Hello wonderful followers! It’s TV Tuesday and I’m back with a regular post this week! Today I’m going to be talking about season three of The West Wing. How appropriate as it’s election day in the USA today.

We return right exactly where we left off, with the president announcing if he’s going to run for another term; the answer is of course yes. I had no doubts that he would run. I’m sure Martin Sheen is in the whole show, but then I thought the same thing with Mischa Barton on The O.C and I was completely wrong about that, so we’ll see.

Anyways we spend a lot of time dealing with the president having the public know about his MS. They jump around a lot from that same night to three weeks later, which gets a little disorienting.

As things die down, things go make to whatever normal is.

It’s not a big plot, but I wanted to mention it because Sam is trying to get rid of the penny and that makes me laugh because we here in Canada haven’t had the penny for 3 years now, almost 4, and the US still has those annoying useless coins.

Donna finds herself in a bit of hot water. She is set up with a guy who she shouldn’t even be seen talking to because of his position. But they like each other so they see each other once anyways. Things gets bad when she is subpoenaed to court (as everyone else is), and she lies as that same guy is the one interviewing her, and he knows she’s lying because he saw what she’s lying about (owning a journal) when he was in her apartment. But he can get in trouble if he says she’s lying because how would he know that. Donna gets Josh to help her, and I really hope this plot goes somewhere more than just “it’s going to be ok”.

Sadly that was where it ended.

What I’ve noticed a lot while watching this show is that the US military always seems to find themselves with casualties. Something is always happening; I wonder if that’s true to real life, but man. Then the president doesn’t even understand it, yikes. Thank goodness he has Leo because Leo knows what is happening.

I’ve also noticed this season that the president seems dumber; like what was that scene with the butterball turkey hotline? He just seems to be a hot mess, and I don’t know if I’d vote for him this season.

We also find out that the president’s wife may, okay not may, will give Jed trouble with his re-election plans. They are going into all of her history as a practicing doctor, and we learn that she gave Jed medical injects to help with his MS, without writing a prescription, which a big no no. She’s losing her licence for a year, which sucks, but it could be worse.

CJ and Charlie are really going at each other this season. At first it just started out as silly pranks between the two, but now it feels like a little mean. As much as I like their bickering I liked it better when they got along. But I have to admit I like when she calls him Chuckles heehee.

Speaking of getting into it, Toby and the president also get into a huge fight. Toby accuses Jed of his father hitting him as a kid, which really gets to Jed because it’s true. It’s true because his father never liked him, and thought Jed was smarter than him so he would hit him. It’s truly moving television.

Josh finds himself in love perhaps. So Joey is no longer a love interest to him, which I find a little sad, but I guess it would be a conflict of interest since they work together, she making polls for them and all. Instead he starts to date this woman named Amy, who we the audience have never met, but Josh knows very well. She’s very supportive of women’s rights, and isn’t really Josh’s type, but somehow they work? I’m not too excited about the pair, but I have a feeling they won’t last forever.

On top of this Josh gets himself lost in Internet trolls pretty much talking about him on a website. He gets so caught up in it that almost gets himself in trouble… almost.

Just like the president almost gets them all in trouble when he calls the opposing runner for president, Ritchie, stupid while on camera. They’re all claiming it as a mistake he didn’t realize the camera was still on, but we find out it was all a ploy to call him stupid, without calling him stupid, sneaky.

We get a little glance into CJ’s life about her father and how it’s hinted he may have Alzheimer’s, I find little touches like this really give the show that much more depth and make the characters truly convincing.

I haven’t talked much about Sam because well Sam hasn’t done anything interesting other than flirt with Ansley, and doubt his job a bunch. He’s being used this season as more of little comic relief.

He does have a brief fuck-up where he is mailed hate mail for President Bartlet, and he trusts the wrong person, and that backfires. Poor Sam. He, like the other characters also helps to keep President Bartlet elected, which is what this season is about.

As we make our way to the end, it comes out that the Vice President is a recovering alcoholic, that the audience has all known for quite some time, the kicker, he’s been a recovering alcoholic since he was 22, 22!

It’s looking like they want to replace the current Vice President with Leo, but the public doesn’t want a recovering alcoholic as their VP, well they’re all in for a shock seeing as their current one is too.

CJ’s life gets crazy as she gets death threats. At first she doesn’t take it seriously, it isn’t until they show her photos of her being stalked that she realizes it’s serious. She gets a body guard to follow her around, Agent Simon Donovan. You can tell that they totally have a thing for each other, but obviously that’s a very big conflict of interest.

I do like when she wants to shoot a gun and she falls over, while he just bangs out five shots perfectly.

Josh’s girlfriend is also a very big conflict of interest. She is all for women’s rights and when she finds out Josh and the presidential staff are planning a welfare bill, this costs some of Bartlet’s vote, and the president is pissed at Josh.

I wonder how long this relationship will last, if the rest of this season.

Random plot that I thought was stupid, but funny. North Dakota wants to change the name of the state because they aren’t getting enough tourism, and the North makes it sound bad and cold. How dumb, but Donna gets to deal with it that I think is great, she’s getting more rolls than just being a secretary.

Before I talk about the season finale I want to talk about the two special episodes they aired this season. The first being the one before the season premier. The episode was a tribute to the 9-11 attacks.  The episode starts with Josh showing a group of high school students the white house when something, we aren’t told what it is, but it’s blatant what they are trying to say it is (the attack). So everyone is stuck in a room, and one by one all the characters show up to talk to the students, and they talk about terrorism and why the US is always targeted. I think it was a good, supportive episode to the tragedies that happened.

The second is a documentary type episode where they take clips from the show and have actual real past presidents (Bill Clinton being one) and others who have worked at the White House talk about how the show reflects real life. I’m real sad that I only got to see the last 10 minutes because YouTube decided to delete the first three parts, but not the fourth, no idea why. I’m sad because within those last 10 minutes it was so interesting. I’m sure the rest was even better. If anyone knows a place I can watch it, please comment below!

Now let’s get to that season finale. Okay so they need to stop killing off good people! I wasn’t sure what I was going to get with this episode, but I can say I wasn’t disappointed. At first I was, but then it got very dramatic.

So the president is on his way to a long play in New York, while things are going on in the background, things that he doesn’t quite agree on. I’m not 100% sure what the deals were as they have to do with things bigger than the president, and it’s going to have big consequences next season. That probably wasn’t the best description, but I’m not here to watch the politics of this show.

Moving on, as that is happening we find out that the guy who was hunting CJ has been caught so her and Simon take no time to making out, okay it’s more of just a very romantic kiss. I’m very happy that they can finally be together! But of course we can’t have that.

While at a convenience store he runs into two guys robbing it, caught in the crossfire he gets shot, and dies. I was so sad, and they played Jeff Buckley’s ‘Hallelujah’. As soon as I heard the opening notes I knew he was dead. Why did they have to make CJ sad?

I’m assuming this was a trope to get Danny back in her life, wherever the hell he went. I swear I’m telling you they just drop characters like they’re nothing.

Next season I’m hoping we find out the future of if Jed will be president again, I can’t wait to find out. I hope they don’t dance around that.