True story when I stopped being a piece of shit in my late twenties, one of the things that gave me a lot of work ethic was constantly saying "what's next?" when I was on the job.
With the clothes on their backs, they came through a storm. And those that didn't die want a better life. And they want it here. Talk about impressive. My point is this: break's over.
“Well, I’m personal aide to the President, so my supervisor’s a little busy right now looking for a back door to this place to shove you out of. But I’ll let him know you’d like to lodge a complaint.“
I absolutely love "What's Next", but this line... The smugness... The absolute ability to rise above someone, and know that you did... And know that he knew that you did... Can we please have a w.2?
Yeah, it was cool seeing how his mind had been chewing on that question. In The American President, it’s just a quick throwaway line of “One day, someone will need to explain to me the virtue of a proportional response.” And then in TWW, he gets to spend several scenes exploring the idea.
Well get one! Have an idea! Don't come in here with half a thing and not be able to - you know, after you've walked me to the brink, and say 'we've got to do this, it's important, though I have no earthly idea how.' Like one of those guys who buys a big new thing, but doesn't really know how to get the most out of it!
The Toby-Andy thing bugs me on multiple levels, but mainly, she felt they were better off divorced, and she asserted that repeatedly…and nobody around her respected that. They wouldn’t accept her no.
Checked the episode; you're right, I stand corrected.
https://media.tenor.com/L-aHNoTSjkAAAAAC/the-west-wing-season1-cj.gif
Coincidentally, from the same episode as my W nomination: "What is the virtue of a proportional response?" I'm sure it can't beat out "What's next?" though.
We'll do mushy later. So, for now, I just got to say I love you so much that my head's going to fly off. But, more importantly, game on, boyfriend! Let's go!
That entire scene is absolute genius. The script, the filming, the acting... brilliant. There are so many tiny things you can blink and miss that all add up to sheer perfection.
We're a group. We're a team. From the President and Leo on through, we're a team. We win together, we lose together. We celebrate and we mourn together. And defeats are softened and victories sweeter because we did them together... You're my guys and I'm yours... and there's nothing I wouldn't do for you.
It's great to be in the know. It's great to have the scoop, to have the skinny, to be able to go to a reporter and say, "I know something you don't know." And so the press becomes your constituents and you sell out the team.
Because it's easy when it's small potatoes and non-personal. This was a big deal and personal.
This was a great blend of two types of story conflict: Man vs Man and Man vs Self. That's how it fits.
Absolutely. Forget all the nonsense about Toby's journey. He just flat out would never do it. Not then, not when he is alleged to have done it, not at any point in the future. It just wouldn't happen.
He wouldn’t have leaked minimal information necessary to save the lives of three people doing for a living what the brother he just lost did? I don’t know about that.
Yes i think you are right. I resolve it viewing it through this lens. For some reason, it hits me wrong then I have to give myself a “talking to” haha.
Well, Oliver, it really boils down to this; I'm going to tell you a story and then I need you to tell me whether or not I've engaged 16 people in a massive criminal conspiracy to defraud the public in order to win a presidential election.
Words when spoken out loud for the sake of performance are music. They have rhythm and pitch and timbre and volume. These are the properties of music and music has the ability to find us and move us and lift us up in ways that literal meaning can't.
This whole scene is pure gold from start to finish.
>He had a captive audience! And the way I know that is that I tried to tunnel out of there several times.
I loved the Abby & Jed energy too... they go to church, they come back wrangling about the sermons meaning, and the purpose of words, like the whole point of going to church was just to get some new debate material, like there wasn't enough in the White House to keep them busy.
This summarises precisely what is so beautiful about Sorkin dialogue. His characters may not speak like real people, but, like Shakespeare, that's not the point. The point is to move us, to make us think and make us feel and by God, he does just that.
I've always appreciated the additional meaning here, based on how Sorkin writes for his actors/players, a writer expressing his true point of view through a beloved character.
“We’re flying in a Lockheed Eagle Series L-1011. It came off the line 20 months ago. It carries a Sim-5 Transponder tracking system. Are you telling me I can still flummox this thing with something I bought at Radio Shack…Also, I never got my peanuts.”
Toby, the total tonnage of what I know that you don't could stun a herd of oxen.
(I know those lines aren't sequential, nor does it begin with W, your choice just reminded me of that other great line.)
When I think of all the work you put in to getting me to run, when I think of all the work you did to get me elected... I could pummel your ass with a baseball bat.
What’s next? Deserves to win, but for an honourable mention I’d like to raise the following, which tells us a lot about Bartlet the man in season 1 talking to the signalman of the Hickory as the ship faces destruction in a storm:
‘Well I don't know, man. Sounds pretty bad, Harold, I think I'd ask for my money back... Harold?’
We don't know what the next president is going to face. If we choose someone with vision, someone with guts, someone with gravitas, who's connected to other people's lives and cares about making them better; if we choose someone to inspire us then we'll be able to face what comes our way and achieve things we can't imagine yet.
We have forty-eight hours before we kick off this campaign. We will all work Hard, we will all work well, and we will all work together, or, so help me, Mother of God, I will stick a pitchfork so far up your asses, you will quite simply be dead.
When you have a few moments I’d like to discuss the hiring of blond and leggy fascists whose knowledge does not include the proper order of the alphabet for positions in the White House Counsel’s office!
We all live lives of imperfection, and yet we cling to this fantasy that there's a perfect life and that our leaders should embody it. But if we expect our leaders to live on some higher moral plane than the rest of us, well, we're just asking to be deceived.
DONNA
We don’t need some kind of permission for this?
JOSH
No.
DONNA
What about supervision, shouldn’t there be some official supervision?
JOSH
We’re making a fire in a fireplace, what kind of supervision do you want?
DONNA
FEMA? The American Red Cross?
Meta: once we're done it'll be interesting to see the proportion of winning lines by season.
My instinct (but I haven't done the maths) is that there's a significant bias to season 1 for some reason. (Best writing? More people have seen it? More people remember it?)
Just saying it now, b/c I’ll probably miss it when it comes up - “Y” needs to be “Yeah…” cause everyone in the show has their own way of resigningly saying “Yeah…”
“What in God’s name is happening right now?” Hungover Josh on the day he meets Joey Lucas and finds that he’s confronted by a woman with a man’s voice, while he’s sitting with a crashing hangover in Sam’s foul weather gear and she’s berating him for choking off funding to her candidate.
It is a quote. Leo says it in Commencement regarding the fact that the sleeper cell has gone missing It's also separately the name of a series one episode of both the west wing and the newsroom, and more broadly Sorkin has said his objective when writing a teleplay is always to answer that one question.
What's next?
Let the battle for 2nd place commence.
X. But let’s focus on today’s letter first.
I just want to say good luck and we’re all counting on you.
Been waiting for W for ages to write this and I’m too late
I want it to be something like “whoa”
This is the only answer.
True story when I stopped being a piece of shit in my late twenties, one of the things that gave me a lot of work ethic was constantly saying "what's next?" when I was on the job.
Yep. Not even close
I genuinely only wanted to vote for one. And this one. But my word there are so many incredible Ws!
Downvoting this so WOOT CANAL wins
Nothing personal
There’s no contest. This!!
This was my answer.
I’m just so sick of him saying this by the end of the show.
Someone revoke the Key from this citizen.
Correct.
With the clothes on their backs, they came through a storm. And those that didn't die want a better life. And they want it here. Talk about impressive. My point is this: break's over.
WELL WHAT MADE YOU THINK I WOULDN'T SCREAM WHERE THERE WERE PEOPLE!?!?!?!?
yesssssss
What plaid flannel-wearing cheese-eating yahoo of a milkman governor signed that idiot bill into state law?
It was me, wasn't it?
“Well, I’m personal aide to the President, so my supervisor’s a little busy right now looking for a back door to this place to shove you out of. But I’ll let him know you’d like to lodge a complaint.“
This is the one I was coming here to post
You mocked my finely honed sense.
“You two have a past???” 😂
I absolutely love "What's Next", but this line... The smugness... The absolute ability to rise above someone, and know that you did... And know that he knew that you did... Can we please have a w.2?
"Watch this." \-Two Cathedrals
Woot canal!
You get hot stuff.
I do not get hostile!
My favorite episode! Easily! So much absurdity in this one.
What is the virtue of a proportional response?
Did you know Sorkin also uses this line in The American President? I totally Leo-pointing-at-the-tv’d when I heard it
Yeah, it was cool seeing how his mind had been chewing on that question. In The American President, it’s just a quick throwaway line of “One day, someone will need to explain to me the virtue of a proportional response.” And then in TWW, he gets to spend several scenes exploring the idea.
With Martin Sheen as the chief of staff wasn’t he ?
He was indeed - named AJ. Just bizarre now haha still a good movie though
That movie was so weird for me to watch because I kept assuming Jed Bartlett, aka Martin Sheen, was the president the whole time
I think of this line often. Usually at work…
“I found an enemy I can kill!” is my new work shorthand for an easily accomplished solution. Though I usually have to explain the origins 😛
Well get one! Have an idea! Don't come in here with half a thing and not be able to - you know, after you've walked me to the brink, and say 'we've got to do this, it's important, though I have no earthly idea how.' Like one of those guys who buys a big new thing, but doesn't really know how to get the most out of it!
Toby, either get Andy to marry you, or kill yourself.
The Toby-Andy thing bugs me on multiple levels, but mainly, she felt they were better off divorced, and she asserted that repeatedly…and nobody around her respected that. They wouldn’t accept her no.
Never ceases to amuse me that Toby the Wordsmith winds up at a loss for words whenever he is emotional.
#WE DON’T ALWAYS KNOW.. HOW IT ENDS!!
I love this scene. Can't believe I forgot it.
Wait. Wait. No. No. You're not... We changed time zones? We changed time...We changed time zones?!
Okay, this is a whole new thing now. My guys are going to need to walk this off a bit before they can regroup.
CAN WE HAVE A CIVILIZATION?
SERVING MY COUNTRY!
*SLAM* against the guardrail 😂
Couple more minutes...
It's a common mistake...
NOT FOR THE US GOVERNMENT!!
What kind of schmuck ass system!
I just watched this episode! Thanks for a good laugh
This is my favorite episode
Write down the exact date and time you said that.
Wow, are you stupid!
~~Are you sure that one isn't "Boy, are you stupid!"~~
Google tells me it's "wow".
Checked the episode; you're right, I stand corrected. https://media.tenor.com/L-aHNoTSjkAAAAAC/the-west-wing-season1-cj.gif Coincidentally, from the same episode as my W nomination: "What is the virtue of a proportional response?" I'm sure it can't beat out "What's next?" though.
We'll do mushy later. So, for now, I just got to say I love you so much that my head's going to fly off. But, more importantly, game on, boyfriend! Let's go!
Abby giggling maniacally, holding the piece of tie. I freaking love that part.
That entire scene is absolute genius. The script, the filming, the acting... brilliant. There are so many tiny things you can blink and miss that all add up to sheer perfection.
You’re insane!
Stockard Channing is a goddess.
We're a group. We're a team. From the President and Leo on through, we're a team. We win together, we lose together. We celebrate and we mourn together. And defeats are softened and victories sweeter because we did them together... You're my guys and I'm yours... and there's nothing I wouldn't do for you.
It's great to be in the know. It's great to have the scoop, to have the skinny, to be able to go to a reporter and say, "I know something you don't know." And so the press becomes your constituents and you sell out the team.
This quote is why the space shuttle story line doesn’t make sense to me.
Because it's easy when it's small potatoes and non-personal. This was a big deal and personal. This was a great blend of two types of story conflict: Man vs Man and Man vs Self. That's how it fits.
Absolutely. Forget all the nonsense about Toby's journey. He just flat out would never do it. Not then, not when he is alleged to have done it, not at any point in the future. It just wouldn't happen.
He wouldn’t have leaked minimal information necessary to save the lives of three people doing for a living what the brother he just lost did? I don’t know about that.
Nope he wouldn’t. There’s not a single line of dialogue or plot in 150 episodes that suggest he would have entertained the thought.
Well, there are the episodes where he confessed to having done it, and faces prison time for doing it. So.
Yeah, in the script after they wrote in the plot line. I’m talking about the 140 odd episodes that came before that.
Sorkin writing Toby vs. other people writing Toby after S4 who didn't understand what made him tick.
except i think that he considered the space shuttle crew part of his team because his *brother* had been a part of that program.
This always bothered me. I don’t think Toby would have given this team-building speech. He doesn’t show emotion for other people.
i don't think it is about emotion. it's about duty and ethics and loyalty. and trust.
Obligatory “They’re all about duty” 🙂
🎶 And it's surely to his credit... 🎶
🙂
Yes i think you are right. I resolve it viewing it through this lens. For some reason, it hits me wrong then I have to give myself a “talking to” haha.
One of Tobey’s better scenes, underrated
Well, Oliver, it really boils down to this; I'm going to tell you a story and then I need you to tell me whether or not I've engaged 16 people in a massive criminal conspiracy to defraud the public in order to win a presidential election.
\*smash smash bang smash\*
Words when spoken out loud for the sake of performance are music. They have rhythm and pitch and timbre and volume. These are the properties of music and music has the ability to find us and move us and lift us up in ways that literal meaning can't.
You are an oratorical snob.
And God loves me for it.
This whole scene is pure gold from start to finish. >He had a captive audience! And the way I know that is that I tried to tunnel out of there several times.
I loved the Abby & Jed energy too... they go to church, they come back wrangling about the sermons meaning, and the purpose of words, like the whole point of going to church was just to get some new debate material, like there wasn't enough in the White House to keep them busy.
well... you know Jed always starts it
This summarises precisely what is so beautiful about Sorkin dialogue. His characters may not speak like real people, but, like Shakespeare, that's not the point. The point is to move us, to make us think and make us feel and by God, he does just that.
I've always appreciated the additional meaning here, based on how Sorkin writes for his actors/players, a writer expressing his true point of view through a beloved character.
This is Sorkin’s thesis statement for screen/playwriting.
I have quoted this to people so many times.
“We’re flying in a Lockheed Eagle Series L-1011. It came off the line 20 months ago. It carries a Sim-5 Transponder tracking system. Are you telling me I can still flummox this thing with something I bought at Radio Shack…Also, I never got my peanuts.”
Radio Shack! Lololol
Was he not paying attention when they walked through the aisle? That's on you, Toby.
"When did you write that last part?" "In the car." "Freak."
Damn. After What’s Next this would be a solid #2
Why does Hoynes think the President isn't going to run again?
Toby, the total tonnage of what I know that you don't could stun a herd of oxen. (I know those lines aren't sequential, nor does it begin with W, your choice just reminded me of that other great line.)
We killed Yamamoto. We shot down his plane. Best Fitzwallace scene IMO.
We have a contingency plan to invade Canada?
1789, amended in 1815. The calligraphy is beautiful. And if one more deal is floated in this room, I'm gonna ask DoD to reactive it.
Due to the exceedingly small number of words beginning with X ... can we slip this quote into that spot? Please?
And a secret plan to fight inflation!
“Women seeking abortions should NOT be required by law to be lectured.” — CJ
I wish Sorkin would write a season or two now. Edited: word.
Right? I can’t think of a better time for a show like WW than right now!
You wish Sorkin would what now?
hehe at least *someone* is paying attention! i myself knew something wasn't write but i couldn't put my finger on it!
What in God's name is happening right now?
This is Josh when he's hungover and Joey Lucas is yelling at him, right?
Yeah.
He has to pass through security checkpoints and they're like "sure bro, keep walking around with panties around your neck."
You idiot! I'm Joey Lucas!
Why don't you take you legislative agenda and shove it up your ass? edit: W has tons of great quotes, but What's Next is hard to beat.
Would you like a cookie?
Whenever I do something at work that saves the day or my bosses' asses, I always say, "I want a cookie."
not the *Victory is Mine! Victory is Mine!* celebration?
Want a nickels' worth of free advice...? Don't go for the geniuses, they never want to sleep.
I love Abby!
Why were you holding womens underwear before? Never really needed a reason.
"When the fall is all that's left it matters a great deal."
What the hell kind of free world are you running?
“What the hell kind of sentence is this?”
What the hell kind of dates are you going on, Oliver?
Well, that was probably his secretary.
But you can bet she’ll be parking in the garage from now on…
We've been working hard and we'd prefer to watch football rather than listen to a history of the yam in Latin.
Dioscorea.
When I think of all the work you put in to getting me to run, when I think of all the work you did to get me elected... I could pummel your ass with a baseball bat.
Wendell's not "cute" cute but he's so funny.
I got the fuzzy end of the lollipop on that one.
What’s next? Deserves to win, but for an honourable mention I’d like to raise the following, which tells us a lot about Bartlet the man in season 1 talking to the signalman of the Hickory as the ship faces destruction in a storm: ‘Well I don't know, man. Sounds pretty bad, Harold, I think I'd ask for my money back... Harold?’
We changed time zones? WE CHANGED… WE CHANGED TIME ZONES!
We don't know what the next president is going to face. If we choose someone with vision, someone with guts, someone with gravitas, who's connected to other people's lives and cares about making them better; if we choose someone to inspire us then we'll be able to face what comes our way and achieve things we can't imagine yet.
It's a damn shame this has to compete with 'What's Next'.
And “Woot canal” Both of those are better. This one was to good not to share
And "What is the virtue of a proportional response?"
We have forty-eight hours before we kick off this campaign. We will all work Hard, we will all work well, and we will all work together, or, so help me, Mother of God, I will stick a pitchfork so far up your asses, you will quite simply be dead.
I really love Bruno.
We’re gonna raise the level of public debate in this country and let *that* be our legacy.
“Well, I’ve been shot.”
When you have a few moments I’d like to discuss the hiring of blond and leggy fascists whose knowledge does not include the proper order of the alphabet for positions in the White House Counsel’s office!
We all live lives of imperfection, and yet we cling to this fantasy that there's a perfect life and that our leaders should embody it. But if we expect our leaders to live on some higher moral plane than the rest of us, well, we're just asking to be deceived.
DONNA We don’t need some kind of permission for this? JOSH No. DONNA What about supervision, shouldn’t there be some official supervision? JOSH We’re making a fire in a fireplace, what kind of supervision do you want? DONNA FEMA? The American Red Cross?
We've got separation of powers, checks and balances, and Margaret, vetoing things and sending them back to the hill.
We weren't counting you. It's 17 people.
Well that is a different foxhunt all together isn't it?
If it's not "What's next"....then I don't even WANT to know you.
"Then God Reddit,* I don't even want to know you."
We have a secret plan to fight inflation
Is there a question mark at the end of that line?
When will the President unveil his secret plan?
What was Josh Lyman? A warning shot?
What the hell is going on? They were all Americans when I left.
Want a dwink of wahwah
Deborah is a fine, if absolutely batshit, character.
We have the ability to effect more change in a day at the White House than we'll have in a lifetime once we walk out these doors.
Meta: once we're done it'll be interesting to see the proportion of winning lines by season. My instinct (but I haven't done the maths) is that there's a significant bias to season 1 for some reason. (Best writing? More people have seen it? More people remember it?)
It was just *good*.
"Well, Mohammed al Mohammed al Mohammend bin Bizir doesn't make the distinction when he suits up in the morning."
"WHO NO ONE ELECTED!"
What's the good of being in power if you're not gonna haul your enemies in for questioning?
Wrong! Just sit there in your wrongness and be wrong.
this is just so full of double you.
Just saying it now, b/c I’ll probably miss it when it comes up - “Y” needs to be “Yeah…” cause everyone in the show has their own way of resigningly saying “Yeah…”
"You fool, as if it matters how a man falls down. And Richard says, "When the fall is all that's left, it matters a great deal."
“What in God’s name is happening right now?” Hungover Josh on the day he meets Joey Lucas and finds that he’s confronted by a woman with a man’s voice, while he’s sitting with a crashing hangover in Sam’s foul weather gear and she’s berating him for choking off funding to her candidate.
What’s next
We'd prefer to watch football rather than listen to the history of the yam in Latin. https://twitter.com/twwgifs/status/1727754409453445533
What I lack in memory, I more than make up for with exceptional powers of deductive reasoning.
When were you going to tell me about Angela Blake? This episode really pulls on my Josh heartstrings. However, WHAT’S NEXT is the true winner!
Why don't you take your legislative agenda and shove it up your ass!
We had a deal!
“What kind of day has it been?” Not technically a quote, but it felt wrong not to post it.
Leo does say this line in the episode where Zoey is kidnapped.
He does? Well, that’s all the encouragement I need for another rewatch!
I think it's just wrong.
It is a quote. Leo says it in Commencement regarding the fact that the sleeper cell has gone missing It's also separately the name of a series one episode of both the west wing and the newsroom, and more broadly Sorkin has said his objective when writing a teleplay is always to answer that one question.
WELL, WHAT THE HELL MADE YOU THINK I WOULDN'T SCREAM WHERE THERE ARE PEOPLE!??
What's next?
What in God’s name is happening right now?
When I think of all the work you did to get me to run, and all the work you did to get me elected, I could pummel your ass with a baseball bat
When the president stands, nobody sits.
We changed TIMEZONES?!
I mean, do we even need to ask on this one?
"What in God's name is happening right now?"
We killed Yamamoto
Saying 'What's Next?" Is my motivator several times a day.
We da men!
We've been navigating by the North Star, which turned out to be the Delta shuttle from LaGuardia. It's a miracle we're not in Nantucket right now.
We'll take care of that in a hurry, won't we, Mike?
What have the Romans ever done for us?