The Best of the West (Wing): Part One

I didn’t start watching “The West Wing” until a couple of years after the show actually ended its run on TV.  A friend let my dad borrow all seven seasons on DVD, and after some protesting (due to a misguided attempt at extra credit points in a college government class for watching one episode, not occurring to me then that it would’ve been a lot better if I’d seen the show from the beginning), I gave in and started watching it.  I was drawn in by the witty banter of the characters (thank you, Aaron Sorkin), and by the end of the pilot episode, I was hooked.

My favorite “The West Wing” character is Josh Lyman, played by Bradley Whitford.  (Sidebar: while this post isn’t actually about Bradley Whitford, let’s just take a moment to reflect on what an amazing actor he is… ready, set, GO… I have two letters for you: E and R.  If you’ve never seen the episode of “ER” called “Love’s Labor Lost” from season 1, go watch it immediately.)

(Don’t screw around with her about this either, believe me when I tell you that she is VERY serious about both Bradley Whitford and E.R., put them together and she just. Won’t. shut. Up. About it.)

I think my favorite thing about Josh Lyman is that he’s such a “real” character (yes, yes, that does seem like an oxymoron).  I mean, the man is the White House Deputy Chief of Staff, but he still manages to act like a dork most of the time.  In fact, even though he DOES act like a dork most of the time, the dorky things he does are real enough to be plausible that someone could actually do them.  Here are just a few of my favorite dorky Josh moments:

1.    “Take This Sabbath Day” (season 1, episode 14): Josh goes to a bachelor party, gets wasted, goes back to his office at the White House and passes out.  Donna finds him and wakes him up, reminding him sharply that he has a meeting with Joey Lucas.  She also notes that this clothes look like he’s been sleeping in a dumpster, so she takes them to a 1-hour dry cleaner.  Unfortunately, Josh has nothing to wear in the meantime, so he’s forced to wear bright yellow rain gear throughout this meeting.

(Also, you can almost SEE how bad he must smell, one of those hangovers where the unmetabolized alcohol is just oozing from his pores.  It’s not Josh’s finest moment.  But it might be one of Donna’s.)

2.    “The U.S. Poet Laureate” (season 3, episode 16): Josh finds a website dedicated to himself, called lemon-lyman.com.  Despite Donna’s protests and valid reasons why he shouldn’t, Josh finds himself compelled to comment on the message boards on the website, prompting the Evil Dictator of a moderator to comment further on what an idiot he is.  CJ ends up finding out about this (because she is, after all, the White House Press Secretary), and proceeds to verbally thrash Josh for being a moron.  

(Hee-hee.  The is an excellent lesson for all of us on why it’s useless to respond to internet trolls, whether you are a well known public figure, or just a regular reader of the comments on CNN.com news stories.  You just can’t win with these freaks.)
 
3.    “Inauguration: Part  2 – Over There” (season 4, episode 14): After realizing that Donna was, in fact, not the one who gave a nasty quote to a reporter about loyalty in the White House, Josh gets Toby, Charlie, Danny, and Will (all dressed in tuxedos for one of many Inaugural Balls) to go to Donna’s apartment to get her out.  Donna, being all dressed up for the balls herself, is hiding because she’s embarrassed about the quote (which was actually given by her boyfriend).  Josh and his band of merry men start throwing snowballs at Donna’s windows to get her attention since she’s not answering her phone or their yells from down below.   Finally, Donna comes down, everything is worked out, and in a touching display of chivalry, Josh takes off his coat to put around Donna’s shoulders (she is wearing an evening gown in DC in January, after all).

Let’s also take into account that I think Josh is pretty sexy (again, though, in a nerdy kind of way).  Yes, Sam Seaborn (played by Rob Lowe) is sexy in a chiseled jaw, seeeexy kind of way, but there’s just something about Josh (maybe it’s the name, since I married a Josh…).

(Oh, Rob Lowe’s chiseled jaw, mmmmmm, it’s so. . . . . . . . . chiseled.  Also, I’d like to go on the record, that though we share a brain, we do NOT share an attraction to Bradley Whitford’s dorkiness.)

Josh is also a character with serious issues, too.  In “What Kind of Day Has It Been,” the season finale of season 1, gunmen open fire into the rope line as President Bartlet and his staff are walking back to their limos.  Josh, among others, is shot and seriously wounded, only to be found by Toby (which, despite the fact that it’s a very short scene when he finds Josh, it’s one of my all-time favorite “The West Wing” moments…Toby’s voice cracks as he starts calling for help after finding Josh and realizing he’s wounded, and it’s such a sad and scary moment all in one) at the beginning of the season two premiere (“In the Shadow of Two Gunmen (Part 1)”).  He undergoes MAJOR surgery while the rest of the cast worries and waits to hear news of his recovery.

(Keep tissues nearby if you are watching this episode for the first time, it’s a tearjerker.)

Later on in season 2 (“Noel”), Josh starts seeing a shrink for treatment of PTSD.  The acting in this episode reminds me a LOT of the episode of “ER” that I mentioned earlier, and again, the acting abilities of Bradley Whitford are amazing – shown off by the fact that he won an Emmy for season two of “The West Wing.”
I really could go on and on about how much I love the character of Josh Lyman, but I’ll stop now because you’re probably all thinking I’m nuts anyway (which I’m very much okay with).  To close, here’s a clip of a great (non-dorky) Josh Lyman scene.  I could listen to him talk about government and politics (and yes, even Islamic extremism {because this episode, “Isaac and Ishmael,” which was the season premiere of season 3, which aired just a few weeks after September 11, 2001}) all day long, but for now, here’s a 3 ½ minute clip.

A.V.