The Crackpots and These Women
When an N.S.C. officer slips White House deputy chief of staff Josh Lyman a green evacuation card after a New Yorker smallpox report, Josh must face buried trauma and choose loyalty to friends over secret protections as panic threatens the staff.
A brisk, character-driven hour intercuts White House banter with the slow accumulation of dread until personal loyalty demands a political choice. The episode opens on a playful, muscular note: President Bartlet storms a late-night basketball game on the White House court, substitutes in Rodney Grant (a former Duke player turned federal employee), and trades barbed, affectionate insults with Toby, Josh, and Charlie. That athletic camaraderie establishes the episode’s emotional stake—this staff is a ragged, fiercely protective family.
The tone flips to quotidian White House chaos as Leo stages another of his "big block of cheese" days: the senior staff endure a parade of constituency callers and "Total Crackpot Day" petitioners while trying to prep Bartlet for a press conference. Leo’s quirk, the parade of earnest outsiders, frames the show’s recurring tension between the world of trivial requests and the world of grave danger. Into that mix walks Jonathan Lacey of the N.S.C., who quietly hands Josh a green card with explicit evacuation instructions—telling him where to go in the event of a nuclear attack. The moment lands like a cold stone: Josh tries to laugh it off but the card sticks in his pocket and his head.
Toby and Bartlet clash over political strategy—guns, Hollywood fundraisers, and the ethics of preaching virtue while cashing checks—exposing Toby’s simmering insecurity about his place in the President’s inner circle. Mandy, C.J., Sam, and others triangulate around policy fights and personal ambition, and Sam fields an odd and uneasy visitor from Space Command who reports a radar anomaly that may be a UFO. Those apparently disparate beats—the N.S.C. card, the UFO tip, the Hollywood fight—collect into a single pressure on the staff’s nerves: an overriding sense that unseen forces can intrude at any time.
Josh unravels toward private confession. He seeks out a psychiatrist, Stanley, and admits he’s been humming Schubert’s "Ave Maria" all morning; the melody drags him into memory of his dead sister Joanie. In the therapist’s spare, precise dialogue Josh stumbles into a childhood trauma he’s barely named: a house fire while Joanie babysat, a burned-out memory he has never fully told Stanley. The revelation refracts the green card’s meaning. It’s not only a piece of paper with directions; it’s a symbol of exclusion—an official permission to survive apart from the people he loves.
C.J. gets her own moral tug-of-war when a conservation group pitches "Pluie," a famous wolf tracked across thousands of miles, and a fantastical $900 million wolves-only roadway. She skewers the idea with sharp, public-relations instincts and humor; when the group reports Pluie was shot by a rancher, the pitch collapses into heartbreak. The episode repeatedly foregrounds women’s competence and moral clarity—C.J.’s ironic intelligence, Mandy’s political toughness, Mrs. Landingham’s relentless service, Zoey’s youthful steadiness—elements Bartlet later celebrates in his toast.
Toby’s arc resolves in an unexpected, humane way. Wrestling with the fear that he was not the President’s first choice (David Rosen was considered), Toby exposes a deeper need for validation. Bartlet answers Toby not with dismissal but with expansive gratitude and an honest confession: he and Leo argued for Toby; he knows Toby’s disappointment; he values Toby. The exchange defuses a personal crisis and reaffirms the staff’s emotional bonds.
The moral center converges in the White House residence that night. Josh, isolated by the green card and alarmed by the New Yorker article about smallpox stockpiles, fixates on apocalyptic scenarios—how a single vial could spark an uncontainable outbreak. He confesses his fear to C.J. with the heartbreaking image of carrying a "ten-foot cloud" of contagion, a speech that captures both his professional imagination and private terror. C.J. offers domestic normalcy—chili, company—while Bartlet stages a comic, warm reconciliation: he makes chili for everyone, celebrates Zoey’s visit and college plans, and delivers a tender, inclusive toast. Bartlet singles out "these women"—C.J., Mandy, Mrs. Landingham, Cathy, Donna—observing their unseen labors and courage. He lifts his glass "to absent friends, and the ones that are here now."
Josh’s final choice crystallizes the episode’s theme: he can tuck the N.S.C. card into anonymity and accept the institutional separation, or he can renounce that white-flag of exile and remain visible among coworkers and friends. Standing before the President and Leo, Josh produces the card and rejects it—saying he wants to be with his friends, family, and "these women." That gesture converts bureaucratic paperwork into moral allegiance. The threat of smallpox and the presence of official secrecy never fully disappear, but Josh’s act reasserts the human ties that sustain political life.
The episode threads humor and high stakes: rapid-fire Sorkin repartee and set-piece policy disputes alternate with personal confessions and real fear. It keeps its feet planted in specific props and images (the green N.S.C. card, the Schubert recording, Pluie the wolf, Leo’s block of cheese, Bartlet’s chili) while interrogating what survival means inside an institution: preservation through protected isolation, or preservation through community and bearing witness. The final tableau—a crowded residence, bowls of chili, and a presidential toast—resolves into an affirmation: in a world where catastrophe can arrive in a lab vial or on radar, people choose each other.
Events in This Episode
The narrative beats that drive the story
The Teaser throws President Bartlet onto the basketball court, engaging his senior staff—Toby, Josh, and Charlie—in a late-night game. Bartlet's competitive spirit blazes, leading him to brazenly substitute in Rodney Grant, a former Duke player, as a ringer. This playful cheating immediately establishes the President's character: brilliant, demanding, and unafraid to bend rules for victory, yet deeply connected to his team. Toby and Josh, in turn, challenge Bartlet with sharp wit and affectionate exasperation, highlighting the familial, fiercely loyal, yet often contentious relationships that define the West Wing. The scene pulses with a vibrant, lived-in camaraderie, setting the emotional stakes for the episode: this staff operates as a tight-knit unit, their banter a shield and a bond. Grant's dramatic block of Toby's shot underscores the arrival of unexpected forces, even in a casual game, subtly foreshadowing the episode's larger themes of external intrusion and internal vulnerability. The scene crackles with energy, grounding the audience in the immediate, high-stakes reality of these characters' lives.
On a nighttime pickup game outside the White House, Bartlet refuses to yield despite looking winded and, to everyone's surprise, brings in Mr. Rodney Grant — a federal employee who …
At a late-night White House pickup game President Bartlet brazenly substitutes in Rodney Grant — presented as a federal employee but revealed by Toby to be a former Duke player …
A breezy corridor exchange peels back into something sharper: Donna's affectionate, controlling banter with Josh establishes their intimacy and his performative flippancy. The mood pivots when she produces Leo's note …
In Josh's bullpen corridor a familiar, light-hearted exchange with Donna establishes his routines and vulnerabilities before C.J. barges in with a New Yorker piece about smallpox. The interruption is small …
A tonal shift is staged in two beats: Leo's playful, Jacksonian 'big block of cheese' speech—equal parts ritual and reproof—performs unity while staff privately mock the ceremony. Immediately after, Leo …
In Leo's office after the Roosevelt Room chatter, NSC officer Jonathan Lacey privately hands Josh a green evacuation card — a terse, practical item that names safe destinations in a …
An N.S.C. officer, Jonathan Lacey, quietly slips Josh a green evacuation card and explains it directs him where to go in the event of a nuclear attack. Josh's instinct is …
Act One thrusts Josh into a day initially marked by routine White House chaos and Leo McGarry's eccentric 'Big Block of Cheese Day.' Donna's sharp, playful exchanges with Josh underscore their established dynamic, while C.J. injects a chilling note, urging Josh to read a New Yorker article on smallpox. This seemingly mundane setup quickly shatters when Jonathan Lacey of the National Security Council cornered Josh in Leo's office. Lacey hands Josh a stark green card, a chilling artifact detailing evacuation procedures in the event of a nuclear attack. The moment lands with the weight of a lead brick, stripping away Josh's usual flippancy. His attempt to laugh off the card, a desperate bid for normalcy, crumbles as the horrifying realization dawns: this protection is for him alone, excluding his friends and colleagues. The card transforms from a bureaucratic detail into a stark symbol of isolation, forcing Josh to confront a future where his survival means abandoning his chosen family. He stuffs the card into his wallet, a secret burden, as the bustling White House hallways mock his forced composure. The act expertly juxtaposes the triviality of 'crackpot day' with the sudden, profound threat to Josh's sense of belonging and safety.
During a tense press‑prep in the Briefing Room the President repeatedly derails the run‑through: Bartlet lapses into professorial, sarcastic answers while Mandy bluntly shames his tone, Leo obsessively protects trivial …
While the senior staff noisily rehearse a tense exchange between Bartlet and Toby, C.J. finds Josh standing outside the briefing room, staring into space. The brief, quiet exchange—her noticing him, …
A nervous Space Command officer, Bob Engler, awkwardly pitches unexplained radar contacts to Sam in a compact, tonal exchange that undercuts panic with banter. Bob delivers a specific, alarming sighting …
A nervous Space Command officer, Bob Engler, delivers an unsettling, specific report of an unidentified object moving across the Pacific. Sam responds with procedural deflection—insisting on chain-of-command and the political …
In a brisk hallway exchange, Mandy corners C.J. to lock down support for Larry Posner's California fundraiser. Mandy's pragmatic urgency — she’s 'shoring up support' against anticipated internal opposition — …
In a brisk hallway-to-bullpen exchange Mandy corners C.J. for a definitive stance on Larry Posner's Malibu fundraiser. C.J. deflects the moral calculus toward Toby, then, with a terse "I'm in," …
Act Two deepens the narrative's unsettling undercurrents, weaving together disparate threads of external threat and internal conflict. The President's press conference prep ignites a fierce debate between Bartlet and Toby over gun control, exposing Toby's moral rigidity against Bartlet's political calculus. Toby's frustration coils, a testament to his passionate, yet often challenging, commitment to principle. Meanwhile, Sam fields a bizarre yet ominous report from Bob Engler of Space Command: an unidentified object streaks across the Pacific, picked up only by radar, a chilling, invisible intrusion that Sam struggles to dismiss. Mandy and C.J. navigate the ethical quagmire of a Hollywood fundraiser, their sharp banter masking the pragmatic compromises inherent in political life. Amidst this rising tension, Bartlet announces his daughter Zoey's visit and his plan to make chili for everyone, a fleeting moment of domestic warmth and attempted normalcy. However, Josh's anxiety, a silent hum beneath the White House's surface, intensifies. He subtly probes Sam about the evacuation card, a desperate attempt to share his burden. Sam's blank stare, his genuine ignorance of any such card, delivers a crushing blow: Josh truly stands alone, his secret protection a profound isolation. The act expertly builds a sense of pervasive unease, demonstrating how unseen forces and personal secrets can unravel the carefully constructed composure of the White House.
During a dense Roosevelt Room budget briefing, President Bartlet punctures the technical fog with an intimate, paternal announcement: his daughter Zoey is in town and he’s hosting a chili night. …
A Roosevelt Room meeting careens from fiscal seriousness into a domestic beat — Zoey's visit and Bartlet's announced chili night — before Mandy proposes a Hollywood fundraiser and Toby erupts. …
After the brisk Oval and senior staff meeting, Josh corners Sam in the communications office to ask about the NSC "evacuation" cards. His tentative questioning — framed around whether Sam …
In the Roosevelt Room a conservation group stages a theatrical pitch, projecting images of Pluie the wolf to argue for an 1,800-mile, wolves-only roadway from Yellowstone to the Yukon. C.J. …
Conservationists present Pluie, a celebrated wolf, and unveil a fanciful 1,800-mile wolves-only roadway. C.J. punctures the romanticism with sharp, political pragmatism — reframing the debate around struggling ranchers, budgets, and …
Mandy knocks on Toby's office and deliberately softens the political sparring: she approaches to parry conflict over Posner and offers an unexpected compliment — that Toby is better than David …
Mandy enters Toby's office to press for Posner's influence but meets sarcasm instead. She pivots from political positioning to a personal, disarming compliment — praising Toby as a better Communications …
Act Three plunges into the emotional core of the episode, exposing the vulnerabilities beneath the polished exteriors of the White House staff. C.J. navigates a 'Big Block of Cheese Day' appointment with conservationists advocating for 'Pluie,' a tracked wolf. Her initial sharp wit and pragmatic dismissal of a fantastical wolves-only roadway give way to genuine heartbreak when Pluie's death is revealed, forcing C.J. to confront the tangible cost of policy debates and the value of non-human life. Simultaneously, Mandy, through an ill-timed attempt at kindness, unwittingly ignites Toby's simmering insecurity, revealing he was not President Bartlet's first choice for Communications Director. Toby, agitated and feeling marginalized, seeks C.J.'s counsel, his professional facade cracking under the weight of personal validation. The act's emotional apex arrives as Josh, haunted by the green card and the smallpox article, seeks out his psychiatrist, Stanley. He confesses his inexplicable humming of Schubert's 'Ave Maria,' a melody that drags him back to the memory of his deceased sister, Joanie. Through Stanley's precise questioning, Josh finally stumbles into the raw, unaddressed trauma of Joanie's death in a house fire, a childhood memory he has never fully articulated. The green card's meaning refracts through this devastating revelation: it is not merely a survival tool, but a symbol of exclusion, mirroring his childhood experience of running out of the burning house alone, leaving Joanie behind. This act brutally connects Josh's present anxieties to his deepest, most primal fears of abandonment and solitary survival.
Josh arrives at his psychiatrist Stanley's office after an unsettling morning: a New Yorker report about smallpox, a mysterious green evacuation card he alone received, and an obsessive replay of …
In a sunlit, tense therapy session Josh arrives evasive and flippant but is quietly interrogated by Stanley. Two seemingly minor triggers — an obsessive humming of Schubert's 'Ave Maria' and …
Act Four propels the narrative toward its emotional and thematic climax, as the disparate anxieties coalesce into a powerful affirmation of human connection. Josh, still trapped in the chilling logic of the green card and the terrifying implications of smallpox, finally unburdens himself to C.J. He paints a vivid, terrifying picture of global contagion, his professional imagination entwined with private terror, revealing his profound fear of being separated from his friends. C.J., ever practical yet deeply empathetic, offers not solutions, but the simple, grounding comfort of chili and company, a domestic anchor against the rising tide of dread. Meanwhile, Toby, emboldened by his earlier vulnerability, directly confronts President Bartlet about his insecurity regarding being a second choice. Bartlet responds with surprising, expansive honesty, confessing his initial hesitation but affirming Toby's irreplaceable value, defusing a personal crisis and reaffirming their bond. The moral center of the episode converges in the White House residence. Bartlet, making chili for everyone, delivers a tender, inclusive toast. He celebrates 'these women'—C.J., Mandy, Mrs. Landingham, Donna—acknowledging their unseen labors and courage, and lifts his glass 'to absent friends, and the ones that are here now,' explicitly embracing his staff as a fiercely protective family. In this moment of profound communal affirmation, Josh makes his definitive choice. Standing before Bartlet and Leo, he produces the green card and unequivocally rejects it, declaring his unwavering allegiance to his friends, his family, and 'these women.' This powerful gesture transmutes bureaucratic paperwork into a moral declaration, asserting that in a world fraught with unseen dangers, human ties and shared vulnerability are the ultimate forms of survival. The episode resolves not by eliminating the threat, but by affirming the enduring strength of community.
Late at night Josh sits with Schubert's 'Ave Maria,' lost in a private panic. C.J. barges in with wine and a blunt, human remedy — chili and company — after …
Alone in his office with Schubert's 'Ave Maria' playing, Josh confronts a concrete symbol of institutional panic: an N.S.C. evacuation card handed to him but not to others. C.J. tries …
A convivial reception around the White House residence momentarily softens the night's tension: Bartlet mock-coaches Sam in basketball fundamentals, teases Mrs. Landingham about beer, and presides as the genial, competitive …
In the middle of a convivial late-night reception, Bartlet’s offhand tease of Mrs. Landingham — asking if she’s been drinking and taking her beer — indexes the familial warmth and …
At a light White House reception C.J. calmly, wittily corrects alarmist talk — using disarming statistics to deflate a myth about wolves and recent scares — re-centering the room with …
Toby interrupts a lighthearted White House reception to confront President Bartlet about their recent distance and the still-raw worry that he was second choice for Communications Director. Bartlet answers with …
In the Residence kitchen Josh sneaks up on Zoey while she cooks chili, producing a quick, domestic moment that reveals the staff's easy affection and unofficial family bonds. The playful …
In the Residence kitchen Zoey Bartlet stages a small rebellion: while Josh hovers, visibly tense, Charlie arrives with an almost comically formal presidential instruction forbidding extra cumin. Zoey immediately coaxes …
In a warm, slightly comic Residence gathering—wolves, vending machines and chili punctuating the mood—Josh produces a green evacuation card and publicly refuses it, calling it a "white flag of surrender." …
In the Residence at night, after lighthearted conversation and a family-style toast, Josh produces the green evacuation card he's been carrying and refuses it publicly. Faced with the symbolic offer …