S02.E18: On the Clock

[Netfoot]

Why, Henry, of course. He'll become the new Chief of staff.

 

And finally, Henry shall be Elizabeth's boss (like Jackhole is her boss now).  Which will be fine for Madam Secretary, because it's high time the public came to realize that Bess might be Secretary of State, but let there be no mistake - it's the man in the family that wears the pants!

[Dowel Jones]

But she'll tell him which pair to wear.

[shapeshifter]

But she'll tell him which pair to wear.

And call him "Babe" while doing it. And the kids will weigh in.

[sinkwriter]

 

Because the viewing public never notice anything unless hit in the face with a mallet.

 

No, unfortunately, it seems showrunners or network execs THINK the viewing public never notice anything unless hit in the face with a mallet.

 

Which reminds me an exchange from The West Wing that applies to this situation (and to our current election year, heh):

 

CJ: Everybody's stupid in an election year, Charlie.

CHARLIE: No. Everybody gets *treated* stupid in an election year, CJ.

 

Same with network execs. They think we're stupid and that they need to hit us over the head with a mallet, to make everything so blatantly obvious, but they really really don't need to do that.

[VinceW]

And finally, Henry shall be Elizabeth's boss (like Jackhole is her boss now).  Which will be fine for Madam Secretary, because it's high time the public came to realize that Bess might be Secretary of State, but let there be no mistake - it's the man in the family that wears the pants!

 

"Barbara Hall wanted the character, played by Tea Leoni, to have a functional marriage to a man (Henry) with a job just as important as hers."

 

So much continual Henry bashing. It is doubtful that the original premise of the show will be morphed into something new that you will be interested in watching, that's just how it goes. In the end, if you spend more time being frustrated by a show rather than enjoying what you're watching, I believe you need to start asking yourself some hard questions about why.  Just sayin'.

Edited April 4, 2016 by VinceW

[buckboard]

"Barbara Hall wanted the character, played by Tea Leoni, to have a functional marriage to a man (Henry) with a job just as important as hers."

 

So much continual Henry bashing. ..... In the end, if you spend more time being frustrated by a show rather than enjoying what you're watching, I believe you need to start asking yourself some hard questions about why.  Just sayin'.

First off, I think Barbara Hall's premise is wrong. If the Secretary of State's husband was intended to have a job as important as hers, it should have been called something like Madame Secretary and His Honor the Chief Justice.

And yes, many of us ARE frustrated because the show has changed from what we enjoyed, about the difficulties of maintaining a functional marriage between a high ranking woman in a powerful government office and her intelligent professor husband. Instead of his being a sounding board for ethical issues she is facing, he's recruiting spies and bopping off to foreign countries as if he is the one with CIA experience instead of his wife.

[Netfoot]

First off, I think Barbara Hall's premise is wrong. If the Secretary of State's husband was intended to have a job as important as hers, it should have been called something like Madame Secretary and His Honor the Chief Justice.wife.

 

Agreed.  As I said before, when I watch Lassie, I don't want the show to be all about Timmy's cat.

[CheshireCat]

buckboard, on 05 Apr 2016 - 9:25 PM, said:

First off, I think Barbara Hall's premise is wrong. If the Secretary of State's husband was intended to have a job as important as hers, it should have been called something like Madame Secretary and His Honor the Chief Justice.

And yes, many of us ARE frustrated because the show has changed from what we enjoyed, about the difficulties of maintaining a functional marriage between a high ranking woman in a powerful government office and her intelligent professor husband. Instead of his being a sounding board for ethical issues she is facing, he's recruiting spies and bopping off to foreign countries as if he is the one with CIA experience instead of his wife.

 

Yes! I was watching Ep 16 and 17 the other day and I really miss that Henry! There was just something different about him. I guess, by taking him out of the house and into the field more they've also taken away part of the relationship aspect between Henry and Bess. He was kind of her pillar of strength, she could come home and fall into his arms and not think about anything anymore and now he's out and about, too. That he's her pillar of strength is still there, but it's not shown as often and I miss that. I miss him as a husband, and a father, as the stay-home dad who takes care of the sleep-over while the mom is working late, the "simple" college professor, and, as I said in the other thread, as the man beside the woman.

[CheshireCat]

Obviously, I'm at episode 18 with my rewatch and there are two things that I noticed - it's not the concept of Henry having his own story which bothers me, it's that his stories are not connected to Bess and/or the family anymore.

The first time that I watched this episode, I remember thinking that I don't care about Henry and Jane visiting with the teacher and that I wanted to know how the story with Bess and Conrad and India and Pakistan continued. I still have the same feeling which got me thinking why I wasn't bothered about Henry's story in S1 or the first half of S2 and I'm pretty sure that that is because Henry's stories weren't as dominating and more importantly, more personal. He was still teaching, we still got to see a lot of his personal side when he was handling Dimitri. And in S1, a lot of his stories involved the family. And I feel that this is/was Henry's purpose - to be the connection between home life and normality and Bess' crazy work life.

It is kind of ironic that I feel that they disconnected him from Bess and the family now more than before even though they are now allowed to talk about their work. But I guess, that mabye also meant that they can scale back on the aspect which they had to have before - something for Bess and Henry to do at home because they didn't see each other at work and there were not work scenes for them.

The second thing I noticed - why in the world would Henry be aware that a plane with a nuclear warhead crashed in India? Yes, they later showed it on the news but when Bess asked him, she had just found out some undefined time earlier (probably not too long before since she and Conrad left the office where they were briefed, had the meeting with the heads of state and then Bess ran into Henry), and I sincerely doubt that Henry was briefed. So, why was he already aware of it? (I know, for story purposes, still, it's seems to be lacking a bit of logic).

It's still one of my favorite episodes though, because there's a lot of Bess and the President. And Bess is wearing one of the outfits I love most on her ;-)

And Jose is definitely not anymore likeable the second time around. Though now that I know about how present Henry is, I can appreciate his non-verbal reaction to Jose.

Edited February 12, 2017 by CheshireCat