The Great West Wing Rewatch: 2.14 "The War at Home"
Joel: While there is a small side story of Ed Begley Jr. threatening to run as a third party candidate in the next election, the bulk of this episode is dealing with the hostages in Colombia that we learned about in the previous episode. What’s interesting to watch is how several different political issues are brought up here. The events of this episode address the ongoing war with drugs,military involvement, proper response to terrorist threats (which is even more eerie now, knowing that this episode aired just seven months before 9/11), deciding when a war is worth fighting, and foreign relations. All of these political situations have to be considered before taking any kind of action, and at the same time, there are hostages being held, and the clock is unquestionably ticking. It’s a stressful episode and one where there isn’t really a chance for an ending where everything goes our way. The West Wing liked making things difficult for the main characters, and the phrase “w...