Tehran
Detailed Involvements
Events with rich location context
Tehran is functionally off-stage but narratively central: it is the origin of the clandestine communication about the Ayatollah's son's illness, and the political dynamics there (hardliners, Majlis, missile tests) directly shape how the plea is packaged and routed.
Opaque and tense in depiction—political pressure, secrecy, and risk govern Tehran's posture in the exchange.
Source of the humanitarian request and the political constraint that forces deniability and intermediary channels.
Represents a foreign polity whose internal politics complicate humanitarian appeals and force diplomacy into shadowed intermediaries.
Externally accessible only through intermediaries and neutral diplomatic channels.
Tehran is the stated origin of the sensitive communication; its political environment — hardliner control of the Majlis and Shehab missile tests — frames the Ayatollah's need for deniability and the urgency and complexity of accepting aid from the U.S.
Politically fraught and surveilled (as described), where domestic factional pressures shape how elites make life-or-death decisions.
Source of the plea and the political constraints that force intermediated messaging.
Represents the foreign, adversarial actor whose private human needs expose vulnerabilities and force moral choices across national divides.
Effectively closed to direct U.S. influence; communications must move through neutral intermediaries and NGOs.
Tehran is the ultimate political and medical destination context — the origin of the request and the final air leg; its distance (15 hours) is cited to underscore organ viability constraints.
Distant yet determinative — the political center whose sensitivities drive the diplomatic caution voiced in the room.
Destination and political context for the transplant request.
Embodies the geopolitical stakes and the origin of sensitive diplomacy.
Subject to Iranian control and intense political scrutiny.
Tehran is invoked by Leo as the source of accelerating medium-range missile tests; its mention expands the stakes from a private mentoring moment to international security concerns, making Sam's political decision consequential on the global stage.
Not physically present; invoked as a distant, menacing geopolitical presence that injects urgency.
Remote actor and source of national security pressure that demands attention and NSC convening.
Represents the immediacy of foreign threats that can upend domestic preoccupations.
Foreign capital; access mediated through diplomats and intelligence channels.
Tehran is invoked as the remote origin of geopolitical pressure: intelligence that its missile tests will accelerate reframes the domestic political snafu as an international security problem, forcing the White House to balance immediate political clean-up with longer-term responses.
Ominous and external—an unseen threat whose actions ripple into the Oval's late-night deliberations.
Foreign actor and strategic pressure point that demands NSC attention and constrains presidential options.
Embodies the external consequences of domestic missteps and the thin margin between politics and national security.
Distant and sovereign—access only via diplomacy, intelligence, or military options.
Events at This Location
Everything that happens here
Fresh off a decisive re‑election, President Bartlet strolls into the Oval Office trading gleeful, self‑assured jabs with C.J. and Leo — a comic, domineering display that reasserts his mandate and …
Fresh off a triumphant, jokey post-election stroll, Bartlet's world abruptly tilts when Leo meets Ambassador Von Rutte with a covert plea from Tehran: the Ayatollah's teenage son needs a simultaneous …
In a brisk, tensioned scene that pivots the episode, Bartlet and Leo move from hallway banter into a fraught Situation Room briefing and Bartlet makes the moral call to proceed. …
Sam Seaborn comes to the Oval seeking counsel as his congressional campaign crystallizes; President Bartlet, with a mix of affection and severity, effectively anoints him the Democratic nominee and charges …
In the Oval late at night Bartlet gives Sam a terse, parent-to-protégé charge — acknowledges him as the de facto nominee, presses him to run toward his convictions, and delivers …