• do not like the special effects of the opening
• Ned corrected Helen Santos and told her she was speaking to 25 million people not 25 thousand...I would shit myself
• the astronauts have three days of oxygen?? in the last episode they had a couple weeks
• “I want this leaker found.”
• “It’s like watching grass grow.”
“Second ballot won’t be.”
“When’s that going to start?”
“Soon as we finish the first ballot!”
• “You wanna cut to Law and Order now, Susan, be my guest.”
Lmao Leo sass in this scene was great
• I remember Baker trying to get nominated from the floor, and I also remember it comes out that his wife has depression and/or has been taking medicine for it and Will (and maybe Josh?) try to use that against him (which is really shitty!!!) and Donna tries to stop Will but is unsuccessful
• Yeah see I get the whole disclosing thing and letting the delegates/voters decide, but they knew what would happen when they released the info about Baker’s wife. They knew And like Donna said it’s just clinging to the 18th century mental illness stereotypes.
• Santos and Helen just shared a look that makes me think she knew he wasn’t going to concede.
• “We’re all broken - every single one of us - and yet we pretend that we’re not.”
Santos you literally did not have to come for the entire United States like that. my god
• yes let’s nominate the guy who had a heart attack
• I love when Abbey and Bartlet kiss and then Abbey takes her thumb and rubs his mouth. I’m soft 🥺 (and I read somewhere that was Stockard Channing’s doing but I’m not sure.)
• the end scene of Bartlet and Leo made me think of the flashback when Bartlet’s still governor and says “It should be you, Leo.”
“A convention - fire drill without the fire.”
HRISHI: But I thought, by definition, don’t all fire drills lack a fire?”
JOSH: No, sometimes they’re real.
HRISHI: But then it’s not a drill.
JOSH: You know what? He’s right!”
• Politicians are usually the last to know their career is over. Hoynes’s career is basically over, so has no right being near this campaign, but the voters and convention delegates are going to have to be the ones to convince him of that, because politicians can never convince themselves.
“Hoynes has no right being in this story, he’s got no right being near this campaign, running for this nomination. But the voters - and in this case, the convention delegates - are going to have to convince him of that because a politician can never convince himself of that.”
• Back in season 1 Hoynes says to Josh,
“Sometimes I wonder if I'd listened to you two years ago, would I be president right now? Do you ever wonder that?”
If he had listened to Josh then, he could have been the president. And now, if only he listens to Josh in this meeting, he could realize that things are over for him.
• Richard was livid about the shuttle leak plot and would complain to Mary about it between takes. He felt that Toby wouldn’t do that. Lawrence O’ Donnell said “I think that’s 100% valid. It could be a failure of us as writers that we didn’t come up with something else for some other character that we could get unanimity where everybody agreed “Yes. Pushed into this corner, this person would do this.” But this is what we got. And I think it’s as valid to say that Toby would do this as it is valid to say Toby would not do this. And they were of absolutely equal validity.”
• Breadcrumbs, according to Hrishi, the writers left to point towards Toby as the leak:
His brother was an astronaut, who was on a space shuttle that also had problems.
feels abandoned by Josh, who ditched the administration for Santos (and didn’t bother to ask Toby to come with him)
helps out Senator Ricky Rafferty by giving her info on healthcare that was used by the Bartlet administration
his overall long complicated relationship with Bartlet
• Ah so when Annabeth tells Toby about the leak and the camera cuts to CJ sitting alone in her office, that was to misdirect us into thinking it was her.
God dammit I fell for that.
• “You know, I was a little disappointed in Dr. Bartlet that she didn’t stay up and watch the convention. I thought she’d be more invested.”
“Her political life is also-she’s also ready for retirement.”
Yeah she wants to go back to cutting people open
• The storyline of Baker’s wife having depression was based on Republican candidate Colin Powell’s wife.
Polls indicate that if Powell had gotten into the race, he would’ve won the Presidency and Clinton wouldn’t have stood a chance in reelection, but he chose not to run because there was a concern about his wife’s medical history.
“My wife has depression. She's had it for many, many years, and we have told many, many people about it. It is not a family secret. It is very easily controlled with proper medication, just as my blood pressure is sometimes under control with proper medication. And you obviously don't want your whole family life out in the press, but when the story broke, we confirmed it immediately, and I hope that people who read that story who think they might be suffering from depression make a beeline to the doctor. Because it is something that can be dealt with very easily.”
• The one person Santos really has to convince during his speech is Bartlet. It feels like a dialogue between them with the cuts between his speech and Bartlet watching on TV.
• Lawrence O’ Donnell just got choked up because John Spencer was in the last scene and he couldn’t talk about it 😢
