There's an argument to be made that Aaron Sorkin is dangerous when he's under his own umbrella. Whenever he's working with a skilled director, he gets subdued and that's the reason why most of his scripts work. However, in a longform format, he has the creative power and therefore, it gets out of hand sometimes. In "What Kind of Day Has It Been," he manipulates the audience by giving us bookends that set up the episode and then the next episode, which can be alienating. It's a decision that has a lot of good will for the most of this finale, but not all throughout.
First off, the one big gripe I have with this episode is the setup that is the whole episode that leads to even more setup. The bookends of the episode work to create tension for the first part of the episode, but it pretty much ends there as well, giving us nothing from the setup that we didn't expect. The payoff is a little cheap, and I think it was a mistake to do it like that. With that said, the rest of the episode is another well-crafted hour of "The West Wing" and a good season finale that deals with the themes that we've come to appreciate the most about this show. A lot of tension between the characters happen throughout, and I feel like this was done to give us a more emotional connection to the big end of the episode, but it mostly worked to set the character in position for their interactions in the coming season. The personal relationships of these people have been tested multiple times, but here, it felt like they were all on the same page, and took it easy on each other, because we were building up to something that could potentially cause a big rift. It's smart storytelling and had they stuck the landing; it would have worked perfectly. Unfortunately, the lack of a real payoff does smear an episode that had nice character development and moments for everyone to shine. If anything, this episode set the stage for the second season, which I'm excited for.
"What Kind of Day Has It Been" excels at setting up the big finale but fails at delivering an emotional impact to end the season. However, the episode as a whole does deliver, continuing to develop the characters in a beautiful way and giving them all moments that make me excited for the second season.
First off, the one big gripe I have with this episode is the setup that is the whole episode that leads to even more setup. The bookends of the episode work to create tension for the first part of the episode, but it pretty much ends there as well, giving us nothing from the setup that we didn't expect. The payoff is a little cheap, and I think it was a mistake to do it like that. With that said, the rest of the episode is another well-crafted hour of "The West Wing" and a good season finale that deals with the themes that we've come to appreciate the most about this show. A lot of tension between the characters happen throughout, and I feel like this was done to give us a more emotional connection to the big end of the episode, but it mostly worked to set the character in position for their interactions in the coming season. The personal relationships of these people have been tested multiple times, but here, it felt like they were all on the same page, and took it easy on each other, because we were building up to something that could potentially cause a big rift. It's smart storytelling and had they stuck the landing; it would have worked perfectly. Unfortunately, the lack of a real payoff does smear an episode that had nice character development and moments for everyone to shine. If anything, this episode set the stage for the second season, which I'm excited for.
"What Kind of Day Has It Been" excels at setting up the big finale but fails at delivering an emotional impact to end the season. However, the episode as a whole does deliver, continuing to develop the characters in a beautiful way and giving them all moments that make me excited for the second season.