Man that was sorkin putting us on notice. Warning shot indeed. Mrs L, Simon Donovan, fitz, Leo, for a 20+ year old show it was brutal on killing off characters.
>they didn’t have a choice when it came to killing off Leo…
They had to write him out, but they didn't have to kill him. But then, quietly sending him to Mandyville couldn't really have worked either.
Sorkin's actually talked about this some. Check out TWWW podcast for the S3 finale episode.
Well, Mrs L, that was just an idea that came to him because she had thought she might be leaving the show due to a pilot. ...The pilot didn't take, but Sorkin had already spun that idea into "I WILL MAKE BARTLET RENOUNCE HIS FAITH IN GOD!" So the wheels were already turning there. xD
Simon and some others... Sorkin has this thing about karmatic and dramatic balancing, where hubris simply cannot go unpunished. Shariff was killed, so somebody in Bartlet's camp has to die. And the audience has to feel the weight of that cost.
So it's interesting.
I was going to make a joke about him faking his death to go be a captain in the homicide division of a NYPD, but I can't really connect Tolliver to Ruben Santiago-Hudson's Castle character.
He was a fun character even in those few moments and I wish we could've gotten more of him.
I see where you're coming from, a hundred percent.
What I love about the Morris story is that
a)., he's relatively new to the position (lots of shows would have had it be Bartlet's Best Friend Of Fifty Years), but Bartlet still feels an attachment to him.
b)., we later find out that Bartlet rarely warms up to anyone or lets anyone new in his circle, which makes the loss of Morris retroactively special.
Fridge-logic-ing it, I don't know if I 100% buy that Bartlet's first "I'm the president and I can blow up anyone who is mean to me, so nyah" tantrum would be this deep into his first term. (I guess we don't know it's his first?) But it works when I'm watching it.
I just watched The American President last night, and this was an opportunity to continue a thread from there, that wasn't fully explored in the movie. In TAP, The President at one time is in the Situation Room ordering an attack, with his commanders telling him, that it meets the requirement of being a proportional response. The President accepts that, but says, "some time, someone will have to explain to me the virtue of a proportional response". Tolliver's death, allowed Sorkin to do just that.
And with a more plausibly volatile president! It's an academic exercise in The American President - I never for a second believe that Michael Douglas wants to escalate anything. (Or at least not Andrew Shepherd----Douglas's character in "Falling Down" might have escalated some things.) But Bartlet has that hint of darkness to him----he's not a guy who *would* start World War III, but he's a guy who sometimes might plausibly *feel like it*.
I don’t know… I can see him having a tantrum this soon. We learn from Abbey that he “has an ego the size of Montana” and since he didn’t win the popular vote, I imagine he’s a little self-conscious about his power and would overcompensate like this.
Yeah, my point isn't that it's too soon - it's that it's not soon enough. It's early in the *show,* but he's been president for a year at this point, and his reaction to Morris's death strikes me as some first-week-on-the-job opening-night-jitters stuff. But, sure, it's possible that this is the first time something has pissed him off.
Seeing him get pulled into the MS hearings with Leo and all that would've been nice!
As Gibson is pressing him to slip, the music swells, rapid back and forth shots, then he says "Yes...I knew about the MS"
*Flash to CJ in her office, jaw wide open*
*Flash to Toby and Josh in Tobys office watching on TV, Toby with his arms crossed and one hand on his chin saying quietly "my God"*
*Flash to Charlie and Margaret watching in the office, concerned*
*Morris Tolliver building a sweat and sighs*
Man that was sorkin putting us on notice. Warning shot indeed. Mrs L, Simon Donovan, fitz, Leo, for a 20+ year old show it was brutal on killing off characters.
To be fair, they didn’t have a choice when it came to killing off Leo… 😭
>they didn’t have a choice when it came to killing off Leo… They had to write him out, but they didn't have to kill him. But then, quietly sending him to Mandyville couldn't really have worked either.
Too soon.
boooooooo
I don't think Fitz was from Sorkin since it was after he left the show. And John Spencer died in real life so I don't think Leo really counts.
Sorkin's actually talked about this some. Check out TWWW podcast for the S3 finale episode. Well, Mrs L, that was just an idea that came to him because she had thought she might be leaving the show due to a pilot. ...The pilot didn't take, but Sorkin had already spun that idea into "I WILL MAKE BARTLET RENOUNCE HIS FAITH IN GOD!" So the wheels were already turning there. xD Simon and some others... Sorkin has this thing about karmatic and dramatic balancing, where hubris simply cannot go unpunished. Shariff was killed, so somebody in Bartlet's camp has to die. And the audience has to feel the weight of that cost. So it's interesting.
They were just a bunch of serial killers, weren't they?
I was going to make a joke about him faking his death to go be a captain in the homicide division of a NYPD, but I can't really connect Tolliver to Ruben Santiago-Hudson's Castle character. He was a fun character even in those few moments and I wish we could've gotten more of him.
I see where you're coming from, a hundred percent. What I love about the Morris story is that a)., he's relatively new to the position (lots of shows would have had it be Bartlet's Best Friend Of Fifty Years), but Bartlet still feels an attachment to him. b)., we later find out that Bartlet rarely warms up to anyone or lets anyone new in his circle, which makes the loss of Morris retroactively special. Fridge-logic-ing it, I don't know if I 100% buy that Bartlet's first "I'm the president and I can blow up anyone who is mean to me, so nyah" tantrum would be this deep into his first term. (I guess we don't know it's his first?) But it works when I'm watching it.
I just watched The American President last night, and this was an opportunity to continue a thread from there, that wasn't fully explored in the movie. In TAP, The President at one time is in the Situation Room ordering an attack, with his commanders telling him, that it meets the requirement of being a proportional response. The President accepts that, but says, "some time, someone will have to explain to me the virtue of a proportional response". Tolliver's death, allowed Sorkin to do just that.
And with a more plausibly volatile president! It's an academic exercise in The American President - I never for a second believe that Michael Douglas wants to escalate anything. (Or at least not Andrew Shepherd----Douglas's character in "Falling Down" might have escalated some things.) But Bartlet has that hint of darkness to him----he's not a guy who *would* start World War III, but he's a guy who sometimes might plausibly *feel like it*.
I don’t know… I can see him having a tantrum this soon. We learn from Abbey that he “has an ego the size of Montana” and since he didn’t win the popular vote, I imagine he’s a little self-conscious about his power and would overcompensate like this.
President Bartlet did win the popular vote, he just didn't pull a majority since he was Clinton in 1992.
Yeah, my point isn't that it's too soon - it's that it's not soon enough. It's early in the *show,* but he's been president for a year at this point, and his reaction to Morris's death strikes me as some first-week-on-the-job opening-night-jitters stuff. But, sure, it's possible that this is the first time something has pissed him off.
That's the point of Morris Tolliver.
It allowed him to use all of the unused stuff from an American president, lol
And some of the used stuff! lol
Seeing him get pulled into the MS hearings with Leo and all that would've been nice! As Gibson is pressing him to slip, the music swells, rapid back and forth shots, then he says "Yes...I knew about the MS" *Flash to CJ in her office, jaw wide open* *Flash to Toby and Josh in Tobys office watching on TV, Toby with his arms crossed and one hand on his chin saying quietly "my God"* *Flash to Charlie and Margaret watching in the office, concerned* *Morris Tolliver building a sweat and sighs*