‘The West Wing’ Hall of Fame: “Two Cathedrals”

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Hello, welcome back to the Press Dish TV Podcast Feed. I'm Jonah Robinson.
I'm Rob Mahoney. We're here with a very special episode today.
We are talking about a cherished episode of television.

And the reason we're talking about it is you go to theringer.com right now, what a great website.

There is an incredible piece or package, as we prefer to call it, up on the website right now called the 100 Best Episodes of the Century.

It's an incredible, like if you scroll through it, there are so many bits and pieces to it. There's video elements.
There's just like all the bells and whistles are involved.

But basically, the fine folks who we work with have put together 100 best episodes of basically the last 25 years.

An incredible list. Do we agree with every single thing on the list? No, but that's what one of these lists is about, right? Yeah, and we would never complain about such a thing.

No, that's preposterous. But

we are here to talk about two entries on the list. We're going to talk about one today, and then we're going to hit another one on a different prestige episode.

But basically, we're doing like Hall of Fame episodes about two episodes of television that are on this list, and we're starting

with a show that we've, you and I have never talked about in any sort of depth. I've attempted to smuggle it into a couple episodes because it's a cherished show for you.
Truly,

my heart is full at the possibility of discussing the West Wing with you today, Joe. My heart is full.
My cathedrals are two. You know, like, I just think we have a lot going on.

We're here to talk about the season two finale of the West Wing, two cathedrals.

It simply does not get bigger than this for this particular show, or frankly, for me personally, bigger than this basically in the history of television. This is number 16 on a list of 100.

Rob, how do you feel about that placement on the list?

Lukewarm. You know, I'm trying to quell the anger within, but this is part of the exercise.
And ultimately, look. Top 10 is mostly the heavy hitters, right? Some of the greatest shows ever made.

I'm not quibbling with any of them in particular.

But I think as far as individual episodes go, even West Wing doubters, even people who do not associate themselves as being fans of Aaron Sorkin, will reluctantly have their hearts pierced by two cathedrals.

I got to say, so I did a little like preview Instagram reel moment where I like put up the screenshots of basically, I was watching the West Wing episode and then I was watching the other episode we'll talk about.

So if you're on my Instagram, you can see what that was. But I put up, I would say, a not very recognizable moment necessarily from this episode.
It's not

one of the iconic moments. I have never gotten Rob such a response to like a tease, we're going to talk about this.
People lost their minds.

I didn't know I had that many West Wing like fanatics in my following, but

demographically speaking, a Joanna Robinson fan and a West Wing fan, they may have something in common. Might be one single circle, perhaps.
But

Rob Mahoney, why is West Wing such a huge show for you? Oh my God. I mean, to me, it's just like the ultimate workplace drama.

And some of that is just you're starting with one of the great ensembles that's ever been put together.

I could just like go on and on for this whole episode about Richard Schiff, if that's what you want me to do, Joe. Sometimes.

But in the spirit of Toby, I will not. And I'll simply like nod in affirmation.

I think the show itself in terms of the episodes. We always talk about the writing.
We always talk about the dialogue and the walk and talk elements. They're just brilliantly constructed.

I think you see that here in two cathedrals, but you really see it in almost every episode of the Sorkin era of the West Wing in particular.

It's just the structure, the way that everything is tying together. Like it is kind of a classic TV sensibility, but it's also very much like a play, like a playwriting sensibility as well.

This is the era of 22 episodes of television. This is completely wild that by the time you get to

the end of season two, you've already had nearly 50 episodes of this TV show, which is like the complete run for a lot of other shows.

So that's a completely wild and different sort of world we're living in here.

This is universally considered the best West Wing episode, like without question, and one of the best episodes of television to ever exist.

The only disputing point on that is this is not so much of a full senior staff episode. It is very much a President Bartlett episode.

I could see some argument from fans who like just want a little more CJ Craig in their lives as the representative sample.

Okay, so before I get to my first question, which was sort of like, is this episode typical? And you just kind of answered that, but we'll swing back to that.

Will you set the stage for what's happening in the series at this point? And then sort of like, what are the broad strokes? What happens in this episode?

Yeah, so the first two seasons, I mean, the bulk of the show is covering Jed Bartlett's presidential administrations.

This run of like six episodes in particular, Joe, is really building up to close out the second season, all dealing with the fact that Jed Bartlett has been diagnosed with MS and hiding it for eight years.

And it's the slow roll of who is aware of that information and what are they going to do with it.

And then ultimately, what we're working up to in this finale is like, what does that mean for a potential re-election bid?

And as that, all of that is happening, plus like a coup in Haiti and some legislative priorities and all normal like moving the chains of running a government shit is going on.

Mrs. Landingham, our beloved Mrs.
Landingham, the president's longtime secretary and confidant, is killed tragically in a a drunk driving accident. She is not the drunk driver.

She is killed tragically by a drunk driver.

And so we have this like natural structure in this episode in particular of this ticking clock of a press conference.

The president will announce something, whether he intends to run whatever he wants to say about having MS to the public at this press conference.

No one seems to know what he's going to say, including his own staff and certainly including us.

It feels like Leo knows what he's going to say. He suspects.
Right. It's famous for a number of different reasons.

It's got a flashback structure, which is not the only time on West Wing that you see a flashback structure, but I thought that was interesting that like this episode and the next episode we're going to talk about are both like quite timey-whimey episodes and the way in which those things are cut together.

Like inside this episode, you'll have older Jed Bartlett like open a door and then younger Jed Bartlett like walks through a different door. You know what I mean?

Like all of those, those match cuts are really smoothly done. But I thought it was really interesting to think about this as an end of season two episode.

One of my most cherished

beliefs in television is that TV shows are almost always at their best in season two and season three of those shows.

And for example, in this episode, you mentioned this as somewhat anomalous because it's a Jed Bartlett episode, but something the growing pains that the West Wing went through, which happens all the time on shows, is pivoting away from this being a Rob Lowe vehicle into this being a Martin Sheen vehicle.

Like Jed Bartlett becomes the anchor of this show in a way that they didn't expect.

They thought it was going to be Sam Cborn was going to be the main character to the point where like eventually Rob Lowe leaves the show because he's like, guess what?

I was supposed to be the star of the show. Not what I signed up for.
But here in season two, you still have like the main cast

minus Mandy is like still here. So that's usually what's happening in season two and three is like we've figured out what our show is.
Yes. We know where all of our strengths are.

And the original cast and the original creators are usually all still here. So it feels like the original show, we've gone past our growing pains, we've hit our stride and we're really just cooking.

And I was going through the list of top 100 episodes that our wonderful, incredibly talented colleagues picked.

And like, there's a lot of season one episodes actually in the mix here, but a lot of those have to do with like limited series. Like there's only one season.
So, so that's the case.

And then you see like a smattering of twos and threes and fours mostly. That's, that's, that's what we're working with.
So I don't know, like, do you disagree? What do you like

when you hear something now? When you hear something has seven seasons, are you like, well, those last three seasons aren't going to be very good. Like, like, what do you think about that?

I would say when you hear something has seven seasons, the last last seasons aren't going to be the best, but they might have a couple of standout episodes.

But to your point about the twos and the threes, that's where it's just banger after banger after banger. And it is that exact sweet spot where you're right.
The main cast is still intact.

And more than that, they're not disenchanted yet.

There's nobody among them necessarily who's like, oh my God, I can't wait to get out of this deal so I can go do movies based on my success from this show.

That always works out really well, honestly.

Historically, for sure.

I also think there's something about the writer's room, too, where they've sort of like settled and some people have usually left after the first season because they got obligated to, they were obligated to other jobs, and you've sort of figured out what the voice of the show is going to be.

Less of a case for the West Wing, where everything is sort of funneled through Aaron Sorkin's voice, whether you like it or not.

But ultimately, most of these shows find their writing rhythm in season two and three, and they find which characters are working together in which combinations, what plot lines the audience is responding to.

And you can sear into that stuff or away from it, depending on what you want to do.

But you just have so much more like feedback going into into two and three than you do out of the gate, and you don't have the exhaustion of going into a season five or six.

Is season two your favorite season of West Wing? I think it probably is.

I think there's just like

there's a freshness to season one that I think a lot of people really respond to, myself included. But season two feels a little more polished.
It has a lot more of my favorite episodes overall.

I just think that the cast is in such a great rhythm at this stage. And if, you know, we're going to talk a little later about like, if not two cathedrals, what would you pick?

And I think many of the compelling options also come from season two. You said this doesn't feel like a typical episode

because this is so Jed-centric and it's not as ensemble-y as the show could be.

But there are ways in which, you know, looking at the broader list that our colleagues put up, like there are episodes on there that are just clear

anomalies.

This feels less of that to me. I mean, you could say the one where the one with Mrs.
Landingham's funeral, the one where

Jed Bartlett rails against God in a cathedral, you know, like there's, there's easy log line identifiers, but it's not, it doesn't stand out the way that some other episodes on the list do in terms of like, this is an exception to a show that was like pretty good, but then they did this absolutely

insanely banger episode. And this to me, even though it's incredibly good and I understand why it is usually at the top of people's lists about West Wing episodes,

It's just classic Sorkin also and classic Martin Sheen as Jed Bartlett also. So

it is and isn't,

you know, atypical of the larger show. So I think it's more focused, but it's not form breaking.

Like it still is a West Wing episode to the point that, you know, we're entertaining meetings, we're talking about, you know, we're in a war room at one point. Like

all of the settings and kind of check marks are there.

It just ultimately is a little narrower where, you know, you don't have like a really robust Sam seborn plot line you know cj really isn't doing much other than figuring out like where the press conference is going to be right and for as much as you miss that stuff the gravitas of this episode is kind of undeniable and it's there's so many red flags with two cathedrals like there are the flashbacks you talked about.

There's like an imaginary conversation with a dead person. There's a huge musical montage.
There's a freaking booming thunderstorm metaphor. And it just hits Joe.

Like I don't even really know how to entirely to like how explain it other than to say that there's like a time for cliche and there's a time for grandeur.

And if you calibrate it just so, and Sorkin doesn't always do that. Like, he doesn't always nail it.
What? But when he does, this is what it looks like.

When it's not, congratulations, sir, we got Osama bin Laden. This is what you get from the other end of the spectrum.
How dare you? My favorite episode of the newsroom.

So listen, I think what helps that work is

Jed Bartlett himself as this

larger-than-life figure.

It's really interesting the way in which people latch on to the West Wing, both as it aired and then in subsequent years, when there was this sort of West Wing resurgence during the first Trump administration, during COVID, like there were all these moments where it's just like, this feels comforting.

This idea that we live in a world where these are the people who are at the wheel of the world we live in is really appealing to certain people.

And I think that, like, Jed Bartlett, in order to be this guy,

and as we hear in one of the flashbacks, Mrs. Laningham says, calls him a god king, right? Like a boy king, right?

Thinking about that,

of course, I love and admire Jed Bartlett. But what I also love that the show does, because Jed is kind of Aaron's self-insert, they're all our Aaron Sorkin's self-insert, but like

the way that the show

pokes at how egotistical one has to be in order to be this person. Absolutely.
So I don't say that to like knock Jed Bartlin entirely. I like and admire him.

And at the same time, to grandstand the way that he often does,

to believe with conviction that I'm going to do this. Yeah, I'm going to do this and I'm going to win, like all this sort of stuff like that.
Like

you have to have this ego. So when he's in the church and he's railing against God in Latin and English, whatever you prefer,

and it's all framed around like, how could you do this to me? Right. Right.
Josh was my son. Like, not how could you hurt Josh, but like my son.
Yeah. Right.

You come for Mrs. Lanningham.
She's my sister. Right.
You hit my ship. Right.
Like, he's just made this like entire thing a war between himself and God.

And the ego required to frame it all that way is so deliciously fascinating to me inside of that character. Completely.
And to have that ego.

And I can't even tell you how important it is that young Jed, when he goes out to do the difference-making thing, stops short. Like he doesn't succeed.

He fails in the thing that young Dolores Landingham asks him to do.

And this is one of those areas where, like, I know we were kind of taking shots at it earlier of the West Wing as this sort of like liberal fantasy. And that's, it's true.
Like

it is a fantasy where like a turn of phrase can hypothetically change people's minds. It's like that is deserved, a deserved reputation.

But honestly, like, if you dig into the text of the show, it's mostly President Bartlett and his staff getting stymied and roadblocked and having all of their grand plans blown up by whatever happened that day versus whatever they wanted to focus on.

And so they still get to make the big speech and they do their jobs with a kind of dignity. And to me, like that's what the West Swing is, is

are you carrying yourself in a way that respects the people you work with, the world that you live in, and the job that you are setting out to do?

And it's not so much like you're always going to have the last clever word because Jed's dad shows us. Like sometimes that's not so clever.
Sometimes that doesn't get you as far as you think it will.

Another thing I love about this era of television, it's always true of television

that it is a reactive medium. I say that all the time, and I love that about television.
You can recalibrate your show based on what's working.

So, like, my theory about season two's being the best has to do with how I feel about the TV show Justified, how I feel about the TV show Buffy Vampire Slayer. Like, these are

shows that hit their stride in their second season in a way that like just leaps and bounds.

But it's reactive, right? Walton Goggins is incredible on Justified, so we have to make Boyd Crowder like the second lead of our show. Or Buffy Vampire Slayer, like we figured out.

we've recalibrated the camp and we figured out exactly where it needs to go, sort of based on how people are responding to things. Well, and David Bourion has figured out how to act.

Like there are many variables. And he did have quite a breakthrough in season two.

So this idea that Catherine Justin, who plays Mrs. Landingham, comes to Aaron Sorkin and is like, I have a pilot.

She's a guest star on the show. And she's like, I have a pilot that I want to do.
The way Aaron Sorkin tells it is that she did it on a smoke break at like some gala they were at or whatever.

And he was like, huh, she leaves the show. What am I going to do? And as Aaron Sorkin tells it, he's like, I don't like the responses to those things where you just sweep it under the rug and Mrs.

Landingham has retired retired somewhere and you just throw a nice little party for her. So, how do you react to like someone wanting to leave the show?

Do you make it the core and text of the show, or do you make this really obvious, like, we couldn't keep this actor, they had to leave, sort of thing? And so, he's like, ah,

what if I kill her?

And what if I kill her in a way that pushes my main character at that point, Jed Bartlin, his main character, into renouncing his faith, which is just a core part of his own character, right?

Absolutely. And so to turn this casting hiccup, and by the way, like,

it's apocryphal. It's either Joan of Arcadia, which she was a guest star on, or a different pilot that didn't go forward.

I can't remember which, but it's not like Catherine Jason went on and you're like, oh, and then she did this great thing that like everyone knows her from. She played God on Joan of Arcadia.

It was great, but it wasn't like a main character. Anyway, point being.
How is God not a main character on Joan of Arcadia?

Because God takes many different forms. And so sometimes it's shaped like Mrs.
Landingham and sometimes it's like a young punk rocker and sometimes it's a kid. I love Joan of Arcadia.

It's a real touched by an angel situation. I really loved that show.
Anyway, I won't defend it though.

But it's sort of like a great what what if what if I hadn't told Aaron Sorkin I was doing that with Mrs. Landingham still be on the show.
But like turning that into

daring storytelling like this, I I think is a real testament to a writer firing at the top of his game and wanting to take risks and wanting to push his characters and push his writing. Yes.

And especially to do it with, as you said, a guest star, like a tertiary character at best, who is a super welcome presence in the show in the early seasons.

And like you're happy when Miss Lanaham gets off a quip or puts, you know, puts

President Barlett in his place in a way that, honestly, only she and Leo really can, like, speak to him that candidly.

so and absolutely abby you know stalker channing could talk that way to literally anybody and i would believe it talk to me like that stalker channing i beg of you please

would i sign up for that cameo i might you know i would uh but like the idea as you're saying joe of using mrs lanningham's memory and specifically like her determination right like who she was as a person

And that being what nudges Jed Bartlett to not just like run for re-election, which would be a whatever thing, but like to do the hard thing, right? To face criticism, to answer the questions.

Like, that's just a beautiful way to make sense of who these characters are to each other. Like, that is great storytelling.
All of Aaron Sorkin's shows, Sports Night, West Wing, Newsroom,

are

they ostensibly workplace shows, but actually, they're family shows. And most good workplace shows are family shows.

But this idea that, like, something that Sorkin likes to say is

you could be alone in a big city if you've got family at work, basically. Right.
So like this idea that

Mrs.

Lanningham, who positions herself as Jed's older sister in a flashback, but is also like motherly to him in a way where he is like in a position where he's really against God, but also his dad has some issues like going on and stuff like that.

But the way that Aaron Sorkin character with daddy issues. Don't, I mean,

where did it even come from? Never heard of it. Certainly not involved in our next show that we're going to talk about as well.

When Jed says, I need Pall Bearers and the Paul Bears are men in this office,

that that is the family that is here because Mrs. Lanningham's entire family has been like wiped away is very, very meaningful.
And

this idea of like. The West Wing always has this great cadence of like, what's next, right? What's next? What's going on?

What, what are, what is Toby wrangling in this office while CJ is doing this in this office and Josh and Don are arguing about this over in the hallway?

And there are those moments inside this episode, but then constantly in the background of Jed's mind is,

I need pallbearers. There's this funeral happening.
There's this loss that's hounding me.

And I think that's done really subtly and really beautifully inside of this beautiful episode. For sure.

I mean, they're juggling huge personal loss and huge like geopolitical stakes within the same episode.

And this is, this is why of all the frameworks that Sorkin has explored, like the West Wing works best for him is because it feels the least ridiculous to approach the day-to-day with the level of like pomposity we've been talking about and ambition and ego.

Like all that stuff feels natural when it's like... The structure of his shows are about people who take their work very, very seriously.

And when the work is actually inarguably quite serious, it just kind of lends itself to the format.

So as a sportsman, you're saying covering sports on a television show isn't as important as running the White House, Robo? See, I actually think Sports Night works quite well, even still.

And some of that is because sports lend themselves to mythology.

And this is why the newsroom doesn't work, because it's like the active real-time writing of myth as opposed to like regarding a politician who was shot or a current event. It just doesn't work.

It's just like our relationship to those things is totally different than

a long-distance runner who's 45 years old and breaking a record. And you're on a sports center knockoff commentating about how incredible and historic and inspirational this is.

Like, there's just a different tone that fits his writing better. There is also, unfortunately, like there's aspects of the newsroom I actually really quite like, but there is unfortunately

Sports Line is so scrappy and ultimately kind of a failed in its own way experiment for Erin Sarkin, but a show that I really, really love. Like, but

it got canceled before it wanted, you know, he wanted it to and stuff like that.

West Wing is like the peak of of his work and then the the newsroom is this sort of like defiantly high on his own supply sort of era of sorkin that again works sometimes and then when it doesn't it doesn't and to go back to this idea of like to your point there's so much stuffing in the turkey here the uh

the scene where

and

um an imagined version of mrs landingham comes into the room to talk to jed

after the metaphorical storm has been blowing the door open all episode.

And they have this conversation. There is a similar scene in the newsroom

that I like despise.

And so

it can so easily go wrong. I

usually roll my head. There's, I,

when that happened on the newsroom, I was like, oh, it's ghost dad. Ghost dad bothers me every time.
And ghost dad will show up again and again on shows. It's not a sorkin problem.
It's a TV problem.

This feels so different. Why do you think it feels so different in this episode? I wish I could put my finger on it.

I think, like, again, it's, it's such a finely calibrated measure of like eight different variables. And some of it is just like you have Martin Sheen, right? Like you just have him in the chair.

And he could be talking to nobody. He could be talking to a ghost, an actual ghost of Mrs.
Lanningham, which, as you said, it is not. It could be another actually alive character.

And just anything he delivers in that cadence as President Bartlett is going to be pretty compelling stuff.

Like that is a character who can hold the screen and an actor who, no question, can hold the screen.

So if you have that as kind of your foundational point, then I think you just have a little bit more wiggle room to work with. And he also sells the big and broad stuff so, so well.

Like he is, he's the reason why the storm metaphor works because you have him standing in the rain.

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One of the categories that we have been doing on these Hall of Fame episodes, not consistently, but here and there, is Needle Drop.

I actually don't know if I have one for the next one we're going to do, but there is only one answer here.

It's an absolutely iconic musical moment inside of television history. How do you feel about Dire Straits in general and Dire Straits usage here?

Yeah, I have no real relationship to Dire straits other than if you play this song, I will get goosebumps because of this show.

Yeah, this is a, this is a television moment that forever changed a lot of people's association. And we should say, in terms of ratings,

this got 20 million people were watching this episode, which is just obsolete.

Absolutely, bananas does not exist anymore. No.
Network television and notwithstanding, like, this just doesn't happen. And so for

like, you know, a good portion of those 20 million people, not to mention all the people who have watched the West Wing since,

Brothers in Arms, the Dire Stray song forever invokes this television moment, this, this, the grand walk, no talk that the Bartlett administration does over to the press conference and up onto the stage.

The American flag blowing and the wind outside behind them and it works. Like all of this stuff.
This is what we're doing.

How does it happen? So, you know.

If that doesn't move you i i don't even want to know you you know like it just it it has to affect you in some way and this is one of those areas where in terms of the the soundtrack and the score of the west wing very rarely do you get any of these sorts of needle drops like it's just not that kind of show it is very much like a snuffy walled-in

joint through and through like that is what's going on so if you hear an electric guitar on the west wing you're like okay some shit's about some shit's about to go down you know something something is really happening and moving here and to incorporate it with a song that literally opens with its own storm sound effect and to just kind of layer that in with your actual booming tropical storm that's moving through DC out of season unusually in a way that just like President Bartlett cannot stop thinking about.

The whole thing just works through and through, again, in ways that it probably shouldn't and probably wouldn't on basically any other show. I think that's true.
Do you think

I don't, I did not watch West Wing in real time.

I might have caught up with it before it ended, but definitely like sort of a couple seasons in, I started watching like reruns were happening over the summer or something like that.

That's how I caught up on the West Wing. But, like, um,

do you think it takes any of the tension out of this episode that

anyone watching the West Wing now knows that probably knows that Tim Matheson is not the president, like Hoynes is not the president going forward on the show?

That Bartlett's not only going to run, but he is going to win. Like, does that do you think that matters at all in watching this episode?

Because, like, what's cool about this, I mean, you know, he's going to run because he does the hands in his pocket, looks aside, smiles thing. Right.

But it's, it's kind of fun to remember that they didn't explicitly say it and that you have that as like, not really a cliffhanger, but kind of cliffhanger over the entire summer, which seems like a long time until you remember now that we have like three years between things and you probably couldn't get away with this anymore.

But like,

but like, I don't know, there's, there's, there's tension throughout the episode. Is he, you know, he's like, you get horns to God.
Like, fuck you. I'm not going to do it.

And then he decides to do it. But, like, if you already know that Bartlett's going to be Bartlett for many seasons afterwards, does that impact it at all? It doesn't have to.
I was just curious.

Yeah, I think it probably does not impact it. And I say this like very anecdotally as someone who has seen this episode, I don't know, 20 times.
And I still feel it.

Like, it just, you have a physical feeling watching a dramatic layout like this, where it is hitting the beats, it is hitting the musical cues.

Like you're just so on that razor's edge of trying to understand like, who is this man if he is the broken down faith disavowing version of the person that we've come to know and understand.

And so like that variable, even if I know exactly how season three starts, which spoiler alert, it's with a weird 9-11 classroom allegory.

I let it roll, like as I do sometimes with these Hall of Fame episodes. I was like, well, okay, let's watch the next episode.
And I was like, what's happening?

And I had to remind myself that there's this weird interstitial sort of episode. Isaac and Ishmael, not Canon, not recognized officially.
We're just going to keep moving.

But I think even if you know what happens, even if you've seen the show before, there is just something about the magic of this, the space of this episode where you feel everything so acutely and everything is so heightened that I think it pulls you into that moment of like, even though I know.

Part of my brain is tricked by this.

I love that. Do you have a favorite character who's not Jed Bartlett on the show? Like, is there a single person that you're like, this is my guy? This is so hard.

I mean, I think there is like a favorite Beetle thing that happens, at least for me, where I like, I kind of bounce back and forth. I feel like I am in a Toby place of my life.
Are you?

Yeah.

I think we all have a Josh Lyman phase of a kind. I think Josh Lyman is probably the...
Paul, if I had to equate them. Yeah, the obvious answer.
And what would you say Toby is the

George? There's no doubt. I mean, you're a George guy.
So

I am a rising George, rising Toby.

But like, how could the writer in us not be moved by Sam Seaborn?

And how could the person who like wants to have the command of a room or hypothetically a podcast not be channeling their CJ Craig in some way?

I actually think my answer

is Leo McGarry. I actually

John Spencer is my guy. And that certainly wasn't always the case.
Like I think

I think I went through a very long Josh Lyman phase, of course. But like, but yeah, I think it's

on lemonlyman.com with the rest of us, as we know. With alacrity.
One of the questions we ask ourselves in this episode is like, best performance.

And like, Martin Sheen seems like the obvious answer, but there's something about John Spencer in this episode.

He opens the episode with this idea of like, there's going to be a press conference tonight. You're going to want to watch it.

So there's like a ticking clock, as you said, on this episode of like, we're headed towards a press conference where a big decision will be made. And

the staff doesn't even know what the answer is going to be. And they're going back and forth, as you said.

And like, Leo, though, there are moves inside this episode, like the move he pulls with Toby and stuff like that, where it seems like Leo knows that Jed is going to, he feels so certain.

But when Leo says, watch this,

like that is the part that actually like choked, like made me choke up watching it, this, this, re-watching it this time. It's just like

Leo's relationship with Jed, complicated as it as it is,

is so

beautiful. I know it.

Because you can't, in terms of like you talking about sports narratives being mythology sort of writing itself in real time, or the history of America is being written, the fictional history of America is being written.

This idea of, you know,

what is the chief of staff to the boy king who becomes, you know, the king of America. Like, what is that figure? How, what does that guiding hand mean? What does that level of faith in you mean?

Especially in a, in a, in a context where, as we go into the other episodes, the next, the following episodes, um,

Abby is

not that person, you know, so like when your spouse is not that person, like Leo, as his like work wife, essentially, is, like, has to sort of stand in for that.

And I just think that that relationship is really profound to me. So, yeah, absolutely.
I mean, I think there's two really fundamental things happening with Leo Leo in this episode.

One is what you're saying, which is there's just a read of the West Wing in its bulk that is like a Leo and Jed love story, basically.

This is a long-lasting relationship and partnership between these two guys who understand each other so well.

And part of that watch this is the like, I know this guy better than anyone in this room, and you're going to want to pay attention for this moment.

And then there's also the grizzled political operator who has seen everything and knows when something special is about to happen.

It's like that intersection of this is the moment where everything comes to a head and we all feel it. To hear Leo say it is really the punctuation.
He's like, can you hear the dire straits playing?

Can you see the flag flapping? History is about to be written here.

Who would you say your best performance in the episode is? I think it has to be Martin Sheen. And this is your ongoing reminder that Martin Sheen never won an Emmy for the West Wing.

I mean, just tough fields. I get it.
But like,

he's so great here in particular. And the show and the episode ride on him.

Bartlett in a place of like pure rage, scolding God, the ultimate walk and talk with God in the National Cathedral is

like, I don't say this term light, like epic television. Like that is must-see stuff.
I don't know if this is apocryphal, but I read some stories that they got banned from the National Cathedral

because of the cigarette moment instead of this episode, or maybe the cursing out God part of it. I don't know.

I believe this is the reason why, like, I'll omit the spoiler, but when a future character dies in the West Wing, they don't return to the National Cathedral for the funeral.

So, I think there's some truth to it, or at least some truth of convenience for sure. I will say, Joe,

on the performance front, though, like, this episode does not work without Kirsten Nelson. That was my reference.

Yeah, young Dolores Landingham, like, so impeccably cast. Yeah.

Love her. I'm, I'm a huge, like, comfort watch psych person, so I'm a Kirsten Nelson fan, but, like,

her

impression that's not an impression, it's an embodied performance, is so good. And she is responsible for keeping the importance of Mrs.
Landingham alive throughout the episode until we get

not a ghost, the apparition of Mrs. Landingham at the end of the episode.
But to

have her so embody the sharpness of that character

and to be able to see with your own eyes how long that person has been in Jed's life and what it means to lose that person who believed you could make meaningful change, even though he fails her inside of that flashback for as long as she did.

It's just so interesting because, like, I was, I was, I was re-listening to the West Wing Weekly episode about this episode where, you know, Aaron Sorkin's on giving an interview, Kirsten Nelson's on giving an interview.

Like, it's great stuff.

They did a two-parter. They also had Lawrence O'Donnell.
I didn't listen to the one with Lawrence O'Donnell, but Lawrence O'Donnell did.

Senior Bartlett himself, Lawrence O'Donnell.

Really weird casting, but

it works. I mean, like, he's stern in a way he needs to be stern.
Something I love about Rishi, who's a friend of mine and the co-host of that show, is like how

unabashedly and like optimistically he loves the West Wing. And I'm just a much more cynical person than him.
And

I love that both of those takes exist. But he was talking about Jed, like talking to the apparition of Mrs.
Landingham about, like, he's just thinking of other people.

And I was like, that is such a beautiful way to frame it and it is on the one hand true but on the other hand like

this is a man so certain that no one but himself could do this job yes

and

that egotism is also really important to me as part of of that character so it is like without altruism and it's egoism like together and i just i like the way those flavors uh you know coalesce inside the show he needs he needs the egoism he needs the altruism which isn't just in him, but is kind of fanned by a lifetime with Dolores Lanningham.

Like you're seeing her kind of stoke that in him. And he also needs like the weird underdog chip on your shoulder like fight.
Like that's a huge part of President Bartlett as well.

And part of what brings him to that press conference. Yeah.
It's fuck, it's fuck you, dad. It's fuck you, God.
It's fuck you any, like, fuck you, Toby, based on the previous episode.

It's like anyone who doubted me, I'm going to prove that I can and will do this and that I'm the only person that should do this. Watch this, watch this.
Most iconic image/slash shot composition.

I don't think there's a lot of competition, is there?

What's your answer? I don't know. I mean, I have two options.

I think specifically Jed stepping on the cigarette in the National Cathedral, but really any just showing the cathedral and the scale of it is part of what sets the stage for this whole thing.

And certainly that particular monologue, confrontation, however you want to describe it. I think if you show that image, Jed Bartlett alone in a cathedral.

But we've already talked about it, but I will say the American flag waving out of the window as the storm rages.

Like, I think you have to work really hard to not make that look cheesy. And it's true.
And it works. So

I think yours is the right answer, but I think that that flag waving is really interesting.

Favorite underrecognized detail of this episode, Rob.

Look, depending on your familiarity with the West Wing, it may or may not surprise you that this is not the only time President Bartlett or any character just starts speaking in Latin as like a matter of course in the episode.

But if you're not like in the weeds of this shit, I think part of the important distinction is basically every other time that Jed Bartlett speaks Latin, it's in this like very professorial way, right?

It's in like he's trying to explain something to Josh or Toby or Sam or CJ

from his like from his point of view, from within his faith, just like, you know, an elder passing along wisdom.

And the fact that he turns it here, like that he's so heartbroken that he turns it to not just like talk to God, but mock God effectively.

I think it's one of those like really stunning character details that even if you don't have that background, you kind of feel it, even though you don't fully realize it.

Mock God, curse God out in a way that you can put on prime time television, et cetera. Definitely.
For me,

and I had never noticed it before, but there's a couple different moments where the camera just lingers on Mrs.

Landingham's empty desk, like following characters around, but then it'll just sort of like stop and just show you her desk empty for a beat or two longer than it normally would.

And I thought that was really.

And Jed can't even look at it. He's like he like keeps moving past it like as quickly as possible.
Yeah. Okay.
Best moment scene. I think this is also

just has to be Jed yelling at God. I don't know what else it could be.
So you have something else? See, I actually think it's the ending. Okay.
I actually

it's,

I think it's the dire straits buildup to the press conference and the hold your breath season ending moment.

Like, look, ultimately, like these episodes are really, this run of episodes, but this one in particular is just like the most revealing part of the West Wing when it comes to character.

When it comes to Jed Bartlett, like we are laying out who this guy is and what he is made of. And he's put through a lot in two cathedrals.
Like he is isolated.

He's being kind of stripped down of the protection of his office in some ways, of like the pageantry of his office.

Like he is just a guy who's having to make a hard choice while dealing with this other really painful thing.

And I think getting him to the point where he goes through all that and he curses God and he has the show, you know, he has the show down and he has his moment in the office during the storm, getting him to the point where he can walk in there.

and put his hands in his pockets and smile, look to the side. Like that is one of the most satisfying renderings of any character in my television life.

And so it's like, and it doesn't feel like a cheat or a shortcut. Like it feels, this whole episode really feels like payoff, payoff, payoff, payoff.
And it is seeding stuff and bringing it back.

And it feels insular within the episode, but it's also like, this is two years of President Jed Bartlett getting to this point. And when he gets there, it's hard to argue that that is the moment.

There is a question I wanted to ask about both this and then the next episode we're going to talk about, which is, does this episode work out of context?

Sort of like in that that vein where we did the hooked series earlier this year on this feed, where we talked about sort of episodes, if they aren't the pilot, what you would show someone to like tell them about what this show is, right?

The end of season two of 22 episodes these are show is way too far in.

This would never be the hooked episode. I might talk about a hooked episode actually in a second, but

could you show someone this episode without them having the lead up of knowing who Mrs. Landingham is or knowing

about the buildup of the MS storyline or anything like that. Like, is this, it doesn't have to be, but I'm just curious if this is an episode you feel like you could show out of context to someone.

I think it would be legibly very good, but maybe not legibly great. Yeah.

And you, you need the, yeah, the 40-something episodes of background to really feel everything that you need to feel in an episode like this.

But at the same time, the execution of it, the pacing of it, the structure of it, that's all very recognizable, even if you have no idea who any of these people are.

Is the West Wing a show that you would put on? Is this a show that you put on just, because I know you have shows like this.

Is this a show that you just put on like, I want to feel comforted or I want to feel uplifted? Is this like a frequent, you said you watched this episode

dozens of times. Like is when do you, when do you re-watch the West Wing? It's definitely more comfort than uplift.
Like I'm not looking to be roused into political affirmation by the West Wing.

I'm like, this is a drama and most importantly, like a group of characters that are so pleasant to spend time with and wonderful to spend time with. And that's while they're fucking up.

It's while they're sometimes doing very dumb things or self-centered things or egotistical things or whatever it is.

But like, this is in that zone of show for me where it's such an easy comfort to watch and a very easy trap of like, I'm going to put on season one, episode 12, and then all of a sudden I'm on season six because I've just run through the whole thing.

Rob, who watched all of Lost over the course of like, I don't know, one month.

It's a slippery slope. That's what I'm saying.
I feel this way about most of the shows we did for the Hook series. And I feel this way about this show.

Both this show, the next one we're going to talk about. I couldn't just stop at one episode.
It's like a Pringle. Like, I couldn't just stop at one episode.
I wanted to watch.

I watched like the next three, essentially, because there's like the interstitial one, and then there's like the two-part premiere. I watched all through that.

And I was just sort of like, oh, I could do this. I could just keep going.
Honestly, why not? What would be the runner-up episode? If it were not this episode, if if you were making this list,

and again, I salute our colleagues, they had a really hard job of putting this list together. So I'm not not doing it.

But if you were to put this list and you're not picking two cathedrals, which West Wing episode are you picking?

So, this is where I operate somewhat in defiance of my earlier claim that there's, I mean, there are many great season two episodes, and I want to talk about one in a second.

But if I had to pick one, or really, I'm going to cheat and pick two, it's 20 Hours in America, which is the two-part season four premiere.

It is a two-part that has everything. It is, so Josh and Toby and Don are out in Iowa, kind of out of their element.
It's

exposing their hypocrisies a little bit. It's a really good election episode or re-election episode.
It's a great issues-driven episode. It has guest star Amy Adams out of absolutely nowhere.

And also, for my money, it has like the single best bit of Sorkin speechifying in the entire series, which is Jed Bartlett's The Streets of Heaven Are too crowded with angels speech after there's like a bomb that goes off at a school.

And so it hits like literally everything that the West Wing is at such a high level. If you can like cheat and pick a tube harder, I think that would be my pick.

I think sort of like a clear front runner for second place is Innet Chelsea's Deo, which I think a lot of people think of as like the hooked episode, perhaps of West Wing.

This is a season one episode. This is a Toby-centric episode.

Your guy, Toby, the George Harrison of the West Wing.

And this is just an episode that stands out in the history of West Wing as

the, maybe the first time the show really demonstrated how high it could reach.

So that's, and then In the Shadow, Two Gunmen is like, yes.

an absolute classic episode. Two-parter, again, a cheat, but you know.

Sometimes you got to smuggle smuggle them.

And I also like, while we're talking Toby episodes, too, I do think 17 People, which is season two, episode 18, the episode where Toby finds out about President Bartlett's MS and really is like the one to challenge him about it.

Like, this, as you can tell from Two Cathedrals, like the show can be quite forgiving and understanding of President Bartlett, but like, this is a dude who lied to the entire American public about his health for eight straight years.

And Toby is really the only one who's like, isn't this kind of fucked up? And like shouting at President Bartlett in the Oval Office,

a remarkable piece of television and really one of the best like behind closed doors debating and arguing, which is the crux of what the West Wing is. Like that's that version at its best.

I love that. Anything else? Any other episodes you want to shout out? I think those are the definitive ones for me.

There's many other great ones, but again, it's like, like, I love Somebody's Going to Emergency, Somebody's Going to Jail, which is a very Sam Seaborn off on a quest episode.

But it's like, sometimes those feel a little too like, too much like side missions you know it's like we're we're spending a lot of time with one of the core senior staff but not enough time with everybody else to see what they've got going on do you have a favorite um

either like sort of recurring guest star like an oliver platt sort of like you know whatever do you have a favorite like recurring marley matlin blah blah blah uh guest star or like an era of like the you know

various guest stars who stuck around for a while and you're like i really liked the X era of West Wing and they never became a series regular, but I was a fan.

I think

a single episode guest star who like really got me is Laura Dern pops through as a U.S. poet laureate who Toby has like a really bad crush on.

And she's just fucking phenomenal. Like, I mean, as you would expect from Laura Dern popping through for an episode, but it's like a great.

another great confrontation of like the idealism of the show of somebody who doesn't work in government who's just like an outside observer, but politically minded.

And she gets to come in and be the voice of basically like, why don't we do more about a lot of very seemingly simple ideas and issues?

And then Toby gets to be Oscar the Grouch, but they just have like such a warm dynamic that I'm, I'm so charmed by it. So like that, that's always one.

Her as Tabitha Fortas that just like sings for me. Do you, um,

sorry, I've just never gotten to interrogate you about the West Wing, so I just have a lot of questions. That's what we're doing here, Joe.

Do you,

when you re-watch, do, how often do do you re-watch the non-Sorkin era versus the Sorkin era of the West Wing? I do re-watch it. And in fairness, I think it gets there by seven.

Like, it doesn't get back to the heights of the first four seasons, but it gets into like a really comfortable, watchable place.

I just think if you have like Alan Alda on TV that much, it's never going to be that bad. Like, it's just, again, the floor is super high.

And so, like, by the time you get to seven, like, they've figured some stuff out.

And it's, it's so much more of a, of a campaign show than it is an actual like running the government show by that stage that it feels like a distinct thing. So look, five and six can be pretty rocky.

Like they didn't do right by our pal Lizzie Moss ultimately with this show with a lot of her plot lines. Our best palizie moss, yeah.

Ultimately, like I think seven is pretty fun. And so like five and six are definitely like the multitasking seasons.
You know, maybe I'll still put them on, but like it's okay if I'm cooking dinner.

All right. Well, this has been a little toe dip into West Wing, one of Rob's favorite shows.
I'm really glad that we got to talk about one of your favorite shows.

Joe, thank you for indulging me. Thank you to theringer.com for giving us this excuse to talk about the West Wing.
16th on the list.

Justin Sales, our producer, was like, hey, maybe one of these top episodes. And we're like, nope, number 16 it is.
That's what we're doing.

Anyway, I really recommend you read, of course, the entire list that's up on theringer.com.

You know, let us know your opinions about what should have been on there. Definitely.
Politely, perhaps, disagreeing with what's on there.

And just like our colleagues are just so smart and funny in the way they talk about, write about television. And I really admire what they did here.
So please support the project.

Anything else you want to say, Ramahoni, before we go? Just email us at prestige TV at spotify.com with any of your other various West Wing takes. Mandy was robbed.

You know, like Toby got what he deserved in the end. Whatever your bad take may be, I kind of do want to hear it.

Yeah.

Press HTV at spotify.com or

resident of Mandyville at gmail.com. We will answer either emails.
And hopefully we did right by the people who are so excited to see that we would be talking about West Wing.

I think some people thought we were doing an every episode rewatch of West Wing.

I'm sad to say it's already been done. It has been done perfectly.
So no need for us to do that, but we will maybe check in again in the future if we have another excuse to do so.

Thank you to Kai Grady,

our chief of staff, on this episode.

And we'll be back with more Pluribus coverage, with another installment of the 100 best episodes of the century episode. We've got chair company coverage coming, heated rivalry coverage coming.

So, there's just a lot going on.

So, stay tuned to the feed, and we'll see you soon. Bye.

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