delga | Omigod!

How the hell did I not get spoiled for this? (And thank holy heaven that I didn't because-- WOW).

Guests, welcome to the portion of the week wherein Meish fanaticises about the glory and gold that is The West Wing.

Can I just take a moment, please, to mourn the fact that next week's episode is the penultimate episode of the season? *mourns*

OK, well, now that's done with - HOLY FREAKIN' GUACAMOLE! Veep had an affair? Veep resigned?! Peeps, the world just ended. I swear to god.

Just an amazing story and what was fantastic about it was the way it was reverse engineered (like What Kind Of Day Has It Been) so we knew the climax, we just didn't know why. The way the plot was slowly pulled together was absolutely outstanding. It was amazing. It was just divine. I can't find the words for what I'm trying to say...I mean, just the slow building of tension, the humorous insets (oh god - Toby, you poor love), the way everything was aching and painful. I was so sceptical about Matthew Perry's role as Joe Quincy but damn - his facial expressions (as ever) were just spot on. I love the way that he was right all the way through; his reaction to his 'office' was far better than Ainsley's; his slow, dawning realisation of everything that could possibly be wrong...just WOW. I'm freakin gobsmacked. I'm off my head about this.

The fuck was that with the bird???

And the best things about this? I WAS NOT SPOILED FOR IT. Can you imagine how much more shitty this episode would have been had I known?? The plot came all the way out of left field (mostly because I didn't question why, in the S6 spoils, Hoynes was never mentioned). This episode (like 17 People) only works if you're unspoiled. Serious to god, my sister and I were sat there, we read the letter and it was sheer surprise. We went absolutely crazy. I had NO idea what the episode was going to hold and that was just SO clever because we knew what the conclusion would be but we had no idea how things could go so awfully wrong in 24 hours. Introducing the outcome right at the beginning does a multitude of things: it gets you hooked (undoubtedly so); it sets off questions; it makes the actual climax of the episode something far more subtle (more on that in a moment); it strikes the tension off hard so that as we're waltzing through the scene(s) with the bird and Toby's marriage-issue-disguised-as-salad-issues (and that stupid, stupid, stupid subplot with Will and the ~~pep squad~~ three-Laurens-plus-a-Cassie - I mean, come on. Joshua Malina is a goddamn god of a guy and they're passing him off with the side-show again? It's like Warrick and the Subplot Subbasement of Hell. Bloody hell!)...what was my sentence again? Oh yeh, as we're waltzing through the humour and CJ ribbing Joe Quincy we're always, always aware that something is about to blow up. And that's why Matthew Perry was so damn good - he added just frissons of tension to the stockpile we already had. Everytime there was another note about a leak, everytime there was another connection, everytime he walked into the room-- BAM! Another plot point. Sorkin builds up the elements so slowly and your attention doesn't wander because you know the bullet's flying towards you and you just can't sidestep it without being hit by a car and wow did this metaphor just run into a ditch. Uh, yeh.

The real climax of this episode is not Hoyne's resignation. We know that's coming - we just don't know why. When we first see the shot of that woman (Claire?) walking through The White House, I got the impression that Hoynes was resigning as a form of protest against POTUS for something. And then the second time around (when Quincy is in the shot too) we pan away from POTUS and there is a distinct sadness that is overwhelming. Because overall, Hoynes is a good guy. We know this, he has been consistently the good guy who just didn't get the team he needed, didn't get the right tools (and oh god did I feel for Josh right at that moment - so clever that the camera focused on him; so clever to pull out that clip from the first season; so so clever to have him pull away from the group first and then Quincy so we knew who teh main players were) and then this? A kick in the teeth. And it was so touching because he knew that he'd done something oh so very wrong. He was so humble about it. The real climax of the episode is when Joe has to confront Hoynes with the information. That's is just...that was just a phenomenal scene. So quiet, so subtle and simultaneously so powerful. Just...WOW.

Those diatribes of mine get damned long, don't they?

Dude, two more episodes to go - and next week's is a banger!