The West Wing Blew the Hatch with Bartlet dressing down Mary Marsh

As much as I love The West Wing, and as much as I was feeding into the hype surrounding its premiere (being the SportsNight nut that I was at the time), I actually forgot it was on the first night, and only caught the last act. I was instantly hooked, because, well Sorkin is a genius with words (when not … er … distracted by other things), because the actors so wonderfully fit into their characters (for the most part, and I’ll get to that in a second), and because I was a political junkie (at the time … no longer an affliction I still carry). That moment solidified my fandom, so much so that now that I’ve seen all of the episodes (many, many times), it still deserves the Blow the Hatch tag.

Josh Lyman had a problem with that whole brain-mouth filter thing (a recurring problem with Josh, though not one I minded in the least). His need to eat a little crow lead to a meeting with Mary Marsh (the target of his wit on a cable talk show), John VanDyke (a pompous ass if ever there was one), and Rev. Al Caldwell (a respected member of the religious right). The meeting started well enough, as Toby Ziegler and CJ Cregg tried to make nice.

Things went downhill quickly when Marsh tried to turn the meeting into Let’s Make a Deal, and then seemingly insulting Toby and Josh’s religion. In an effort to change the subject, VanDyke tried to bring up a point about the First Amendment, but ended up tripping all over which of the Ten Commandments were which, something you’d expect a lobbyist on this issue to know. Toby insisted that if Josh was going to have to sit through this, they were going to have to get “the damn Commandments right.” What happened next had to be one of the greatest character entrances of all time.

From off camera we hear, “I am the Lord your God, Thou shalt worship no other God before me.” Bartlet stumbles in (due to an unfortunate arboreal related bicycle incident), and pretty much smacks down the hypocrisy that the lobbyists had been spouting. He did it with gravitas, he did it with wit, and he did it with finality. The scene introduced how the characters, how the administration, and how the show would work. It also ended on a great exchange:

“You’ll denounce these people, Al. You’ll do it publicly. And until you do, you can all get your fat asses out of my White House. CJ, show these people out.” — Bartlet
“I believe we can find the door.” — Marsh
“Find it now.” — Bartlet

A quick aside: I mentioned that one character didn’t seem to fit into their shoes, and it was Allison Janney as CJ Cregg. The role, according to reports, was written for eventual guest star CCH Pounder. I’ve always thought that CJ, as written in the Pilot, would have worked better with Pounder. However, when Janney was cast, you can tell that Sorkin slightly tweaked the character to fit Janney a little better. The development and character arc that CJ experienced over seven years is enough to fill a week’s worth of posts, and we all have the brilliance of Allison Janney to thank for that wonderful piece of work.

Clacked by Ivey West
on Sep 25, 2009 @ 13:00 EST5EDT