You're listening to The West Wing Weekly. I'm Rishikesh Hereway.

And I'm Joshua Molina. Thanks for sticking with us into season 5.

Today we're talking about episode 3 from season 5. It's called Jefferson Lives.

The stories by Carol Flint and Deborah Conn, the teleplay by Carol Flint, the direction

by Alex Graves and this episode first aired on October 8, 2003.

Might have been October when this aired, but in the episode it's the 4th of July.

But the mood at the White House is far from Joublant. The Bartlett's are trying to dig

a tunnel to recovery from the depths of the aftermath of Zoe's kidnapping.

The Bartlett administration is trying to build a bridge to the next election cycle by nominating

a strong choice for Vice President, Secretary of State Barry Hill.

With the brief and fragile bipartisan alliance that was cobbled together in crisis has already

fallen apart and the president must meet with a list of watered down candidates pre-approved

by the Republican Congressional leadership. Plus, CJ has a crisis of confidence.

And some things steam up between Amy and Josh.

Yeah they do. I thought that was palpably post-sorken.

Well, to jump right into that, Amy takes off her shoes and puts her feet on Josh's desk

and then they kiss. This is basically the 50 shades of grey episode of the West Wing.

Ha ha ha. Yeah. She should have had grey, yeah, polish.

We might have gone out of where Aaron Sorken would have taken us, but still only so, just

a tiny bit further. I mean, as we've commented in the past, this is like a shockingly scandalous

sexy romance scene. For sure, for the West Wing, this is darete.

That said, I liked it. I liked that scene, actually.

...