My West Wing Moments

Sorry. Another tv post. But there is a point, I promise.

So you've probably picked up on the fact that I have been on a West Wing kick since about mid-November. I didn't watch the show when it was on the air, but I've been catching it in syndication and currently there are about 15 episodes waiting to be played on the DVR. I watched all of Season 2 a few weeks ago, while Joal was away. My laptop plays DVDs so I take it up to my room and lay in the bed and cut paper things out and watch West Wing. For 5 hours straight, starting at 9pm. It's the life, I tell you.

The writing of The West Wing is brilliant. Many times over. In light of the brain-mush that is current reality tv...it's positively invigorating. There's depth and qwerk and brilliance laced throughout the show. It moves briskly and with great humanity.

Anyway, today I turned it on in the afternoon and it was episode #153 out of 154, called Institutional Memory. The key players in the Bartlett administration are winding up for the hand-off to the newly elected president. The moment that struck me is between CJ, the President's Chief of Staff and Danny Kincannon, a White House reporter with whom CJ has been fighting a shared attraction to for years because of their respective positions. CJ is entertaining two prestigious job offers and in her quandary, she neglected to even mention the 2 offers to Danny before she basically had her mind made up. She casually offers up her decision--announcing it to him as a done-deal, not realizing and then misunderstanding the depth of his feelings for her.

Danny is stunned that it did not occur to her to consider his opinion in the matter and he wonders if they are going to have a relationship without their jobs. In the end he's reassuring CJ that in their new old relationship they will learn new things and work things out if only they choose to talk it out.

The pair retreat and then meet again later, when Timothy Busfield delivers the most fantastically romantic little speech--well now that I've gone and written it all to shreds, I found the video on Youtube. Should have looked there first. Anyway, watch for yourself.



The best part starts at 7:04 in the video.

"I want us to talk like we are going to figure it out together. I want us to talk because I like the sound of your voice."

Yeah.
I like that.