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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