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The West Wing, Season 5, Episode 11 (Patreon)

Published:
2024-08-26 20:30:52
Imported:
2026-06
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Content

The Benign Prerogative

Comments

Jim Miller

That line, "He isnt just the President" always hits me hard and immediately reminds me of the "he gave him the knife!!" moment in S2.

Joy M

So many policy issues to unpack. I know a guy who stole a car with a buddy when he was 19. He’s now in his 40’s. He managed to get a job, stay out of trouble, pay his bills, etc. He joined a church that was building a school somewhere in Central America. He couldn’t go on the trip and help with the building because the church ran a background check on him and said no felons. I used to work at a federal court and we had an attorney from the Innocence Project come in one day to file a motion. This was in the early days of DNA. I asked her some questions about the work she did. She said she had been to our state’s most notorious prison to present the option to the prisoners to get their DNA checked to exonerate them. But, she explained that meant that their DNA could be used to confirm their guilt and/or link them to other unsolved crimes. She said very few offered up their DNA once they heard that.

Weird Magic

A couple of fact checks from this episode The North Dakota Native American activist thread in the story is related to Leonard Peltier. Peltier is from ND, but in 1975 on the Pine Ridge Reservation in SD he was involved in a shootout with FBI agents and was convicted on two counts of 1st degree murder. Presidents Clinton (2001) Bush (2009) and Obama (2017) have all denied clemency. In 2018 he applied to Trump, but no decision was announced. He applied again in Feb 2023, he will turn 80 next month. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard_Peltier The discussion between the First Lady and the President Abby: Are you worried this will be another Wallace Turner Jed: A little Abby: You were a first term governor and you listened to the advice of your parole board Jed: His victim's family probably isn't too comforted by that Most likely this is a veiled reference to an issue Michael Dukakis had in his 1988 Presidential bid, where Willie Horton had been on a prison furlough and committed violent crimes. He was in prison originally for life w/o parole on a murder conviction. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willie_Horton

Michelle Taylor

Our prisons are overflowing mainly because they're privatized—it's all about the money. Back in 2008, judges Michael Conahan and Mark Ciavarella got busted for taking bribes to hand out super harsh sentences to kids, just to fill up a private prison run by PA Child Care. Ciavarella was sending kids as young as 8 to detention, even for minor stuff like petty theft, skipping school, or smoking on school grounds. He would often just have them shackled and taken away without letting them defend themselves or say goodbye to their families. U.S. District Judge Christopher Conner ended up giving nearly 300 people a whopping $106 million in compensatory damages and $100 million in punitive damages in this long-running civil suit against the judges, saying those affected were "the tragic human casualties of a scandal of epic proportions." If you're interested, check out two great documentaries: Capitalism: A Love Story by Michael Moore and Kids for Cash.

Youtalkingtome
>>147655809

Thank you! The horror of privatizing prisons is a really great point. I remember reading about that judge years ago. What an absolute monster.

Weird Magic

One of the common "complaints" from people about Season 5 is that most of the titles come from someone saying the exact words in the episode. I think it's petty, but Sorkinites gonna Sorkinite :) The Benign Prerogative (as stated in the show) comes from Alexander Hamilton's Federalist paper #74. "He is also to be authorized to grant "reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States, EXCEPT IN CASES OF IMPEACHMENT. Humanity and good policy conspire to dictate, that the benign prerogative of pardoning should be as little as possible fettered or embarrassed." Originally airing on January 14, 2004, 'The Benign Prerogative' is Episode 11 of Season 5 of The West Wing. It is the 100th episode overall and has an IMDB rating of 7.6, placing it as the #13 ranked episode of this season and #91 out of all the episodes shown so far.

Youtalkingtome
>>147653906

Thank you for sharing that! I had never heard the part about the DNA test being a double-edged sword. It makes sense, but it sure does stink that they were incarcerated for crimes for which they were technically innocent.

Michelle Taylor
>>147655729

A must-watch documentary is "Incident at Oglala." He became an incredible artist. If you have a moment, you should check it out.

Curtis Higareda

My first time through the series I did a little too much "googling" about the show so I knew about Rob Lowe and Sorkin leaving and how a lot people thought the show suffered and wasn't as good after. I think that kind of prejudiced me against the last few seasons... especially this season. Now that I've gone through the series several times I really appreciate these seasons. So many great episodes, especially coming in late season 6 and 7. Seems like every time I finish up the series finale, I go right back and start up episode 1 immediately...

Michelle Taylor

Everyone should watch "12 Angry Men." Make sure to watch the 1957 version with Henry Fonda.

Martin Nicholls

Have you noticed that Donna is getting more responsibility? I don't think it's ever really computed for me before but this time I'm noticing it - essentially picking people to commute sentences is a huge responsibility, she made a point to Josh that was essentially the way they went with the policy, and even got to talk about the President and senior staff about it - and she gets the final shot of the episode. If reform works is an interesting question - it works in countries with homogonous societies, I'm not totally convinced it works in countries that are more culturally diverse. It's also true that prisons can be Crime Universities and that giving prisoners constructive things to do (and learn) has a positive effect, so there's probably a middle ground somewhere. Also drug addiction is a huge driver, but we can't force people into drug rehab any more because that's not cool either. We also shouldn't forget that there are definitely people who can't be reformed and have to be locked up simply to protect society. All in all it's a good episode, it's more clear they're trying new things too, this is definitely an episode that shows that off.

Jeff

I always had a problem with this episode, not because of the content, but because of the narrative structure. The series has several episodes with a nonlinear narrative, and this is one of the times when it simply doesn't work. Why the time jump? Why not tell the story from beginning to end? The only reason to start at the end is to get the audience asking "What's going on?" and then get us to wonder how all the stories lead to that ending. It's a total gimmick that is only used if the writers feel the story itself is too unengaging to keep us interested. This episode would have been fine without it. There are indeed other episodes that utilize the nonlinear narrative successfully (one of the best is in season 6), but it just seems like it was an overused gimmick twenty years ago that lowers the quality of the show. Okay, end of rant.

Laura Room

I really dislike Charlie's new girlfriend and Angela Blake in this episode, but I do appreciate the main story.

Youtalkingtome
>>147674797

It kind of threw us off too. We even mentioned in the video, this episode covers roughly a month. Strange choice

Youtalkingtome
>>147672853

Exactly, I really hope that we drove the point home that this is complicated. So many different factors need to be considered. Of course we need our prison systems but it is not perfect at all. As far as Donna goes, love that she's getting more to do. We've noticed it a lot this season.

Youtalkingtome
>>147655729

That's insane. Look I don't know much about this story but I will be reading about it. I will watch the documentary too.

Aude M
>>147651517

"That was a business dinner" ;) And CJ backtracked pretty fast on the "grabbing and kissing". Btw, YES you can trust a journalist...if it's Danny. Idk why they made CJ say "its this a joke ?"

Weird Magic
>>147676577

If they ever do a reboot though, having Gabrielle Union as the Press Secretary in 2028 would be a good callback...

Joy M

Oh Kevin, you were wondering why Margaret was saying that she could replace Toby’s new assistant. Next episode will reveal that aspect of office politics. It’s a really good one :)

Adam Crandall

I may be wrong, But isn't Leavenworth a military prison? Do they actually keep civilians in the same spot as the men and women who have been trained to be killers, only then to commit a crime afterwards? I don't know if it was inaccuracy, or if Donovan was really in a frozen hell. Because the inmates surrounding him weren't regular people. They had all been trained to kill people. It

Jeremy Vetting
>>148058737

There is a federal prison in Leavenworth Kansas and a military prison at Fort Leavenworth nearby.