The Great West Wing Rewatch: 5.4 "Han"

Joel: I’m trying very hard not to complain about every little thing from this point out by saying “Sorkin wouldn’t have done that.” While the first four seasons of the show were fantastic, they weren’t perfect and there were several episodes and moments in those first four seasons that didn’t quite ring true. However I do have to complain about the speech writing snafu that happens in this episode. The whole thing just feels off from what we know about these characters. The long extended insult sequence seemed out of character for both Toby and Will. But even if that would happen to help them blow off some steam, why would Will actually type it all out? There’s no reason that he would actually do that. And then how did it get missed? Word count is important in these things, how was it that nobody noticed an extra hundred or so words that were wildly off message from the rest of the speech? And then the new VP spoke to Will and Toby about it, but nothing from the President? They basically sent him out in front of the country without a prepared speech and forced him to improv on the fly. Regardless of what they wrote, it was clear that they weren’t really doing there job on this one. The whole thing is such a stretch to believe, and all for one awkward moment that doesn’t really advance any character or storyline in any meaningful way. It sours the whole episode for me.

Chris: The A story in this episode is one of my favorites and I even got my mom to watch it with me while visiting over Memorial Day weekend. She got into it pretty easily and found herself agreeing with CJ, something that I'm sure most of us did. We were always built to be an inclusive country and yes, there is a process of obtaining citizenship that takes a while but it is nondiscriminatory in nature. That is why the idea of such negative thoughts on housing refugees of any kind is astounding. For so many of the same people that claim that this is a "Christian" nation, the ability to so quickly dismiss refugees based on their origin country seems quite opposite of Christian.

The president is in a tough situation and it's not the musician's fault because he just wants better but the president is forced to do what is better for the many rather than the few. Also, I'm a huge fan of Chopin and was thrilled to see so much of his music used even if it is because his music is under public domain now.

Finally, I agree with Joel on how out of place the Toby and Will thing and it seemed completely out of character that they would actually write down their VP sarcasm, let alone leave into the final speech. That very much felt like a Donna, CJ or Josh mistake but not a Toby mistake. Will, maybe because he's so new but Toby would've have made sure that end was tied.

A good president knows how to improvise when his speech writers leave their passive aggressive ramblings on a teleprompter.