Irrelevant But Awesome

Joel:  So Zoey gets kidnapped right after graduation (something I’m assuming happened in May) and now, just seventy-two hours later, it’s somehow the Fourth of July. I get that at some point in this show we should have a Fourth of July episode, and I get that can be tricky because the show is always on hiatus in July, but I feel like the time inconsistency here is difficult to ignore because of the kidnapping storyline. This strange time jump also means that the country has been without a Vice-President for almost two months. But now I don’t know if it’s actually been two months in the show or just a week or so. So what kind of tone is the VP storyline supposed to have. One where they’ve only been at it for a week or so and are worried that they’re not vetting enough candidates, or one where the country has been without a VP for two months now, and they’re desperate to get somebody back in the job. It seems that the only reason to have this episode be set on the Fourth of Ju...

Welcome to Kue's List! This is a weekly collection of fresh and fantastic tunes curated by yours truly, Jonah Kue. So, without further adieu, here's this week's Kue's List, followed by Apple Music and Spotify links to it: Flume - "Tiny Cities (feat. Beck)" Belly - "It's All Love (feat. Starrah)" NAO - "Girlfriend" COIN - "Talk Too Much" Unknown Mortal Orchestra - "First World Problem" Gorgon City - "All Four Walls (feat. Vaults)" Bunji Garlin - "Television" Fat Joe, Remy Ma, & JAY Z - "All the Way Up (feat. French Montana & Infared) [Remix] Kyle Dion - "Timed Out" Vanjess - "Adore" Jonah Kue - "Mermaids" PLGRMS - "Fools and Their Gold" A. Sinclair - "Get out of the City" Click for Apple Music link Click for Spotify link

Joel:  For four episodes worth of buildup, the actual finding and rescuing of Zoey almost seems like an afterthought to this whole thing. We don’t see it happen at all. Nobody finds a clue or makes a discovery that leads to her rescue. There’s just a phone call to the FBI, and then we’re on our way to pick up Zoey because the whole thing’s over now. Agent Carter has a little bit of an explanation about how the rescue was accomplished but even that gets lost when your watching because it’s at the same time as when they’re on a very loud helicopter that all but drowns him out. Because Sorkin left halfway through this storyline, I have to wonder if he had a idea in mind as to how Zoey was going to be found and rescued that he took with him when he left. The whole ending just feels off, like it was a story that was half done that somebody else had to try and tie together. And it’s possible that’s almost exactly what happened. I know I’ve been pretty much gushing nonstop about ...

Joel:  This is just non-stop stress for the entire episode. The story of the abduction of Zoey Bartlet takes place over four different episodes (the last two of season four and the first two of this season) and now that we’re in the third episode we’re really hitting the ground running here. We really need to take a moment and praise John Goodman’s work here. Most of the “good” republicans that we’ve seen on the show so far were pretty liberally leaning republicans that were quick to say that, while they still identified as republicans, there was a lot about their party that they didn’t agree with. Now Goodman shows up here, and is playing a very conservative, pro gun rights republican. But man, I just love every scene that this guy’s in. He has a commanding presence and has no problem taking charge of a situation. This man is suddenly given command of the military and has no hesitation to use it. He very quickly got comfortable with the fact that he’s in charge now. There...

Joel:  This will be the final episode where Aaron Sorkin has a writing credit. Knowing that you have to wonder a little bit exactly when that decision was made. Was it well after this episode was done? Or was it before, and it was decided to leave this episode as a cliffhanger anyway? Did Sorkin already have plans or an outline of some kind of how the story would be continued at the beginning of season five? If those plans existed, were they still used to form the show? Or was the beginning of the next season something that ended up being entirely different than what we would have gotten had Sorkin stayed on the show. I wonder what the alternate universe version of the show would be and how much it would differ from what we're going to see next. Speaking of alternate universes, this is our first introduction to John Goodman as Speaker of the house, and I would love to see an alternate version of The West Wing where Goodman plays the republican president and his staff. Or ev...

Joel:  Watching this episode it’s a little stressful to watch people not trying to get somebody back in the office of the Vice President as fast as possible. I know that it’s important for the next few episodes that there be no Vice President, but still it feels like the search for a new VP would be the main storyline of the very next episode. Instead it’s all about Zoey’s graduation, with the VP search being the B, or maybe even C storyline of the episode when everyone feeling alarmingly nonchalant about the pace they're going at to get the second most powerful position in the country staffed again. It’s also interesting to note that the events that happen at the end of the episode mirror The President’s “nightmare scenario” bit from season one almost exactly, from the loud club, to the kidnapping happening in the bathroom, to the getting whisked out the backdoor, to the dead Secret Service member. You have to wonder if this storyline was already in Sorkin’s mind when he ...

Joel:  This is the second episode for Matthew Perry, but really the first one where he gets a lot of story time, so it’s a better episode to discuss the introduction of this character. I think that the previous episode was the first time someone on the show acknowledged that Ainsley has left the show. I mean, there hasn’t been any mention of her for a while now, so it’s not exactly a big shocker, but still, it’s just another example of The West Wing’s inability to give a character a graceful exit. Matthew Perry is brought in as Joe Quency to replace Ainsley, and like her, he just happens to be a republican as well. (Also, interesting note, way back in the first season, when everyone goes to LA, Donna tries to have a conversation with Matthew Perry. Now all these years later, in finally gets to happen.) They start Joe off with a really big story, with is uncovering the Vice President Scandal. I’m usually not a big fan of episodes where the big shocker happens right at the b...

Joel:  There was a whole episode worth of story all set up here. The President is going to have to negotiate to try and get the remains of a downed spy plane back. Josh is going to have an interview with someone for a position at the White House. Plus the staff is going to have a poker game going on throughout the night to blow off some steam. That’s your A, B and C story right there with the egg trick being the recurring lighthearted conversation that’s going to recur throughout the show. Pretty much everything you need for your standard West Wing episode. Then, pretty much out of nowhere there is gunfire. The shots take place about a third of the way through the episode. Not at the beginning to let us know that this is going to be a shooting episode, no we’ve got the episode all ready to go, and the gunfire interrupts that. It’s actually a really clever little piece of storytelling, because when the shots go off in the show, it’s so unexpected that your first reaction ends...

Welcome to Kue's List! This is a weekly collection of fresh and fantastic tunes curated by yours truly, Jonah Kue. So, without further adieu, here's this week's Kue's List, followed by Apple Music and Spotify links to it: River Tiber - "Acid Test" Chinx - "Like This (feat. Chrisette Michele)" Glass Animals - "Life Itself" Wale - "My PYT" Craig David - "One More Time" Brand New - "I Am a Nightmare" Banks & Steelz - "Love and War (feat. Ghostface Killa)" Steve Aoki & Boehm - "Back 2 U (feat. WALK THE MOON)" 6LACK - "Prblms" Emarosa - "Helpless" Ziggy Marley - "Marajauanamen" Click for Apple Music link Click for Spotify link

Joel:  The concept of having a whole episode where The President is trapped on Air Force One the entire time seems like a good gimmick to go with in theory. But somewhere in the execution, the whole idea just falls apart for me. We’ve already had episodes that almost entirely took place on Air Force One, so the marvel of how much work can get done while flying isn’t as big of a deal as it had been in previous episodes. So what ends up happening in practice is we get a very segmented episode where half of the cast is on the ground and half is stuck in the air. I know that it’s very common for an episode of the show to have different characters in different storylines, but usually they get a moment or two to cross paths and compare. Now, whenever they’re talking to each other it can’t be to compare whatever they’re working on, but instead focus on whether or not the plane’s going to be ok. The gimmick of the episode hurts more than helps and the story has to struggle to work ar...

Welcome to Kue's List! This is a weekly collection of fresh and fantastic tunes curated by yours truly, Jonah Kue. So, without further adieu, here's this week's Kue's List, followed by Apple Music and Spotify links to it: Anne-Marie - "Do It Right" Chance the Rapper - "Angels (feat. Saba)" White Lung - "Hungry" Fekky - "Gossip (feat. Giggs)" Amber Mark - "Space" ScHoolboy Q - "THat Part (feat. Kanye West)" Marc E. Bassy - "You & Me (feat. G-Eazy)" Palmistry - "Lifted" Popcaan - "Ova Dweet" Catfish and the Bottlemen - "Glasgow" Jay IDK - "Trust Nobody (Lurkin) [feat. Deniro Farrar]" Blaenavon - "I Will Be the World" Click for Apple Music link Click for Spotify link

Joel:  It not really focused on much, but I love that this whole episode takes place over the course of a single day. We start the episode with the President being woken up, and end with him going back to bed that night. And everything in between is the mad dash and hubbub that goes on any given day at The White House. It reminds me of a season one episode in a lot of ways. We’ve recently had to go through lots of major stories that arch over several episodes. From the MS scandal, to the election, to the decision to assassinate a foreign leader and the ramifications of that decision, to then having to deal with an attempted genocide, some of the day to day aspects of the early episodes have fallen by the wayside. This episode has a bit of that old, familiar comfort. It’s nice to remind people that in the middle of all these big event stories we still have the day to day things, where compromises have to be made to get bills passed, sometimes awards have to be made up because...

Joel:  If you were watching the show live, you knew that Rob Lowe would be exiting the show at some point around here thanks to news stories about it. If you were watching it later on a bindge watch, you knew that he would be gone soon because it’s not exactly a secret that Lowe left the show in the middle of the fourth season. Either way, you knew that this episode was going to be the last one with Sam in it and, because of that you were all but sure that he was going to win the election. After all, that was a perfect way to have him leave the show. It was clear that he wanted to run for office someday almost from the start, so this was a perfect way for Lowe to get to leave the show while giving a perfect ending to the story arc of Sam’s time working in The West Wing. Being so sure that Sam was going to win made it easier to see Lowe go, and also made it easier to watch everyone bumble around trying to help him for two episodes. Sure they were a big mess, but we all knew ...

Joel:  For the most part, we get to see the people we love on the show acting brilliantly. Sometimes the things they have to do seem stupid or nonsensical, but when it comes to actually doing them, they are usually pretty remarkable in their ability to pull themselves together and get done whatever needs to get done. Which is why it’s nice to get an episode like this every now and then. Whatever could go wrong here went wrong and everybody at some point is getting egg on their face. And it’s not like everyone got mysteriously dumb for one episode. Everybody smart, creative and wanting to change the world for the better. But through just sheer dumb luck of circumstance, each and every situation in this episode ends with the worst possible result. Donna is doing her job. She asked Josh what she should look for and she got it in the interview, there’s no doubt about that. And Toby and Charlie were standing up for a cause they should stand up for. They weren’t the bad guys in th...

Joel:  I have to say, I’m very thankful for this “Charlie can’t find a Bible” storyline that’s been going on in this episode and the last one. The show has been dealing with an incredibly heavy storyline and sometimes I need just a few minutes of Charlie and the President arguing over Bible size and location before we jump back into the really heavy material. There’s a few big points in a presidential career like the Inauguration or The State of the Union, that we know there will be an episode about. But where we get a State of the Union speech every year, there are only two Inaugurations at best and we missed the first one because the show started a year into Bartlett’s presidency. So this is the one time we’re going to get to see our cast of characters prepare for an inauguration and this is almost the B story of the Inauguration two parter because of the mass killings storyline and the things that Donna is dealing with. Though I do want to mention the scene with Danny b...

Joel:  Whenever we get a new cast member they get a scene with the president where they say some offhanded comment about something or other that pretty quickly has a major effect on policy.  In this episode, Will is the one who makes a comment that gets the president thinking and deciding to make changes to the foreign policy plan. I have to say, the concept that you might be able to say the very direction of the nation just by thinking out loud in the West Wing, is an overwhelming one, and frankly a little terrifying. Because Sorkin is the one writing their words all the characters in the show are fast talkers with quippy phrases they love to use, but personally, if it were me, I would be terrified to say anything out loud. I would be very careful with what I had to say because of the ears that it might reach. I’m not saying that Will was wrong in what he said, or that it’s bad that the President latched on to that particular sentence to adjust his policies, but still,...

Welcome to Kue's List! This is a weekly collection of fresh and fantastic tunes curated by yours truly, Jonah Kue. So, without further adieu, here's this week's Kue's List, followed by Apple Music and Spotify links to it: Justin Timberlake - "CAN'T STOP THE FEELING!" Alicia Keys - "In Common" Annabel Jones - "Not Today" Bia - "Whip It" Jadu Heart - "The Love" KAYTRANADA - "TOGETHER (feat. AlunaGeorge & GoldLink)" Radiohead - "Burn the Witch" Skepta - "Lyrics (feat. Novelist)" Otherkin - "Yeah, I Know" Kent Jones - "Don't Mind" Somewhere Else - "Move Together (feat. Majid Jordan)" Click for Apple Music link Click for Spotify link

Welcome to Kue's List! This is a weekly collection of fresh and fantastic tunes curated by yours truly, Jonah Kue. So, without further adieu, here's this week's Kue's List, followed by Apple Music and Spotify links to it: Imarhan - "Tahabort" KING - "The Greatest" Anna Wise - "Precious Possession" Lapsley - "Falling Short" DJ Shadow - "Nobody Speak (feat. Run the Jewels)" Greyhounds - "Devil's Eyes" Pumarosa - "Cecile" blink-182 - "Bored to Death" Sylvan LaCue - "Lisa Bonet" Rosie Lowe - "So Human (feat. Little Simz)" Band of Horses - "Casual Party" Click here for Apple Music link Click her for Spotify link