Unpack That Box

And now, the first in another irregular series that I may never revisit: Favorite TV Scenes. This week: The West Wing.

Since there's not much new TV on, I've been powering through the first season of The West Wing lately. There's a scene at the midpoint of the season that I've seen a few times now, and I love every time.

The lead-up is: Over the past few episodes, we've learned that a Republican congressman has gotten his hands on confidential files that reveal that not only is the President's chief of staff Leo McGarry (the terrific John Spencer) a recovering alcoholic (already well-known in beltway circles), but that he underwent treatment for an addiction to painkillers. This has been making waves behind the scenes, and will undoubtedly cause more trouble for McGarry and the Bartlett administration in the months ahead. Earlier in this episode ("Take Out the Trash Day"), Karen Larson (Liza Weil) the young staffer who leaked the information has been identified, and told in no uncertain terms to clean out her desk.

In the episode's final scene, she enters Leo's office at the end of the day. Leo had sent for her, becuase he wanted to meet her, and wanted her to meet him. He asks her what went through her mind when she read his personnel file. She explains that her father was an alcoholic; Leo's was, too. As they talk, Leo explains about his addictions, but that he hasn't had a drink for six years. And he asks about her motivations for leaking his information.

She replies, "My father, he --" and then cuts herself off, restating her answer. She talks about how many decisions he had to make, and how many people depend on those decisions every day. We don't know what she was going to say about her father, but our intuition leads us into some dark places. Whatever decisions he made were the wrong ones.

Leo understands this. His career, and all the goals and ideals he's worked for, have been put in jeopardy by her actions. He tells her, "Karen, what you did caused a lot of problems; for me, for the President, and for a lot of people we don't even know about," a sideways referral to a sex-education report the President agreed to sit on for a year to avoid a hearing for McGarry. "But I'm not sure it wasn't a little bit brave."He tells her to unpack her carton of personal items, and the two of them can give each other another chance.

It's an act of forgiveness that really demonstrates the quality of Leo's character. She might have ruined his career. That remains to be seen. But she did it out of loyalty to her country, and a genuine conviction, born of personal experience, that it was the right thing to do. And he won't see her punished for that.

It's a great scene, from a standout season.

Rob