Enemies Foreign and Domestic
| "Enemies Foreign and Domestic" | |
|---|---|
| The West Wing episode | |
| Episode no. |
Season 3 Episode 18 |
| Directed by | Alex Graves |
| Written by |
Paul Redford Aaron Sorkin |
| Production code | 227219 |
| Original air date | May 1, 2002 |
| Guest actors | |
"Enemies Foreign and Domestic" is episode 62 of The West Wing. Dulé Hill, who plays Charlie Young, was nominated for an Emmy in 2002 for his performances in this and the Hartsfield's Landing episodes.[1]
Plot
As Sam finalizes the maddening details of Bartlet's upcoming summit with the Russian president in Helsinki, satellite photographs reveal an Iranian nuclear bomb facility built with Russian technology. The discovery could cause major problems with the leaders' meeting, at one point making it appear that it'll have to be postponed. Sam talks to two of the Russian President's aides and, based on the sophisticated wording of their press release on the issue, realizes the Russian President is sending them a direct message that he wants to handle the issue together with President Bartlet. The summit is able to move forward as planned.
C.J., nettled by questions from reporters during a press briefing, allows herself to be drawn into voicing her personal opinion on a group of schoolgirls in Saudi Arabia who died when they were prevented from escaping a burning building by the mutaween religious police because they were not properly dressed according to religious law.[2][3] Following this, C.J. begins receiving explicit death threats via e-mail prompting the President to order the head of his protective detail, Ron Butterfield, to assign to her Secret Service protection, Special Agent Simon Donovan (Mark Harmon). C.J. doesn't want the protection because she sees it as an overreaction to her comments about Saudi Arabia, but she's told that the threat is not about that; it's a specific threat from an individual stalker that was just discovered.
Charlie seeks the source of a curious letter addressed to the President that uses the private mail code, and learns that it was actually sent decades ago by the grandfather of a young African-American man who now works at the highest levels of the government—because the grandfather's hero is also the President's hero and user of that code himself: Franklin Delano Roosevelt. And Toby ponders whether to allow a controversial Russian journalist, Ludmilla Koss, who has criticized the Russian president and supported his electoral opponent, to attend the summit. He does get her a pass but is later angry to find out that the reason she's disliked isn't her political stances, but her biased, sensational tabloid-style reporting.
Quotes
C.J. quotes from Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, saying "But Brutus is an honorable man" from Marc Antony's famous speech at Caesar's funeral.
C.J. asks Sam why they are leaving Freedonia off of the Baltic States, and begins singing Hooray for Captain Spaulding. Freedonia was the country of which Groucho Marx played the leader in Duck Soup, and Hooray for Captain Spaulding is a song in the Marx Brothers film Animal Crackers.
External links
- ↑ New Faces Highlight 54th Annual Primetime Emmy Nominations Huver, S. 2002-07-18
- ↑ Saudi police stopped fire rescue. BBC, March 15, 2002.
- ↑ U.S. Companies support gender segregation in Saudi Arabia. National Organization for Women Newsletter, Summer 2002.
- Analysis and criticism of both the Makkah tragedy and West Wing's handling of it, by an Islamic woman.
- The West Wing Episode Guide
- Enemies Foreign and Domestic on TV.com
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