I have to admit I don’t get the bird at the window, either. Not exactly like the egg from last week, which pretty clearly tied into the whole faith-in-others issue. The bird, I dunno.
I don’t get NBC very well on the old rabbit-ears, so it was a bit frustrating when Chandler Bing was showing CJ all the clues that he’d pieced together and I couldn’t read them through the static. Stick with the dialog for us non-cable holdouts, see voo play!
I didn’t like this episode at all. I thought it was too rushed and crossed the line between drama and over doing it, if that makes sense. Something like this deserves two episodes. Sorkin is throwing too much into this show. Maybe it’s because I really like the Hoynes subplots, the tension between him and the President.
I didn’t think Leo and Bartlett were being that serious when trying to talk Hoynes into staying. They knew he would resign so they have to play the game that they want him to stay. Sort of like the “no, let me get it” arguments when fighting for the check at dinner. But they were right. If they could get over the MS deal, then this woulid surely blow over, especially with so long of a time before the next election.
I’d like to see Leo become VP and Josh become Chief of Staff.
Curiously, I wonder who the VP gives his resignation to? He doesn’t technically serve the President. The President can’t fire him or make him do what he wants. His only job is to be there if the Pres can’t preside and to break ties in the Senate. I know Nixon addressed his letter to Secretary of State Kissinger.
Also, I saw in the previews last week, for last night’s show, where they said “It hasn’t happened in 30 years”. I assume they mean Agnew’s resignation. Is that the most recent president they’ve acknowledged?
When the VP’s aide came into the Oval Office with the resignation letter, Bartlett told her that there is a law that says the resignation is supposed to be to the Secretary of State, but that he would take care of it.
There really wasn’t much there. Quincy had a notepad with things like “Unknown source talked to Post science editor” and “Unknown source told Post about Justice deal” and “Stu Winkle cowriting book with Helen Baldwin”. He then showed C.J. the phone log with all the calls John Hoynes had made to Helen Baldwin highlighted.
Bartlet actually cited the statute, 3 U.S.C. § 20:
but where I would go with this…
fossilized life on Mars? Pres. Bartlett, it’s time we make the great leap forward- ON TO CYDONIA!!!
I’d also have occasionally JFK-Assassination-Conspiracy/Roswell/PhiladelphiaExperiment refs in shows like AMERICAN DREAM- not enough to make them X-Filey but just to add some surreality
I would have to disagree with those who have said too much was packed into this episode. Sometimes, life just flings a whole bunch of shit at us all at once, and I think this is what was depicted in this particular episode.
Although I must admit, when Hoynes was saying “I never wanted to drag my family through this”, in my mind I was responding, “well, then, you should have kept your fly zipped and your mouth shut! Hell, either one of the above would have worked, huh?”
In the real world, the only VPs who have resigned are John Calhoun (1828 I believe) and Spiro Agnew.
Calhoun resigned to take a seat in the Senate. He wasn’t in any trouble. He hated Andrew Jackson anyway.