Plot

Elections are underway in Kazakhstan, but Russia and China both on the brink of going to war in Central Asia over oil are the least of Bartlet and C.J.'s concerns as they face a nuclear reactor in California on the verge of a meltdown. While agonizing over the decisions over whether to evacuate nearby citizens and to release radioactive steam into the atmosphere, the Santos and Vinick campaigns stare each other down, trying to avoid being the first to turn the crisis into a political issue -- all the more complex as decades ago, Vinick lobbied for the plant's construction. Bruno is sure Josh will be the first person to speak out on this, but Josh surprisingly adopts a policy of not saying anything during or immediately after the crisis. Will Bailey manages the press situation and takes command by tossing a staffer who includes frightening and uncertain information about a controlled release of radiation to avoid a full meltdown and explosion. Two nuclear workers go into the reactor complex to repair cracking radioactive steam lines, and the President agonizes when one of them dies from exposure after the repairs are complete. The crisis winds down with a complete meltdown avoided but the long-term effects are unclear. Vinick responds to the news about his support of the plant's building with criticism of nuclear regulation, which leads to an angry private rebuke from the President. When the news about Vinick and the plant comes out, the election becomes, in Josh's words, "too close to call."

Background

• The episode title refers to a method of personal protection
  Duck and cover
  Duck and Cover was a suggested method of personal protection against the effects of a nuclear weapon which the United States government taught to generations of United States school children from the early 1950s into the 1980s. This was supposed to protect them in the event of an unexpected nuclear...
  
   against the effects of a nuclear weapon which the United States government taught to generations of United States school children from the early 1950s into the 1980s. As Bartlet remembers, “We'd hide under our little wooden desks at school. At some point they stopped the drills... I guess they realized a piece of plywood wasn't gonna protect us from against an atomic blast.”

• Both J. K. Simmons
  J. K. Simmons
  Jonathan Kimble "J. K." Simmons is an American actor. He is best known for his roles on television as Dr. Emil Skoda in NBC's Law & Order , Assistant Police Chief Will Pope in TNT's The Closer, neo-Nazi Vernon Schillinger in the HBO prison drama Oz, on film as J...
  
   and Allison Janney
  Allison Janney
  Allison Brooks Janney is an American actress, best known for her role as C.J. Cregg on the television series The West Wing.- Personal life :...
  
   appear in this episode. They played the eponymous main character's parents in the comedy-drama film Juno
  Juno (film)
  Juno is a 2007 comedy-drama film directed by Jason Reitman and written by Diablo Cody. Ellen Page stars as the title character, an independent-minded teenager confronting an unplanned pregnancy and the subsequent events that put pressures of adult life onto her. Michael Cera, Olivia Thirlby, J. K....
  
  a year later.

External links

• The West Wing Episode Guide