Starbucks near Seattle
Detailed Involvements
Events with rich location context
The Starbucks near Seattle is invoked in Leo's anecdote about robbers who keep serving coffee; the remote, mundane location functions as a contrastive image to Washington politics and humanizes the opening banter.
Playful and absurd in memory — a slice of everyday life used to puncture political seriousness.
Anecdotal setting referenced to set tone and offer comic contrast.
Represents ordinary human persistence amid disorder; punctures grand political language with a small, vivid example.
The Starbucks near Seattle exists only as the setting of Leo's anecdote; it helps establish the casual, conversational tone at the opening of the scene and underscores the contrast between everyday absurdity and the Oval's emergent gravity.
Evocatively mundane and oddly comic in memory; used to soften the early beat of the scene.
Anecdotal framing device that humanizes senior staff before the pivot to crisis.
Represents ordinary life and low-stakes improvisation, contrasted with the high-stakes real improvisation that follows.
Events at This Location
Everything that happens here
Light, sardonic banter between Leo and Toby about patronage slots sharpens into a moral and political demand: Toby presses Leo to defend Karen Kroft — their loyal backbencher — against …
A tonal pivot: Leo and Toby's clipped, political banter about patronage and the need for a 'deep bench'—a small fight over who owes whom—gets interrupted. Margaret summons Leo to the …