You're listening to The West Wing Weekly. I'm Joshua Molina.

And I'm Rishi Kei Shereway. Today we're talking about Episode 9 from Season 5. It's called

Abu Il Binat. This episode was written by Deborah Khan. It was directed by Leslie Link

Aglater and it first aired on the third day of the 12th month. In the year 2003 of the

Common Era. This is Leslie Link Aglater's second episode in quick succession. She directed episode

7, I think as well. So not back to back. Not back to back, but close to it. Yeah. Here's what's

happening in this episode briefly. It's the Christmas tree lighting at the White House. The Bartlett

daughters are supposed to be coming to the White House for dinner, a rare chance for us to see them

altogether potentially. The DEA is prosecuting a doctor in Oregon for assisting a patient with

their death, which is legal in Oregon. This opens the door to a debate that Toby doesn't want to have.

So he tries to foisted it off onto the VP via Will Bailey. Doug, who is Liz's husband, the

son-in-law, he wants to run for Congress and won't take no for an answer, not from Josh and

not really from anyone. Twelve NGO workers in Sudan are arrested for proselytizing and the

administration waits in to defend all of them on what seems to be false charges, but then it

turns out that two of the 12 workers really were evangelists undercover who were proselytizing.

There it is. It must be tough to step into a Christmas episode, especially in the non-sorken

era that must feel daunting as a writer for Debra Khan, especially after the

traditional run of Emmys for Christmas episodes. That's a high level assignment.

How did you think she acquitted herself? I thought this episode was a little bit like

not great Christmas turkey, like a little undercooked and a little overstuffed.

Interesting. I wondered. I enjoyed this episode. I didn't find it. I don't think it's going to crack

a lot of top 10 lists, but I liked the, maybe I should attribute it to Debra. I was going to say

...