It's been a long, slogging trail through this show and so we have The Last Episode for you here (spoiler it's bad). We also spend another 20 minutes or so musing poorly and waxing misunderstood philosophically about the impact of the show on the culture at large, on Aaron Sorkin himself, and on future projects.

We will probably get back together to do an auxiliary ep on Studio 60, and then we might take another tack going forward that's a bit more relaxed and less... awful.

Thank you for listening! It will all come back to you, in the ennnnnd.

As we close the show down, senioritis sets in not only amongst the outgoing administration, but among your intrepid hosts who spent most of the recording session crosstalking and stepping on each other's bits!!

It's a fine thing to try to address the absolutely Kafkaesque disaster of being an incredibly powerful woman navigating a male-dominated industry. It's a bad thing to do so by setting her up with multiple Male Saviors and having her pick one!

By contrast we do get funny glimpses of Helen Santos being pigeonholed into traditionally-female-coded roles at the White House and, if not explicitly pushing back on them, being absolutely bewildered by their necessity.

I am working 11 to 7 and I think Dave's still on nights so we included another Dolly banger this time around.

OK now that the show has wrapped up, congrats to Matt Santos on being the new prez, time to

wait what the fuck there's still 5 goddamn episodes left?? IT'S ALL SO STUPID.

RIP to Sinead O'Connor, this one hit me hard for whatever reason

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbre5Fs9m8I

Hi, yeah, first time long time: does Bruno close the deal?

This one's for the true sickos among us, full of polls Polls POLLS energy and quite a bit of hornt, as the election unfolds over 90 relatively harmless minutes of campaign staff interactions.

Let the careerist jockeying... BEGIN

Music from A.C. Newman.

I am so ready for this to be over. If only WE were two weeks out, rather than... 7 more episodes so let's call it four more recording sessions that will probably land between now and October for a nice round 5 year experience.

Please, listener, spare yourself and do not watch these episodes.

Music is from Keb Mo

Come bother me about end-to-end emissions and material processing eCO2 incursions if u wanna get wrecked about nuclear power. So sorry there hasn't been a miraculously ~*mArKEt baSeD sOLuTioN*~ to getting perovskites into every PV cell somehow! We coulda been casting containment buildings for gen3 reactors and trebling down on thorium reprocessing technology for the last 20 years instead of using that concrete to pave over swamps and enable more cars to exist or... I dunno fucking turning OTHER ELECTRICITY into BITCOIN.

Fuck me, but also just turn your brain off and watch this first episode because it's paced and shot well.

And then don't bother with the second one, it's snooze-worthy to the max. Something about great power cold-warrior-brain conventional warfare? Lol.

Nukes good fuck you eminent domain Yucca Mountain and let me design the mitigation system!! I'll do it for a sixer of PBR and a bowl of ramen.

I've never heard this paul simon song before!

Welcome back to more campaign shit that I don't give a fuck about!! With a side helping of "whoa hang on there's still an entire administration in the White House currently?? uh... let's do... World War!"

The first episode starts with a direct-to-camera tribute to John Spencer from Martin Sheen. So, we're closing down the arc of Leo being alive IRL. But... not yet! He's still kicking in the show's world!!

These episodes are dogshit from a butt and don't warrant much more discussion than what we ramble through in the proceeding *checks* too many minutes. Matt Santos goes home and get scandaled. Then Kate and CJ do a major international thing. Danny exists and CJ is a jerk both to him and to a waitress.

I will now sell four copies of The Three EPs by the Beta Band, because I went the kind route with the transition instead of quadrupling down on the Sisqo option.

These episodes are a slog and a half so we're back to throwing two together at one go, and conveniently, these tidy up the Ellie Bartlet Wedding arc which is tropeish and irritating!

We solve racism with a speech, surprise!

A nice soothing authoritative President Dad approach to a(nother) World War 3 type situation which is not communicated to the viewer as serious because there is far, FAR too much other garbage going on.

Inching closer to the finish line here.

This track leaves out the episode running in the background, in case you have your copy and want to watch along without duplicating the soundtrack!

Well, as the West Wing ran out of sauce down the stretch, beset by better television (... marginally better, in the case of Crossing Jordan) on all sides and lacking its initial writers-room oomph, the producers started grasping at straws. This is one of them!!

Dave and I do a live-react listening to the Live Broadcast West Wing episode, filmed in front of a studio audience and broadcast twice in real time, once for the East Coast and again later in the evening for the Hollywood Sickos.

It sucks equally in both versions! We have film of the 43 minute version, not the 50 minute version, so if you're watching along, make sure you have the correct recording!

Music from Dream Theater cuz boy howdy doesn't the cyclical succ cycle of liberal ideology just repeat and repeat and repeat

This track includes the episode running in the background of our commentary, if you don't have access to it!

Well, as the West Wing ran out of sauce down the stretch, beset by better television (... marginally better, in the case of Crossing Jordan) on all sides and lacking its initial writers-room oomph, the producers started grasping at straws. This is one of them!!

Dave and I do a live-react listening to the Live Broadcast West Wing episode, filmed in front of a studio audience and broadcast twice in real time, once for the East Coast and again later in the evening for the Hollywood Sickos.

It sucks equally in both versions! We have film of the 43 minute version, not the 50 minute version, so if you're watching along, make sure you have the correct recording!