Toby Brokers Empathetic Deal with Traumatized Tabitha
Plot Beats
The narrative micro-steps within this event
Toby approaches Tabitha at the fountain, their silent exchange heavy with unspoken tension.
Tabitha recounts the traumatic Banja Luka incident where a boy died from a landmine while fishing.
Tabitha reveals her poetic breakdown during 'Howl' recitation, exposing artistic crisis.
Tabitha negotiates terms: private Bartlet meeting about Banja Luka in exchange for performing 64 couplets at dinner.
Toby crosses Tabitha's name off his list with finality, their negotiation complete as he departs for the press conference.
Who Was There
Characters present in this moment
Despondent vulnerability yielding to relieved hope
Tabitha sits facing away despondently on steps, sighs heavily, recounts Banja Luka landmine death and 'Howl' breakdown with raw vulnerability, voices self-doubt on art's truth-telling, proposes couplets performance for private presidential audience, chuckles as Toby crosses her off list.
- • Share Banja Luka trauma directly with President
- • Avoid public protest by trading poetry performance
- • Artists captivate rather than dictate truth
- • Personal testimony trumps public confrontation
Empathetic resolve masking political urgency
Toby strides past the fountain to sit beside Tabitha on the steps, listens intently to her trauma recount and lecture breakdown, questions gently, agrees to presidential meeting, reveals and crosses her name off his protest notepad with pen, then departs for press conference.
- • Neutralize Tabitha's potential protest threat
- • Secure her cooperation via presidential access for White House benefit
- • Personal vulnerability can forge political alliances
- • Human stories outweigh ideological standoffs in crisis resolution
Not directly observed
President Bartlet is referenced as the key figure Tabitha seeks private audience with to share her story, pivotal to Toby's agreement but absent from the scene.
Objects Involved
Significant items in this scene
Toby pulls the pen from his coat pocket alongside the notepad, using it to decisively slash Tabitha's name from the protest list, symbolizing crisis resolution and her removal from agitator status, transforming a tool of surveillance into one of reconciliation.
Location Details
Places and their significance in this event
Sava River near Banja Luka invoked in Tabitha's vivid recount of fishing trip turned tragedy, where boy's landmine death anchors her trauma, fueling lecture collapse and protest motivation, contrasting serene postwar recovery with explosive horror.
The weathered steps outside the lecture hall serve as intimate negotiation ground post-Tabitha's breakdown, with fountain's loud rush underscoring emotional rawness; Toby approaches from square, sits beside her, enabling vulnerable exchange amid night chill and security lamps.
Narrative Connections
How this event relates to others in the story
"Toby's dismissal is followed by his approach to Tabitha at the fountain, their silent exchange heavy with tension."
"Toby's departure is followed by C.J. and Charlie discussing the environmental impact of drilling in ANWR."
"Toby's departure is followed by C.J. and Charlie discussing the environmental impact of drilling in ANWR."
Themes This Exemplifies
Thematic resonance and meaning
Part of Larger Arcs
Key Dialogue
"TABITHA: There was a man in Banja Luka that I met. He took his son and I... to go fishing in the Sava River. And the little boy, uh... hooked a piece of garbage... and when he tried to take it off the line, it blew him up. Right in front of his father, and, uh... right in front of me."
"TABITHA: I was thinking maybe, you know... I-I don't if you could do this, but... I was thinking if I could get a few minutes alone with the President, so that could tell him what I saw in Banja Luka? [beat] Then it wouldn't have to be a thing, you know, at the dinner... in there I could, uh... I have 64 couplets on the American experience that I think might be appropriate."
"TOBY: Yeah, we can do that."