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Did Aaron Sorkin really have the last episode of year 4 in his mind when he wrote this dialogue, all that while ago? Or did he just look at it in retrospect and think, “Yeah, that looks like a good way to play it, let’s go…”?
BARTLET
My getting killed would be bad enough,
but that is not the nightmare scenario.
The nightmare scenario, sweetheart, is
you getting kidnapped! You go out to a
bar or a party in some club and you get
up and you go to the restroom and
somebody comes from behind and puts
his hand across your mouth and drags
you out the back door. You're so
petrified you don't even notice the
bodies of a few Secret Service agents
lying on the ground with bullet holes
in their heads. Then you're driven away
in the car. It's a big party with lots of
noise and lots of people coming and
going, and it's a half hour before
someone says, "Hey, where's
Zoey?" It's another fifteen minutes
before the first phone call. It's another
hour and a half before anyone even
thinks to shut down all the airports!
Now we're off to the races! You're tied
to a chair in a cargo shack somewhere
in the middle of Uganda and I am told
that I have 72 hours to get Israel to
free 460 imprisoned terrorists. So I'm
on the phone pleading with Binyamin
and he's saying: "I'm sorry, Mr.
President, but Israel simply does not
negotiate with terrorists, period, it's
the only way we can survive." So now
we got a new problem because this
country no longer has a Commander-
in-chief, but a father going out of his
mind because his little girl is in a
shack somewhere in the middle of
Uganda with a gun to her head! Do
you get it?!
ZOEY
Yes.
(sigh) There are some images from that last episode that keep repeating
on me like a bowl of one of Peter’s more aggressive chilies. Particularly those
washed-out monochrome images of that single terrified eye…
