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Will McAvoy is the bland, non-partisan anchor of fake network ACN's fake show, News Night. He does a panel at a college with two other newscasters who have political leanings and sits in the middle of them while they bicker about current events, saying little except for how much he likes the Jets. This makes one wonder why people invite him to be on these panels in the first place, but that is never revealed. When a blonde student dares to ask the panel why America is the best country in the world, the moderator pushes McAvoy to say something of substance. At the same time, he hallucinates Emily Mortimer in the audience holding up cue cards about how America isn't the best country in the world anymore … but it could be. How could it be? By keeping its public informed with quality news broadcasts! It's not about the people who do the things the news reports on, but the actual reporting of that news that once made our country great. Will says this and much more, most of it anti-America (though he never says which country is the best in the world since America no longer is) and all the students whip out their video iPhones and Youtube happens.
Three weeks later, Will returns from a long vacation to find that almost all of his staff will be moving to another show because they have no hope that he'll last much longer now that everyone knows he hates America and also because he's a nightmare to work for – either screaming at his underlings or being so indifferent to them he doesn't even know their names. Only Neil, the blogger Will didn't know he had, and Maggie, Will's assistant who is a clumsy, female, dating Will's soon-to-be-former Executive Producer (and cries at work like a true professional), decide to stay with him. This gives Will's boss, Charlie, whose alcoholism is hilarious!, the chance to hire the Executive Producer he thinks will turn Will and his show into News Done the Right Way: By Trustworthy Older White Men Who Are the Voice of the People. And that EP is Emily Mortimer, except now her name is MacKenzie McHale and she's an America-loving American with an English accent who used to date Will.
Will runs off to find a way to get rid of her while she makes herself at home in the newsroom, bringing in her trusty sidekick, Jim Halpert Harper, to serve as senior producer. Will returns for an argument with MacKenzie, leaving Jim to look at everyone's computer screens and see a news alert about an explosion in the Gulf of Mexico that Will's outgoing EP, Don, dismisses. Then we realize that this show takes place IN THE PAST – April 2010, to be exact – and the explosion is the beginning of the BP oil spill. I don't know why they couldn't just make up news stories for this fictional program, but whatever. Jim quickly gets on the phone with some Valuable Sources – namely, his old college roommate who works at BP and his sister, who works at Halliburton, which doesn't make him a great journalist so much as a guy who coincidentally knows people – and they tell him that there is much more to the story. Jim takes this over Don's head to Will, who decides to go with that story for the night's show instead of whatever crap Don and his staff wrote for him. It could be because Will is now a noble newsman who wants to inform America and make it a better place like it was in the '50s (according to everyone on this show, who don't seem to know a whole lot when it comes to American history), but it may also be to stick it to Don. Either way, it gets MacKenzie and Jim on the job two weeks early and the newsroom springs into action. This involves many phone calls and looking at computer screens. THRILL!
Will's show that night is all about the oil spill that his show knows about before anyone else. Even stupid Maggie gets something right, which MacKenzie rewards with an offer of shopping, every girl's dream! The news is saved and journalists are on the road back to being American heroes again. Will softens a bit towards MacKenzie, who cries at work because that's how Lady Journalists roll on this show, and we find out that those cue cards Will thought he hallucinated her holding up in the beginning of the show were real and also that she apparently carries the same pad of paper around everywhere she goes.
All in all, it's a show with a lot of words that manages to say very little. The parts that happened during the actual news show were compelling enough (though nothing we haven't seen before), but I'm not sure they're worth slogging through the rest of the show and its many truly unlikeable characters to get to them.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!I'm a recent journalism school graduate and I'll be your recapper this season as we explore the world of journalism as seen through the eyes of Aaron Sorkin, who somehow manages to be more self-important and self-absorbed than a recent journalism school graduate.
We open on Jeff Daniels sitting in between two arguing anchorpeople with decidedly political leanings: one conservative, one liberal. Jeff Daniels stays silent and smirks bemusedly at their silly words while the camera circles around and goes in and out of focus in a way I find conspicuous and annoying but I guess is supposed to capture how it feels to be stuck in between two people arguing about politics. This happens to me at nearly every family Thanksgiving, but I manage to get through it without squinting at how bright the lights are or seeing Emily Mortimer sitting with us. Daniels isn't so lucky. He sees her in the audience, but then it turns out just to be a woman who looks like her. Either that, or Emily Mortimer found a woman in the audience wearing the same clothes as she is and looks like her and decided to play tricks on Jeff Daniels and make him think he was hallucinating. But that would just be ridiculous. Right?
Finally, the moderator asks Jeff Daniels, a.k.a. Will McAvoy, Boring Unopinionated Anchorman Extraordinaire, if he would like to add anything to this hot debate and justify however much Northwestern paid him to sit on its stage and stare at Emily Mortimer lookalikes for 45 minutes. He does not. An audience member, who identifies himself as "Steven," asks Will about his political leanings. "I consider myself a New York Jets fan, Steven," Will responds. The audience chuckles politely. I'd just like to point out that Will managed to remember the name of the random white male audience member, but, as we'll see later in the episode, can't figure out the names of his female or non-white staffers. The moderator asks Will if he traditionally refuses to state his political allegiances because he wants to be seen as a neutral news presenter. "That sounds like a good answer. I'll take it," Will says. "HA HA HA" says the audience that has apparently never seen anything actually funny before.
The moderator quotes an article accusing Will of being "the Jay Leno of news anchors." Will says he's jealous of Leno's ratings. The moderator realizes he's not going to get any more out of Will and moves on to Jenny, a sophomore who wants to know, "in one sentence or less" because blonde 20 year olds are stupid, why America is the best country in the whole wide world. "Diversity and opportunity," says Liberal Lady. "Freedom and freedom, so let's keep it that way," says Fox News Guy. "New York Jets," says Will. When pressed for a real answer: "diversity and opportunity and freedom and freedom." He looks out into the audience and sees Emily Mortimer again, now holding up a sign hastily written on her notepad that says "IT'S NOT." On the : "BUT IT CAN BE."
The moderator presses harder, saying he won't let Will leave this auditorium without giving at least one real answer. Will looks back at the audience, but Emily Mortimer and her cue cards have turned back into the other woman so Will has to go with how awesome America was when it was first founded. The moderator does not appreciate the history lesson: "I want a human moment from you." "IT'S NOT," says Emily Mortimer, back in the audience. And then Will goes off on his speech about how America is not the greatest country in the world. He turns to Liberal Lady and says liberals are a bunch of losers and tells Fox News Guy that there are plenty of countries in the world with the same freedom he thinks America is so great for. The moderator tries to help Will shut up for his own sake, but that's not going to happen. Will turns to Jenny, calling her "Sorority Girl" and listing off a bunch of statistics that he thinks indicate that America is not the greatest country in the world that he happens to know off the top of his head. Meanwhile, audience members whip out their iPhones and start recording. Will says America leads the world in only three categories, none of which are "math" and "science," although I'm not sure how one determines which country is best at "science." America has the highest number of citizens in jail per capita, defense spending, and people who believe angels are real. I'm going to call bullshit on that last one. I personally don't believe in angels, but I have a feeling that a few of the people who founded this country who Will thinks are the greatest America has to offer did, and I'm not sure how spirituality goes hand in hand with stupidity. Will concludes that Jenny, or "20-year-old college student" is "part of the Worst. Generation. Ever." and he doesn't know "what the fuck [she's] talking about" when she says America is the greatest, unless she means our awesome national park system.
Not noticing that everyone in the audience seems kind of uncomfortable on his behalf, Will keeps going, saying America used to be the greatest, back when we "stood up for what was right" and "fought for moral reasons." Uh, yeah, like when the "Greatest Generation Ever" didn't enter WWII until it basically had to and then ended it with nuclear warfare that killed hundreds of thousands of innocent people, or when the Revolutionary War was fought because people didn't want to pay taxes. "We struck down laws for moral reasons," Will claims. Some of them, yes. Usually after several other countries had already done so (such as abolition of slavery and equal voting rights). "We waged wars on poverty, not on poor people," Will says. So you can tell where all this is going: once upon a time, in a land that exists in hindsight if not history books, everyone in America was good and self-sacrificing and humble and we had both the "world's greatest artists" (huh?) and "the world's greatest economy" (I will give him that). "We reached for the stars!" Will says. So did the USSR. In fact, the USSR got there first.
Will continues that when America was great, we "acted like men." Wait, what? Oh no! I act like a woman, owing to the fact that I am one, so I guess I will never be a part of making a country great. "We didn't scare so easy," Will sighs. Yes, that's why they called it the "Red Not-Scare." After so many words, Will gets to his main point and the main point of the show: that America was able to achieve all of this self-sacrificing brave manliness because its citizens were "informed. By great men - men who were revered." Screw you, Nellie Bly! And screw you, everyone else who isn't a journalist but has contributed to society in other ways! None of it matters if old white men aren't there to tell everyone what you've done.
Afterwards, Liberal Lady and Fox News Guy ask Will what his problem is. Will doesn't seem to know. "You can't talk to me like that!" Fox News Guy says. "Do you need a doctor?" asks Liberal Lady. Ha ha, conservatives are elitist and selfish and liberals are a compassionate drain on health care resources!
Just when I thought this couldn't get worse, the opening credits start. I don't think I've ever seen a cheesier opening credits sequence than this - and I used to recap 7th Heaven. We've got black and white shots of old newsrooms back in the day when men were awesome, clips of Murrow and Cronkite's greatest moments, and then we go to the fictional ACN newsroom where our show will take place while the overwrought piano and violins play. Also, it's like ten minutes long. But it thinks it's awesome and what television needs more of, so in that regard, it fits this show like a glove.
Three weeks later, Will returns to work after a post-Northwestern outburst vacation. His staff watch him walk into his office, then resume their conversation. Don and Maggie were arguing about whether or not Don should meet Maggie's visiting parents after only dating her for four months. Neal just wants them to take their personal crap somewhere else so he can stay firmly on the periphery of this show. They walk ten feet away from Neal's desk and argue about something else: the "stupid decision" Maggie made for loyalty reasons while Don made a "smart" decision because of "ambition." "He can't remember your name, and I'm the asshole," Don says. The "he" they're referring to is Will, who earned Maggie's undying stupid loyalty because he promoted her from lowly intern to a lowly assistant. "He didn't promote you, honey. He thought you were his assistant," Don condescends. And I'd really not like Don for that, except for the fact that he's right, and that's why he gets to go to "pizza meetings" and Maggie is stuck in a mostly-empty office working for a guy who just took ten minutes to realize that nearly all of his employees are somewhere else. Also, Maggie tells us that Don is a "hotshot EP out of Columbia J-School," and Columbia J-School rules. Suck it, Medill!
"You're making a mistake," Don says. "I'm used to them by now," Maggie says. Are we supposed to like Maggie? She's terrible at everything so far. Will wanders into the bullpen and asks where his staff is. Don refuses to answer, telling him to "see Charlie." Don then leaves, so Maggie steps up to talk to Will except that, once again, she sucks at life so she can't cross the room without tripping over a chair. When she finally gets to Will, it's to tell him the same thing Don just did: to see Charlie. "You're Ellen?" Will asks her. "Maggie. Margaret," MaggieMargaret says. Will rightly grows impatient with her and asks for "Karen." But no one in that office is even named Karen. Will thinks Karen is his assistant. "I'm your assistant!" Maggie says. "You're Ellen," Will says. "Mmmargaret!" Maggie says. Will asks if Charlie's secretary (Charlie doesn't have an assistant, I guess) is named Karen. "No one's named Karen. No one," Ellrengaret says. It turns out that Charlie's secretary is named Angela. Way to take your character names out of the 1950 Most Popular Baby Names book, Sorkin.
Will heads into Charlie's office. Charlie is Will's boss and he is played by Sam Waterston, who is awesome. Also, how does he have such a full head of hair? It can't possibly be real, can it? Amazing. Charlie says Will is looking great after his two week mandatory vacation to St. Lucia that he apparently took with Erin Andrews, as if she hasn't suffered enough. Will just wants to know what's going on, but Charlie would rather tell stories about being a journalist in Vietnam. Finally, he says some guy named Elliot will be anchoring a show at 10 pm that starts in two weeks and most of Will's staff is going to work on it under Will's soon-to-be-ex-Executive Producer, Don the Parent Hater.
Will storms out to confront Elliot. Charlie runs after him. Will says he gave Elliot every break he's had in the business and rallied for him to get the 10 pm slot, only for Elliot to poach Will's EP. "Don asked to go," Charlie says. Will thinks it's about his little Northwestern outburst, but Charlie indicates it's more about how unpleasant Will is to work for, something Will doesn't seem to understand. "You're drunk most of the time," Will says, so pleasantly. Charlie happily agrees. "Try not to make a scene," he begs Will.
"HEY, DICKLESS!" Will screams at Elliot, happily pizza partying with his new staff. Elliot, followed by Don, go into the hallway to get this over with. Will is indignant at Don's betrayal "after all the time we've spent working side by side." Don points out that "all the time" is just thirteen weeks. "That's the longest I've ever worked with anybody!" says the guy who doesn't think he's the problem. "I'll replace you in fifteen minutes," he says. This breaks through Don's attempts to be diplomatic and professional, and he says he didn't asks to leave Will's show because of the things he said about America or to that unfortunate "sorority girl" who is now apparently thinking of suing the school for "mental anguish." Wait, can we do that? Can I sue my school for mental anguish? Because I had to work really hard there and sometimes professors didn't tell me how awesome every single thing I ever did was and that hurt my feelings so I want three million dollars.
"It's your personality," Don says. Will doesn't understand. Don clarifies: he and the others are leaving the show because Will is unpleasant. "I'M AFFABLE!" Will screams affably. Don says Will certainly likes to appear that way on TV, but in real life, Will yelled at Don in front of everyone and Don can't handle that because they don't teach you how to get humiliated in front of people at Columbia J-School. Will insists that he is a great person to work for and that Maggie's name is Ellen. Maggie makes an "oh shit" face and shakes her head. "You are a smart, talented guy who isn't very nice," doesn't have much time left in the spotlight, and couldn't come up with a better excuse for his actions than blaming it on a bad reaction to vertigo medicine, Don says.
Charlie suddenly sobers up and flies into a rage attack: "I AM A MARINE, DON. I WILL BEAT THE SHIT OUT OF YOU, I DON'T CARE HOW MANY PROTEIN BARS YOU EAT!" I don't know why this show is an hour and 15 minutes long when we really only need that on a loop for five minutes. Everyone takes a breath and Will says Don is smart, and smart men are part of Will's Master Plan for America, so he can't stay mad at him. Don says he appreciates everything Will has done for his career and will try to ensure that things transition as smoothly as possible in the two weeks before he starts working for Elliot. He heads back to the pizza party. Will gives Elliot a "good luck with the show, man."
Charlie and Will move their meeting to a place that serves alcohol, for Charlie's sake. Charlie says Don wasn't entirely wrong about Will, but Will would rather talk about how he had no idea that people didn't like working for him. I guess he thought all the staff turnover was because people liked working for him so much that they had to get out of there as soon as possible to give their friends a chance to do it, too? "I am a perfectly nice guy and I have to focus group data to prove it!" Will says. No one ever says that. Not even Sorkin says that. Because he can't, because there is no way a focus group sat through this show and gave it glowing reviews unless they fell asleep until the last 10 minutes of it. Charlie slurs that he's already taken care of the problem and hired Don's replacement. Will can't believe Charlie would do something like this without giving Will a chance to meet "him," to which Charlie says it's a "her" and he has met her before. Will knows Charlie is talking about MacKenzie McHale and he is not happy. Charlie says he's trying to "right the ship" that is Will's show because even those precious focus groups are starting to turn against him.
Charlie lets us in on what a great hire MacKenzie is: she just got back to the US from running around the Middle East reporting from the front lines. She wants to be an EP again, only to be rejected by CNN and ABC. Also, she's apparently "exhausted" both mentally and physically and that's a good reason to hire someone somehow. "She's been to way too many funerals for a girl her age," Charlie head-wobbles. And this show just made war reporting seem boring, somehow. "She's the best EP in the business!" Charlie continues. He can't believe no one would want to hire her. Maybe they all think of her as a "girl" like he does? Or don't want to hire tired people?
Will agrees with how talented MacKenzie is, but that's not going to make him want to hire her. Charlie says that doesn't really matter at this point; she's signing a three-year deal tomorrow. Will thinks his contract states that he has to approve any EP, but Charlie happily tells him that it doesn't. Will leaves to try to re-negotiate that contract. He might want to fire his agents who didn't put the clause in there in the first place while he's at it. Charlie asks Will when the last time he saw MacKenzie was. Will says about three years ago. Charlie goes on another one of his rage outbursts and screams "THAT'S THE LAST TIME YOU WERE A NICE GUY!" before pleasantly asking the waitress to bring him another alcohol.
It turns out we've seen MacKenzie before, too: it's Emily Mortimer! She walks into the office and finds it mostly empty, so she just places her bags on the floor by the entrance for someone else to take care of and asks Maggie where she can find Will. Don walks in and says hello to MacKenzie, explaining to Maggie that MacKenzie "gave" him his first summer internship. Don can't believe MacKenzie has already been hired to replace him while Maggie, who unsurprisingly sucks at being an assistant like she sucks at everything else, says that Will is at his agent's office right now. "I'm sorry. I gave too much information," Maggie says sadly, staring at the floor. Yes, MacKenzie and Don both immediately figure out that Will just learned about MacKenzie's hiring and is with his agent trying to find out how that happened and what he can do to stop it. MacKenzie seems a little thrown by this but maybe she's just tired. She sits down at one of the 167 empty desks to wait for Will to return. Don asks Maggie if she's still sure she wants to stick with Will and walks off.
That means it's time for Girl Talk! Maggie starts off by calling MacKenzie "ma'am." "How old do I look?" MacKenzie asks. That's a good question, since the actress is in her early 40's but the character is somehow supposed to be 30, as we'll learn later. MacKenzie doesn't have much to say about the 26 months she spent embedded with the Marines, instead talking about how she bought lots and lots of cute clothes when she got back - three credit cards worth!
The conversation is interrupted by Maggie's loud cell phone ring that she didn't turn off even though she's at work because, again, Maggie sucks at everything. "Hi, Dad!" she says. Is Maggie 12 years old? Does she not want people in her office to respect her? Because taking personal calls at work from anyone, but especially Daddy, is a great way to do that. Call him on your lunch break. Maggie informs her father that it'll just be him, her mother and Maggie for dinner tonight because Don "can't make it." Who plans to have her boyfriend meet her parents for the first time without consulting the boyfriend first? Stupid Maggie does! Maggie lies that Don has to work late and feels "terrible" about missing dinner. Her eyes well with tears as she tries to defend Don to her father, who clearly knows Don is avoiding him.
Maggie gets off the phone and sniffles. Oh my god. No. Do not cry at work. If you must (and have a better reason to do so than Maggie does), try to do it in the bathroom. Don't do it at your desk where everyone can see you. You are making the rest of us women look bad. At least Maggie tries to cover it up when MacKenzie nosily asks, claiming it's "an allergy." MacKenzie pays no attention to this, instead saying she hates lying to her father, too. Lying to authoritative men is definitely a reason to cry. Maggie stutters out denials, but MacKenzie can tell that Maggie and Don are in a relationship and Don thinks they're too early in it to meet her parents. She got all of this from a photo of Maggie with her arms around Don on Maggie's desk. "I'm not reporting you to HR," MacKenzie assures her. Maggie might want to report MacKenzie, though, because the thing she says is "does he want you to do things in the bedroom you're uncomfortable with?" MacKenzie is disappointed when Maggie quickly says no. Yes, I definitely admire MacKenzie's superior powers of deduction and inability to separate appropriate and inappropriate topics of discussion in the workplace. Such a hero.
Maggie says that her dad knew she was lying because, again, Maggie can't do anything right, and now he's going to hate Don forever. "That's not what I wanted to happen," Maggie says. Well, time you won't make plans for Don without asking him first. MacKenzie gives Maggie a few tissues and some advice: give Don a bit of the cold shoulder for the few days, and he'll be more willing to do what Maggie wants time around. Thanks for that, MacKenzie. Surely your own personal dating choices show off your wisdom in this arena. MacKenzie finally turns the discussion to work things, asking Maggie if she's leaving Will's show with Don. Maggie says she isn't because she's Will's loyal assistant. Not anymore! Now she's the associate producer Will doesn't give a shit about, thanks to MacKenzie, who promotes people despite knowing nothing about how good they might be at that particular job. "I'm crazy about loyalty," MacKenzie explains.
And then Jim Harper flies into the office - at one point, literally, as he trips over the bags MacKenzie thoughtlessly left in the middle of the floor. "Are you all right?" Maggie gasps, no doubt sympathetic to people who suck at walking even more than she does. "That's Louis Vuitton luggage," MacKenzie says, her daily sympathy allowance having been used up on Maggie. Jim grabs MacKenzie to talk to her in a more private area of the bullpen. They stand in the middle of the floor where everyone can see them and Jim whisper-shouts to MacKenzie that he just learned that Will didn't know MacKenzie was hired and doesn't like it. MacKenzie tries to shrug this off, but Jim says he and three other people quit their jobs to come to this show and work for MacKenzie. He already paid first and last month's rent in New York, and now MacKenzie can't tell him for sure if he has a job.
Jim says he's going to beg for his old job back, but MacKenzie physically holds him back, then asks him "when was the last time [he] was in love with a woman?" She already knows the answer, but makes Jim says it anyway: "never. That's never happened." MacKenzie says Jim always had "a little crush" on her, which he denies without looking her in the eyes. MacKenzie says that Jim can't have her, but he can have the best thing: Maggie, who reminds MacKenzie of a younger version of herself after their five minute conversation about Daddy issues. Jim, of course, would rather focus on professional concerns, even though we're supposed to understand that he's worked with MacKenzie before and so he should be used to this. I am, and I've only known MacKenzie for ten minutes. Ten annoying minutes.
Jim asks MacKenzie why she's "afraid to see Will." That gets this ridiculous line in response, delivered awkwardly by Emily Mortimer who, for all her talents, just can't pull it off, especially with the English accent: "Hey, Jughead, I ain't afraid of nothing except jellyfish, which is completely normal. Now, look at the girl!" Jim asks MacKenzie what's in this for her, and it turns out quite a bit: MacKenzie thinks she needs Don on her staff, and if he feels threatened by Jim, he'll try to impress Maggie by staying. Which I think we can all assume MacKenzie is correct about since Don is in the opening credits. Jim tries to take a hard line with MacKenzie, refusing to work on the show if she doesn't tell him what's up with her and Will. "I can't," MacKenzie says. Jim gives in anyway. MacKenzie says they'll do the best news ever together on Will's show. "Where's the rest of the staff?" Jim asks. "They left!" MacKenzie says. She's so happy to possibly screw Jim over and ruin his career, isn't she?
And now, Will returns to the office to come face-to-face with MacKenzie. She tries to be cordial, but Will cuts her off and angrily orders her into his office. Maggie tries to be a good intern/assistant/associate producer by offering to get Will coffee, but he refuses. After an awkward silence in his office, MacKenzie says she tried to talk to Will in the three years since whatever went down between them, but he angrily says he didn't even read her emails. Then he lights a cigarette because Sorkin is pushing boundaries with his TV shows right here by having his characters smoke on the air. MacKenzie can't help but ask Will a personal question even though this is clearly not the right time or place or person for it, wondering if he was with Erin Andrews in St. Lucia. She takes the question back before he can refuse to answer it.
Will informs MacKenzie that the three-year contract she thought she had is no more. Instead, he will have the ability to fire her at the end of every week and plans to give her a few months of work before he does so to avoid raising eyebrows. Will was able to change MacKenzie's contract by taking a million-dollar annual paycut. That's how much he loves power and hates MacKenzie, I guess.
So while they're fighting in Will's office, Don and the rest of the pizza party return to do some actual work. Maggie introduces Don to Jim, and, since they've both worked under MacKenzie, they compare notes on how crazy she is and how much she loves America, if only to explain how MacKenzie has an English accent but is American. She was born in America to British parents, who lived in the US while her father was Margaret Thatcher's ambassador to the United Nations. So ... she was born in America while her father worked for Thatcher, who was Prime Minister from 1979 to 1990, which makes MacKenzie 33 years old, at the most? Thirty-one, actually, once you realize that - spoiler alert! - this episode takes place two years ago. Yet Emily Mortimer is 40 years old. Would it have been so difficult to avoid this whole thing entirely by just having her do an American accent, which she's done very well in roles? She probably would be able to deliver some of those lines, too.
"She's like a sophomore poli-sci major at Sarah Lawrence," Don smirks. Jim says she totally is except for her prestigious awards and stab wounds in the line of duty, and the two guys are all set up to dislike each other for the rest of the season.
Back in Will's office, MacKenzie begs Will to spare the staff she brought over if not her. She says they've all spent money and time moving to New York for this. "THEY FUCKED UP, MACK! THEY TRUSTED YOU!" Will screams. This is audible in the bullpen. Jim facepalms, then looks up at the sound of a news alert on the computer. He tells Don, who glances at it and then dismisses it as being "yellow" and therefore not important. This doesn't sit well with Jim, who can't help but check it out for himself. It's an explosion off the coast of Louisiana, which Jim and Neal, who's been listening in on all of this, know must have come from an oilrig. "April 20, 2010" flashes on the screen, which we all know means the yellow alert was the first indication of what would become the BP oil spill. This is also when we realize that this show takes place two years IN THE PAST (mind-blowing!) and is apparently going to use real-life events for a fictional news show, which doesn't really make sense to me. At the very least, if you're going to insist on doing this, you'd better get them right. Since the explosion actually happened just before 11 pm, New York time, there's no way Will's staff could be discussing it in the afternoon, unless those news alerts are actually warnings from the future.
At Jim's insistence, Don orders someone named Tess to stay on the oilrig story to shut him up. It doesn't.
MacKenzie earnestly (because she does everything as earnestly as Maggie does them stupidly) apologizes to Will and blames herself for whatever happened between them. He claims he doesn't care.
Tess is telling the room about the latest oilrig news and possible casualties. Don still doesn't think it merits their attention, but Jim insists that this is beyond a yellow alert story and that Will needs to know about it. Don gently reminds Jim that he doesn't work there yet, but Jim keeps going, trying to rally Don's staff. They start looking into the story, reporting that at least seven people were critically injured in the explosion and 11 are still missing. "They may have bigger problems than the missing crew," Neal mutters. Jim asks for clarification, but Don starts talking over Neal. Jim shushes Don and tells Neal to continue. Neal tells us what we already know now: the rig was drilling 18,000 feet below sea level, and the explosion could cause a massive oil spill.
Don pulls Jim aside and says that for the two weeks, this is Don's newsroom and Jim is annoying him. "Got it," Jim says. Except that he doesn't. He gets a call on his cell phone.
Will is telling MacKenzie that when he fires her and hires a new EP, that EP will pick his staff and hopefully keep MacKenzie's people on. "They'll get a fair chance," he says, then tries to kick her out of his office. MacKenzie turns to leave and makes it all the way to the door before turning around for maximum effect for her dramatic speech about the importance of a "well-informed electorate" to democracy and "vigorous debate," and that's why she loves producing the NEWS. Also, Will is "spinning out of control." Who actually says that, by the way? I've known people who were spinning out of control and I never said that to them, because it's ridiculous and cliché and I expect better than that from someone who is supposed to be such an amazing writer. Will denies any spinning or control-losing, but MacKenzie says all he cares about is ratings and doing whatever "news" stories will get him the most viewers. Will reminds MacKenzie that things like ratings are important in advertiser-supported television. Apparently it's not quite so important on HBO, which sometimes cares more about the names in front and behind the camera than the work those names produce so we get shows like this (although, yes, the premiere did get good ratings. I just don't think those numbers will hold because this show is kind of unwatchable). "I'd rather do a good show for a hundred people than a bad one for a million," MacKenzie says. I hope those hundred people are enough to sustain those democratic vigorous debates MacKenzie loves!
Thankfully, Will asks MacKenzie to cut to the chase, for only he may make the self-important speeches on this show and be the Voice of Sorkin. MacKenzie says she wants to make the kind of show she and Will used to do before he became popular and Jay Leno-esque. Will says he'd rather be employed. "You punk!" MacKenzie says; "I've come here to take your IQ and your talent and put it to some patriotic fucking use!" In case you were wondering, Emily Mortimer was no better pulling that off than she was the "jughead" line, though none of this is her fault because I don't know anyone who could deliver those lines convincingly. MacKenzie is determined to make their show good AND popular, even if Will thinks that's impossible. Will whips out some report that apparently says that Americans are more polarized than they've been since the Civil War. "People choose the facts they want now," Will says. This is true. I don't think a show like this or Aaron Sorkin is the answer, though. Will says most Americans are stupid. MacKenzie insists that they aren't. She says America is the only country that has always said that it can do better. So America has low self-esteem? Like Maggie? "That whole speech did nothing for me," Will says. It didn't do much for me, either. Now Will and I have something in common! Oh, no, wait - as MacKenzie finally leaves his office, Will looks like he might, in fact, have taken her words to heart.
Jim is off the phone and wants to talk to Don. Don wants Jim to sit down and shut up. "I just got a call from a source!" Jim says. An anonymous engineer at BP told him that they don't know how to cap the well. He won't tell Don who his source is, so Don walks away. Jim gets another phone call.
Oh, I guess MacKenzie walked back into Will's office, because she is now quoting Cervantes. Oh, no, wait - as Will points out, she's just quoting Man of La Mancha. MacKenzie says that's irrelevant. "It's time for Don Quixote!" she says. Will assumes MacKenzie means he is Don Quixote. No, MacKenzie says she's Don Q; Will is his horse. "He rode a donkey," Will says. MacKenzie wants to reclaim "the Fourth Estate" and "journalism as an honorable profession." Yeah, actually? It's never been an honorable profession. Which is not to say it isn't, just that the rest of the country (and many journalists) haven't seen as it as such and this has been consistent throughout its history. Nightly news, MacKenzie says, is supposed to inform people to have debates that are "worthy of a great nation" full of "civility," "respect," and a "return to what's important: the death of bitchiness, the death of gossip and voyeurism." Oh my god, I cannot listen to this much longer. But it goes on. "We're coming to a tipping point. I know you know that" blah blah blah conversations about governments and politics and self-sacrifice versus self-interest and MacKenzie and Will could have the privilege and the honor of framing that debate, if not coming up with ways to make it appealing to the audience to engage in. "That's ... " Will starts. "Quixotic?" MacKenzie smirks. Ugh.
Jim runs up to Don with more information on the oil spill. "You're being disruptive right now," Don says. Jim threatens to go to CBS with this huge story. "Get the fuck out," Don says. Jim heads into Will's office instead.
Don follows him in. Will, predictably, is not happy to see either of them, but agrees to listen to Jim because Don doesn't want him to. "Blow me," Don says. Will lectures him on using bad language in front of women. Blow me, Will. Jim says he needs help from one of Will's staffers, though he doesn't know Neal's name. "The Indian stereotype of an IT guy?" Will guesses; "PUNJAB!" he screams into the bullpen. Oh, hi, sexist and now racist asshole who is somehow supposed to be a likeable lead.
Neal describes the oil spill to Will as "the pin" being "yanked out of the planet," but admits he knows this stuff because he "made a volcano in primary school." Also, his official job is not the IT guy, but Will's blogger. Will didn't even know he had a blog. Jim says he also has a source at Halliburton, which is when Charlie staggers in. Don says this isn't a story because it's still yellow. Charlie says it's actually orange now. Jim says Halliburton was supposed to seal the well, but they were using a faulty cement mix to do so that is believed to be the reason why the rig exploded. Not only that, but Halliburton knew the mix would fail and tried to use it anyway. Will's not buying any of this until he knows who, exactly, Jim's sources are, since he doesn't even really know Jim's name (though, with "Jack," he gets closer to it than he did with Maggie or Neal's). Jim assures him that his sources are "solid" and "you guys have to follow up on this." "It's gonna be the biggest environmental disaster in history," Neal says. It's going to take months before the oil spill can be stopped. "I think you may be overreacting," Don says. "You are dramatically underreacting," Jim says. "I'm the only one who's not dramatically doing anything!" Don says, now solidly my favorite character on this show.
Will, Charlie, Jim, Don, and MacKenzie (called in by Jim "as a witness" in seriously obnoxious way) head into Will's office so Jim can tell them who his special sources are. And here's where we learn how these awesome, best-ever newspeople get their big scoops: through hard work, persistence, skill, and - oh, no, wait, I'm sorry. It's none of those things. Jim's BP source is his college roommate and the Halliburton source is his sister. Which means I'm totally screwed in the journalism world because I didn't have a roommate in college and my only sibling is studying landscape architecture, so I will never have the right connections to break a story.
Will thinks Jim must be pretty amazing to get "not one, but two people to roll over on their employers within five minutes." Jim says he was "just lucky." Pretty much. But somehow, we're supposed to think this is how news is broken and Jim must be an amazing journalist. Don speaks up to say this is obviously just a simple search and rescue that will yield no rescues and Will is letting some random guy and "a woman I don't know what the hell" convince him that it's the biggest story of the decade. Meanwhile, if they're wrong about this, Will's career will be over and the network will get sued. Which none of us care about since we all know now that Jim and his sources aren't wrong. Will decides to go with Jim and MacKenzie. He tells Don to ditch the stories they were going to do for tonight and go with the oilrig, much to Charlie, Jim, and MacKenzie's delight.
Don storms out and tells the rest of the staff to get on BP, but then Will interrupts him to make his own announcement to his staff, asking those who will be leaving for Elliot's show in two weeks to raise their hands. That would be almost everyone, and Will tells them to leave and enjoy two weeks' paid vacation. They do except for Don, who can't believe Will is about to devote his hour-long program to an environmental story before the oil hits the pelicans and produces good video.
Will thinks the oil rig wouldn't have blown up if the government overseers were doing their jobs, and he's willing to go on the air with that because he is ready to Inform the People now. He asks MacKenzie to start two weeks early, she happily accepts, and then MacKenzie is telling the booker to start lining up interviews. And they do, running through the set with phones to their ears and looking important and purposeful except for Maggie, who can't even manage to walk and talk on the phone at the same time. Nevertheless, Jim assigns her to look into the MMA, which is not a mixed martial arts thing but a government agency that has something to do with minerals and offshore drilling. Don volunteers to take that over from her because he has no faith in Maggie's abilities. "I'd like to get this one thing right," Maggie says. At least she seems to have a good idea of her own abilities, or lack thereof.
MacKenzie asks Don who the show's "go-to geologist" is. "There's not a lot of breaking news in geology," Don says. He'd better hope they get a geologist before season, when that big tsunami is scheduled to hit Japan!
It goes to the control room, who throw out the volcano ash travel difficulties story in preparation for this. Will takes a moment in the bathroom to think and stare at his shaky hands before using them to rip open his dry cleaning. Yes, that's right: this show is so thrilling that we're watching someone open his dry cleaning.
MacKenzie heads into the control room as Will settles behind the desk. MacKenzie tells the staff to get Will into some better wardrobe, suggesting dark colors and designers brands. One guy thinks that will make Will look like an "elite prick." MacKenzie says that's what she wants to "make sexy again." The guy wonders when that was ever sexy. "Ask the Kennedy brothers," MacKenzie asks. Didn't everyone in the '60s wear clothes from Botany 500?
MacKenzie decides to take the last 90 seconds Will has to prepare for the show to talk into his earpiece and tell him that he might be able to fire her every week, but for one hour a week, she gets to own him through his earpiece, "for your own good and for the good of all." Yes, cable news shows truly are for the good of all. Thanks, cable news! Thanks for doing it not as good as Comedy Central for over a decade now!
Will refuses to bow to MacKenzie's will, so she takes over the graphics desk and changes the show's title card to "Vertigo Medicine with Will McAvoy." MacKenzie refuses to change it back to the real title until Will agrees to do her bidding. This somehow leads to Will screaming "YOUTUBE! YOUTUBE! YOUTUBE!" and then bowing to MacKenzie with 10 seconds left until air. As the show is about to air, some guy finally notices that there's no script. MacKenzie says Will is all about that, and the show begins.
It's News Night with Will McAvoy! By the way, this show's opening credits are much less self-important and shorter than The Newsroom's. I approve. All Will has to go on from the teleprompter is "Good evening, I'm Will McAvoy." The rest, he'll be winging, which he does perfectly because Will might be a terrible human being but he is great at improv.
While that's going on, Jim is trying to get a statement from BP. MacKenzie is telling Will via his earpiece to yell at government officials for not having a contingency plan in place if the worst were to happen, which it now has. And Maggie is freaking out over something she just heard on the phone, but once again lacks the ability to put her phone call on hold to tell anyone about it, so she just tries to whisper-shout and jump up and down and hope Jim sees or hears her. "You have a hold button," Don reminds her. She uses it and shows Jim what she got. Whatever it is, it causes Jim's jaw to drop. "Come with me," he says. Maggie runs after Jim, forgetting her phone headpiece is still on and nearly choking herself on the wire. This can all be seen on the show, as Will broadcasts from his newsroom so the world can see the crazy people who work for him.
As Will goes to commercial, Charlie slides in to enjoy the process of the news. He tells a "young lady" to get on her Twitter account and tell the world that this entire show is being done on the fly with a brand-new EP and no script. Yeah, you definitely want to brag about that hot mess. "I can only use 140 characters," the woman says. Isn't she a reporter and shouldn't the twittering be Neal's job?
Will tries to get the facts about faulty cement from the Halliburton spokesperson, who does not appreciate Will's hostile attitude and aggressive fact-seeking ways. "All of our thoughts and prayers are with the missing crewmembers," Spokesperson says. Will says everyone's are - "no one's thoughts and prayers are with the fire." Thanks for that sassy quip, think of the missing crewmembers' family members.
Jim and Maggie finally arrive in the control room, which is somehow a 10-minute jog away from the bullpen. Maggie says the MMA is actually the MMS - Minerals Management Service - and that they have way too few inspectors for the number of wells out there, so the required monthly inspections at the oilrig weren't happening as often as they were supposed to, and when they were, it was by people who didn't have the necessary experience. And the last guy to inspect the oilrig is on the phone and ready to go on the air with Will because he's an idiot who will probably lose his job. "Maggie, I am taking you shopping!" MacKenzie cries. Yeah. What can I even say about that? It's sexist and it's stupid but maybe I'm just mad because no one I worked for ever offered to take me shopping when I did a really good job. Also, I'm a woman so I'm probably on my period and incapable of thinking rationally anyway. But I would like to know how MacKenzie can take Maggie shopping when she maxed out all those credit cards on her own shopping trips. Lady Problems!
Will returns to the show with Eric Neal, MMS inspector whose voice sounds a lot like Jesse Eisenberg's, on the phone. Will quickly gets Eric Neal to admit that there aren't enough inspectors for the number of wells, that he was the one who inspected the oilrig 20 days ago, and that he'd never inspected an oilrig before. Will gets off the phone with him and reads a statement from BP that doesn't say much of anything. Will signs off, and the newsroom erupts in applause. Yay, we're awesome! And the news alert finally turns red.
Charlie walks in with post-show celebration drinks. "We got it right," Charlie says. Will points out that they got the spill right. They could still be wrong about everything else. Charlie doesn't care about that because it's drinking time and people on the internet are stupid. But Charlie is ready to send them all 140 character-plus tweets when it suits him.
Will asks Charlie if this was all his doing - giving Elliot that show knowing that Don would go with him and sending Will on vacation so he could hire MacKenzie to replace him. Charlie says he just wants the news to be the news again. Will says MacKenzie is a liability. Charlie thinks he's Don Quixote, Will is Sancho, MacKenzie is Dulcinea, and the rest of the staff are Quixote's horse. "Donkey," Will corrects him. Except not really, since, if we're going to mention Don Quixote over and over again, I'm going to point out that Quixote rode a horse. Sancho rode the donkey. So far, no one on this show seems to actually know his Cervantes.
Charlie does know his anchorman history, saying that even Murrow and Cronkite had opinions when they thought it really mattered - Murrow brought down McCarthy and Cronkite ended the Vietnam War. "I'm not those guys," Will says. Charlie thinks he is. He says he's "just decided to" do the news "well" again like they did "in the old days." "I fucking loved what you said at Northwestern," Charlie slurs; "and that's why I brought her here."
Jim gets ready to leave for the day, and stops by Maggie's desk on the way out to tell her she did, in fact, manage to do something right today. He does not offer to take her shopping though, so whatever. Maggie gives Jim all the credit, saying he was "like Batman." "I just answered my phone," Jim shrugs. I am not impressed with Jim's news skills so far. Maybe week. Oh, god. There's going to be a week.
Don walks up, and Jim shakes his hand and offers to buy him a drink. Men buy each other drinks; women take each other shopping. Don says he'll take him up on that when he hasn't just spent the day being shown up. Then he tells Maggie he'll go down to the lobby with her where her parents are waiting to meet them and apologize for not being able to do dinner with them. "It's a compromise," he says.
Before Maggie can answer, Will walks up and tells her what her name is because he finally knows it. This totally redeems him for not knowing it before. No, it doesn't. Will is still an asshole. Don is not, so he congratulates Will on a "good show" and admits that he was wrong and MacKenzie was right. Meanwhile, that one TV screen in the background has been running McCain speechifying all day now. Did Sorkin write McCain's speech so it's ten hours long or is someone on Will's staff a huge McCain fan who runs that thing on loop?
Don leaves with Maggie, and MacKenzie makes a variety of hand signals at Jim that he stares at for a few minutes before informing her that he has no idea what she's trying to say to him. MacKenzie clears it right up: "Just ... you're fine."
Will leaves for the day. MacKenzie wants to talk to him. He doesn't want to talk to her. Instead, he's going to march into the control room and thank his team for doing such a great job for him and tell them how important they are to him. Except that he's in the wrong control room because he doesn't actually care about his staff.
MacKenzie corners Will at the elevator and reminisces about the first time he met her parents and how "perfect" he was with them. Isn't he the same age as MacKenzie's father? She doesn't think Will remembers it, but he does, including who won the baseball game he took her father to (taking an English guy to a baseball game is not, generally, the way to impress said English guy) and how MacKenzie's father said he disapproved of Will's Republican leanings but MacKenzie loves him, so they could get drunk together.
MacKenzie gets all teary-eyed because that's what women do on this show, and Will asks if she's as "physically and mentally exhausted" as Charlie said she was. "I've been exhausted since I was 30," MacKenzie says. So ... this year, then? MacKenzie says she just wanted to "come back and be in a newsroom" and the elevator finally arrives. "This one's yours for a week," Will says. Ten weeks, unless HBO gives this boring talky mess another season.
Will holds up the elevator to tell MacKenzie that he didn't suffer a vertigo-medicine-related breakdown at Northwestern: he thought he saw MacKenzie in the audience and got flustered. "I thought I saw you, but it turned out to be someone else," he says, and the door closes. Good. I hope it takes this simpering, too-serious background music with it.
But no, it just swells as MacKenzie flips through her notepad until she gets to "IT'S NOT" and "BUT IT CAN BE." Yes, she really was in the audience that night and those cue cards were hers. Which means she carries this notepad around with her all the time and also that she managed to find someone in the audience who looked a lot like her and was wearing the same clothes, and then jumped in front of her a few times and flashed a notepad at Will before quickly ducking down so he couldn't see her. Which means a few rows of that audience now must know her as "the crazy lady with the notepad who kept jumping up and down." Such a great newswoman! She considers chasing Will down to tell him the truth, then decides things are better if he thinks he just hallucinated the whole thing. She pencil skirts back to work.
To read more from Sara Morrison, you can follow her on Twitter, subscribe to her on Facebook or you can just email her at saramorrison@gmail.com.