In The West Wing, the Iowa episode “King Corn” directly concerns the growing sexual tension between Josh Lyman and Donna Moss. The episode finds the two coming ever closer to answering the will-they-or-won’t-they question in the affirmative—realizing that their hotel rooms in Cedar Rapids are directly across the hall from each other. It emphasizes their parallel mornings. It emphasizes their parallel days. It ends with Josh, aaaalmost deciding to knock on Donna’s door when the day is done, and then deciding against it. And yet, the episode does the work that will be necessary for Donna and Josh to become a couple: It insists on their equality. All those parallels—rooms and days—suggest how far Donna has come from being, simply, Josh’s assistant. They suggest that Donna and Josh becoming a couple would not be a boss-and-secretary affair, but rather a marriage—or, you know, a committed relationship—of equals.
