In the thirteenth episode of the fourth season of The West Wing<\/i>, C.J. goes home for a high school reunion, but must confront the uncomfortable truth about her father\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s mental decline. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to watch The West Wing<\/i>.<\/p>\n
What a bold, heartbreaking, and uncomfortable hour of television, y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all, and I loved it so, so much. It was hard for me to watch beyond the obvious reason \u00e2\u20ac\u201c that watching this much pain on screen must be difficult for any<\/i> person \u00e2\u20ac\u201c because my father had Alzheimer\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s. If you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been reading my site for a while, you know that. You know that I had to experience a lot of what C.J. did here, so I know how utterly cruel the disease is, and more so for those who aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t<\/i> afflicted with it. My dad never seemed upset in those final days; I chalked that up to the fact that he never truly had a great memory to begin with, so it must have seemed par for the course for him. And he was always such a carefree guy anyway<\/i>, so it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not like he was prone to sharing his feelings.<\/p>\n
That raw sort of energy, though \u00e2\u20ac\u201c the one that hits when you realize Alzheimer\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s has a firm grip on the person you love \u00e2\u20ac\u201c is present in nearly every minute of this unorthodox episode. I only just found out that Aaron Sorkin didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t actually write this; it was playwright Jon Robin Baitz who penned this one. Which is astounding to me because while I recognize that the closest episode to this one is maybe<\/i> \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Noel,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d this still feels like it fits within The West Wing\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s<\/i> style of storytelling. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s funny and deeply serious at the same time; you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve still got a lot of walk-and-talks; and it strikes a chord in the human condition in that haunting way that the show has done many of times before. Still, I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t ignore how monumental this feels. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve wanted a C.J.-centric story this entire season, and now I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve got one that is literally<\/i> centered around her. Besides a few asides involving Toby being the worst Press Secretary in the history of the universe, C.J. is in every<\/i> scene. Allison Janney \u00e2\u20ac\u201c bless her heart \u00e2\u20ac\u201c is fucking unreal<\/i> here, and I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll be mad when I inevitably find out that she or Donald Moffat did not get nominated for an Emmy for their roles in this episode.<\/p>\n
And, again, this is incredibly difficult material to work with. C.J., upon seeing the condition of her father\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s house, must navigate her own anger, how own sadness, and her desire to give her father the best care that she can give. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a complicated set of emotions, and I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m happy that Baitz respects that C.J. feels all of them at the same time. We see her fear when she observes the dirty dishes and haphazard arrangement in the kitchen. We see her anger when she realizes that her father\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s wife, Molly, has left him to himself at the very start<\/i> of his disease. We see her desire when she speaks with Marco for the first time in twenty years. (Holy shit<\/i>, Matthew Modine has aged well.) And then we watch her heartbreak when her father forgets who she is, first on the river, and later when he picks up a childhood photo of C.J. And she knows<\/i> that he can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t help it, but I admit that I reacted the same way the first time my dad was confused as to who I was. You can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t help but feel betrayed. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a silly, superficial reaction, and I have no problem admitting that. I reacted selfishly to my father\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s decline, and I reacted selfishly to his death. I did things to distance myself from the horror of it, and that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the unfortunate truth. For once, I chose not to handle something. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d like to think that for the most part, I approached my own problems and struggles head on, but I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m fine perceiving myself as a coward when it came to my father. That word has a viciously negative connotation, but I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have a problem admitting that I was terrified.<\/p>\n
That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s what I admire about C.J. in this episode. As I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve said a couple times, this whole ordeal is about as uncomfortable as it gets. Lord, Tal\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s doctor literally tells C.J. that she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s got to start planning for the end right now<\/i>. She can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t ignore this anymore, which is not to say that she was<\/i>. No, throughout \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Long Goodbye,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d C.J. offers herself up time and time again. She goes fishing with her father. She confronts Molly (in perhaps the most<\/i> unnerving scene in the whole episode, especially for me, since I feel like I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m more like Molly than anyone else here), despite that her father doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t ask her, too. She even offers to quit her job to take care of him, and you know what? I believe she was being sincere. I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t thing she was trying to bluff her way through this. She cares so fiercely for her father, and she refuses to let her own self-interest get in the way.<\/p>\n
So I admire her. I admire her ability to pursue sex as a comfort in a moment of uncertainty. I admire her ability to have awkward conversations because she must<\/i> have them. If anything, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Long Goodbye\u00e2\u20ac\u009d is not just a portrait of how such a common disease affects humanity. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s also a portrait of the most resilient character on this show, and I felt so honored to have experienced it. As it stands, this is my favorite episode of this season, no question. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m aware that Sorkin leaves as showrunner at the end of season four, and this<\/i> episode gives me a lot of hope that the writers \u00e2\u20ac\u201c whoever they may be in the future seasons \u00e2\u20ac\u201c can do a lot of fun and interesting things with these characters while still staying within the framework of The West Wing.<\/i><\/p>\n
The video commission for \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Long Goodbye\u00e2\u20ac\u009d can be downloaded right here<\/a>.<\/p>\n Mark Links Stuff<\/b><\/p>\n – If you would like to support this website and keep Mark Does Stuff running, I’ve put up a detailed post explaining how you can!<\/a> In the thirteenth episode of the fourth season of The West Wing, C.J. goes home for a high school reunion, but must confront the uncomfortable truth about her father\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s mental decline. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to watch The … Continue reading
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