In the first episode of the fifth season of The West Wing, John Wells demonstrates with ease that the show doesn’t need Aaron Sorkin to still be good and emotionally destructive. Intrigued? Then it’s time for Mark to watch The West Wing.
My god, what a premiere.
I imagine that watching this show in real time when it was airing was a much more stressful experience. I mean, waiting months for the resolution of the cliffhanger and getting this? It’s the most chaotic The West Wing has ever been, a spiral into a nightmare that strongly suggests that Leo and Bartlet made the wrong choice, both about Abdul Shareef and stepping down to let Walker take the Presidency in the interim. It’s horrifying to watch. I care about these characters, and it’s deeply uncomfortable to watch such a jarring and distressing thing play out on screen in the myriad of ways that it does.
I also wonder what it must have been like to watch this show knowing that Aaron Sorkin was no longer running things. What little I know of behind-the-scenes trivia of this show suggests that his leaving was a very, very public affair, so it’s not like it was much of a secret. Still, at least for me, the change is entirely unnoticeable. In every way I can think of, this is still The West Wing, so for the time being, I’m not worried about where John Wells is going to take this.
“7A WF 83429” is somehow more upsetting than “In the Shadow of Two Gunmen” in terms of premiere, and John Wells RUINS OUR LIVES IN 42 MINUTES. The quickest way for him to do that? By immediately reminding us that no matter how good of a guy Walken is, it just feels wrong to have him in the Oval Office. That moment in the cold open where Leo walks in and addresses him as president? 100% not unfair and fucked up. If anything, that’s a testament to the characters that Sorkin created, isn’t it? Based on what Sorkin’s done, we know this isn’t right, that things are definitely skewed in an odd way, and suddenly, the darkest timeline is perceptibly real.
Of course, this is made worse by the subtle and then VERY NOT SUBTLE way in which Wells forces these characters to confront the reality of Walken as president. I don’t hate him necessarily, and I think that Wells avoids making him a caricature of a Republican. That being said, he is very Republican, undeniably, and it’s not long before he’s making off-color remarks about guns and Arabs and JUST SHUT UP PLEASE. It’s so disturbing to see how good he is at this, you know? That’s not something I anticipated at the end of season four. I expected the staff to clash with him, but this? No, this is much, much scarier. These actresses and actors play their characters as deer in the headlights, and I don’t mean that in a mean way. It’s just that the whole thing is so fucking surreal and upsetting that they aren’t nearly as witty or sardonic as they usually are. No, they’re muted, they share their issues with one another, and they often feel like someone’s invaded their home.
Hell, that dynamic is well-represented in terms of the dialogue and the visuals in this episode. The old staff studiously avoids Walken’s staff. That first staff meeting in the Oval Office with Walken is painful in its awkwardness, and Wells uses Walken’s ADORABLE PUG HE IS SO PRECIOUS OH MY GOD LET ME PET YOU to demonstrate the wrongness of this all with something that is, admittedly, super absurd. But to me, it highlights the weirdness, you know?
This episode also features Murphy’s Law in full effect, as everything humanly possible that can go wrong begins to do so with rapidity and ferocity. Danny has changed the time period in which he’ll post his story about Shareef, which forces C.J. to bring it to Walken, WHICH IS PRETTY DISASTROUS IN AND OF ITSELF. It’s eerie to watch Walken waste no time to do things his way, and it’s clear he’s going to relish this opportunity. Well, that’s one aspect of his characterization, but I don’t want to ignore that even if I don’t agree with his decisions, I can tell he is taking this all seriously. He has American interests and safety in mind when he makes these decisions, and I appreciate that this isn’t a one-note character.
But while the political ramifications of last season’s cliffhanger are explored at length, they’re not what drew me in to the premiere. I’m glad that we see how the Democratic leadership is taking this. I’m fascinated by the way the media affects Walken’s perception as President. And the ramifications of the Shareef assassination are vital to understanding how this is all going to play out on a global scale. However, if there was anything I might have been worried about in regards to John Wells taking over the show was how he’d represent the emotional journey these characters have been. Sorkin wasn’t always consistent. Often, plots seemed to come out of nowhere. But I found that for the most part, he always respected where these characters had come from and what they had gone through. Would Wells do the same?
Well, this episode gives me a resounding YES on that front. We see the emotional toll this has taken on Charlie. (Dulé Hill, how do you make your face so heartbreaking.) John Spencer and Stockard Channing are absolute scene-stealers throughout this, as they’re able to play the mixture of grief, shock, confusion, and rage that both Abbey and Leo feel about the world as it crashes down around him. My god, if you thought that dawning look of horror on Leo’s face at the end of “Commencement” was good acting, LOOK AT LIKE EVERY SCENE HE IS IN HERE. There’s no better evidence of this than all the scenes in the Situation Room. Leo begins to realize what it means to have Walken as President, and he’s fucking horrified, almost to the point of being sick. He later brings this up with Bartlet by pointing out that nearly everything they’ve worked towards and believed in is quickly unraveling before their eyes. It’s just so fucking painful to watch.
Which leaves me with the Bartlets. Wells finally introduces Elizabeth Bartlet, played by ANNABETH GISH, MY ETERNAL HERO. (I don’t give a shit, I love Monica Reyes on The X-Files now, I loved her before, and I will love her FOREVER.) But her arrival is one marked with sadness and rage, and the cost Bartlet will have to pay for his decision is probably going to be BRUTAL. He never told Abbey about Shareef. He never let her know of the risk it posed, and when it became clear that there might be a threat, he didn’t tell Abbey. AND EVEN AFTER ZOEY WAS KIDNAPPED, HE STILL DIDN’T TELL ABBEY. Oh my god, THIS IS BAD. REALLY BAD. Bartlet’s decision has irrevocably changed their lives, and he didn’t include them in it. Now, I don’t think Abbey expected Bartlet to tell her all of this in the moment it all happened at the end of season three, but she has every right to be furious that she had to learn about the possible connection to Zoey’s kidnapping FROM THE NEWS. FROM THE NEWS! They’re devastated, all of the Bartlet women, and Bartlet looks FUCKED UP. Oh my god, the decision to place Lisa Gerrard’s “Sanvean” over the closing music is perhaps the most emotionally NOT OKAY music has EVER BEEN. Well, wait, no. The theme music after the end of “Commencement” sent me INTO A RAGE. But Gerrard’s haunting vocals fit the jarring and juxtaposed images so well. We have the sight of Zoey’s well wishes outside the White House mixed with the crushing images in the church, contrasted with the visual confirmation that Walken really did have Qumar bombed. Hope, despair, and destruction, all flowing into one, and it hurts. IT HURTS SO MUCH.
Oh my god, how is this the first episode of the season.
The video commission for “7A WF 83429” can be downloaded right here.
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