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Comment count is 5
John Holmes Motherfucker - 2017-04-30

I actually uploaded and submitted a version of this clip myself a couple of years ago, and it never got out of the hopper. The clip of Sheen's speech is one of the most popular things I ever uploaded, over 200,000 views. No doubt it's for all the wrong reasons.

I think the episode as a whole is an excellent piece of TV writing. What I love about it is that it makes the effort to eloquently express a point of view that it disputes. In the end, Bartlet backs away from raining down hellfire, and he does the usual proportional response thing, without saying much about it. What would REALLY make this self-righteous is a moment where Bartlett admits to Leo that he was wrong, and maybe makes a speech about how men aren't gods, or whatever lesson were's supposed to have learned. But Sorkin doesn't do that. He SHOWS us what the point of it all is, instead of TELLING us.


Nominal - 2017-05-01

Only 2 long-winded, righteous speeches instead of 3 then.

That Sorkin, what a shower.


John Holmes Motherfucker - 2017-05-01

Well, they were self-righteous in that the characters were being self-righteous, and also full of shit. Bartlett isn't going to make the streets run red with blood, and Leo isn't going to lead a revolution. But when Bartlett finally concludes that he has to do the traditional thing, because the alternatives are so horrifying, no one makes a speech about it.

You would expect that with so many speeches being made, and the total number of speeches in the episode is likely more like 12 or 13 than two or three, that the final decision is made quietly and almost in a matter of fact way is contrary to what one might expect.

There's a word for when things in art are deliberately contrary to what is expected. Do you know what that word is, Nominal? Why don't you surprise me.


chumbucket - 2017-05-01

drbitboy5 years ago
"Did you know that two-thousand years ago ..."

And so it begins ...


Hegemony Cricket - 2017-05-01

The amount of cocaine Sorkin consumed while showrunner was practically stamped into every script's fast walkin' & talkin' monologue.


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