Review of Ways and Means
Written by Toniann
Who is the actor that played Clem Rawlins? He looked incredibly familiar.
Let's play the name game with that subpoena roll call. Josh has no middle
name, I gather. Sam's is "Norman"? Did we know that before? And Toby's name
is just Toby, not Tobias. Middle name Zachary. Huh. They didn't mention
Charlie, but it looked like a pretty long list so I imagine it was on there
somewhere.
Well, feel free to disagree with me, Donna Nay-Sayers. I thought she was
charming in this episode. Loved her whole bit with the boxes, and her scene
with Ainsley was nice too. More on The Date later.
Hey there, Giselle. Well, I wanted to be an astronaut when I was four.
Still do, actually. Somehow I feel less embarrassed about revealing that
than Josh should his ballet dreams.
Quick but good: Leo seems to have full faith in CJ again. He didn't blink
when she pitched her idea to him about getting a new enemy. I'm glad to see
there isn't any residual ill-feeling left over from the previous episodes.
CJ's ploy was amazingly successful, and good for her. She did a great job
and pulled it off like magic, not a single misstep. CJ on top of her game
is a wonderful thing to behold, even if I don't appreciate her great body
the way Bruno does.
Speaking of Bruno, I wouldn't like the guy half as much as I do if not
for his scenes with Margaret. "It's Gertrude." "It's not." I also liked the
premiere when he called her "Redheaded Girl". Reminds me of Charlie Brown.
Hey, Ainsley's back. Where the heck has she been for the past couple of
weeks, huh? Growing her hair somewhere, I gather. There's too much of it
right now. As in, too much of a good thing. I'm just saying.
Speaking of Ainsley, remember last season when they seemed to be pairing
her off with Sam all the time? Now it seems like they're pairing him off
with this Connie instead. I think I liked Ainsley more.
When Doug advised the Bartlet veto, I wondered if he wasn't at least
partly doing it to show Toby he's made of better stuff than Toby seems to
think. I'm not sure if that's true or not, but interestingly and similarly
enough, shortly thereafter Babish accused CJ of maneuvering to get herself
back in the game. I don't think CJ's that self-centered and I think her
motivations had more to do with what's best for the Bartlet administration.
But if it gets her back in the game at the same time, hey, that works for
me too. Same goes, I guess, for Doug's situation.
I've been wondering when there would be mention of replacing Mrs.
Landingham, and I'm not surprised that it was Charlie who brought it up. I
confess to you, I was pretty touched by the story about how she was the one
to put the pen in Bartlet's coat pocket every morning. And by the president
staring at her desk, then sitting down and getting the pen himself. Very
symbolic, in a subtle way, showing that he's running on his own steam this
time. Pulling the pen out along with the veto stamp at the end, though, was
slightly less subtle and not quite as moving.
Poor Donna just can't catch a break in the Dating Game, can she? First
she dates losers, now she finally meets a nice, funny, cute guy and he's
working for the enemy. Sigh. Well, we all know this isn't over -- for one
thing, we also all know they're going to use this to show us a little
JealousJosh at some point. It's literally a given.
Lexus Nexus is pretty great, actually. Too bad I've never worked for a
library or corporation that could afford a subscription to it.
"Come and get us."
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