Leo's Squirrel Banter Disarms Josh, Secures Bartlet Invite
Plot Beats
The narrative micro-steps within this event
Leo inquires about Josh's father's health, revealing Josh's father is in the hospital and refuses to take it easy despite treatment.
Leo invites Josh to hear Jed Bartlet speak, leveraging their personal connection and challenging Josh's loyalty to Senator Hoynes.
Josh resists, asserting Hoynes's dominance in the race, but Leo subtly insists, appealing to Josh's familial obligations.
Leo dismisses Josh's political assessment with humor, leaving Josh puzzled but intrigued enough to arrange travel plans.
Who Was There
Characters present in this moment
professionally responsive amid sudden directive
Janet receives Josh's urgent phone call at the event's close, tasked off-screen with arranging plane tickets to New York and likely Boston, facilitating his travel pivot without on-screen presence or response.
- • Execute Josh's travel logistics promptly
- • Enable rapid deployment to key campaign sites
- • Swift logistical support is critical for political operatives' mobility
- • Josh's instructions demand immediate action regardless of context
referenced as Josh's employer who has the nomination sewn up
Objects Involved
Significant items in this scene
Josh extracts the compact cell phone from his pocket post-Leo encounter, dials Janet with thumb urgency, and speaks into it while ascending Capitol stairs—serving as the narrative bridge from intrigued hesitation to committed action, embodying the era's portable pivot point for allegiance shifts.
Referential plane tickets to New York and Boston emerge as Josh's verbal command to Janet, materializing off-screen from his call; they symbolize the logistical launch of his defection from Hoynes, hurtling him toward Nashua's rendezvous and Bartlet's orbit in a cascade of unseen bookings.
Location Details
Places and their significance in this event
Sunlit marble steps and facade of the Capitol Building frame the pivotal interception, where Leo corners Josh mid-ascension for banter and recruitment; it anchors the scene as a threshold of political realignment, its monumental presence underscoring the gravity of shifting Democratic loyalties.
The Washington Monument looms nearby as a silent sentinel in the background, its obelisk shadow slicing pathways during Josh and Leo's walk; it amplifies the historic hush, witnessing banter that fractures Hoynes loyalty amid D.C.'s monumental scale.
Narrative Connections
How this event relates to others in the story
"Leo recruiting Josh to hear Bartlet speak (past) is mirrored in their shared vigil at Josh's operating room (present) — the bond formed then now tested by crisis."
Key Dialogue
"LEO: Why does he yell at the squirrels? JOSH: Cause they eat the seeds out of the bird feeder. LEO: You know, they make a thing now..."
"LEO: Josh, I'd like you to come to Nashua, New Hampshire Thursday night and hear Jed Bartlet speak. JOSH: I work for Senator Hoynes."
"JOSH: Leo, the-the Democrats aren't gonna nominate another liberal academic former governor from New England. I mean, we're dumb, but we're not that dumb. LEO: [beat] Nah. I think we're exactly that dumb."