The Great West Wing Rewatch: 7.21 "Institutional Memory"

Chris: Danny has been a constant over his feelings for CJ since the very beginning and his level of patience should be rewarded. And believe me, I wasn't the biggest fan of Danny the first time I went through the series but right here at the end, Timothy Busfield knocks this episode out of the park and won me over as they only guy out there good enough for our beloved CJ Cregg. This is the episode that really pieces together to set up the flash forward opening to the season and we can fill in the rest of what our favorite characters do once the show is over. What I enjoy about West Wing is that they went ahead and took care of the surprise element of the season with the election and what next for everyone so that the finale can be truly a resolution to the whole story. West Wing isn't exactly a show for cliffhangers. Sure we got one at the end of a few seasons here and there but for the show as a whole, the audience appreciates resolution.

Joel: In many ways this is the first part of the finale of The West Wing. We are already in transition mode and the focus on everything is “what’s next” for all of the characters we’ve come to know over the past seven years. For a lot of them, it is something to consider since, as CJ put it earlier in the season, they’ve already lived through the first line of their obituary by working at the White House Some of the episode is based around Will and what he might want to do. We get to see the twinkling of his next project start because of something he can’t get out of his head. We see that Kate didn’t get the job she was hoping for in the Santos administration which means that she more than likely will be looking for something else to do for the next four years.

But most of this episode revolves around CJ. We’ve been with CJ since the very beginning, and in many ways she’s been the character we’re meant to relate to the most. She’s the one who has more often than not been the audience surrogate when it comes to learning about political things the viewers may not be familiar with. She has also been one that we’ve seen grow the most from press secretary to chief of staff. She’s at a point in her life where she can pretty much write her ticket to do whatever she wants, but that means a lot of things and some of said things are causing her grief. Honestly a lot of “last episode” emotions that you get at the end of a long running TV show start in this episode, especially for CJ. We know that CJ won’t be in our lives any more. By the end of this episode we have less than an hour left with the character. So it’s time for some things to start falling into place. We get to see her and Danny start to make headway, real headway, in their relationship. We get to see her moving on toward the next phase of her life, by entertaining ideas that don’t involve another job at the White House.  And we get to see her make up with Toby. There’s been very little of Toby this season, and the little interactions we’ve had with him have been with Josh, but it’s important to remember that Toby and CJ have been with us since the first episode. I think it was important for us to get to see them talking face to face, talking the way that they used to in early seasons, to know that while they obviously have a different relationship now, they have one that takes into account seven years of working together, not just one action at the very end.

We will get more discussion of “endings” and “moving forward” in the next episode, but I’m glad we got as much time as we did dedicated to CJ. She is a character who has more than earned it on this show.