I missed it last night. I had class, I couldn’t get to my VCR, and I’m absolutely ashamed of myself. They had been touting this week as “THE FIRST OF FOUR NEW EPISODES IN A ROW!!”, but I guess I didn’t get nearly motivated enough.
And I had a big final presentation to give in class. So, what’s the skinny?
The very, very short story – although Bartlett has never officially indicated that he does or does not suffer from MS, his wife signed a form that said he did not have it. Ergo, there’s a piece of paper that can be construed as a coverup. The White House Counsel advised Bartlett to allow a special prosecutor investigate the case, and that his best chance is to take a public position of “bring it on” – meaning, let the opposition investigate everything.
At the same time, someone on the White House staff is leaking information, so I’m sure those two plot threads will come together quickly.
Toby and uh…that one girl, the one in charge of the Press, went frantic looking for the Sr. White House Official who leaked to the press that The Pres. might consider compromising on the matter of school vouchers. They couldn’t find him. Turned out Toby was freaking out because “These were small potatoes. I wanted to know how we’d react if they were big potatoes”
Rob Lowe’s character is kinda freaking out because the Indigo, an oil tanker, hit the beaches of Deleware and spilt, uh I think 400,000 gallons of oil over 100 miles, ruining the local economy.The reason he’s freaking out is because years before, the people who owned the ships were his clients, or rather, his firm’s, and he knew that the ship was of poor quality, especially in the navigation and stirring department.
Mexico’s economy crashed, and so that was an interesting little sub-plot, basically revolving around the question “Should the U.S. give them money?” Mexico had a 30 billion loan due the same week their economy crashed.
Finally, the President is in counsel with his uh…White House Counsel, over his acts regarding his MS. Oliver (The counsel) is upset because the Pres did everything right, like he was carefully committing a fraud. Finally, it comes to light that when they filled out their daughter’s Georgetown Application, they didn’t put his MS on the full medical history, and therefore, he’s lied on a legal document about his health. So, the lawyer is prepping him for the announcement to the public, and the Special Prosecuter Investigation.
Ok, I think that’s everything. The phone rang a few times during the show, so I may have left out something.
Also, Tribbey (played by John Larroquette) has quit as White House Counsel. The new guy’s being played by Oliver Platt.
Which isn’t really important - but I liked seeing Larroquette on the show.
The implication of this is that C.J. knows something is up since Tobey was making a mountain out of what seemed like a molehill (after all, leaks happen all the time–so I wouldn’t invest too much importance in the source of this particular leak, but in the concept that a bigger secret isn’t very safe once it becomes common knowledge among the WH staff in general)
I wouldn’t say freaking out, but Sam is upset. He isn’t in any legal trouble, but he does want to testify against this former client because they knew about the faulty design and could be considered negligent. However, Ainsley tells Sam that he’s still covered by attorney-client priviledge and if he were to testify he would be disbarred.
Technically, the First Lady signed Zoe’s application (because a parent had to if the applicant was not yet 18), but it was interesting that Bartlett had never once lied about his condition in a deposition, insurance paperwork, or anything else, creating the impression that this secrecy was premeditated and had been going back a long time.
It was also revealed that Charlie knew about Bartlett’s MS (Zoe told him so he could look for symptoms since he’s always around Bartlett). Bartlett has a talk with him and says that if Charlie ever lies about this, even in order to protect the Pres., their relationship is over.
A highlight was the appearance of Oliver Platt as the WH counsel (who, we learn, is not bound by attorney-client priviledge with the POTUS), who played such a great political hack in Bulworth. Seeing him dress down the Pres. bodes well for the future episodes–he even told Bartlett that he (POTUS) must do everything he tells him to, without exception. Full disclosure on everything, holding nothing back. Also, the Special Prosecutor must be the most rabid anti-Bartlett Republican around. And the first step is to tell the staff (which we learn will be next week)
Plus more sparks between Sam & Ainsley (he visits her in that dungeon office a lot), and between Josh & Donna (naturally, this time setting up the Mexico policy rationale). Plus CJ “interrogating” the staffers to find the leak added some additional humor.
Damn. Sounds like a solid episode. Thanks for the update though.
In other news, I’m now Munch.
Also, my friends have started referring to West Wing as “The Ainsley Hayes Show”.
I got more of an impression that it hasn’t really come up. The only jobs he’s had since they discovered the MS were Governor of NH and President of the US. Neither job really requires filling out health care forms. The types of lawsuits he’s been involved in were not about his health, so it would not have come up there. He hasn’t really had the opportunity to lie. (Or at least that’s what I thought).
BTW, did anyone here have to fill out a healthcare form like that for college? Mine just wanted to make sure I’d had all relevant childhood immunizations and a check for campus healthcare, they didn’t care about family history. (My sister says the same was true for her.) Is this a recent (past 5 years or so) thing?
Mea Culpa
I’ve only been watching the show for uh…3 weeks, and I will admit that it didn’t have my full attention because of phone calls, etc.
If you wanna catch up on “The West Wing,” I very highly recommend Mighty Big TV. There are complete recaps (with oodles of detail) of every episode since the beginning…they should be putting up the recap of this week’s episode within the week.
Yep. Had to fill one out when I went to William & Mary in 1993.