Chris: This is one of the more disappointing episodes of West Wing, not because it's bad or fall short but it's disheartening to see how Toby's relationship with the White House come to an end. Of course, thanks to the flash forward at the beginning of the season, a few years later Toby is at least on friendly speaking terms with President Bartlet and Toby is clearly not in prison so I suppose that softens the blow. Knowing this was going to happen, Leo's words from last season carry a little more weight and explains why the president wasn't exactly surprised Toby was the leak, Toby was acting like he was still bucking the system and not realizing he's part of the democrat power house now. However, Toby never quite shook the protesting, rebellious past as he discussed a few seasons back when listening to protesters in an auditorium. Toby's intentions were always virtuous but ultimately his disposition of challenging authority caught up with him.
A good president doesn't let Toby resign. You fire that leaking hippy.
Joel: It’s no secret that Richard Schiff was not a fan of the leak storyline or Toby’s involvement in it. He has said since the airing of this episode that he felt betraying the president like this was something that he would never do. In fact, he goes so far as to say that as far as he’s concerned (and how he played the part) Toby was taking the fall for someone else. And Richard Schiff was pretty much right to feel that way. They storyline was obviously inspired by the CIA leak scandal that happened a year or two before this episode, but to suggest that something like that would happen in this fictional, idealized version of the White House kind of shows that somebody doesn’t get the show. The writing here favors the shocking twist of Toby’s betrayal over six and a half years of character consistency, and honestly it’s a huge disservice to the character in the final season of the show. (not to mention that it’s another man cast member effectively gone from the show now letting the show rest even more heavily on the campaign storyline.)
However, in all of that I do want to mention one bright spot. Toby’s actions here were bizarre and out of character here, but Bartlet’s reactions were perfectly in line with how that character would have acted when faced with the betrayal of Toby. Bartlet’s response is clearly influenced by the relationship that these two have built over the past seven plus years and it makes his side of their final interaction all the more heart breaking. But you have to ask, if the show had such a good handle on the relation between Toby and the President, why did they seem to forget the Toby side of it all when they first set out to create this storyline?
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