The Great West Wing Rewatch: 5.20 "No Exit"

Joel: The shows about to spend a lot of money over the next few episodes with the Gaza storyline, so before we get to that, we have what is effectively a bottle episode featuring very few guest actors or new sets. But West Wing is often at it’s best when it’s just the main characters talking to each other for extended periods of time. Watching this episode makes me wish that Season five had been confident enough to make more episodes like this, instead of constantly trying to top themselves with threat after threat of potential foreign conflict. This episode comes across much more like a play, with almost all of the plot progressing happening through scenes of dialogue. We get several great scenes here, but the standout for me is the one between Toby and Will. I mentioned earlier that Will for the bulk of this season seemed to be stuck on the outskirts of every plot that happened in season five, and not just because he was the newest cast member. Having these guys trapped in Will’s old office (Sam’s old office) seems to almost hang a lampshade on the fact that Will hasn’t been used to his full potential by the staff or the show itself. I love that Toby gets to remind us again what it was like in the very early part of Bartlet’s campaign when nobody had any real hope of him actually winning, but everyone believed in the idea. We’re getting close to election time again in the show, and will address that in the future seasons, but I love that reservations have been expressed about the eventual campaigns of Hoynes and Russell that they're expecting to happen.

Chris: This episode does a lot to set up for the remaining future seasons with the supporting characters, the major one in my eyes is the relationship between Donna and Josh as Donna continues to see that she's being professionally held back. And it's definitely not an intentional move by Josh, it's more of a comfort zone thing considering how much he relies on her on a day-to-day basis. So now, after she took to heart what CJ said during the lockdown, Donna didn't answer Josh yelling for her from his office which had to have been difficult considering how much we know she cares for him. Also we have the continual resentment between Toby and Will mostly coming from Toby which is ironic considering he didn't want to hire Will in the first place and now Toby is still upset Will left to be the VP's Chief of Staff. Although perhaps now Toby is more upset that Will left to work for a potential candidate that may win but would make a lesser president.

A good president ribs his two closest aides by testing the secret service on lockdown procedures over biological contamination and frames it to make it look like one of them are at fault. Classic lampoonery.