Review of Bad Moon Rising


Written by Toniann

  • Okay, so the President goes through guys in the Counsel's office pretty fast, I guess, and Tribbey's gone. Too bad. I liked Oliver Platt but I think I might have liked seeing John Larroquette more, simply because he's an established character. Ah well.

  • That said, though, the smashing the constantly-recording recorder was pretty funny. I love their opening scenes. There's always this little kicker right before the opening montage rolls.

  • Hey, have we ever established what Bartlet got that Nobel Prize for? If I'm misremembering correctly, it's been spelled out at some point. He really has a thing about that Nobel; he's mentioned it fairly often. Though, you know, who am I kidding, if I had a Nobel Prize I'd manage to bring it up daily. "Wow, great weather today. Those of us who have a Nobel Prize really appreciate great weather."

  • Did we all catch the camera shot of the chess board in Babish's office, after Bartlet mentioned he's never played chess with the man? I thought so. You guys, you kill me.

  • So, okay, after all of my obsessing, we have the 17 people, I guess (well, 19 as of tonight, one of them Babish, one of them... more on that later). FLOTUS and the three daughters. The "six original doctors", whoever that is exactly. Jed's brother. Leo. Hoynes. Toby. Fitzwallace (Chairman of the Joint Chiefs). The anesthesiologist. Bartlet himself. Okay, 17. I feel better now.

  • This week's 'Ship-O-Meter: well, at first I thought we were hitting an all-time low. I mean, that Josh/Donna banter about "Close the door" "Oh, with me on the other side?" was funny (I fell for it too) but nothing more than the ordinary office-type banter. But that little exchange about "tough love" and "not in front of everybody" and "bring your equipment from home" bumped us up a notch. Just a notch, though. I'm giving them a 3.

  • Nice bit on continuity with Sam, Gage Whitney, and Kensington Oil. As an X-Files fan, it's nice to see a show that employs somebody or other to keep track of previous storylines. Neat parallel in his conversation with Ainsley about attorney/client privilege.

  • I wanted to mention Toby in this episode: I didn't see the forest from the trees (or is the phrase "for the trees"?) until his scene with CJ at the end. I thought he was just tense and irritable and upset about other things on his mind and taking it out on staff. Which I think he was... but he was also testing the waters. Doing a test-run on going to the mattresses, in a sense. Nice.

  • CJ's "interrogations" just cracked me up. Donna was obvious, but I got a kick out of it. The guy with the witchhunt bit almost had me going.

  • In case you were wondering, the moment I knew I'd forgotten to tape this episode was right at the end, with Charlie's abrupt realization and the next scene with Leo. I knew because I was thinking, "I can't wait to watch this again, this is great stuff." ARGH!

  • I feel like a prophet. I just *knew* Charlie knew about the MS, though he wasn't one of the 17. And Zoey telling him makes sense-- though I liked how he explained that Zoey told him so he could watch for signs of illness in Bartlet. Let me just say that their final scene, and what was said, and what didn't need to be said, blew me away. (I'm paraphrasing here) "I don't doubt your loyalty to me. I don't doubt your love for me." It was fantastic. My eyes were glued to the screen. And it was a marvelous display of perhaps one of my favorite relationships on this show, Bartlet and Charlie. These guys work great together. And I was so proud of Charlie for keeping his mouth shut all this time, for being worried about the president, for going straight to Leo. For caring about what the president needs. This guy is amazing.

  • I have to say, though, the "It was Lady Macbeth" line was pretty darn funny.


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