Written by Peter Noah
Directed by Alex Graves
No opening quote for this episode — not when the teaser ends up being almost 4 minutes of absolute silence, pacing, and furtive glances. It’s a brilliant way to introduce an episode that should rightfully be titled “shit hits the fan day”; Toby’s admission is an abyss that threatens to swallow the world in one big gulp!
Watch the directorial techniques Alex Graves uses to convey key revelations and confrontations. We get a lot of back-of-the-head shots…we get shots framed through the minute distortions of windows and doorways…we get shots shown on security cameras, skewed in odd angles…and in one scene, we simply get a close-up, and never see the argument that rages around the character.
Everything is hyper-real…and we’re only allowed to guess at the expressions, the reactions, the feelings of the protagonists.
It’s a counter-point to season two’s 17 People, which was also a major confrontation episode, but virtually a 3-hander set entirely in the Oval Office. Here Today opens up the same type of storyline on a massive, sweeping scale — a truck load of revelations and changes that hits with the power of a comet striking the Earth…and is only hinting at the destruction it will leave in its wake. In fact, the only real and immediate damage comes in the scene where the President fires Toby: it’s raw, bitter, and very sad…
BABBISH: “That was rough. I thought he’d thank you for your service.”
TOBY: “He was angry.”
BABBISH: “Someone should thank you for your service.”
The episode closes as it opens, with a silent sequence of Toby being walked out of the building, with only a quiet drum roll to accompany his exit. Here Today hits you with with a right hook…then spends the rest of the hour bamboozling with a flurry of body blows.
9
