Previously on The West Wing, India sent troops into the neutral zone in Kashmir; C.J.'s pissed that no one informed her of what was going on, causing her to lie to the press; Jed tells Zoey about threats of violence received by the White House; Gina thinks that it's two fifteen-year-old boys sending death threats against Charlie and Zoey.
The title card says we're at a town hall meeting at the Newseum in Rosslyn, Virginia. We see an outside shot of the hall where there is a small crowd of people, and several limos and security vehicles. We can hear Jed's voice telling amusing political anecdotes. The audience is laughing and Jed goes on to answer a question we haven't heard. We're switching back and forth between various shots of Jed, and Jed on a monitor. He says, "Suzanne, there is an answer to your question but I don't think you're going to like it. You ready? The current crop of eighteen-to-twenty-five-year-olds is the most politically apathetic generation in American history. In 1972, half of that age group voted. In the last election, it was thirty-two percent. Your generation is considerably less likely than any one to write or call public officials, attend rallies, or work on political campaigns. A man once said this, 'Decisions are made by those who show up.' So are we failing you or are you failing us? It's a little of both." Jed continues giving information gleaned from a report by the Center for Policy Alternatives while the camera drifts upwards. Up in the balcony area, Secret Service agents are stationed and Gina roams along, keeping a watchful eye.
The camera drifts outside to a small room off the auditorium, where several monitors are set up and some reporters are hanging around. Someone off-screen shouts, "What's that source?" and Josh calls out, "It's the Center for Policy Alternatives; C.J.'ll have copies for the bus ride back!"
Back onstage, where Jed's perched on a stool, he says, "I want to continue with this, but there was some debate among my staff earlier today as to whether or not I should take off my jacket. Some thought it would fit in nicely with the folksy atmosphere of a town hall meeting; others thought it wouldn't be presidential. Can I trust you all to read nothing into it, other than I've been talking for two hours and it's a little hot under these lights?" People laugh and applaud as he stands up and removes his jacket. That is some politicking, when you can get people to enthusiastically applaud that. ["People in Rosslyn are starved for entertainment." -- Strega] He continues rambling as the camera shot changes to the technicians' area, where Sam is watching the proceedings. Bonnie comes along and asks where Toby is, because there's a phone call for him from someone named Peter Jobson. Sam says he'll take the call and accepts the cell phone.
We then get a shot of Toby watching a monitor in another area of the building; Sam calls to him from a short distance away. When Toby turns around, Sam makes the following gesture: he slides his hand along in a smooth, up-up-and-away motion. Toby looks massively relieved, and looks down over a stairway where he can see Josh. He calls out to Josh and makes the same gesture. Josh then sees Leo and gives him the same signal. Leo, confused, asks, "What's that?" Josh says, "It's the signal." Leo says that he thought it was the signal for "the other thing." Josh explains, "It's the signal for this thing now." Leo asks, "We're totally out of the woods now?" Josh says eagerly, "Go tell the President!"
Another bank of monitors, and we can see Carol hustling around. C.J. has an armful of papers and is walking behind a row of journalists. As she comes to Danny, she cuffs him sharply on the right hand side of his head, and says, "Follow me." Danny looks irritated and says, "What?" He follows her as she stops by a pillar in the room, and whispers that she has a tip for him. He's a little surprised but not much. She continues, "I have a tip, and I'm going to give it to you before the others." Danny looks around and asks if they're being watched. C.J. looks around and says, "No." Danny asks, "Then why are we talking like this?" C.J. ignores that and goes on, "I have news." Danny: "What's the news?" C.J.: "I want you to acknowledge that I'm doing something nice for you." Danny: "What's the news?" C.J.: "A peace pipe of sorts, an offering, which in one sense..." Danny's lost patience. "What's the damn news?" C.J. finally tells him, "Call your science editor. It's about the space shuttle Columbia." She takes off quickly, leaving Danny standing there, probably wondering if this is some kind of trick to further punish him.
We then see Leo walking along behind the audience, trying to get Jed's eye. Jed's saying something about how fifty-three percent of eighteen-to-twenty-five-year-olds believe the soap opera General Hospital will outlast Medicare. When Jed looks his way, Leo gives him the big secret signal. Jed pauses as he takes it in and then says something about the younger generation thinking the older generation has ransomed its future. Leo zooms off. Jed goes on to drag Zoey into his talk, by mentioning that she's always mad at him for such things. We see Zoey up in one of the balcony seats, looking adorably uncomfortable as Jed continues teasing her, "This is the part where Zoey tries to crawl under her seat to hide. Don't worry about it, sweetie, I'm going to bring out the baby pictures any second now." The audience laughs.
“ The familiar theme music leaves us gasping as we realize we are just going to have to wait to find out what happened. That's a hell of an opening. ”
Outside, there's a throng of people waving flags and signs from behind waist-high metal barricades. Secret Service agents and security people are racing around. Ron, the head Secret Service guy, tells Gina, "Straight to the car." Gina asks, "He's not working the rope line?" Ron tells her that there's a softball game the President wants to watch. Gina's surprised to hear that not only are softball games broadcast, but the President likes to watch them. Ron explains that POTUS likes to unwind watching sports on TV; whatever's on. Ron leaves and Gina surveys the crowd. The crowd is cheering and chanting and hooting. It seems to be entirely a pro-Bartlet mob.
Inside again, Jed is still talking (and probably will be for another four hours unless someone intervenes; good old POTUS). Josh is now watching from the back of the auditorium, when Charlie walks up to him and asks, "Did you hear that?" Josh: "Yeah." Charlie: "He used it." Josh: "Yeah." Charlie: "He used the material I told him about." Josh: "Yeah." Charlie tells Josh, "You were right." Josh doesn't know what he means. Charlie replies, "It doesn't go away," a reference to a scene in episode three, A Proportional Response, on the day Charlie was hired. After POTUS personally invited Charlie to join the staff as his body man, Charlie told Josh, "I've never felt this way before." Josh told him, "It doesn't go away." I liked this little scene a lot. It's hard to reconcile the shy, insecure young man Charlie was when he came to the White House with the confident, wisecracking guy who's dating the President's daughter. Josh claps Charlie on the shoulder. Between them, we can see Jed down on stage ending his talk, saying, "Thank you, everyone. God bless you, and God bless America." Everyone prepares to leave.
Outside, Gina's talking on her walkie-talkie to Mike, confirming that Jed's not working the rope line but going straight to the car. She says, "I've got Bookbag." Bookbag is Zoey, of course. Gina runs up to meet the group and walks with Zoey. Zoey's prattling on about her father embarrassing her. We can hear a helicopter roaring overhead. Zoey points out that now her father's working the rope line, and that he's unable to walk past a crowd of people. As she and Gina round the limo, Zoey calls out to Charlie. Zoey and Charlie are chatting by the front of the car, while Gina is distracted by her sense that she saw something, even muttering to herself under her breath about it. She whirls around, trying to figure out what's not right. Zoey drags Charlie back to where Gina is; she's prattling on about Charlie having made a full apology to her. Gina can't pay attention to Zoey, because her Spidey-sense is going wild. Gina says again, "I saw something!" Her gaze fastens on a young man in the crowd wearing a grey baseball hat. She sees him look up slightly and turns to see what he's looking at. The music becomes more dramatic and menacing as Gina's eyes light up with alarm and she opens her mouth to cry out. Then bam! Credits. The familiar theme music leaves us gasping as we realize we are just going to have to wait to find out what happened. That's a hell of an opening.
After the commercials, the title card indicates that it's twelve hours earlier. Military guys are buzzing around the Situation Room. Admiral Fitzwallace is on the phone as Leo comes in and asks what's going on. When Fitzwallace gets off the phone, he tells Leo, "Al-Jabbar Air Base in Kuwait says a Nighthawk didn't come back." Leo asks, "Didn't come back from where?" Fitzwallace says, "Three-hour patrol of the no-fly with the five-and-dime." Leo says, "Iraq. We've got an F-117 down in Iraq?" Fitzwallace adds, "Along with a pilot." The Admiral indicates that none of this is confirmed, and he needs ten more minutes. Leo says, "Ten more minutes and then I'm bringing in the President." As the credits roll by, we can see that everybody and their dog is in the episode, except for perhaps Joey Lucas and Al Kiefer.
In the colonnade outside his office, Jed's walking along with Charlie and saying that it seems to him that if the event is over by 10:00 p.m., that he can be back at the White House by 11:00 p.m. Charlie agrees and indicates that means that he can watch the girls' softball game. Jed asks, "Did you just snicker when you said that?" Charlie says, "No, sir." Jed says he did. As they enter the Oval Office, someone hands Jed some documents and Jed keeps accusing Charlie of snickering when he said "girls' softball game" and Charlie keeps denying it. POTUS continues, "As if to indicate there was something wrong with my wanting to see a girls' softball game live via satellite." Charlie says, "Well, you seem pretty excited about it, sir." Somebody sticks his head in a door and tells POTUS that "they're" ready for him. As they leave the Oval Office, Jed goes on telling Charlie about how great it is, at the end of a long day, to sit back and relax with a beer while watching a sporting event. "That's what men do." Charlie asks, "They watch girls' softball, sir?" Jed explains, "When that's what's on, that's what they watch. It's that, or a cricket match between Scotland and Bermuda. Now, I am an educated man, Charlie, but when somebody tries to explain cricket to me, all I want to do is hit 'em in the head with a teapot." Jed says that it's Sacramento State versus the University of the Pacific. Charlie says, "A clash of the titans, sir." Jed insists that Charlie is not going to spoil his fun. A couple more staffers greet the President, and Jed says hi to "Steve" and "Mikey."
“ 'He's up there with four red-bellied Japanese newts. He wants to see how a newt's inner ears, which are remarkably similar to human's, are influenced by the absence of gravity. You know what he calls them, C.J.?' C.J., who's sitting close by, says, 'Astronewts.' ”
As they keep walking, POTUS asks Charlie, of the people he's been greeting all along the way, if he's gotten any of the names right so far. Charlie: "No sir, but you came damn close on a couple of them." They arrive at the press briefing room where most of the usual suspects are waiting for him. Mandy's there, too. C.J. takes charge and tells POTUS that this is a rehearsal for a town hall meeting that will be broadcast live on (Product Placement Alert!) MSNBC, and that Carol's going to act as the moderator, and that Carol will be sitting to his right, which is camera left. She adds that he'll have a pitcher of water and a drinking glass. Before she can go any further, POTUS says, "And when I speak I should stand facing the audience, right? You know how I know this, C.J.? Because I've done it two or three hundred thousand times before." He walks past her, using a file folder to tap her on the shoulder in a friendly way. He asks Sam, "Hey Sam, why didn't Columbia land last night?" Sam doesn't know; Jed suggests that he go ask Toby. Sam inquires, "Why would Toby know?" Jed replies, "His brother's on that flight." Sam is surprised to learn that Toby's brother is a payload specialist. Jed gleefully explains, "He's up there with four red-bellied Japanese newts. He wants to see how a newt's inner ears, which are remarkably similar to human's, are influenced by the absence of gravity. You know what he calls them, C.J.?" C.J., who's sitting close by, says, "Astronewts." Jed continues, "One hundred percent correct." Sam runs off to find Toby and Jed gets back to the rehearsal. Mandy starts to ask Jed a question but he interrupts and says seriously to C.J., "You say I have a pitcher of water and a drinking glass. And the water gets into the glass how?" She just gives him a weary look and walks away.
In the secretarial area outside his office, Toby is pacing around bouncing material off of Bonnie and Ginger. He's rambling about some questions that may be asked of the administration regarding the apparent double standard in its treatment of China and Cuba. Sam comes up behind Toby and Toby says to him, "We need an answer on Cuba. We need an answer on Cuba and we need an answer on farm loans." Sam claims college students aren't going to ask a question about Cuba. They're not? Toby says there'll be faculty there. Sam says, "You know, not only did I not know that you had a brother on the space shuttle right now, I didn't even know you had a brother." Add that to the long list of things you don't know, Sam, my friend, such as not giving gifts to sex trade workers on a public sidewalk. Toby's completely uninterested in Sam's amazement about it all. Sam tries to find out what Toby knows about the space shuttle's intended landing but Toby doesn't seem to be apprised of the situation and is getting impatient with Sam. Sam offers to find out if there's something going on with the shuttle. As Toby leaves he tells Sam to write him an answer on Cuba.
“ Leo asks 'Fitz' if he has a rescue scenario. Fitz says, 'Man, is Ricky Martin gay?' No, he doesn't really. There's no time for cheap comedy. ”
As Josh pours himself some coffee, Donna informs Josh that his meeting with VPOTUS involves them going jogging, much to Josh's annoyance. Apparently the Vice-President's two o'clock jogging slot was the only place he could fit Josh in. Josh sighs and says, "Okay, order me some boiled chicken and some pasta. Nothing like a meeting you have to carb-up for." As he goes in to his office, Donna reminds him he was supposed to be at the town hall prep meeting ten minutes ago. He says he's on his way. He notices something amiss in his office, however, and comes back out to ask Donna what happened to his chair. Donna "plays" dumb for some reason I don't quite understand (I mean, come on, it's not like he's not going to notice the chair is gone, and since you're the one who took it, why act like you don't know where it is?) [Maybe she isn't "playing" dumb at all. -- Strega]; there's some Josh-and-Donna blather about the chair until it comes out that she's sent it to "the shop" for repairs. The "shop" turns out to be her friend Curtis, whom she's trying to throw some work. Josh wants to know just how much Curtis is charging the federal government to fix his wobbly wheel. Donna and Josh enter the press briefing room where Mandy is firing a sample question at Jed. Her question is about the (in my opinion) stupefying number of Americans who have no health insurance, and whether they can expect real action in the future, or whether his administration will continue to "nibble around the edges." Jed responds, "I wouldn't say my administration's 'nibbled around the edges.'" Josh instructs him, "Don't repeat the phrase, sir. That'll be the sound bite. If we don't have a solution, the very least we can do is acknowledge there's a problem." Jed composes a much more politically viable response. Just then Leo enters and tries to get Jed's attention. Jed tells him to hang on and asks Josh, "Now can I blame Congress?" Josh smiles and says, "Knock yourself out." Leo then tells Jed he's needed in the Situation Room.
When Jed gets to the Situation Room, he asks Fitzwallace if the pilot is still alive. Fitzwallace explains that the pilot had some kind of ejector seat, and another military guy indicates that NATO Command in Brussels has picked up a signal south of Basra. Jed says to Leo, "He's in the middle of nowhere." Jed's right. I looked it up. Leo asks, "Who else is out there?" Military dude says, "The fourth corps of the Iraqi R.G. would patrol the area." He also pronounces it "eye-rack-ee" which drives me nuts (likewise, eye-ran and eye-talian). Third military dude says, "Somebody's within ten miles of the pilot." Jed sits down, and comments, "Our guy's ten miles from the fourth corps of the Iraqi Republican Guard?" Jed disappoints me too, by pronouncing it "a-rack-ee." Fitzwallace says it's a matter of who gets there first. Leo asks "Fitz" if he has a rescue scenario. Fitz says, "Man, is Ricky Martin gay?" No, he doesn't really. There's no time for cheap comedy. Fitz lays out the rescue scenario which involves specially equipped and no doubt extremely expensive helicopters. Some drip named Phil wants to spend a few hours trying the diplomatic route before jumping into a military rescue plan. Leo's immediately disgusted with the idea of wasting time by flapping gums with ambassadors. "I'll tell you what, Phil, how about I drop you and your forty-seven million dollar American warplane (that's already been picked up by Iraqi radar) in the middle of a desert. Then you tell me if we've got three hours to find a diplomatic solution before we come get you." John Spencer does the best job of pronouncing "Iraqi," winning him absolutely nothing other than my undying appreciation. Phil promptly shuts the hell up. Jed asks for the name of the pilot. Fitz says, "Captain Scott Hotchkiss." We learn that he's a twenty-six-year-old from Rhode Island. Jed pauses a moment before saying, "Rob told me in my intelligence briefing last week that the Iraqi government has put out a bounty, the equivalent of fourteen thousand dollars US, for any American plane shot down, or any American soldier captured. Now, he was just patrolling the no-fly zone, right?" Fitz confirms this. Jed asks, "He had not engaged?" Fitz confirms this too. Jed looks at Phil and says, "Phil, if it ends up Fitzwallace has to call this kid's parents, I swear to God, I'm invading Baghdad." Jed pauses briefly and then tells Fitz, "Get him back." Fitz says, "Yes, sir." Jed stuffs his glasses in his pocket and takes his leave. After he's gone, the other military guys punish Phil with the atomic wedgie to end all wedgies.
After the commercials, C.J. is called to Leo's office so he can apprise her of the situation with the pilot. He tells her that a Pentagon team is coming over to brief her. C.J. asks, "Is there a rescue mission?" Leo looks hesitant but then says that the President gave the order an hour earlier. C.J. says that the Iraqis are going to be providing footage of a burning airplane, and that will be all over CNN within two hours, and that the press will have the news before they're even done with whatever's going on in the Situation Room. Leo says, "Which is the problem with conducting a covert rescue mission in this age of instant news." He pauses and gives her a look, and inquires, "You understand what I'm telling you?" C.J. says she does. Leo's not sure, because of the problem a few months ago during the India/Pakistan mess, and asserts that she was uncomfortable with lying to the press about that. C.J. stands her ground and says, "I wasn't lying to the press about India/Pakistan. I was lied to by you, which made me look like an idiot." Leo looks like he wasn't expecting that response but doesn't react too much; he just stares at her for a moment before saying, "Well, I'm not lying to you now." He proceeds to give her the basic details of the mission. C.J. says, "We're going to pay a price for misleading the press." Leo doesn't care. C.J. says she understands. Just then Josh sticks his head in, and asks, "An F-117?" Leo tells C.J. she should go do her briefing. She departs and Leo confirms for Josh that it was indeed an F-117 that was shot down. Josh replies, "An F-117's a stealth fighter, right? At some point we're going to be talking about how they shot down a stealth fighter?" Leo: "You can take that to the bank." Josh lets Leo know he's got a meeting with Hoynes. Leo says, "Listen to me. Don't tell him why it's bad for us. Tell him why it's bad for him." Josh claims he's not worried about the meeting. Leo orders Josh to come see him after the meeting. In the hallways Toby catches up with Josh and they discuss the shooting down of the stealth plane. Toby says, "It's a stealth fighter. It should have stealth capability, right? 'Cause if it doesn't, we should call it something else." Josh agrees as he disappears down a hallway and Toby enters his office, where Sam is waiting for him. Sam begins, "One of the payload bay doors would not close." Toby's not sure what Sam's talking about. Sam continues, "Specifically, the starboard payload bay door." Say that three times fast. Toby's folded his arms and says, "Sam, if your ass isn't off my desk, and I mean stat..." Sam's still spouting facts, "This is not his first shuttle mission. It is his fourth shuttle mission. Dr. David Ziegler, holding postgraduate degrees in both physiology and biology. Now I know more about your brother than I do about you, since I didn't know you had a brother." Toby asks about the bay door. Sam explains that he spoke to Peter Jobson, who is Mission Commander at NASA, and spouts some techno-jargon about the problem with the door, and how they wanted to wait until morning to fix it. Toby says, "It's morning every forty-five minutes on the shuttle." Sam explains that he meant morning at Edwards Air Force Base. Toby points out that it's morning right now. Sam says it's taking a bit of time. Toby: "Well, it's a red-letter day for U.S. aviation, isn't it?" ["He must be upset, because I think the word he meant to use was 'aeronautics.'" -- Strega] Sam tries to reassure Toby a bit. Toby says C.J. will need the press briefing room and asks Sam to move the prep meeting to the Roosevelt Room. Sam says he's working on answers about Cuba and teachers. As Sam leaves, Toby quietly asks him to keep in touch with Peter Jobson and let him know when the shuttle lands. Sam says he will. Bonnie then pops in to tell Toby that CNN's got the Nighthawk.