Review of Six Meetings Before Lunch
Written by Toniann
This, in my mind, will always be "The Jackal Episode". And that's, you know, a
good thing. Really, I wish the cast and crew would get inspired like that more
often.
The second-best thing about this episode was Toby and his Day of Jubilee. Let
me say first off that I support his unwillingness to celebrate until the fat lady has
sung. I share the same superstitious belief. Le me say also, though, that it was
just fun and wacky to see him briefly chipper.
Okay, so I'm admittedly not a Mandy fan. But the whole panda bear storyline
was, come on, pretty dumb. It seemed like someone dreamed it up as a reason
for her to be in the episode. And then the whole business of her asking Toby to
help her get back at Josh-- well, we never see that, do we?
Here's something I really like about the West Wing: Sam's counter arguments
to Mallory, regarding school vouchers. He made some great points. Here's
something I don't like about the West Wing: in the end, it turns out Sam's against
vouchers, like the good liberal he is, and the whole thing was an exercise in
debate. With a few clever phrases about making schools into palaces, he
dismissed every great argument he'd spent the episode making? Sorry, buddy,
no can do.
For me, the most interesting thing that happened in Josh's meeting with
Breckenridge was how he brought up his father, to make a connection with
Breckenridge, and then clammed up, regretting the invitation to intimacy,
regretting opening the wound. You never get over losing a parent like that,
obviously. But Josh is still so uncomfortable and upset about it, memories don't
seem to bring him much joy. Awkwardness, instead.
You know what I really got a kick out of? Seeing the Secret Service staff
meeting. That was cool. At the place I work at? Our staff meetings are a joke. A
former employee used to call them "staff infections", pun intended. No one's
paying attention and nothing useful ever gets said. (Note to all: I'm *obviously*
not running these meetings, so no, there's nothing I can do about it.) But these
Secret Service people, whoo hoo, they were organized and on the ball and
whatnot. Which, I guess, the Secret Service really kinda should be.
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