The Great West Wing Rewatch: 5.21 "Gaza"

Joel: It’s very hard to distinguish what happened in this episode and what happened in the next one. They very much blur together. So I’m going to save most of the commentary on the bombing storyline for the next episode’s recap, and right now focus on Donna’s new guy here. So we’ve been teasing the eventual Josh and Donna relationship for a very long time now, pretty much since the very first episode. While I won’t say that it was a planned the whole time, it’s been clear for a while that this would be addressed at some point in the show. And it feels like after several failed relationships for both, we’re finally approaching the point where it’s going to be addressed by the characters. And this character of Colin seems like he’s introduced to be that one last speed bump that we have to get over. A smart, funny guy that is perfect enough to be dedicating his life to an important, noble cause.
The set up is all there. Josh crosses the sea to check on Donna only to see her kissing this new guy. We have the scene where Josh and Colin are both waiting to hear about her surgery. And then Colin disappears, never to be seen again. Pretty much without an explanation, he just flat out vanishes from the plot the way Mandy did at the end of season one. Come to think of it, even though they will both appear in a handful of episodes about the upcoming campaign, Joey Lucas and Amy Gardner both pretty much vanished at the end of their romantic subplot storylines. This show does a lot of things with grace but dispatching of love interests is not one of them.

Chris: Just as Donna was starting to find some footing on her own and Josh was starting to realize how fortunate he is for having Donna, this episode happens. And honestly, I wasn't a huge fan of the explosion happening at the beginning of the show and then going back to show the lead-up. I understand you have to rope the crowd in early and hold onto them until the end but perhaps it would've been more impactful and shocking for it to happen chronologically and would've been a bigger draw for people to tune in on the season finale. However that's just how it's been, season five has been one of oddities and missteps with new writers and showrunners.

A good president visits Admiral Fitzwallace's widow in person because he was a hero and a beloved recurring character.