We open with some convention theatrics. A couple of news voices are talking in the background about the three-way split among the Democratic contenders, while we see little blips of convention preparation -- the lights going on in the hall, delegates with funny hats going through the metal detectors, memorabilia being laid out for sale by vendors. Shockingly, they show us the logos of some rival news organizations, ending NBC/MSNBC/CNBC's near-monopoly of The West Wing broadcast news business.
The opening montage continues, but now it's intermixed with shots of Leo, Josh, Will, and some other campaign types sitting around a conference table hashing out the schedule. Will and Josh are, needless to say, bickering like little children. One of our themes is introduced when Leo informs everyone that the networks want the balloting to happen in prime time. They figure that the preliminaries -- you know, voting on the rules and the platform, recognizing each delegation -- will be enough to fill up the day until then. Oh, Annabeth is standing over Leo's shoulder, watching the proceedings. Someone should get her a little stool to stand on so she can see. Josh asks what time Jed is speaking on the first night (which is also identified as "tomorrow night," and which is the traditional night for departing presidents), and Leo tells everyone that Jed is not going to speak until a nominee has been selected. Oh, Donna's there too. But she's sitting, which is why I missed her. They start to bicker over the order the candidates will speak before the first ballot. Look! There's Bram, skulking behind a television. Already I can tell I'm going to enjoy this one. Election junkies will be happy to hear that Bingo Bob won twenty-five primaries and/or caucuses, while Santos won all of the big states (California, Texas, Florida, Pennsylvania, and Illinois) except for New York.
Leo's had enough, telling them that they'll flip a coin. Will cannot resist pointing out that there are three candidates, so a coin-flip really won't work. Leo yells, "Draw straws, pick a number out of a hat, I really don't care." Everyone has the good grace to be silently embarrassed by his or her own pettiness. Or maybe they're just wondering where they would find a hat or some straw in this day and age. Or even how you would go about drawing straws, since nobody has done it in the last forty years. Leo tells them all that Annabeth will be running podium operations. He tells them that every speech needs to be given to her four hours in advance so that she can approve them. Will is outraged at the prospect of censorship, but Leo doesn't back down. Will wonders if Annabeth's going to approve the candidate videos, and Leo says she's not, "because there aren't gonna be any." Thank goodness. There's an art form that reached its zenith with its very first creation ("A Man From Hope," 1992) and went straight downhill from there. Annabeth also wants all speeches limited to ten minutes (as if!), because the networks are serious about refusing to give more than two hours of coverage each night. Annabeth is working some seriously hip black rectangular glasses, by the way. Although I can't figure out why they're tinted, since she's in a pretty dark room. Leo asks if they're done, and of course they are not. Will wants to whine about the assignment of staff rooms -- apparently, the Santos room is closer than the Russell room. More bickering. Leo shuts them up and asks where they are on Veep selection. They both immediately go from brash to sheepish, looking down at their papers and saying that they're almost finished with that. Leo wraps up the meeting, telling them that they want a nominee by the end of the first night, and that he won't tolerate any attacks on any of the contenders. He wants to demonstrate that Democrats can lead the country with maturity. And then he tells them that they'll pick the speaking order using "rock, paper, scissors." My eleven-year-old niece Jaime must not have written this episode, because she knows that rock, paper, scissors can't be used to select a winner from a group of three. She's clearly too smart for this show.
Leo, Will, Josh, and the Hoynes guy walk to one end of the room. Leo tells them they'll do rock, paper, scissors on three. This is so unrealistic. Everyone knows you're supposed to say "one, two, three, shoot!" (Although I have a very distinct childhood memory of other kids in central New York saying "eins, zwei, drei, shoot!" Which, I don't know -- none of us were German.) And then they shoot. Josh and Will both go for rock, while the Hoynes guy throws paper. Consider yourselves covered, boys.
Josh, Santos, Helen, and Ned are walking through the bowels of the convention venue. Santos wonders how it came about that Hoynes is speaking last, and Josh has to explain the mechanics of paper covering rock. They walk past banners of what I assume are teams that normally play in this stadium. One is for something called "The Stompers." I'll claim that as a shout-out on Miss Alli's behalf. There's another banner for a team called "Damage." Those names seem unusually violent to me. Of course, I got part of my education at a school where all the teams were named "The Violets," so I suppose pretty much anything outside of the flower family might seem violent by comparison. Santos is wondering why Russell hasn't announced that Bundy is his Veep choice, and Josh thinks they're trying to put more distance between the rumors of Santos rejecting Russell and the announcement of Bundy. I guess Bundy doesn't want to be known as Russell's rebound guy. Josh thinks they'll announce after the first ballot and before the second in an attempt to pick up some Hoynes delegates. Helen doesn't sound too unhappy at the thought -- she'd rather not give a speech in front of twenty-five thousand spectators. Santos points out that it's more like twenty-five million. Way to soothe your wife's nerves. Helen's got some kind of Farrah Fawcett hair going on. She's got wings. She can fly. Right now she looks as though she'd like to strangle Santos. And Ned, who confirms the number.
Suddenly, there's a very loud screeching noise. A giant garage door is going up, and the four of them walk through it and into the convention hall. There are no delegates there yet, but it's bustling with activity as all of the preparations are wrapped up. They stand there, awestruck. Helen takes Santos's hand. They don't show us Josh taking Santos's other hand, but I'm sure it happened. The camera pans around them, and...credits!
C.J.'s office. She's on the phone, getting reamed out by Secretary of Defense Hutchinson while Toby and Kate look on. Charlie comes in and drops a thick Washington Post on the table -- there's a great mockup of an article about time running out for the guys in the International Space Station. (And the photo confirms that astronauts and cosmonaut are all men, so I'll be switching to "spacemen" now.) C.J. hangs up the phone and tells them all that Hutchinson is furious, and that some Senator is coming over to discuss the situation. The timing on these two final episodes is way off, by the way. The last episode seemed to end on the final night of the Republican Convention, which would be a Thursday. That's when Annabeth told Toby that Brock was about to release the story on the military shuttle. Ignoring the fact that there are usually a couple of weeks between conventions, there must at least be a weekend between them. So why is Hutchinson calling on Sunday (or Monday) to express his anger? Did he just not happen to pick up the paper on Friday? If I give the producers the benefit of the doubt, I can assume that the final scene of last week's episode did not actually take place on the same night as the other scenes -- that is, that it was not in fact the final night of the Republican convention. Maybe a couple of weeks went by between Vinick's speech and the leak about the shuttle. But that would have to mean that Leo was getting around to telling Annabeth that she was going to have to quit her job and get rehired for the convention on, say, Saturday night, with the convention opening on Monday. And who do you think is more likely to have messed things up, Leo or John Wells? Oh, and somehow in the time between the prior night's news about the leak and this morning's meeting, C.J. has gotten a perm and some highlights. (Or something like that -- my head is shaved, I'm really not too familiar with those hair terms.) Debbie sticks her head in to tell them that Jed is ready for them.
“ The guy seems confused by his inability to get a signal in the stairwell. I have to think that was an inspired piece of business by an extra. And I can't really tell if the look Josh gives him is Josh thinking he's an idiot for trying to use his phone in the fire stairs, or Bradley Whitford wondering what the hell the extra is doing. ”
C.J. and company enter the Office of O. Jed immediately starts screaming about the leak and how it will play into the hands of the Republicans. He's screaming so loud that he's scared the cameraman -- the poor guy's shaking like a leaf. Wow, Kate must have gone to the salon with C.J. -- she's softened the color up a bit, and it's all kind of wavy and bouncy. Jed moves on from domestic to international politics, talking about how many angry phone calls he's gotten from other governments complaining that the U.S. is "weaponizing space." Kate thinks they should just keep denying the truth of the story. Debbie sticks her head in to let Jed know that Senator Weller is there. Jed is certain that he's going to demand the appointment of a special prosecutor. He starts going off on Brock, and C.J. thinks that if they punish him by pulling his White House press pass, it will just make it look as if he stopped being a gay prostitute. Or, I mean, that the White House is being vindictive. Jed reminds her that leaking the information was a crime, and that the Republicans will just love the idea of putting a high-ranking Democrat in prison during the campaign season. Jed tells them that he wants to find the leaker before anyone else does, and he assigns Kate and Toby to take care of it. He tells them that he wants a name on his desk by Friday.
Santos war room. They're strategizing over how to pick up Hoynes delegates on the second ballot while holding on to their own. Josh assigns someone the job of making sure there's a floor whip with each delegation. Which is perhaps something he might have thought about, I don't know, before the convention started? Just a thought. Josh asks Bram for an update on something or other. I really don't care what it was -- it's just an excuse to look at pretty, pretty Bram. Oh, all right -- he's asking about efforts to turn the Georgia delegation away from Hoynes and towards Santos. Apparently, Hoynes is still telling his delegates that if they will stick with him while the convention deadlocks, the party will eventually turn to him as the most seasoned candidate. Josh wants "a pipe of whatever it is [Hoynes] is smoking." Ronna points out that they're getting requests for comment on the shuttle leak, and Josh tells them to say nothing. And then Ned asks the big question: "If Russell announces [Bundy] as his V.P., how do we prevent a stampede to Russell on the second ballot?" Has Josh gotten any smarter since the last episode? Not much -- his answer is that they will respond by getting Hoynes to throw his support to Santos. He thinks that Hoynes will hate the idea of Russell's winning more than he'll hate the idea of Santos's getting the nomination. Bram sums up the strategy as "Santos, you hate him less." Josh tells them that "it ain't over 'til it's over." But he leaves the fat lady out of it.
Josh and Ronna walk up a fire stairway. There's some guy walking down the stairs, trying to talk into his cell phone. He seems confused by his inability to get a signal in the stairwell. I have to think that was an inspired piece of business by an extra. And I can't really tell if the look Josh gives him is Josh thinking he's an idiot for trying to use his phone in the fire stairs, or Bradley Whitford wondering what the hell the extra is doing. Josh tells Ronna that they are looking for any stray Atkins delegates they can pick up on the second ballot. Atkins presumably being a candidate who dropped out early and not an interest group made up of high-protein dieters. Of course, this would have been the perfect opportunity to mention Rafferty, who must have picked up a few delegates in her brief run. But John Wells hates us, so it doesn't happen. Josh thinks the big struggle will be getting Atkins delegates to speak, because they might "be too busy stuffing canaps in their pockets." As they walk out of the stairwell into the sunny lobby of the hall, Ronna starts to ask "Can I quote you while we're trying to get them to vote for us?"
Josh exits an elevator and walks down a hotel corridor with Gambelli in tow. Gambelli tells him that it's a waste of time for him to sit down with Santos, since Santos is "virtually anti-teacher." As they get to a door with several Secret Service agents arrayed around it, Josh asks him, "Who said you were sitting down with my guy?" Gambelli notices the agents, and as the door opens, Josh introduces Gambelli to Jed.
On television, we see that Gambelli has returned to the floor of the convention, where he casts New York's 284 votes for Santos. That television is playing behind Leo, who is in a conference room alone going over some papers. Josh enters, and Leo is surprised to see him -- he thought he would be celebrating. I think the celebration will have to wait until he can be alone with Santos. Josh tells him that they still need to line up a V.P. Leo wonders if they asked Bundy. I think he'd be perfect for the job, since it basically involves sitting around on the couch with your hand shoved down your pants. They did actually ask Bundy, but he declined. And Santos was not interested in asking Russell. Leo asks if Josh wants help making a list, but Josh tells him they've narrowed it down to the guy they want. They're just not sure he'll accept. Leo wonders if Jed should call the guy to lean on him. But Josh already spoke with Jed: "He told [Josh] that he'd kick the guy's ass all over the school yard, if it came to that." Leo smiles at hearing that, and asks who it is. Josh tells him, "You," and then he gets up and walks out of the room. Leo does not have another heart attack. We hear the convention chair announce that Santos has won the nomination with 2,751 votes.
Kate walks into Toby's office and asks him if he thinks Santos has a chance against Vinick. Toby thinks not. Kate closes the door behind her and tells Toby that the leak did not come from NASA: "Too many of the technical details were off." Leo wonders why she closed the door to tell him that. She tells him that the FBI is pretty sure that the leak came from the West Wing: "They have a theory. One you're not gonna like."
At the convention, Abbey fusses over Jed's suit and asks him if he's okay. He tells her he is, "really." There is a tear in his eye, however. You can hear a speaker in the background introducing him. Abbey kisses him, with a tear in her own eye, and sends him off to the podium. On the way, he runs into Leo. There's a great shot of the two of them, in profile, facing each other, but in different planes of the shot. After a second of artful standing around, Jed takes the podium. We see Donna watching the speech from the utterly wrecked Russell war room. Jed starts the speech, and the crowd starts chanting "Four more years! Four more years!" I think I hear some other folks chanting, "Eight years, not seven! Eight years, not seven!" But that may just have been my crappy reception. Jed doesn't actually seem to give a speech. Instead, after the chanting fades away, he just introduces "the President and Vice-President of these United States, Matthew Vincente Santos and Leo Thomas McGarry." Back in the Russell war room, we see that Josh is having a beer with Donna and Will as they watch the speech. In the convention hall, the balloons drop. Again.
Cut to Vinick, watching the convention on television. He stands up, turns toward some faceless aides, and says, "Okay. Let's go win this thing."