Abbey Takes Charge — Private Illness Meets Public Crisis
Plot Beats
The narrative micro-steps within this event
Abbey arrives, immediately diagnosing Bartlet with professional precision while ordering treatments, asserting medical authority.
Abbey forces privacy and Bartlet deflects with humor before admitting to fainting episodes, confirming his MS symptoms.
Abbey administers medication as Bartlet confesses geopolitical crises; their banter masks Abbey's concealed terror.
Bartlet succumbs to medication while Abbey fights back tears—years of concealed MS trauma surfacing.
Who Was There
Characters present in this moment
Alert and deferential; respectfully anxious but professionally composed, eager to follow orders and protect the President's privacy.
Charlie stands watch at the bedside, fetches Abbey's bag when asked, responds deferentially to Abbey's instructions and leaves the room to give the couple privacy, maintaining protocol and discretion.
- • Provide unobtrusive logistical support to the President and Abbey
- • Follow Abbey's medical instructions precisely
- • Protect the President's privacy by clearing the room
- • The First Lady/physician's authority should be deferred to in medical emergencies
- • Privacy and decorum are essential in the occupant's bedroom
- • His role is to serve and step back when senior actors take charge
Surface composure and flirtatiousness masking fatigue and a brittle anxiety about losing control; relieved to surrender to sleep but resistant to appearing weak.
Sitting up on the presidential bed, Bartlet alternates between phone work, flirtation, and minimization: reporting on Kashmir, apologizing about breaking the pitcher, groaning at the injection, and ultimately lying down to sleep as Abbey triages him.
- • Maintain the appearance of capability and control despite illness
- • Stay informed about the Kashmir situation and keep contributing to decisions
- • Deflect personal concern with humor to soothe Abbey and staff
- • Disclosing physical weakness risks political damage
- • Operational problems (Kashmir) are his responsibility even while ill
- • Affection and banter can defuse tension and preserve normalcy
Calm professionalism masking concern; accepts civilian physician authority and acts to implement clinical orders without theatricality.
Admiral Hackett conducts and reports a blood test, answers Abbey’s clinical questions about vitals, and defers to her prescriptions before stepping out as requested, demonstrating professional deference and procedure.
- • Stabilize the patient medically and provide accurate readings
- • Defer to the physician in charge for treatment decisions
- • Maintain clinical order and confidentiality
- • Chain of command in medical care requires deferring to the attending physician
- • Accurate vitals and measurements are central to immediate triage
- • Operational secrecy and discretion in presidential health matters are paramount
Objects Involved
Significant items in this scene
The Steuben glass pitcher is mentioned by Bartlet as having been broken in the Oval Office earlier; though not present in the bedroom, the broken pitcher functions as a tactile clue that the fainting episode had a physical aftermath and as a domestic symbol that the veneer of control has cracked.
Abbey takes Hackett's clipboard, reads the recorded vitals aloud (temperature, pulse, blood pressure) from it, and uses that data to issue immediate medical orders — the clipboard functions as the tactile medical record that legitimizes her authority at the bedside.
Flumadine is ordered verbally by Abbey (100 milligrams twice daily) as the antiviral response to the President's fever; it functions narratively as the concrete medical intervention bridging domestic care and institutional stability.
A Flumadine injection syringe is used by Abbey to deliver a dose at the bedside — the syringe is the instrument that converts her orders into immediate, physical care and underscores the intimacy and seriousness of the intervention.
Abbey removes her jacket on entry and places it on a chair, signaling the transition from visitor/spouse to clinician-in-command; the jacket marks the shift from public appearance to private, urgent care.
Abbey takes and repositions the pillow behind the President's head to stabilize him as she tucks him into bed — the pillow provides immediate physical comfort and underscores the domestic tenderness beneath clinical action.
Location Details
Places and their significance in this event
The President's bedroom serves as the intimate, domestic site where medical triage and political pressure collide: phones and Situation Room updates intrude on a bedside injection, private care blends with national consequence, and the room becomes the locus where vulnerability and command meet.
The Oval Office is referenced by Bartlet when he admits breaking the Steuben pitcher there; it functions indirectly as the stage of the earlier collapse and a public-space marker whose damaged domestic object signals a breach of presidential composure.
The West Wing hallway/administration is invoked by Abbey when she reassures Jed that Leo is in the West Wing; it functions as the administrative backbone that will carry forward operations while bedside triage occurs.
The Situation Room is narratively present via Fitzwallace's report and Bartlet's line — it supplies the military-intelligence pressure (movement in Kashmir) that slices into the bedroom scene and heightens the stakes of the medical emergency.
Nantucket appears as a referenced location from a past fainting episode — Abbey uses it as a diagnostic touchstone to compare the current event to history, deepening the sense that this is a recurring condition with private precedents.
Narrative Connections
How this event relates to others in the story
"Leo's initial intervention in Bartlet's medical care transitions to Abbey taking over, showing the shifting dynamics of authority and care."
Key Dialogue
"ABBEY: "He's lying. Give him Flumadine, 100 milligrams, twice a day.""
"ABBEY: "I don't care if Canada invaded Michigan, Jed. You call me.""
"BARTLET: "Fitzwallace says the Pakistanis are giving command control to some nuclear weapons to the field.""