Written by Aaron Sorkin, Lawrence O’Donnell, and Patrick Caddell
Directed by Michael Lehmann

The fourth episode of the series sets the tone for what it’s going to be like. There’s lots of walking and talking, plenty of drama, and just enough humor to keep it from getting too serious. Yes, we are talking about a series about the White House and what was then considered the leader of the free world. It can be about as serious as you can get. If there isn’t a break in the more serious topics, it would be overwhelming. Just like in real life.

President Bartlet (Martin Sheen) is giving a speech at a banquet when Leo receives a call that a piece of gun control legislation they were championing is now down by five votes in Congress. The staff immediately goes into crisis mode. Back at the White House, they order Chinese takeout and try to figure out how to get the five votes back before the vote in three days.

Chief of Staff Leo McGarry (John Spencer) returns home to a wife who is upset that he stayed in DC four hours after the event ended. Apparently, it was their anniversary, and he completely forgot. Jenny (Sara Botsford) is struggling with all of the time he is devoting to his job.

It’s financial disclosure time, and Communications Director Toby Ziegler (Richard Schiff) ends up being investigated for insider trading after a stock he bought increased in value from $5,000 to $125,000 in a year. That seems so cute now.

Deputy Chief of Staff Josh Lyman (Bradley Whitford) gets the names of the five votes they are down. He wants to strong-arm them into compliance by threatening to primary them. One of them is a good friend of Josh’s who feels ignored. He has managed to pull all but one back into voting for the bill. Leo doesn’t want to involve Vice President Hoynes (Tim Matheson), so he goes and talks to one of the Congressmen directly. It doesn’t go well for him. They’re back to involving Vice President Hoynes.

Leo arrives home that night and finds out his wife is leaving him. He says his job is more important than his marriage. His meeting with Hoynes happens after that. Leo is distressed about the breakup, so he tells Hoynes about it. Hoynes immediately agrees to bring the vote back to the fold. Hoynes invites Leo to a private AA meeting he organizes.

The staff asks Leo how his dinner went, and Leo lies about having dinner with Jenny. The President is having back problems and accidentally takes too much pain medicine before appearing in the West Wing.

Hoynes uses this vote as a way of boosting his status and generating talk about him running for President. The staff knows they fell right into it, but it’s what had to be done.

I’ve often said politics is a game of baby steps. Progress doesn’t happen as quickly as many people would like, and Five Votes Down illustrates that perfectly. Not only is it a fight to get the legislation passed, but the legislation really doesn’t do much but ban a few models of guns while leaving plenty of others that aren’t in the bill available that do the same thing. The bill really doesn’t do much, but it’s important to make a bit of progress. That argument is given by one of the Congressmen who has said he won’t vote for it. It’s really just symbolic, and he’ll vote for something that actually accomplishes something.

Josh Lyman: You know, I’m so sick of Congress, I could vomit.

The walk and talk following the President as he leaves the banquet at the conclusion of his speech is one of the longest ever done in the series. This was a new technique being used at the time. Sets were static, and a scene usually took place in one or the other. If the location of the shot changed, it switched to a different camera. The West Wing pioneered following the characters as they moved about with Steadicams for television.

The breakdown of Leo’s marriage shows the toll this type of job takes on people. You have to be dedicated to what you’re doing. It’s certainly not the pay, as various characters have already made the point that they have been paid more in the private sector. Why Leo won’t tell his friends right off is a bit of a mystery. He’s been thrown for a loop right before he meets with Hoynes, so he opens up to him almost as a reflex. It works, too, since this seems to break down the wall Hoynes has put up and makes him less combative. He was going to do it anyway, but he would have put Leo through the wringer any other time. It also gives Leo a place he can turn to when he wants a drink.

Josh strong-arming the Congressmen back into the fold of voting for the legislation is a little unnerving. His problem throughout the series will be his arrogance, being sure he’s right almost all the time. Nowhere is that more evident than here. Sure, the Congressman was wrong to jump ship after promising to vote for the bill, but is the answer to threaten him like this? I think these tactics make the staff look weak rather than strong. Almost thirty years later, I see that a tactic of the Right Wing, rather than the side that is supposed to value independent thinking.

The humor here is great. Allison Janney shows it in the beginning when she cannot stop her reaction to the news that they are five votes down. Later on, when President Bartlet takes too much of his back medication, he slips away from his personal aide, Charlie (Dulé Hill), and enters the Oval Office high on the medicine. At least his staff knows the crazy will wear off by the next morning. The financial disclosure storyline also adds humor as the staff must disclose the gifts they’ve received as well as any financial irregularities. Josh seems to get the craziest gifts from what can only be described as groupies, while Toby made a fluke investment that could end up causing a problem.

The humor is needed because it’s really sad that laws like this face such a battle and really don’t do much. Progress is slow and in small steps. The only time any progress was made quickly was during the desperation of the Depression Era, thanks to Franklin D. Roosevelt’s boldness. Too much right now is burdened by polls and our elected officials worrying about how voting for legislation will affect their ability ot be re-elected.

Five Votes Down is a well-written and acted demonstration of just how complicated it is to get things done in Washington DC. The characters have all been introduced and are now working together to keep the well-oiled machine of The West Wing functioning. Sometimes, it doesn’t work the way it should, and there’s humor. Sometimes, it works the way it should, and it doesn’t feel like you’ve really accomplished much.

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