The Great West Wing Rewatch: 1.7 "The State Dinner"

Joel:  Boy when things go bad you guys. I don’t think there was a single storyline in this episode that ended where we would have wanted it to. How incredibly heartbreaking and frustrating a day like this must have been. The thing is, everybody on staff was doing what they genuinely thought was the right thing. Toby felt that he was right to say the things that he said, he strongly believed in what he was saying, but that doesn’t matter. His actions still cost him and his co-workers. Mandy wasn’t wrong either. Her idea was not a longshot. It was a reasonable idea and had the potential for the best possible outcome. But that’s not what happened. It was her idea that caused another person to get shot, and you can see how that emotionally tears through her when she realizes the consequences of her idea, and again, it was an idea that wasn’t a bad one. The same thing is true with the hurricane storyline. In that case there really wasn’t even a choice to be made. There was a clear procedure that should have been, and was, followed. Everything was done correctly, and this just turned out to be one of those days where fate decided to kick people while they were down. Sometimes, those days happen, even when you’re the president.

Alexa: “The State Dinner,” which might as well be called “The West Wing and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day,” proves that the nation’s crises will happen when they happen. They won’t wait for a day that’s less overwhelming – sometimes when it rains, it pours. At the forefront is a state dinner with the president of Indonesia, while simmering in the background are an FBI standoff in Idaho, a strengthening hurricane heading toward Georgia and a trucking industry labor dispute. Oh, and Sam doesn’t handle it well when he sees his gal pal Laurie working as an escort at the state dinner, and Toby fails to negotiate his friend’s release from an Indonesian prison because the speech he wrote for President Bartlet offended the country’s government. It’s heartbreaking to see the West Wing staffers grapple with the consequences of their mistakes, particularly the mistakes made through no fault of their own – like President Bartlet talking via radio to the crew of a naval ship that the White House tried to direct away from the hurricane’s path, but will inevitably be destroyed when the storm changes course. As heavy as the episode is, it isn’t without its lighthearted moments. Aaron Sorkin tends to incorporate classic screwball tropes into some of the romantic relationships on his shows, and we get a glimpse of that in the growing banter between C.J. and Danny. Stockard Channing also makes her first appearance as the charming, ballsy and all-around fabulous First Lady.

Chris: That’s right, we don’t see the First Lady until episode 7 so there’s that. This episode is pretty much an all-around bad day for the White House staff. You try to do the right thing about being diplomatic but a negotiator gets shot and then you move a fleet out to sea to avoid a hurricane only for the hurricane to suddenly change directions and head straight for the fleet. That’s all the definition of just a bad day and then be expected to shake hands and be festive at a dinner with dignitaries from a country with questionable moral practices AND get in the middle of trucker unions. That’s just too much for anybody to handle and would probably be the day I would quit and go back to bed.

A good president stays there as long as the radio works.