By Miss Alli
Previously on White House of Horrors: Josh threw Donna the bone of a trip to the Middle East with Fitz to make up for not taking her to Belgium to discuss the minor matter of 17,000 jobs going down the disposal like so many potato peels. Too-Tall McNally introduced Jed to Kate Harper, his new Deputy National Security Advisor, who seemed sadly lacking in rudimentary social skills for a person whose field could even be considered tangentially related to the word "diplomacy." The once-dignified Dr. Abby Bartlet became a Muppetiatrist.
"No Exit," says the title card, as the muffled sound of spinning and a plaintive "Mon dieu!" are heard from a grave somewhere in France. Then we are high above D.C. at night, looking down on the lights and sirens of the presidential motorcade. We hear Debbie laughing from inside the car. When we make it inside the limo (not in the Kevin Costner/Sean Young sense, of course), a tuxedoed Jed -- sitting in a rather cramped position to the also decked-out Debbie and Leo -- points out that "even the Latin line got a laugh." Debbie insists that she's still laughing, in fact. Maybe he told another uproarious knee-slapper about economic theory. I know a few of those. My favorite is about how unfair the tax system is to married people with kids who own houses. Jed exposits semi-delicately that they have just come from the Correspondents' Dinner. Jed remembers bombing at the first one of these at which he ever appeared, and Leo affirms that things went much better tonight. "I killed," says Jed. Uh huh. "They laughed till they cried," he continues. "They're still crying," he adds, pointedly watching Debbie dab at her face with a tissue. She assures him that she isn't helpless with laughter so much as she is overcome by allergies. "But for an Anglo-Saxon, you were darn funny," she says. Because, you know, humor's all ethnic.
The motorcade pulls up in front of the White House, and the three limo occupants pile out and head inside, Debbie still working her box of tissues. Leo reminds Jed that they still need to do a phone call with the Japanese defense minister, and Jed suggests they do it upstairs, because he needs to check in with Charlie. Before they head up, Jed prevails upon one Agent Broder of the Secret Service for a cigarette, which Broder gamely produces. We are shown a close-up of the pack being extended to Jed, and of him removing the cigarette. Jed asks if Broder even smokes, and he confirms that he quit a year ago. "That's what I call will power," Jed says as he and Leo walk away. "That's what I call 'enabler,'" Leo answers warily. Yeah. It does have a hint of irony, the whole "I would literally get myself intentionally shot to keep you from dying; hey, have a smoke" thing.
In the...the...should I know what this room is called? It's the room where guys sit around all the time watching various monitors to make sure nothing suspicious is happening anywhere in the White House, I guess. I shall call it the Eyes and Ears Room. The video monitors are in here, and so are a bunch of other nameless screens tracking heaven knows what. There's probably something in this room that buzzes if you leave the seat up. And speaking on behalf of women who go to the bathroom at night? I would much rather have more research going into that technology and less into, say, tooth-whitening. On one of the monitors, in grainy black-and-white, we see Will encounter C.J. in a corridor as she is lugging a comically enormous floral arrangement of the "With love from the slapsticky nitwits in the prop room; P.S. This is what you get for not thanking us in any of your Emmy speeches" variety.
We cut to Will and C.J. just as he offers to help her and she declines. She explains that "it's an Ohio thing," and apparently, she took one of the arrangements from the dinner, on the theory that otherwise, it would have been thrown away. I would think that in C.J.'s position, if you hadn't managed to crack that compulsion by now, you would have an office full of dead gardenias, not to mention the fact that you would be one of those people who keeps the half-empty two-liters of ginger ale from everybody's going-away party in your little fridge until they go flat. Will claims to have been coveting the centerpieces all through dinner. C.J. tries to pawn the arrangement off on him, but he clarifies for her with some horror that he was kidding. She forces it on him anyway, saying that she's not going to be around over the weekend to enjoy it. Close-up of her hands turning over the arrangement.
Just then, Josh and Donna walk by on the way to her desk, and we move to their standard petty argument of the evening, which stems from his endless whining over the fact that a joke he wrote about Panama wasn't included in the president's speech. "The president had nine laugh-out-louds; he could've had ten," Josh grouses. He's apparently unaware that the president's receipt of "laugh out louds" isn't necessarily a good measure of how funny jokes would be perceived to be if they weren't being delivered by a guy who can, in Bartlet's America, have a warrant drawn up and your house searched by the FBI. (In real America, of course, the warrant is now unnecessary.) "Yet the world keeps turning," Donna says wearily, bored by Josh's fixation upon anything and everything that might potentially be considered to be about himself. She gets out her notes about the speech, which reveal that the line was cut at the direction of none other than New Kate. "The NSC killed my Panama joke?" Josh says with great bafflement. He demands that Donna call "Colonel Klink" and find out why. "Now?" Donna asks, incredulous. He turns and glares at her. How dare she? "I'm calling," she says meekly, allowing her spine to flap like a wind sock. As she's on the phone waiting to reach New Kate, Josh comes back and gives her a bunch of fishing gear, saying it should go to C.J.
Now we're back in the Eyes and Ears Room, where Agent Broder makes small talk with the security guys about this and that. He says good night and heads for the door. A green line on one of the computer screens beeps along happily. Whatever the green line represents, it is apparently at appropriately green levels.
Up in Debbieland, outside the Office of O, Charlie is opening an envelope as Debbie continues to sneeze. "So he pulled it off?" he asks her. "Grading on a curve, yes," she says. Heh. "But?" he asks. "You can't tell him," she says, "[but] second half, I was in the ladies' room." "Hay fever?" Charlie wonders. "And I was seated with the guests of...I thought they were guests of Leno's...whoever they were, they were drenched with cologne." She sneezes again. Yeah, something tells me Leno's guests would be drenched with cologne. Charlie chastises Debbie for not saying anything about the stink assault as he flips through the papers that he pulled out of the envelope. Close-up of Charlie's hands and his papers. They banter about whether Debbie has an allergy, which she prefers to call a "sensitivity," and then we watch closely as she goes around the area picking up a few tissues she crumpled up and dropped on the floor along the way. Ew. She's throwing snotty tissues around right by the Oval Office. I don't even do that in my own bathroom, Debbie. Just then, Jed walks in and asks for a report he had Charlie pull, and Charlie says he's got it. Close-up of Debbie opening a tin of mints for Jed and him taking one. Close-up of Charlie handing Jed the report. Get it? They're showing you how there's all this touching and transmission of germs. I mean, not to give anything away. Jed tells Charlie to send the call from Japan up to the residence when it comes, because he and Leo are going to take it up there. Jed then asks Charlie about having overheard Debbie asking him whether his hot water was turned off. "Are you falling behind on your bills, Charlie?" "I'm fine, sir," Charlie insists. Jed says he suspects that he isn't allowed to loan Charlie money, but that "Debbie's a soft touch." Charlie looks over at Debbie just as she sneezes again.
And her sneeze takes us back to the Eyes and Ears Room, where one of the monitors suddenly sees a spike in one of its green lines. The agent calls Broder and says that there's a ping on one of the monitors. "The Rose Room again?" Broder asks. "No, sir, outer office of the Oval," says the agent. He says he's "crashing the House," which means you can tell this episode is going to be the shizznit. Broder jogs back toward the building as the security team swings into action to respond.
Condoleezza Rice Doppelganger breezes into Debbieland with a mask over her face and tells Jed he needs to "don a mask." Does anyone say "don" like that, in real conversation? I think not, but I might just be hanging out with the wrong people. My people would say "put on," but that one syllable might cost the nation its safety, I guess. CRD hands masks to Charlie and Debbie also, telling them, "This is a crash." Jed asks if it's a drill, and she says no: the Environmental Hazard Monitors picked up some particulate activity. Jed mentions some false alarms in the past with regard to anthrax, but CRD just leads the three of them out of Debbieland, asking them to follow her "quickly." Yes, yes, it's a crash. We know.
Flapping flag.
We return a trademarked West Wing walking-feet shot, specifically watching Donna stroll toward C.J.'s office in her blue gown, which I find to be weirdly dated in some way, like she got it from a 1996 J.C. Penney closeout sale. She's bringing the fishing stuff to C.J., but in C.J.'s office, she encounters Jack "Rickie" Sosa. "Look who it is," Jack says, not too happily. Donna asks if C.J. is gone, and Jack says no, she's just in the ladies' room. He hands Donna a fat notebook. "Press detail, for the CODEL. Have a fabulous time," he says bitterly, spitting his words through figurative clenched teeth like he's filtering plankton. "Faxes need to clear a ninety-minute window before briefings. Try to keep track of your time zone. And don't drink the water," he says, even more bitterly. He stomps off. Donna looks confused. Which, come to think of it, isn't all that new.
Toby and Will encounter each other just as Will is putting down C.J.'s giant wad of guilt-adopted flowers. Toby asks in a tense way -- not that Toby really has another way -- whether the VP was happy with his speech. Will points out the large number of jokes at the dinner that were at the VP's expense. Toby says he's not answering the question. Will repeats a joke about how Russell "opened a fortune cookie and found an actual fortune," and asks Toby what it's supposed to mean. "That Bob Russell's corrupt," Toby says darkly. Will says yes, he actually understands what it means, and then Toby pulls Will into what was once Will's very own office for a chat.
As Jed, Debbie, and Charlie walk briskly down a set of stairs escorted by CRD, Charlie asks Debbie if this is her "first time," presumably in one of these "crashes." She nods. "You're in for a treat," says Jed, patting her on the shoulder. Just a piece of advice for Debbie: Never believe a man in a surgical mask who tells you you are "in for a treat." That's how I lost my wisdom teeth, which I assure you was not a treat, although it is how I discovered instant mashed potatoes. CRD asks if any of them were in touch with any "powdery or gooey substances." Hee. Sorry. I know it's a serious problem, and actually quite terrifying, but being asked by a high-level official, "Have you touched anything gooey?" would make me laugh. Furthermore, my memories of the "white powder" scares of a couple of years ago make me think that public health authorities would have an even more unpleasant task if people were told to call the police in the case of suspicious goo. Spilled baking soda was no fun, I'm sure, but it's got to beat spilled Vaseline, in terms of laughs per minute. CRD asks if they opened any sealed containers, and Debbie mentions the breath mints. Jed mentions the cigarettes, and asks whether Abby perhaps had the detectors updated to note nicotine.
New Kate pops into Josh's doorway. She reminds him that he had asked to see her, and she introduces herself. Josh looks surprised, as he always does when a woman under age fifty turns out to be something other than an intern. Just then, New Kate's beeper goes off. She takes a quick look at it, and then grabs a pack of water from a stack in the hallway, which isn't conspicuous at all. "You thirsty?" Josh asks her curiously. "Would you like one?" she asks. He tells her he's just about to leave. At that moment, an agent appears in the doorway to announce the crash, and he goes to shut them in Josh's office. Josh tries to scoot past before the crash is finalized, but nothing doing. The agent shuts the door. Josh's beeper goes, and he looks down at it, muttering, "Yeah, yeah, yeah," and then he looks uncomfortably at New Kate.
Back with Toby and Will, Toby asks again whether the VP was happy with his speech. Will says that, frankly, he has no idea what Toby's problem is. Aaaand then they're locked in also by the sudden appearance of Broder, who tells them they'll be there for a bit before scooting off to other, more important scenes. "Love what you've done with the place," Will says to Toby as he looks around the largely empty office in which they're now trapped.
Just outside C.J.'s office, she and her glam black dress barge in on Donna, with an agent on their heels, bringing the bad news that it's a crash. "Again?" Donna asks, still looking at the briefing book. The agent urges Donna into C.J.'s office with her and shuts the door. C.J. asks whether Jack got out okay, and Donna says that he "left in a huff." Donna asks about somebody who appears in her book, and C.J. says, a little surprised, "Oh, it's you. You're going on the CODEL." "Yeah," Donna says. "You bumped Jack," C.J. says simply. "He was doing press detail. He's probably making a voodoo doll of you right now." Donna says that it wasn't her intent to kick anybody off the trip, and points out that Josh didn't tell her that was one of the consequences. C.J. says that the White House only gets to send one person, but that Donna shouldn't worry, because she's not Jack's first voodoo doll, and that "they rarely work." I count on that frequently myself, given some of my hate mail. Donna waves the fishing gear, and when she wonders why exactly she's giving this stuff to C.J., C.J. says with some distaste that she's going camping. I love how women on TV are always all, "Eeeeew, camping," because you know how we're all afraid of bugs and wiping our bottoms with leaves and eating Triscuits out of the box instead of being able to spread them on a ceramic platter with a Renaissance painting on it.
CRD leads Jed, Charlie, and Debbie into the...I don't know, decontamination lab or what have you. The doctor asks Jed how he's feeling, and Jed says that he killed at the dinner. The doctor introduces himself. "I should do my 'Latin as the national language' run for him," Jed says. "No, sir," Charlie says, patiently but firmly. Jed introduces Charlie and Debbie to the doctor, and the doctor quickly has Jed sitting down for a quick check. Charlie starts to take his mask off, and the doctor asks him not to; until the code is clarified, they're staying on precautions. Debbie asks if Charlie's been down there before, and Charlie says, with just a hint of apprehension, that he's been here only once -- they're usually turned around at the bottom of the stairs and never get to this part. The doctor takes Jed's blood pressure as he asks CRD for an update on the situation. She says that the ventilation system shut down, and that no other places in the building are showing any problems, but that a few of the staff are stuck. She says that the residence is clear, though. The doctor prepares Jed for the run of questions he now has to ask, and when Charlie urges Jed to take his time answering, the doctor says, "I'm sure you know what's coming ." "Oh, yeah," Charlie says unhappily. "Does it have anything to do with nasal swabs?" Debbie moans. "I'm afraid that's affirmative," says the doctor. "Serving at the pleasure of the president just gets better and better, Debbie," Jed says. "Read my mind, sir," she agrees. I suppose what it lacks in avoidance of medical discomfort it makes up for in being regularly berated by your boss.
Leo, meanwhile, is up in the residence and on the phone, being told to stay put as well. "I will not leave the residence," he says, just as Abby emerges and sees him. She's got a coat and bag, so she apparently was on her way out, but when she asks him what they're saying to him and he says forty minutes, she puts her stuff down in frustration and says, "They told me ten." She goes and picks up the phone to make a quick call. Leo asks if she's all right, noting that she left Jed's speech early. He calls her departure "conspicuous." She snots that it's not like she was throwing food. He points out that for her to leave before Jed's speech is going to look a little funny. Whatever lucky person Abby is calling finally answers the phone, and she asks them to "tell Jerry [she's] running late." Leo looks at her suspiciously. When she's off the phone, he asks her what she would be running late for at this time of night. She says, as she collapses onto the sofa and sinks into a sulk, that she's working at the clinic one night a week from midnight to 8:00 AM. "Graveyard," Leo remarks. "We try not to call it that in front of the patients," she says. Heh. Leo points out that an overnight shift isn't going to be "handing out lollipops." Leo asks if C.J. had anything to say about it, and Abby says that C.J. doesn't go to the clinic. Leo's all ha ha, very funny, you know what I mean. "You could have talked to somebody about this," he says. "I talked to the president," she says with that weird, chirpy, so-there, tenth-grade-girl inflection she sometimes adopts when she's feeling feisty, of which I have really had enough. "He didn't tell you I was working nights?" she says. "No," Leo answers. "He never tells me anything either," she says mockingly. Does Abby ever speak to anyone in any tone other than "contemptuous and impatient" anymore? God. I find her just as insufferable as the rest of these windbags these days, even when she's right, as she is at the moment.
Toby and Will. "You're upset 'cause the VP didn't use any of your jokes," Will accuses. Toby blusters that the VP "didn't use any of anybody's jokes," and that he "gave a humorless sermon," which in turn made Jed look "like a buffoon" for telling jokes at the same dinner, "like he's squirting seltzer bottles while Pompeii's in flames." "Volcanic ash," a bored Will retorts. "What?" Toby demands. Will points out that Rome burned. Pompeii was buried in ash. Seriously. Although "Atlanta" would have also worked in a funny, more contemporary, fuck-Ted-Turner kind of way. Looking for a topic other than his own faux pas, Toby moves on. "I want to know if Bob Russell's happy he upstaged the president tonight," he demands. Will points out that Bingo Bob was everybody's favorite target all night long -- what was Toby expecting him to do? "He thinks these are serious times," Will says. "And didn't want to bow and scrape and tell knock-knock jokes to all of establishment Washington. You're damn right he was happy." Toby's response is to demand that, from now on, at any joint appearances of Jed and Bingo Bob, Toby will be clearing Bingo Bob's speeches. "First of all, no," says Will. Woot! Toby doesn't get told, "First of all, no," nearly often enough. "Second," Will continues, "you're mad because he didn't use your jokes." Toby laughs bitterly in that way that lets you know he's well aware that it's sort of true. "The problem with Bob Russell jokes is he doesn't think they're funny," says Toby. "And no one else thinks they're jokes." "These are serious times," Will repeats. "And only the vice-president has figured that out?" Toby thunders. Will has a perfect, if uncomfortable, response: "According to you, he's the only one tonight who didn't look like a buffoon. And he's the only one who wasn't taking your advice, so add one to the other and tell me what you get." Unable to cope with all this truth, Toby declares that they're done, and he goes to leave. ["I love you Will!" -- Wing Chun] Broder -- who apparently has nothing to do but linger outside the door -- is all over him, telling Toby to stay where he is. Toby tries to force his way past Broder, at which point he finds himself literally thrown to the floor. Takedown! "Mr. Ziegler," Broder says gravely, and closes the door, leaving Toby on his back. "Stay inside the room, gentlemen," Broder commands. "Oh, man," Will says as he watches the Office of O being sealed up with plastic and tape by a bunch of guys in yellow hazmat suits. Suddenly, the banter about demolished cities probably seems a little less rakishly amusing.
Jed and Ron Butterfield chat in the basement lab as Debbie is examined in the background. "So this is verified, gold alert?" Jed asks. Ron says that the office was sealed up in less than eight minutes. And now, they've been running a DNA diagnostic on the particles. Jed asks if it's still possible it's a malfunction, and Ron says yes, but while they investigate, hazmat goes ahead and treats it as real. The doctor asks Debbie whether she's having any shortness of breath, and she points out that she's a little allergic, but nothing serious. Charlie recoils from the aforementioned nasal swab, asking whether the nice lady was swabbing his sinus or his frontal lobe. Heh. Debbie is asked about any burning sensations, and she says she has none. The swabs are packed up and shipped out by the scurrying lab types. The doctor is continuing to quiz Debbie about her burning nose and eyes, and she points out that the pollen count has been out of control all week. She tells him about the rude guest at the party who sprayed herself with perfume right in Debbie's face. You know, I hate those people, too, but I also think the entire perfume thing has been completely overblown as a civil rights issue. I mean, yes, I know there are some of you with asthma and sensitivities and blah dee blah, and I promise not to bathe in peppermint oil before I get on a plane, but some of you are just pains in the ass. (Not you, of course.) At any rate, upon hearing this tale of aerosol spraying, the doctor immediately becomes alarmed. He turns and tells Ron, who's on his way out the door, that nobody can leave, because he's running a decontamination protocol. Ron is puzzled until the doctor points out that Debbie was "sprayed with an unknown agent" at the dinner, and with the eyes burning and so forth, he's taking no chances. He wants everybody to take a rinse in the shower, starting with Jed. Jed protests that "this is absurd," but the doctor's only response is to tell him to be sure to wash carefully, including his eyes. "You're making a great impression, doctor," Jed snots. "Ron will put in a good word to your CO." "Mr. President, get in the shower," says Charlie. It's not every day you get to give that command, you know. At least not without flashing your thong. Ron nods, and Jed goes.
C.J. is at her desk, pulling on a pair of jeans and balancing the phone on her shoulder as Donna watches at the window. "Can you see anybody?" C.J. asks. Donna says that Josh's door is closed, and that she doesn't know why he's not picking up. Just then, Josh picks up the ringing phone in his office. C.J. greets him, and he asks her whether Donna's missing. C.J. assures him that Donna's with her. "What's the holdup?" C.J. asks. Josh says he doesn't know, but that he's got a deputy NSA with him. C.J. tells him to ask New Kate why they can't get the system fixed to avoid false alarms. Josh leans back and says to New Kate, "C.J. Cregg would like to know why we spend half our lives in unnecessary lockdowns." "Better safe than sorry," answers New Kate. "She's got nothin'," Josh tells C.J. conspiratorially into the phone. Donna waggles her hand at C.J., and C.J. hands over the phone. Donna asks Josh if he knew she was bumping Rickie off the trip. Josh claims not to have known this. "Bummer," he says. He tells Donna she can bring Rickie "a keychain with a pyramid on it or somethin'." He claims to have another line flashing, and he asks Donna what to do. She tells him to press Hold, and he hangs up on her. Just hangs up the phone and, in his office, leans back in his chair, happy to be rid of her. Prick. Prickprickprick.
C.J. asks Donna if she wasn't supposed to have a drink with a guy from the Post-Intelligencer. Donna says she didn't, because she "thought [they] had stuff to wrap up" at the office. "Apparently, it was just Operation Rod and Reel," she sighs. C.J. comments that the guy was cute, and Donna responds that he'll call. C.J., putting on a pair of hiking boots, kicks something and calls herself "Sasquatch," and she and Donna laugh. Oh, girls are so clumsy when they try to wear boy clothes.
Toby and Will. Toby is still smarting (literally) from being flattened in the interests of national security. I'm actually surprised Toby doesn't get punched more often. "Ice might help," Will offers. "Are you making conversation?" Toby pouts. Will says that Toby shouldn't let his head get swollen, and I think the jokes about how much too late it is for that are probably beneath us all. Toby complains that there's no ice anyway. Will, not really that interested in the status of Toby's cranium, anxiously asks whether the sealing of the Office of O is standard. Toby's not sure. He thinks Russell would've called Will if it were a real thing, but Will remarks that his cell phone is out in his coat pocket, and that they don't have a phone in the room, because -- well, Toby cleaned it out and everything. "He was fast, that guy. Do you think that was judo?" Will asks. Toby, as always, is unamused. Will changes the subject, sort of: "There are sodas in here," he says, bending to a little refrigerator. "They're cold." "I'm not putting a soda on my head," Toby says frostily. Will shrugs and tells Toby he's going to have a bump. Oh, whatever. Stop trying to help Toby, Will. Toby is a bump.
Jed and Abby chat on the phone, with him in the lab wearing what appears to be a lab-provided sweatsuit, and her in the residence trapped with Leo. They talk about his speech, and she gives him a hard time about his crappy Social Security joke, pleased to hear that the doc didn't care for it. She thinks this means the doctor can be trusted. She asks about Jed's blood pressure, and Jed says it's a miracle he's alive. She tells him she's with Leo, and Jed seems surprised: "I thought they would -- I thought he went home." "No, he's with me," she says. "Until he gets whisked off to an undisclosed location, I'm going to keep running with the 'false alarm' story." I hope I'm not spilling any national secrets when I say it has always been my suspicion that the "secret location" is a Chuck E. Cheese. There's food, there's pop, there's entertainment, and there's an opportunity to practice your shooting. Throw in the fact that there's a strong possibility that Dance Dance Revolution will be available, and I think that's the ballgame. Jed says he wants to talk to Leo, so Abby puts him on. He and Jed chat about how things are, and Jed asks what the story is about Japan. Leo explains a touchy situation regarding the missile shield, and the fact that Japan wants reassurances from Jed. Jed asks Leo if everything's okay, just as Leo turns and watches Abby down a pill. He says that everything's fine. After Leo hangs up, he asks Abby whether she's got "any of those to spare," or whether she's "hoarding the good stuff." An uncomfortable moment passes. "I'm sorry, where's my manners?" she asks. And then, "I'm not going to tell you it's cold medicine." Leo looks somber. "You carry them with you?" he asks. "As needed," she says. "It's not a daily dose." Looking very uncomfortable, she offers to make tea. Leo nods.
In Josh's office, New Kate is tip-tapping on her computer, and Josh suddenly asks her why she fetched water right before the agent stepped in. "Do you want one?" she asks innocently. He speculates that she knew they were going to be stuck for a while, and she shrugs that she was in lockdown for seventy-seven hours once. "Where was that?" Josh asks. "Overseas," she says vaguely. "'Overseas' is a big place," Josh answers, as if she perhaps accidentally didn't answer the question. "Yeah," she says blankly. Josh asks her if she was in the embassy in Haiti. She points out that if it gets really bad, she also has a PowerBar. Josh finally gets down to his real agenda and asks her why she killed the Panama joke. He wonders what threat it could possibly have posed. "No threat," she says. "Wasn't funny." They sit there for a minute as he wonders whether she's kidding. I've got to think that whether she's kidding or not, the joke probably wasn't funny. It's Josh, after all.
Toby and Will stand beside each other looking out the big windows. "You don't really like Russell," Toby declares. "No, you don't," Will says. "And your dislike isn't professional, it's personal." "Not personal," Toby says. "Visceral." Well, that's a lot better, I guess. Will insists that Russell isn't that bad once you get to know him. They watch as Broder retrieves the giant flowers Will took from C.J. before and gives them to a hazmat guy. Awww, Broder and hazmat guy are dating! Oh, wait, maybe not. Toby returns to the Russell issue: "He's a featherweight who only looks like a lightweight 'cause he's got you propping him up." "He's the heir apparent," Will says simply. "Don't say 'heir apparent' when we've got men in moon suits hermetically sealing the Oval," Toby snaps, always eager for a shot at the platform of self-righteousness. He goes on to inform Will that this is Russell's only shot, incidentally -- the real president dying. He tries to bait Will about this some more, and Will does his best not to bite. Finally, Will gets fed up: "Someday, there's going to be a newer, younger political operative moving onto your landscape. Somebody up through the ranks from the domestic policy shop, and you'll be able to foist all your jealousy and resentment onto his unsuspecting shoulders, and you'll give me a break for three consecutive minutes." "'Jealousy'?" Toby snorts. "This is good." Will isn't done. "You've had one win in your career. One. And you're looking sunset in the face, and I'm just starting out, and that's eating you apart like some kind of psychological melanoma." "My jealousy of you," Toby says dryly. "It's an adrenaline sport, and you're exhausted," says Will. "If you had another fight in you, you'd be grooming Matt Packard or Howard Sturges, and you'd take me down. Me and my anemic candidate. But you don't have it. I say this with a tremendous amount of respect: I would be eternally grateful if you would back off." Will crosses his arms. Toby? Yeah, Toby has nothing. So he just stands there, pate gleaming.
In C.J.'s office, she chatters to Donna about fishing with her father, and then looks at her watch and says that she and Ben will never make their trip at this rate. She recounts the plan to Donna, who tries to tell her she can still make it, but C.J. has made up her mind to cancel. "Spray a little DEET behind your ears and go have fun," says Donna. Mm, romantic. And no skeeters! C.J. calls Ben. She tells him she's stuck at the office, and that the trip is not going to work out. She apologizes. Donna watches suspiciously.
Down in the lab, Debbie laments that of all the times her allergies have been a pain in the ass, this is unquestionably the worst instance. Charlie shrugs that she may have saved their lives if her sensitivities motivated a decontamination they turn out to need. The doctor comes in and starts administering Cipro, which he says they'll need to take as a precaution until they're able to verify that it's not necessary. "So we haven't ruled out anthrax?" says Charlie. The doc says that they haven't ruled out anything. "Actually, we have," says an entering Ron Butterfield. He goes on to explain that they now know what it is. Turns out what they were exposed to is tularemia. It's a bacterium that could theoretically be a weapon. Butterfield says that it was released inside the office somewhere, and the doctor assures them that they can be treated now that they know what it was. Jed asks what would happen if it had gone undetected, and the doc tells them that, essentially, tularemia is plague. Which as I understand it isn't precisely accurate, but it's close. No one looks happy about this news, nor in the mood to debate the difference between "plague" and "kinda sorta pretty much plague."
Toby and Will. Toby balances something on his hand like a bored circus clown as he asks Will how long they've been crashed. "Half an hour," Will tells him. Toby claims it's like "something out of Beckett," and Will comes back that Toby's thinking of Sartre. "If I meant Sartre, I would've said Sartre," Toby says, still balancing. "'Hell is other people,'" Will quotes (from Sartre's title-licious No Exit), and Toby is forced to agree that indeed, it's more like that. There's also some Beckett-like waiting, I suppose, but not so much for a person, unless you count Broder opening the door to let them out.
In his office, Josh complains to New Kate that they get stuck in lockdown "every time some frat boy on a hazing dare tries to jump the fence." New Kate, without looking up from her computer, tells Josh that it isn't the fence this time. He asks what it is, then. "It's not the fence," she repeats, and this is about where she would have her water bottle up her nose if she pulled this routine with me. The secrecy is fine, but not so much the hint-dropping. He snorts at New Kate's pathological inability to give straight answers. She looks up, sighs, and breaks it to Josh that the concern is clearly a possible airborne contaminant. The ventilation system is shut down, which only happens during fires or contaminant scares. Josh looks up miserably at the vent in the ceiling. She fills in that if it were a fire, they'd have been evacuated, so that only leaves one blank. He asks what kind of contaminant, and she lists favorites like anthrax, smallpox, and botulism. If it were sarin or VX, they'd be dead already, so it's not those, and blister agents (mustard gas and the like) are unlikely because there'd be a smell and...well, blisters. Josh's head drops to his desk with a thud at all this cheery news. "Okay," he says into his desk blotter. "Thanks." His head finally pops back up to ask how she knew the ventilation was off. She comments, as if he's a little dense, that it's hot. I think he was expecting something with a higher security clearance, or wanted to hear about the particle detector in her bra strap.
In the rec room annex to the decontamination lab, Charlie reels off to Jed and Debbie the names of the available board games -- Scrabble, Boggle, and Parcheesi among them. I'm not sure they'd realistically allow Boggle. It's so noisy, it would really distract the lab technicians. Just ask any family on vacation that tried to have some people playing Boggle in the living room while others were trying to sleep in the bedrooms. An agitated Debbie can't believe they don't have a deck of cards, and word to that. Jed assures her that nobody has any money anyway, so it's "not a missed opportunity." Hee. Jed calls in Butterfield, who steps into the doorway. Jed points out that hazmat is taking a while upstairs. "Just a moment, sir," says Butterfield, holding his cell and stepping out again. "Ron's on the phone," Jed says unhappily. Charlie asks Debbie how she feels about Risk, and Debbie can only say, "Bring it on." Jed has just finished having his blood pressure taken again, and he asks the doc how it looks. Nothing has changed, so it's perfectly fine. "Not bad, considering," Debbie remarks, and Jed agrees that the word "plague" might have been expected to send it upwards. Charlie asks Debbie whether she wants to be red or green in the game, and she says it doesn't matter: "My army's taking Asia by round three." I don't know if that's a good strategy or not, since I've never been able to get "board game" and "advancing on Tokyo" into the same sentence comfortably.
Butterfield steps back in to inform the group that they've found the source of the contamination. They've found tularemia in a recycle bin. More precisely, in an envelope addressed to Charlie's home address. Charlie is asked whether he brought any mail from home, and he says with puzzlement that he only brought bills -- things that were already open. A phone rings on a table in the room, and Debbie answers it. Jed invites Ron to have a private chat with Charlie, and Ron takes him up on it, taking Charlie out of the room. Debbie, meanwhile, says that his call from the Japanese defense minister is being patched through. On the phone, Jed tells the defense minister that he's having a great evening and can see the cherry blossoms from where he stands. I guess he doesn't think "I'm currently being disinfected" would make good small talk. I'm not so sure. I mean, who hasn't had to take a call in the middle of an antibacterial shower? Jed goes on to give some reassurances to the guy as appropriate.
Toby and Will. Toby whistles, with mediocre accuracy, "Sunrise, Sunset" from Fiddler on the Roof. Will asks whether Toby is serenading him. Toby says he's just serenading himself into his sunset years. Will apologizes for that remark, calling it a "gross exaggeration." Which it's not, but Will is diplomatic. Toby continues to protest too much, pretending that he just finds it hilarious that he lives "in [Will's] imagination, crippled by jealousy and in my decline." Well, he lives that way in mine as well, so whatever, Toby. Will tries to avoid rolling his eyes as he turns away and returns to the more entertaining activity of pacing. "That speech Russell gave tonight," Toby starts to say, and Will again goes for a diplomatic solution. "I could've given you a heads-up," he acknowledges. As Toby undoes the kind of bow tie you don't actually tie, he says no, that's not what he means. He means that the speech Russell gave is the speech the president should have given. So in other words, he is jealous. Toby acknowledges that things are bad enough in the world that the evening of "bad Dean Martin impersonators" was probably not the way to go. "That's the speech the president should have given," Toby repeats. He undoes his top button. "And you should have written it for him." Will looks pensive. (I can never use the word "pensive" without recalling the funniest exchange I ever saw on a soap opera, which went like this: "You look pensive." "No, I'm just thinking.")
Upstairs, Leo is laying into Abby for not doing some "nice, innocuous baby seal campaign," but instead getting herself into this whole clinic volunteering thing "downtown with the crackheads and the needle exchange." Shut up, Leo. Seriously. Abby points out that that's where help is needed, asshole, although she doesn't say "asshole," and should have. He says he's great with her "ministering to the wayward and unwashed," but that she's made herself "a de facto spokesperson" for all manner of issues. She has? When did she do that? She protests that she's not lecturing, she's seeing patients. Leo gets all snippy, doing a little role-play where he claims to be a fourteen-year-old who is sexually active and "know[s] it's okay 'cause [she] got [her] condoms from the First Lady." Oh, shut up, Leo! That doesn't happen! There's all kinds of evidence that that isn't what happens when you give out condoms, for God's sake! You think that a fourteen-year-old is going to tell the media that her interest in engaging in sex comes from the fact that the person handing out the Trojans is famous? Moron. Abby doesn't pick up on this aspect, instead claiming that five years into Jed's presidency, no one even cares about "pathologizing [her] every move," and Leo counters that they do, too. He tells her that the clinic was okay, and they were getting away with it when she was giving out lollipops, but that the all-nighters will be more troublesome. Abby calls it "not negotiable." She says that since Zoey and everything, this was the one thing she decided to do -- follow her gut. "Your Secret Service detail must be thrilled," he snots. She acknowledges that they're not, so much. Leo was really obnoxious in that scene. He needs to lie down. Or just get the hell over himself, maybe. I'm not sure it's a good idea that the poster boy for sobriety on this show is one of the guys who has that "I am no fun, ever" thing happening. Not that half the guys in the cast don't have essentially that same quality.
Debbie is playing online in the rec room, presumably breaking all the search engines hunting for tularemia. Jed tells her she's going to drive herself nuts, and she promises that she's stopping in three minutes, and then she's buckling down for half an hour of silent meditation. Jed takes this opportunity to expound on how the definition of "terrorism" has changed, and that it's not just "guys with turbans in the desert" and "mad survivalists in Montana" anymore. Yeah. Never was, there, sweetheart. "Now anyone with high school Chemistry is a potential threat." "That's a lot of enemies, sir," Debbie says. "Too many," he says, staring sternly at nothing. ["And yet no one takes the Prez to task for giving high-school students permission not to take Chemistry?" -- Wing Chun] Debbie talks about how severe her allergies have always been in the spring, and how her white blood cells are "paranoid xenophobes." They'll be right at home with this White House at times, then, if you throw in "obsessed with dissing Congress." Debbie claims that she gets by on all that meditation, and "ballistic allergy shots." She looks over her shoulder through an interior window into the room where Butterfield is talking to Charlie. "He won't forgive himself," she says in frustration. Focus pulls back to Jed, who's still staring at nothing.
Donna and C.J. are still yapping. Donna asks whether Josh knew they could only send one person on the trip. C.J.'s answer is, "Probably." Donna says that Josh claimed to be sending her so that she could report back to him and Toby on certain meetings that would be taking place. C.J. takes a bite of what Donna's munching on, and spits it into the trash, complaining that it's carob. Is Donna low-carb or something? How disappointing. I hope she's not one of those people who will eat a pound of bacon and not an orange. Because seriously, shut up, those people. Donna says she doesn't know how much she can report if she's in the copy room. Or "coffee room." Hard to tell. C.J. tells her that Fitz will fill her in. Donna persists, though, saying in her "I'm mad but I don't want to admit it" smiley way that she's not sure why Josh told her she could report if...but then she abandons her thought. C.J., looking at the book, tells Donna that there are parts of the trip where she'll be able to sit in on some meetings. She shows Donna where to find this in the book. "Josh Lyman needs a smack on the head," C.J. says, and I almost want to get up and cheer, that is so true. "Why?" Donna asks cluelessly. "He sold you a bill of goods," C.J. says simply. "Not at all," Donna smiles blandly. "He's gone out of his way to give me every opportunity he can." Muh-wha? Oh, whatever, Donna with the eyes squeezed shut. C.J. looks at Donna with a sort of "Oh, dear" expression, and finally says, "Okay." "Hasn't he?" Donna asks her hesitantly. "Absolutely," C.J. says with a wave of her hand, but Donna persists. "If he was [sic] giving you every opportunity, you'd have grown out of this job three years ago," C.J. says, absolutely correctly. She says she doesn't blame Josh, because he's not going to find anyone as good as Donna ever. "I wouldn't let you go either," she says, and I think Carol would agree.
Donna, hearing what she knows is true and does not want to hear, starts to fidget. "It's not a false alarm," she says. "It wouldn't take this long." C.J. says something about filling her canteen, and Donna goes into defend-Josh mode, starting to say that it's not Josh's job to advocate for her, and C.J. gently says she's not "blaming" Josh. "It takes two of you; you choose to stay," she says. "It's the White House," Donna says defensively. "It's not the White House, it's him," C.J. says simply. She looks at Donna with what she wants to be compassion, but which probably feels to Donna like condescension. Donna starts to squirm again, and then she starts to try to shut the conversation down. C.J. isn't done. "Why didn't you get a drink with the guy from the Post-Intelligencer?" C.J. asks. "You know what's on your desk, you know what's on Josh's desk, it wouldn't wait till Monday?" Using one of the favorite tactics of people who have no argument, Donna would rather talk about C.J., and says, "Why did you cancel your camping trip? If we're going to be out of here in a few minutes, you're going home to a rerun of Letterman." See, Donna, that's not really the point. C.J. isn't claiming to be great at relationships. But Donna asked about work, and asked if Josh was really backing her up, and C.J. is pointing out that Donna is letting her personal feelings about Josh trap her in a job that's not what she really wants, and that's got nothing to do with the fact that C.J. isn't good at relationships. Seeing this going nowhere fast, C.J. gets up and retreats to a chair. Donna apologizes. "I just..." "You what?" C.J. asks. Donna starts babbling that Ben is great, which is so irrelevant I can't even tell you, and C.J. asks if Donna has ever even seen her with Ben, and Donna admits that she hasn't, and the whole thing just makes no sense at all. C.J. checks her watch. "What should I be doing?" Donna asks suddenly. "Instead of this." "Anything," C.J. answers. "You should go to lectures and symposia and look for opportunities with nonprofits and have one-night stands with reporters from the Post-Intelligencer and go on dates with, eh, what's-his-name from the Solicitor General's office. Anything that doesn't have to do with Josh Lyman." This is hard for Donna to hear, because she wants C.J. to give her career advice without addressing the obvious fact that Donna's unquestioning and unprofessional devotion to Josh is the biggest thing standing in the way of her career at this point. Donna says a chilly "Wow, okay," and then gets all, "Let's not do this," and goes back to reading her book. Yeah, you can ask people for advice or you can act hurt when they tell you the truth, but both? Not so much. That's why I believe in telling people the truth when they ask you for advice. Deep down, Donna knew that was what C.J. was going to say, and specifically asking to hear it means she's ready to at least think about listening. Or she'd better be. Because she's getting kind of pitiful.
When we come back from commercials, C.J. and Donna are still pretty much like this, sitting in silence. And then we move to Toby and Will, as Toby tells Will that what he wrote for Russell was "profoundly disturbing." "Because he upstaged the president?" Will asks. "Because he might win," Toby comes back. Toby brings up the fact that Will had the chairman of Ways and Means positioned to shake Russell's hand after the speech, which makes Russell look more serious. Toby goes on to berate Will for making it possible that Russell will win. "You need to get the hell out of there!" he thunders. "You're grooming this clown for a victory, and then what?" Will brings up a few possible positive policy outcomes of four more years of a Democratic administration. "With Howdy Doody at the helm," Toby protests, and Will points out absolutely correctly that it's not a dictatorship -- he says there are hundreds of people working in the White House, and doesn't even mention the zillions who work in federal agencies who actually do the majority of the executing in the phrase "executive branch." Toby gripes that it will be Russell who will have the launch codes, and yeah, yeah, he'll probably nuke people at random. Will continues to be a party advocate, claiming that any Democrat is better than the alternative. Toby brags that he won by backing someone good, who still has integrity, and yes, I don't think Will is denying that that's a better way for it to go, Toby. Toby tries to tell Will that he should go out hunting for someone worth respecting, and Will sarcastically promises to "comb the countryside." Toby says he should exactly comb the countryside, and Will says, "You go. If it's so important, you go." Toby has nothing, and Will says, "That's what I thought." Just then, Broder comes in to tell them that the crash has been lifted, and that they can go. Toby walks out without saying anything more. Because Toby has nothing more to say.
Down in the rec room, Butterfield tells Jed that hazmat has given the all-clear on the office. The doc starts to tell them all about their clothes and personal effects and their course of antibiotics, but Butterfield cuts him off, saying he needs to talk to them in the mural room. If they run into anyone, they're to treat it as a false alarm.
Upstairs, Leo tells Abby that it turned out to be a false alarm. "Right," she says. He tells her that Jed should be up soon, and she says she's on her way out anyway. Leo says several ominous, weird things to her about "what it's about" and such, and finally Abby speaks for all of us in saying, "Spit it out, Leo." He says that somebody may wind up taking a picture of her with a junkie, and/or a picture of her popping a Xanax. She says she doesn't care. He laments that she no longer knows what's "over the line." Is Leo Abby's dad now? God. She says she's still capable of making that decision. Leo changes tracks, really much too suddenly, now claiming that he's just asking as her friend whether she's okay with the whole pill-popping thing. She insists that it's not a problem. She goes on to talk about how difficult and physically taxing her situation is, and she catalogs the physical manifestations of stress. She basically winds up telling Leo that if pills are what it takes to relieve that level of anxiety, pills are what she's going to do. Somehow, I really don't find that extremely convincing coming from a doctor. But at any rate, she asks him to spare her the "Valley of the Dolls cautionary tale," and basically tells him to back off. He does the only thing he can, which is to say "Okay" and back off. For some reason, Abby now goes into doctor mode, and after inquiring into Leo's health, starts pressuring him to get an EKG, even offering to make the appointment. He cuts her off and says he's heading downstairs. That's either a really clumsy effort to make it look like Abby is projecting or a really clumsy piece of foreshadowing, but it made very little sense within the scene.
The agent comes to release C.J. and Donna. Donna starts to scurry out, and C.J. stops her carefully to tell her good night, which an embarrassed, distraught Donna just barely returns.
Elsewhere, Josh and New Kate are being released. He asks her what she heard from the agent who passed the news to her that they could go, and she says she was told that it was a false alarm. When she won't give enough detail from the conversation he just saw her having, he reminds her that she's not a scary spy anymore, and that at the White House, it's common just to tell people what the hell is going on. She's like, "Yeah, thanks," and he realizes that she's not going to start yammering, and they part amicably. She pauses in the doorway. "Your joke?" she says. "Yeah, not funny. Got it," he says. Willing to give him a little bit more, she explains that there's a nuclear sub currently passing through the Panama canal being redeployed, and...what does Josh's joke have to do with that? I mean, it's a Panama joke, but what's the threat? Huh? I'm so confused. New Kate walks out, and we see that Donna has made it to her desk and is packing up for the evening. Josh bellows. "Donna?" She stops. She looks at his door. She picks up her belongings. "Donna?" he bellows again, but she walks away, not answering. When she's out of range, he emerges from his office, looking around quizzically. Where could she be? He just got through bellowing! How can she not come running? She has broken the sacred trust of their wonderful Bellow-N-Run System!
In the mural room, Butterfield is briefing Jed, and when Charlie and Debbie join them, Jed explains that what went on tonight was a drill. It was, in fact, a "live drill," which apparently means that the participants are not made aware. Butterfield says that they were trying to address problems in the security system. Debbie does not look pleased. Butterfield says that the bacterium was a harmless placebo that they planted in the recycle bin. Charlie and Debbie look a bit unhappy to have been put through this for nothing, but as with all the staff all the time, they swallow their complaints. As Jed ushers Charlie and Debbie out, he admonishes them not to talk to anyone about it. Jed makes nice about how well they performed under stress, and then he sends them on their way. Out in Debbieland, Debbie and Charlie silently gather their stuff, Charlie giving one last suspicious look into his recycle bin on the way.
Back in the mural room. Butterfield: "They didn't question it." Jed: "I'm not surprised." Butterfield: "You didn't know it would be tonight, sir." Jed: "I knew it when you showed up. But it was worth it if we've learned something useful. Did we learn anything, Ron?" Butterfield: "The preliminary report will be on your desk in an hour." Jed: "Has the FBI made any progress?" Butterfield: "They have a chemist under surveillance who tried to order bacteria from the CDC. Tularemia won't get through again." Jed: "You're right. On a need-to-know basis, who needs to know this much?"
Uhhh...all right. So it wasn't a drill? So they...they do think it was sent to Charlie at home, and they've decided the thing to do is to not tell him that he might want to be extra-careful of suspicious packages and stuff? So they're not going to go to his place, considering that he said the only things he brought in were opened at home, and see if there's, you know, plague on the sofa or anything? They're not going to tell him or Debbie that should any symptoms develop that look like XYZ, they need to react sooner than later? And what does "You didn't know it would be tonight, sir" mean? That entire thing just doesn't hold together in the slightest. I'm absurdly confused.
But anyway, Charlie and Debbie say good night, and Charlie walks out with Toby while Debbie walks out on her own. She spies the hazmat guys cleaning out the limo, and that does seem to spark her suspicions. She calls some unknown person, and her voice softens as she suggests Thai food. Whoever it is apparently expresses concern for her, and Debbie agrees that "the pollen count has been wicked." And also, she's noticed that she might have a touch of plague, but probably not.