place finish. Jamie needed to get Final Jeopardy right this time and he did.

Jamie's had to work to win five of his sixteen victories no question and there is a possibility he may be starting to flag despite Wednesday's and Thursday's triumphs. He managed to respond correctly on seven of the first eight Final Jeopardys: on the last eight he is batting exactly .500. To this point it hasn't mattered: the only time he got it incorrect when he didn't have a runaway was last Wednesday and on that day everybody responded incorrectly (To be fair it was a tough Final and I couldn't figure it out either.)

The next number ahead of him in terms of games won is 19 where both Jason Zuffranieri and David Madden are tied. No one has gotten past that number since Panullo managed to win 21 games in 2022. The closest person to get that far was Scott Riccardi last season – and as we all know Scott lost on the last day of the season to Jonathan Hugendubler.  Jamie managed to pass Scott in terms of money won yesterday.  Was Friday's game a bump in the road for Jamie or is the beginning of the end?

We won't know until Monday. I will report on him next week, either if he loses or if he reaches 19 wins. Whatever happens it's been a hell of a run. Jamie Ding may not be as great a player as the original Jeopardy James but there have been some games that I think even Holzhauer would tip his hat too.

 

 

  

Homicide Rewatch: Have a Conscience

 

Written by James Yoshimura

Directed by Uli Edel

 

In hindsight the title really seems like advice that Homicide should have taken when it came to writing this episode in the first place. This is not just the weakest episode of the fifth season but one of the biggest missteps in the show's entire run. That James Yoshimura, one of the best writers, is responsible for such a mess makes all the harder to comprehend.

Homicide has previously made episodes that were weaker then this one and will in future seasons. But in those cases you got the feeling that they were created mainly under the pressure of the network in order to drive up the ratings. (Last season's Thrill of the Kill is the 'best' example of this.) In those cases it was an attempt to sensationalize the story usually by focusing on twists that would belong on other crime shows.

The fundamental flaw in 'Have A Conscience' is that it spends the first half of the episode trying to lead up to the final twenty minutes with Lewis and Kellerman, where we're trying to see Kellerman as suicidal and Lewis trying to talk him out of it. This won't work for many reasons, not the least of which it would go against Homicide's own rules.

First is the biggest flaw: the viewer knows that Kellerman will not kill himself. It's not just because in 1997 TV characters didn't get killed off; its that Homicide itself does not do that. This is the show that resists the idea of cops drawing their guns on the street, only forced Bolander, Felton and Howard to be shot in order to boost the ratings and killed off Crosetti only after Jon Polito had been essentially fired.

Even from a story standpoint it makes no sense that Kellerman, having spent the last four months struggling through every aspect of the criminal justice process, is going to kill himself because he had a bad day his first day back on active duty. This is a man who just the previous episode made it clear he wanted to be a good cop more than anything and has now been given a chance to do just that. For him to do having had a lousy day really seems like lazy writing.

And frankly it's just as lazy to have both of Lewis's partners die by killing themselves from the perspective of Lewis's character. The idea that Meldrick is essentially dare to talk him out of it really seems like the kind of thing a far weaker TV show would ever try.

For Homicide to pull this off the show would have to really give a great justification for Kellerman to kill himself off in the first two acts. And it doesn't come near to passing the stink test. There's nothing that we see happen that you can't imagine Mike hasn't gone through to some extent the last few months, even if the viewer didn't see it. The best argument you can make is that this is the day after he was cleared and he's still feeling some residual anger from everything that happened. But his behavior at every step really isn't any different then it was when he was at his most petulant before.

Honestly this episode really seems like the kind of thing a lesser series would send for awards consideration. Which in Homicide's case is ridiculous considering the enormously high standard it has for nearly every episode during a season. Diamond and Johnson have already given far better performances during Season 5 and they're going to give far better ones by the end of it.  

What's all the more infuriating is that for the first half hour there's a good episode here – not a masterpiece by any measure but a very good one, certainly. And that's mainly because its subverting what the viewer really wants to see after last week: the fallout between Bayliss's telling Frank he doesn't want to be partners any more. This is what the viewer's more invested in, so for Yoshimura to spend the first half of the episode focused on Kellerman's first day back and regulating Bayliss and Pembleton to the B-Story is keeping within the tradition.

Much of this does play out because of the reversal involved: Frank is the one trying to offer a hand of friendship to Bayliss and Tim, who would have killed for it any time in the last four years, keeps pushing it away. It's as frustrating for the viewer as it clear is for Frank and both Braugher and Secor are given interesting notes to play, both of which will carry forward for the rest of Season Five. Watching this episode the first time it genuinely hurt me as a fan to see this play out and I kept wanting the show to go back to the two of them rather than Mike Kellerman's no good, sort of awful, kind of very bad day.

Its particularly fascinating when both Bayliss and Pembleton discuss Kellerman and why. At this point Frank is trying to get Bayliss to take a ride with him on an old case and Bayliss says he's worried about Kellerman after Gaffney's mockery. Frank, who is the only person who hasn't openly said anything either of condolence or scorn, says that if Mike can handle 'the feds, the bosses, and the grand jury Gaffney will be no problem'. Bayliss says that there's more than that. In this case Tim is right and Frank is wrong – but fittingly for the main story neither really cares about Mike: this is about the two of them. The fact that Frank keeps trying to get Tim to work a case with him and Tim keeps putting him off with increasingly flimsy excuses makes it clear something deeper is beneath the surface with Bayliss and Frank gets the hint. When Tim comes back in after the most recent killer confesses Frank is clearly annoyed and now the shoe's on the other foot.

Let's not forget that Kellerman made a big deal that he was almost certainly guilty of a crime and willing to give up being a cop yesterday. Now the moment he sees Ingram he's pissed that she didn't put anything in the paper about him not being indicted. Now I have absolutely no doubt this was intentional, maybe as a personal dig at Kellerman for threatening to mess up her nicely done case with a bow. But even it isn't, she's right on the facts: this is how the process works and Kellerman himself knows this face. When she reminds him that his partners are in the headlines for being indicted (perhaps implying it could have just as easily been him) he backs off but is just as mean-spirited as he was when he facing charges the last four months. He was never innocent under anyone's standards but his own and that starts the episode off on a bad note.

Equally noteworthy is Kellerman's behavior when he enters the squad room. Brodie goes out of his way to congratulate him; Munch and Howard try to persuade him to relax the next night and Giardello welcomes him back. They are all doing exactly what he's wanting: treating him like a normal cop.  And Kellerman basically greets their good wishes with indifference at best. For that matter when Kellerman tries to thank Al for what he tried to do (which he denies) he basically says, "Next time, let me deal with it." That's practically spitting in Al's face considering that Mike basically spent the entire time begging Al to do something and how much Gee agonized over it. Giardello's response is a combination of encouragement and warning: "There won't be a next time.'

It's only when Gaffney makes it clear he openly thinks Mike got away with murder that he reacts at all. Now I'm not going to pretend that this isn't the meanest Gaffney has ever been to any detective so far in his tenure and for him to treat a subordinate this way is abusive. But its worth noting that the scene in the squad is very much how Mike has been this entire period: he refuses to accept the good wishes of those around him and only hears the damnation.

The best chance the episode has of getting away from this comes when Kellerman takes his first call and is back on the street. The case in itself is a good one frankly; one that has a deeper resonance. It is the shooting of a Korean grocery store owner named Tommo Roh. Both his wife and son are clearly shocked and believe in his honor.

The discussion is about the 'change in the neighborhood', in this case the dealers that have begun to proliferate. His customers – who are all African-American – basically have nothing but good things to say about him. It turns out that he picked a fight with the wrong man: Luther Mahoney. The day after he chased some dealers off the street Luther came up and threw the fear of God into his mother, even though "he was very polite about it." Roh went crazy and went to the youth center. We already know Mahoney is more than willing to flaunt his authority in front of police; a sixty year old storekeeper is something he would merely flick away.

Its telling the viewer never doubts Mahoney would do this, despite the denials he makes in front of Kellerman and Lewis. At this point he's encountered the two of them in some form often enough that he barely bothers to make up a plausible story. He seems more interested in baiting Kellerman and daring him to do something that will get him into trouble with his superiors. We've now passed the point in Homicide where the detectives believe any word that comes out of Mahoney's mouth and he's not even bothering to play with the idea he's a community organizer any more. Considering he was more than willing to go to the Waterfront and flaunt Lewis the last time they met, it's as if he makes it clear that human life is irrelevant to him other than how it profits or benefits him. He truly thinks he is above the law and its impossible not to blame either Kellerman or Lewis for their behavior when they come face to face again. (Meldrick, who is by far the calmer of the two, basically implies as much in their final exchange in this episode.)

This episode works the best when we see Diamond struggling to come back and acting like nothing's bothering him. Homicide has already established how much of a trigger Luther Mahoney is for him and the fact that an innocent civilian, a fundamentally good ma was murdered because he got in the way of a drug lord, is the kind of story Homicide rarely did. It also does more to establish the true ruthlessness of Luther. To this point all of the people who have been killed by Mahoney's orders are soldiers in the drug word themselves. That Luther chooses to have a man erase who was at most an inconvenience to him simultaneously makes him more evil and more realistic. (The Wire rarely would have people murdered who were essentially trying to do the right thing in this way.) The fact that Kellerman is clearly taking this case more personally then some also works as to Homicide's best notes: we saw just last week how well Homicide works when the cases resonate with the detectives on a personal level.

So when Kellerman and Lewis rant about Mahoney in the car on the way home its believable as is Mike's line: "We're going to be in pension and he's gonna be in Congress. That's the way of the world." But when he starts kicking the car and saying he's going to sue everybody who he thinks screwed him over and then gets out of the car and walking away, it really does feel like he's throwing a tantrum.

When the episode cuts away from the squad room and moves to Kellerman's boat this is when the episode moves away from possibly brilliant to the misstep it is. It starts out decently with Cox and Lewis interacting and Juliana saying that Mike's in one of his moods. She says: "I don't know why I keep caring about that guy." Lewis then says: "I didn't know you did." It's clear that Lewis has no idea about what's been going on between Juliana and Mike the last few weeks, nor how its starting to sour. He offers to grab Kellerman and they'll party at the bar. That's nice and sweet. Meldrick's clowning around on the boat, calling Gilligan and wanting Mike to let him in is fun. Mike being rude when Meldrick comes in and busy cleaning is realistic. The moment we see the gun however we're worried, though not to much. Kellerman says, "He's tired', that's believable.

But the moment he grabs the gun and starts talking Have A Conscience starts getting into trouble.  And it really shouldn't: long scenes with two people just talking are Homicide's strength. But in fifteen minutes there's nothing that Kellerman and Lewis say that we haven't seen play out either in the episode, or throughout the entire storyline involving Kellerman's the last few months. This is particularly true with Diamond because all he's basically doing is either restating things he's said in the episode, albeit with more pronouncement, or everything else in the few weeks to an extent with more self-aggrandizement. When you consider that he was only innocent of the charge of not taking the bribe and was planning to plead the 5^th until he was forced to by circumstance, it really makes so much of his emotional strain just sound false. It's believable this entire process who be emotionally exhausting for him and its been established he's spent more energy on clear his name than getting support but considering that he's spent far more time pushing everyone away who could help him, its hard to feel that this is realistic.

Johnson comes across slightly better in this scenario because it is more realistic what he's going through to see it play out. The viewer may never believe the show is going to let Kellerman eat his gun but Meldrick doesn't know this going in. The only times this comes close to working is when Lewis makes it very clear how much Crosetti's loss has hurt him. The show's already established that Meldrick has been less open to his fellow detectives since Crosetti's suicide and we've already established that he hasn't told Mike much of his personal history even though Kellerman has done the same. So that part does seem really as well as why he might feel guilt for that fact.

But the fact remains Yoshimura has run out of things to say five minutes before the episode ends when Meldrick finally takes the gun from Mike. It's just as heavy handed when we keep cutting to the Waterfront where another depressing night is unfolding. When Howard says: "Real life never plays out the same way," its heavy handed in a way the show almost never is.

There is a certain amount of reality being restored in the last couple of minutes. Meldrick saying that he can't look out at the water for very long because that's where they fished Crosetti out is realistic, as is Mike's being adamant of not letting the department know about his mental state because he's afraid he'll lose his job. And the show manages to set it right in the next couple of episodes with Kellerman in a way that almost makes this worth it. 

We can't entirely dismiss Have A Conscience because the story involving the rift between Baylis and Pembleton and the Roh case and its link to Luther Mahoney are critical when it comes to the rest of the season and beyond. You just can't help but wish they found a better way to do it.

 

NOTES FROM THE BOARD

 

'Detective Munch' John tells Howard a story he heard on the radio of a man they found in scuba gear in the forest in Oregon. The speculation was he was practicing diving in the lake and one of those planes that fought forest fires scooped up water and dumped it on the flames.

This story, however, is one to many for Kay. "You're always doing this. You come in with some crazy story that's got no point." This actually pisses Munch off. "So what's your point?"

And yes this is one of the stories that Ricky Jay will tell us in the opening of Magnolia in two years' time.  Believe it or not, this isn't the only time Homicide will presage Paul Thomas Anderson's cinematic masterpiece. (Did Paul Thomas Anderson get his inspiration from Richard Belzer?)

In this episode Juliana Cox is on crutches because she says she tripped over her dog. This is in fact what happened to Michelle Forbes. Forbes was not happy the writers including this onscreen.

There's a very subtle in-joke about the case Pembleton is investigating, the Bianculli murder. David Bianculli was (is?) a New York TV critic who was one of the earliest and most vocal supporters of Homicide when it was on the air. And as always the writers thank him by having his namesake killed under undignified circumstances at a topless bar.

Despite the fact that Kellerman thinks the Roh case will never be closed it will end up being solved in a few weeks' time. Of course that will lead to some continuity problems but we'll get to that when they happen.

Uli Edel, who directed this episode was a prominent German director who made his American film debut with Last Exit to Brooklyn. He made his TV directorial debut with Twin Peaks and would work again with Lynch's production company on Rebel Highway. He directed three more episodes of Homicide and one of OZ before later directing the TNT adaptation of The Mists of Avalon. He's also directed such mini series as Casar and King of Texas. He would return to Germany to direct The Baader Meinhof Complex and the German TV series The Palace, the story of the Freidrichstadt-Palast Music Hall in the late 1980s. He would be nominated by the DGA for directing the HBO TV movie Rasputin and an Emmy nomination for directing The History Channel Houdini which would star Adrian Brody in the title role.

 

 

The West Wing Retrospective Character Study: Four Reasons Bradley Whitford Was So Brilliant as Josh Lyman

 

 

When I first watched The West Wing I was still a novice when it came to watching TV shows and still in the process where I had 'favorite characters'. They were always the biggest names in the cast or even the showiest actors but I could form an emotional connection quickly.

With Chicago Hope it was Adam Arkin's work as Dr. Aaron Shutt, almost always the voice of calm in a hospital filled with craziness. With The Practice it was Steve Harris as Eugene Young the biggest believer in the rules and justice at Donnell, Young, Frutt & Dole. With Homicide while I really loved every character the one that I most consistently favored was Kyle Secor's work as Tim Bayliss and if you've read my articles on the show you know why.

And with The West Wing it was Josh who I instantly connected with from the first minutes of the Pilot and who, even after Aaron Sorkin left the series in 2003, I always felt was the most true to himself.

I can't point to a single reason why that became so true in the first season. Maybe it was because from the start he had this tendency to, to use a political quote, 'shoot from the lip' which was something that was excusable in private but every time he did in public it was destructive even if he was right. (Sam famously said: "A very good friend of mine is about to be fired for going on TV and making sense.") Sometimes it could be hysterically funny as when he hosted his only press corps briefing and said the President had a secret plan to fight inflation, and sometimes it backfired as when he let policy details slip to his girlfriend and as a result he got chewed out by Bartlet and nearly suffered a policy defeat. (I didn't mind he and Amy broke up; he was always too good for her.)

Or maybe it was because he was the smartest person in the room and never missed an opportunity to show it. Everyone loved the way he lectured Donna on policy or history or the White House's statistics (even Donna admitted she was smarter for doing so). Of course with great genius comes great arrogance and that also got him into trouble more than once, particularly with CJ. (So many of the scenes between him and Alison Janney were the comic highpoints of the series.)

Or maybe it was because there was a level of tragedy in his life that we learned about early that made him more relatable in a way it took much longer for us to get to know the personal lives of everyone else on the show. In the fifth episode we learned that his sister Joanie had died in a fire when he was a teenager and by the end of the first season we learned his father Noah had died on the night of the Illinois primary. (Those who have read my review of the classic In the Shadow of Two Gunmen' know how magnificently Sorkin handled that storyline.) For that reason he was perhaps more loyal to the people at the West Wing then any other character was and you got the feeling everyone supported him beyond the political reasons.

But much of it had to do with the incredible work that Bradley Whitford did for the entire run of the series. By that point I was starting to cover the Emmy nominations in a casual fashion and I remember being annoyed that of all the 19 Emmy nominations The West Wing got for its first season Whitford somehow had been ignored. It was a lapse the Academy would immediately correct: Whitford would be nominated in 2001 and deservedly win. He was also nominated the following two years, which were the last two of Sorkin's tenure on the show.

There are many ways to show how much I loved Bradley's work as Josh but I think the most effective way is to show what I think most fans will considers one of the most important relationships during the entire series: that of Josh and Leo.

Leo is White House Chief of Staff and Josh is Deputy Chief in the Pilot so clearly Josh is the go-to guy for basically everything Leo considers a priority. But it becomes clear very quickly that the two of them have a bond that has more to do with the fact that they clearly worked together to put Bartlet in office. As we learn in Gunmen Leo was a friend of Josh's father and the two of them clearly moved in the same circles in DC for years. Josh was one of the chief aides for John Hoynes when Hoynes was in the Senate and Hoynes clearly has a high opinion of Josh as Leo does when it comes to politics. We've gotten a hint of that in the Season 1 finale with the following exchange:

Hoynes: If I listened to you two years ago, would I be President right now? You ever wonder about that?

Josh: No sir, I know it for sure.

It's clear that Josh's decision to come work for the Bartlet campaign was the first step that led to Bartlet's seemingly impossible victory to claim the Democratic nomination and then the Presidency. Everyone in the administration knows this and it's clear by the end of the Pilot Bartlet knows this and is always going to have a place in his heart for Josh no matter what.

The best way, I believe, to illustrate the relationship between Josh and Leo is by looking at the Christmas episodes for all four seasons in Sorkin's tenure. Any fan of The West Wing knows that these episodes are among the greatest episodes not just in series history but TV history. The cast themselves knew that. In each of the first three years of The West Wing's tenure it won Best Supporting Actor in a Drama for, Richard Schiff, Whitford, and John Spencer. Each time the actor in question had submitted the Christmas episode for that year for consideration for voters and it had ended up winning them the prize. (In Excelsis Deo would be the only episode to win the Emmy for Best Dramatic Teleplay.)

All of them are extraordinary episodes for reasons that don't always have to do with Josh and Leo's relationship but something I realized after the series ended was that it was always present even if it wasn't front and center.  This is clear with In Excelsis Deo where most of the show is focused on Toby but Josh and Leo's relationship is still there.

In the previous episode The Short List, a Congressman named Lilienfeld has begun to start talking about how one out of every three White House staffers is on drugs. At first no one takes this seriously, not even Josh:

"Five White House staffers in the room. For the 1.67 of you that are stoned right now, its high time for you to share!"

Toby is taking it seriously and he tells Josh to lead the interviews. Eventually however, he goes to Leo because Josh has figured out what this is about.

"You know the worst kept secret in Washington is that you're a recovering alcoholic?" he says gently. By this time the viewer knows this. Josh dismisses it at first: "You're Boston Irish Catholic...Were you maybe into something less acceptable?"

Leo tells him Valium and that he spent time at a rehab facility called Sierra Tucson. Josh knows that somehow Lilienfeld has though records. Which leads to this magnificent line:

"You're Leo McGarey. You're not going to be taken down by this small fraction of a man. I won't permit it."

This is the first time the viewer has become aware of just how loyal Josh is to Leo. We get a sense of how far he's willing to go in the next episode – against Leo's wishes.

Josh tells Leo that he wants to do 'a preemptive strike.' By this point Josh knows about Sam's relationship with the high-priced escort Laurie but when he even hints at it Leo tells him absolutely not. Josh considers going against it but Donna is worried about it and says that Leo would do the same for any of us.

Josh then persuades Sam to do it and Sam is, if anything, angrier than Leo is. It's only when Josh tells him of the stakes – and more importantly that Leo went to rehab while he was Secretary of Labor – that he agrees.

The meeting goes badly to say the least. Laurie (Lisa Edelstein) immediately throws a fit. Josh tries to defend himself:

A man has left himself to open to the kind of attack from which men in my business do not recover. Now, if our tactics seem less than civilized, its because so are our attackers.

Josh might have been able to prevail had he left it at that. But then he goes too far:

We don't need your cooperation Laurie. One of your guys wrote you a check, and the IRS works for me. And anyway I don't feel like standing here, taking civics lessons from a hooker.

That is going to far and Laurie immediately chews him out by making it very clear she has Democratic customers as well as Republicans and she doesn't like being bullied. Sorkin, as is his brilliance, lets her have the last word:

You're the good guys. You should act like it.

This is horrible. But then they come back to the White House.

Leo: You saw Sam's friend?

Sam: How did you know?

Leo: I had you tailed.

When Sam asks why:

Leo: On the off chance that you're as stupid as you look.

He makes it clear he holds the same standards as Laurie. Josh says he did it because he wanted to help Leo.

Leo: Is that supposed to mean something?

Josh: Yes.

(pause)

Leo: Well, it does.

It's clear Leo doesn't agree with what Josh chose to do but he does respect his loyalty. And we're kind of proud of him too

Noel won Whitford the Emmy for Best Supporting Actor and deservedly so. (imdb.com ranks it one of the highest reviewed episodes of Season 2.)I've discussed to an extent in my piece on Janel Moloney but to review this episode takes place in a therapy session between Josh and a psychiatrist named Stanley (I can't tell you what it meant to see Adam Arkin doing it). As we know Josh was shot in the Season 2 premiere and has spent the last six months physically recovering from having 'hot lead shot into his body'. Most of the staff and the President basically managed to get through in the episode 'The Midterms' (which I'll go over at another point.) Josh hasn't been so lucky. There have been signs, subtle but clear, that Josh has been struggling with PTSD throughout the second season and its clear during the leadup to Christmas it all came to ahead.

The show is magnificent showing in flashbacks how Josh has been hiding how he hurt his hand. He's been saying all episode that he broke a glass and that was the reason. In fact there's been days of tension leading up to it and what it has to do with is the Christmas music. The biggest hint comes when Josh is upset about it and says: "I can hear the damn sirens all over the building."  It finally comes to a head when he's listening to Yo-Yo Ma play and then he goes home and says that the shooting did it.

Now for obvious reasons if it were to come out that the White House Deputy Chief of Staff was suffering from PTSD, it would be the kind of thing that got him fired. Leo has called in Keyworth to do it. At the end of this magnificent episode we have this incredible conversation.

First make it clear Josh has been in session at the White House for ten hours. It's Christmas day. Leo is in the hallway:

Leo: How'd it go?

Josh: Did you wait around for me?

Leo: How'd it go?

Josh paused

Josh: He thinks I may have an eating disorder…and a fear of rectangles. That's not weird , is it? (pause) I didn't cut my hand on a glass. I broke a window in my apartment.

Josh has just told this to his boss. This is Leo's speech and I know this speech got Spencer a nomination himself (though there were a lot of other episodes he could have submitted)

This guy's walking down a street when he falls in a hole. The walls are so steep, he can't get out. A doctor passes by and the guy shouts up: "Hey you, can you help me out?"" The doctor writes a prescription, throws it down in the hole and moves on. Then a priest comes along and the guy shouts up: "Father I'm down in this hole; can you help me out?" The priest writes out a prayer, throws it down in the hole and moves on. Then a friend walks by. "Hey Joe, its me, can you help me out?" And the friend jumps in the hole. Our guy says: "Are you stupid? Now we're both down here." The friend says, "Yeah but I've been down here before and I know the way out."

(Pause)

Long as I got a job, you got a job, you understand?

I honestly think no matter how much therapy Josh got (and he got some no question) that speech meant as much to him, if not more.

When Whitford accepted his Emmy as he walked to the stage he whispered to John Spencer, who he had defeated and said: "Next year." This wasn't just well-wished: by that point the 2001 Christmas episode 'Bartlet for America' had been completed and everyone came away from it convinced it was Spencer's best work so far that season, if not the entire series to that point. They were right: Spencer would submit it for consideration and would indeed win for it the following year. (Again imdb.com ranks it as the best episode of Season 3.)

Once again I have to give background. At this point the Congressional investigation into Bartlet's lack of public disclosure about his illness has come for Leo and he fears the worst. With good reason. One of the Republicans on Oversight knows a secret. On the night prior to the final debate Leo was fundraising where alcohol was served. He started drinking and relapsed. One of the fundraisers (not in Congress yet) saw it and knows about it. He intends to ask Leo about at the fundraiser, even though it has no relation to the hearings because there's an election next year and he wants Bartlet to lose. He knows that if this becomes public knowledge, Leo will have to resign and this will be another body blow for the campaign.

I will deal with this story specifically when I come to John Spencer in this study. For now I will simply say that Josh knows about this and wants to help Leo. Before the hearing begins:

Leo: Don't help me.

Josh: I'm going to help you, cause you know why?"

Leo: 'Cause you walk around with so much guilt about everybody you love dying that you're a compulsive fixer?

Josh: No, Leo, no. Its' cause a guy is walking down the street and he falls into a hole see.

Leo becomes serious

Leo: Yeah.

Josh: Yeah.

Josh then spends the rest of the episode talking to Sam and telling him to find a way to get the congressman out of the room but he has no intention of giving up Leo's secret so he doesn't tell Sam why. As a result Sam fails in his quest and the only reason he escapes is because White House Counsel Cliff Calley intervenes and forces the majority leader to call a recess.

In the following episode H. Con 172 Calley comes to Leo and offers him a deal: they will end the hearings right then in exchange for the President accepting a joint censure. Leo has too much pride: "I take a bullet for the President. He doesn't take one for me." It's because Calley goes over Leo's head to Josh (via Donna) that Josh convinces the President to take the censure. When the staff learns about Josh tells them flat out that he recommended they take it and this is the end of the discussion as far as he's concerned. Josh's firmness on the subject forces the staff to let it go.

I mention this for context mainly because it show collectively that Josh is willing to do for Leo what Leo did for him. His discussion with Leo in that episode and going forward is him being the rational one, dealing with Leo's pride and issues. It is a case of the child becoming the parent.

Holy Night was the last Christmas episode in the Sorkin era. By this point both the critical acclaim and the ratings were off the rose of The West Wing and while it would win its fourth consecutive Emmy for Best Drama that year (a record that only Hill Street Blues and L.A. Law held before it and only Mad Men and Game of Thrones have equaled since) it would win just one more Emmy in 2003 and none of them were for acting. The show had its moments (both the season premiere and season finale are among the greatest in the show's history) but it was losing altitude) In truth Holy Night is not at the same level as any of the previous Christmas episodes. But it still has its moments and much of them do focus on Josh and Leo.

At this point both Leo and Bartlet are dealing with their consciences for their role in the assassination of Abdul Sharif at the end of Season 3. (At this point no one outside them in the West Wing knows it but that is about to change in large part because of events in this episode.)

When Leo learns from Josh that the church of the Nativity in Israel has been bombed he demands Josh start calling people in order to get it fixed. Its Christmas Eve and Josh has plans. Then Bartlet comes to Josh and says he wants to fold an infant mortality bill into the next budget for Congress on January 1^st

Josh: I think you're saying that before it goes to the printer on January 1^st you want to rewrite the Congressional budget.

Bartlet: You think this is crazy?

Josh: No, certainly not crazier than Leo for going for peace in the Middle East by the close of business.

Josh actually has to call Donna and tell her to cancel her Christmas plans – with her new boyfriend – as a blizzard is starting.

In the final act Bartlet and Leo both admit their trying to exorcise their guilt.

Leo then calls Josh in and tells him he's calling it off and that he's sent Donna off to meet her boyfriend. By this point Josh and Donna's attraction to each other is becoming more obvious in Sorkin's writing.

In the final minutes as they listen to the title carol:

Leo: It's four years later and there are things that are worse and things that are exactly the same. Where do you start?

Josh: By fixing a roof. I'm staying on the phones. You want to stay with me?

Leo: Yeah.

The episode ends with a montage of the various cast members. One of the final shots is of Leo and Josh both on the phone. Its Christmas Eve and though Sorkin never says so both men are exactly where they want to be right now.

With the exception of Allison Janney Whitford has had the most consistent career with TV success since The West Wing ended in 2006. He starred in Sorkin's follow up series for NBC Studio 60 which ended up being a disaster. He then starred in the undervalued Fox comedy The Good Guys with Colin Hanks which was canceled after season. He actually appeared in two other failed comedies that had some merit: ABC's Trophy Wife and Showtime's Happyish. However in 2014 he appeared in a guest role in Amazon's groundbreaking comedy Transparent and would win his second Emmy for Best Guest Actor in a Comedy. While he was there he met his current wife Amy Landecker whom he married in 2014.

He would eventually be cast Joseph Lawrence one of the architects of Gilead in the landmark Hulu Series The Handmaid's Tale. That was his most successful role to date: he would win Best Guest Actor in a Drama in 2019 and was nominated for Best Supporting Actor in a Drama in 2020 and 2021. Last year he was cast along Alison Janney, who is now playing the Vice President on The Diplomat as her husband which means as of Season 4, he's now First Gentleman. Nor was this the only major role where he was close to political power in 2025. In the new series Death By Lightning which focuses on the life of James Garfield he has been cast as James G. Blaine, a force in Republican politics for more than two decades and Garfield's Secretary of State. This role could be seen as a mirror of his previous role as a historic politics Hubert Humphrey in All The Way in 2016.

And just to be clear every time Whitford is in any piece of work, whether it is film or TV, it is as much a draw for me then and is was when I first was introduced to him in The West Wing. The boyish youthful is gone and his hair is shock white but the same relentless energy and determination that drove Josh is present in every role he has played since then. He is just as entertaining and fun in comedies as he is riveting in drama. TV is a better place because Bradley Whitford is still working in it, just as the Bartlet Administration was a better place because Josh was Deputy Chief of Staff.