The Great West Wing Rewatch: 3.3 "Ways and Means"

Joel: We’ve spent a lot of time addressing the potential political backlash of the whole MS scandal, but this episode, for the first time, really gets to unpack the legal issues that are going to come along with it as well. The subpoenas are sent out and we get a scene of Donna having to go through boxes and boxes to try and find all the information that’s being requested. The show is going out of it’s way here to stress the severity of what this can mean legally. Scenes like this happen several times throughout the end of last season and the beginning of this one, just to show the insurmountable amount of information that is going to be scrutinized over.

However this is, at it’s heart, a show about the politics of it all, and CJ has the idea that if they can get an “enemy” to do some investigating, it can cast the White House in a more positive light in the public eye, which is a purely political move.

Elsewhere we learn that the Estate tax/Death tax might get repealed outright, and we learn that an influential Congressman from California has some new demands that need to be addressed. It’s a busy episode, but I love that the wildfire storyline is mixed in with everything. Seasons one and two felt very busy, and now we’re adding two major storylines into the mix, the campaign and the legal fallout from the MS coverup. But I like that the show takes special care to remember that there is just as much of a country to run now as there was in the first two seasons, and that still remains a central part of the show.

Chris: The White House’s strategy here is basically big a fight with the person that hates them the most. The president and his staff knows it was wrong to not be upfront about the MS and, with it being an election year, it really would look bad if it appears as if they walked away from the hearing that looked more like a pillow fight. President Bartlet is confident that that no actual laws were broken and wants to portray that to the public as he asks them to re-elect him and the best way for that to happen is to get drilled into the ground relentlessly and yet still remain unwavering and provide sufficient evidence to their innocence.

A good president always has a reliable pen.