No Exit

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.

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.