Redacting the Sex-Ed Report
Plot Beats
The narrative micro-steps within this event
Bartlet and Mandy read and react to the explicit content of the sex-education report, with Bartlet censoring certain passages.
Mrs. Landingham interrupts to inform Mandy that the Lydells are waiting, prompting Mandy's departure to handle the situation.
Bartlet refuses to share the report's contents with Mrs. Landingham, citing personal discomfort.
Bartlet continues to censor the report, reverting to his earlier discomfort with its explicit content.
Who Was There
Characters present in this moment
Dry amusement and guarded embarrassment masking a desire to control the tone and avoid turning a clinical passage into personal exposure.
As President, Jed Bartlet sits with Mandy reading the sex-education report aloud and then silently; he refuses to vocalize explicit language, scribbles over words, replies tersely to Mrs. Landingham, and preserves a private boundary.
- • Understand the contents of the report without compromising personal dignity.
- • Maintain presidential decorum and avoid turning the passage into a spectacle.
- • Protect the administration from clumsy public language while preserving private boundaries.
- • Explicit language about sexuality is professionally unnecessary and personally hazardous.
- • Certain private reactions are better contained than aired, especially in the Oval Office.
- • Presidential comportment requires minimizing opportunities for ridicule or misinterpretation.
Professional composure tinged with private impatience; she defers to the President while mentally shifting to the incoming grieving family and optics management.
Mandy stands with the President, follows his lead while reading the report, prompts logistical questions about C.J., accepts the instruction to go meet the Lydells, and departs to perform a public-relations duty.
- • Ensure the grieving Lydells are managed sensitively and the optics are controlled.
- • Confirm whether communications (C.J.) are prepped and aligned before engaging the family.
- • Maintain the President's calm presentation during a potentially fraught public moment.
- • Public grief must be shepherded carefully for humane and political reasons.
- • Communications staff (C.J.) must be coordinated with before major interpersonal encounters.
- • Appearances in the Oval and the Mural Room directly affect the administration's narrative.
Calm professionalism with quiet insistence; she balances respect for the President's privacy with duty to inform and facilitate family contact.
Mrs. Landingham enters, announces the Lydells waiting in the Mural Room, confirms C.J.'s presence outside, requests to see the report politely, and accepts the President's refusal before leaving—acting as domestic gatekeeper and practical executor.
- • Ensure the grieving family is promptly and correctly received by the President or staff.
- • Fulfill her custodial role by asking necessary practical questions, including whether to see the report.
- • Maintain household order and timing for official encounters.
- • The President's schedule and the family's needs must be balanced efficiently.
- • Practical knowledge (like the contents of a report) helps her manage the President's interactions.
- • Personal discomfort should be subordinated to the functioning of the household and ceremony.
Objects Involved
Significant items in this scene
The commissioned sex‑education report is the focal prop: Bartlet reads its blunt findings, repeatedly censors a specific sexual term by scribbling on the page, and uses the document as both information and a shield against saying the word aloud. It catalyzes embarrassment and precipitates a choice about disclosure when Mrs. Landingham asks to see it.
Location Details
Places and their significance in this event
The Mural Room functions offstage as the waiting area where the grieving Lydells sit, its mention creating pressure on the Oval's conversation and forcing Mandy's exit. The room's existence compresses private deliberation into urgent public responsiveness, turning an intimate exchange into a staged encounter awaiting immediate attention.
The Oval Office serves as the private, ceremonial space where sensitive reading and presidential boundary‑setting occur. Its intimacy allows Bartlet to refuse vocalization and scribble over the report, while Mrs. Landingham's entrance from the threshold highlights the room's role as both sanctuary and workplace where private embarrassments bump into public duties.
Narrative Connections
How this event relates to others in the story
"The sex-ed report's arrival triggers Bartlet's personal engagement with its content."
"The sex-ed report's arrival triggers Bartlet's personal engagement with its content."
Key Dialogue
"BARTLET: "The majority of young people move from kissing to more intimate sexual behaviors during their teenage years. More than 50 percent engage in petting behavior. That's what I think it is, right?""
"BARTLET: "By the age of 14, more than 25 percent have touched a girl's... I won't say that word.""
"MRS. LANDINGHAM: "Would you like to share what's in that report, sir?" / BARTLET: "With you?" / MRS. LANDINGHAM: "Yes." / BARTLET: "No." / MRS. LANDINGHAM: "May I ask why not, sir?" / BARTLET: "Because I'd rather not be in therapy for the rest of my life.""