More West Wing

Sad, really. The better the valedictory episodes of "The West Wing" become, the smaller the audience. Well, a re-cap of tonight's episode:

This episode was, I think, the fourth in my viewing lifetime that allowed the real-life death of a well-known and beloved performer/character to work its way into the plot of his show. They are, in order: Jock in "Dallas," Ezsterhaus in "Hill Street Blues," Coach in "Cheers," and now Leo. Of the four, only John Spencer's Leo could be mourned as a personal loss; though I had known and sometimes loved the other performers (Coach--Nicholas Collesanto--was especially good as a made mobster in "Raging Bull"), John Spencer was an actor in the tradition of Gene Hackman and Paul Newman, an actor who could give a performance with the ease of Jack Nicklaus hitting nine-irons on the practice tee.

Funny thing: I knew Santos would win, and I knew Leo would die, but until tonight I never connected the two with Josh: the notion that the greatest moment of his professional life would be the moment that his surrogate father would pass away.

Does anyone remember the kidnapping episodes? Lost amid the panic of the evening, the drugs, the notion of John Goodman as President tempore, was the conversation between Donna and Josh's sometime girlfriend, during which Donna laid out the bifurcated state of Josh's life: that his triumphs and tragedies run neck-and-neck. Chief among these was Bartlet's winning the Illinois primary (basically assuring himself the nomination) and, the same evening, the death of Josh's father, who (cue Doctor Jung) was an old friend of Leo's. This led to one of the greatest exchanges in the show's history, when Governor Bartlet followed Josh to O'Hare and talked to Josh about how Josh's father would have talked, had he lived:

Bartlet: "Be doing a little bragging, would he?"

Josh: "Yeah. Your name wouldn't have come up at all. 'My son won the Illinois primary.'"

Bartlet: "Yeah." (Upraised thumb.)

And now we have a greater triumph, and almost as much (for Josh) a personal tragedy. As I've written before, Leo once described convincing Bartlet to run as "pushing molasses up a sandy hill." Well, now Josh has done the same, with even a less likely candidate than a Governor of New Hampshire. And in his moment of triumph, he deals with the loss of his second father. I recognized the glasses, the shoes. And I miss the man in all his forms.

Before I get to the end, there is this: Oh, could Lawrence O'Donnell just go far away. I saw his fingerprints all over the two weakest parts of the episode. The first was Vinick's refusal to challenge the results in Nevada, which (oddly enough) I read as a criticism of Bush's taking the Florida matter to the Supreme Court in 2000. (Message: whoever is the last to litigate is the most overly litigious.) The second was Santos saying that, since the election was "razor-thin," he hadn't won a mandate. Any recent election come to mind?

Finally, again, Josh. I can't escape thoughts of the Leo-Josh relationship without noting that, when pull came to tug, Leo picked CJ over his surrogate son--and furthermore, whatever betrayal Josh might have felt was never expressed. Are we moving toward this moment? Santos's statement toward his Hispanic aide ("I think we may find a way to top it") seemed to suggest he may look elsewhere for a Chief of Staff. This would be a gut-punch to Josh. Everyone else is locked in orbit, steaming toward docking. Next week, we bury Leo. Then, for the last few weeks, this is the Josh show, people.