In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.
MacKenzie decides to celebrate the new NewsNight's first anniversary (plus one week, because if they had celebrated the occasion on the actual first anniversary then it wouldn't have happened at the same time as the Big News) at a party in Will's apartment on a Sunday night. Even Charlie shows up, because partying with 70-year-olds is so fun. Also because he gets a phone call from a mystery source who tells him big news is coming from the White House in 90 minutes. MacKenzie also gets a call from ACN's national security analyst, but thinks it's some guy hitting on her and ignores it. Oops!
Will doesn't get any calls, so he feels free to take Vicodin and eat two very strong pot cookies, courtesy of Neal's sort-of girlfriend. When everyone gets word that Obama is going to give a Very Important Speech, the NewsNight team springs into action! Except for Will, who is stoned off his ass. Oops!
Unfortunately, they're going to have to let him anchor the night, because Terry Smith doesn't exist, ACN's D.C. correspondent is having a power struggle with MacKenzie, and Elliot is stuck on a plane with Sloan and Don, who gets in a fight with the rule-loving flight attendant and has harsh words for Lester, his seat neighbor. Also, Sloan set Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner on fire. Oops!
Before Obama's speech, both the plane people and the newsroom people figure out that Osama bin Laden has been killed. Don freaks out because he can't get off the plane to deliver the news, but ends up delivering it to the plane's flight crew instead and feels honored to do so. It's pretty cheesy. In the newsroom, Charlie refuses to let MacKenzie go on the air with the news until they're absolutely sure of it. Will gets confirmation from Biden (really? Come ON), but doesn't bother to check his email until 20 minutes after it comes in, so ACN ends up telling the world that bin Laden is dead about three seconds before Obama does and probably an hour after everyone else. Oops!
And finally, the Jim/Maggie/Don/Lisa "plot" kept happening. Oops.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!Charlie gets a phone call. He doesn't know who is calling or why, but the mystery man promises that this will be the first of "several" calls. Good, more phone calls! That's exactly what this show needs. Charlie is either drunk or Sam Waterston can't enunciate anymore, as he informs both his caller and us who Deep Throat is and how it's a "sacred pseudonym." Mystery Man refuses to tell Charlie his real name, saying "call me 'Late for Dinner'" and says that he is trying (if he can ever get a word in with Charlie interrupting him all the time) to establish his credibility with Charlie. He says Charlie will get an email in about 90 minutes from the White House press secretary calling him into work. And when that happens, Charlie will know that Late for Dinner is legit. Instead of thanking the guy for the possible heads-up, Charlie lectures him on withholding information when someone could be in danger. No, Charlie. That kind of stuff only happens on good shows that are exciting and fun to watch. With that, Late for Dinner hangs up on Charlie, who either has the stubbiest fingers I've ever seen on a non-dwarf adult or my TV screen settings have been changed to stretchy mode.
Charlie heads back inside, where we find out he's at big party at Will's place! Unfortunately, someone invited MacKenzie, who nags Will to make a little speech. Will would rather not. He doesn't have a choice. Somehow, against his will, he's been made to throw a party in his apartment for his horrible employees on a Sunday night and now he has to talk to them. Will says this is "just like in [his] nightmares." Like, don't think you're so special there, Will. I too have nightmares concerning people on this show. Like all this week I had these recurring dreams where I really, really wanted to watch the Olympics but I can't because I have to recap this show instead. Terrifying!
While Rodney Dangerfield Guy (wearing his best casual duds) looks on, Will says this party is in honor of the new NewsNight's one year and one week anniversary. They couldn't even get an anniversary party right. I'll bet Maggie planned this. Or MacKenzie. Whoever it was, you can bet she was female. A bunch of idiots clap and raise their glasses to "NewsNight 2.0," which has yet to be not lame and Will says they're probably on NewsNight 174.0 by now. "I'm confident we're gonna get it right one of these days," he adds. I'm not so confident.
Neal, Kendra, Gary Cooper, Martin, Tess and Julie Cooper play Celebrity. Julie Cooper thinks Christian Bale is an Australian woman who starred in the Spiderman franchise. Tess thinks she's really cool when she informs Julie Cooper that Christian Bale is "English." He's not. He's Welsh. I mean, he was born in Wales, but his parents were English and he was raised in England. So maybe he is English? Best to go with "British." All-encompassing. I only know all of this because my roommate is an avid Christian Bale fan.
Several people then play Jenkins, which you probably saw in a much funnier and cuter scene in The Office. I have a feeling Sorkin saw it, anyway. Gary Cooper prefers to play chess during parties. Kendra is kicking his ass. Oh, and then Jim and Will break out their guitars for a jam session... like, the fuck? Am I a freshman in college right now? No. So no lame guitar sing-alongs just because two actors happen to play the guitar. Actually, it's worse than a sing-along because I think they did this song in a studio and now they're lip-synching. Also, they're performing "Sunshine" by Jonathan Edwards, who did this song a whole lot better than those two ever could. (Although maybe I'm wrong about John Gallagher, Jr. My brother saw him perform with a band a few times and said they were pretty good.)
Having wowed the crowd with his awesome guitar skills, Will decides to eat a few pot cookies, as provided by Neal's sort-of-girlfriend, Kaylee. First though, he feels the need to tell the kids that he's only eating marijuana because it's medicinal and he has knee problems due to his amazing pitching prowess when he was in high school. He could throw a "74 mile-per-hour fastball" when he was a junior. Oh really? Because as I recall, Charlie told us that Will graduated college at 19, which means he was, what, 14 when he was a high school junior? "I was an awesome high school athlete," Will summarizes. Ew. He thanks Kaylee for the pot cookie gift -- like, who brings pot cookies to her sort-of-boyfriend's late-middle-aged boss's apartment party as a gift? I hope Kaylee is secretly filming this to give to TMI. But no, she just recommends that Will not eat more than a quarter of a cookie at a time because they're "pretty strong." She gave him like four cookies! Even if he ate one quarter a day, it would take him 16 days to finish them, by which time they would surely be stale. Poor planning. Also, too bad she didn't give Will this advice, like, an hour ago, because he already ate two cookies. Instead of urging him to throw up before he digests way too much pot, Kaylee tells him to "enjoy himself" for the 12-14 hours. Will's not worried, saying that much like he was a fantastic 13-year-old high school athlete and has an "incredibly high tolerance." Also he just took Vicodin. "Stay away from anything dangerous," Kaylee says. Neal seems to think it's funny that his not-girlfriend just killed his boss.
So Will is a moron, but MacKenzie still manages to be worse because she just got an email from someone named "Mike Tapley" saying "I'm available. Call me," and she assumes he's asking her out when, as we later discover, he's ACN's national security analyst. She complains to Charlie, who ignores her.
Kaylee is so good at Guitar Hero that she can beat Jim at it while blindfolded. Whatever, Kaylee! I'm sure Will was better at Guitar Hero than you when he was a fetus. Kaylee asks Neal to check why her phone is buzzing. He says it's her "incoming Twitter feeds." Really? How does that work? My phone doesn't alert me when people tweet unless they're tweeting at ME (which everyone should: @saramorrison). Anyway, the latest tweets on Kaylee's Twitter feed are: a link to epic photographs, Steve Martin not being as funny as he once was (I'm sorry, but it's true) and The Rock being very patriotic about some news he just heard. Kaylee thinks that means The Rock is returning to the WWE to defeat Triple H. Charlie watches all of this without looking as bored as a 70-year-old man should look at a party full of vapid 20 and 30-somethings (and MacKenzie and Will and Rodney Dangerfield).
Having lost at Guitar Hero, Jim retires to Will's office with his laptop to do some work. Maggie finds him there. It turns out that Jim isn't working, but watching a baseball game. Then Roommate Lisa calls him. On his laptop instead of his phone. Is that what all the kids are doing these days? Not me! No one needs or wants to see what I look like. It's bad enough that they have to listen to my voice. Maggie urges Jim to take the call, but he declines. So Maggie nags him and then accepts the call for him. Roommate Lisa is using FaceTime to talk to Jim even though she's walking down the street and talking to him on the phone would be much easier and make more sense. Sure enough, Lisa walks into some guy because she isn't paying attention. Women R dumm.
Lisa asks Jim why he's online when he's supposed to be at a party. Jim has to explain that he was using his computer to work. "Watch some porn," Maggie "jokes." But Lisa guesses that Jim is actually watching baseball, because she is obviously a better match for him than horrible Maggie is. Lisa listens to Jim. Maggie just yells at him. And for no reason, Lisa decides to "try out" her "new expression," which is "it's a gas." No one who is younger than Charlie would ever say that. Lisa says she'll be at the party "in a minute." "I love you!" she says. "I do too," Jim says awkwardly and hangs up. Maggie's eyes bug out and her smile turns into a sneer. She assumes that Jim does not love Lisa. Jim explains that Lisa said she loved him for the first time last night and he felt like he had no choice but to return the favor. He says he "likes" Lisa, because she's nice and funny and sexy. Basically, everything Maggie is not. But he doesn't love her. And he thinks his response to Lisa was simply agreeing with her and saying he loves himself. "I look in the mirror and I like what I see. And I've been on a journey of self-discovery to answer the question, 'Who is Jim Harper?'" Why go on a journey for that? The answer is, obviously, Jim Halpert.
"Shut up!" Maggie says to her boss. Jim has no choice but to pout and look at the floor and do whatever Maggie tells him to. Actually, no, wait -- he does have a choice. He could fire her! But he doesn't. Instead, he agrees to break up with Lisa as soon as possible. Wow, Maggie is really looking out for her roommate here. She truly is the worst friend/roommate/associate producer/human being. "She's not that sexy," Maggie frowns. "Yes, she is," Jim says. "Because of her sweet face?" Maggie asks. Bitch. Maggie starts to say something else, but Jim interrupts her because he just got an email from Mike Tapley saying "I'm available. Call me." Maggie just keeps going about how Lisa isn't all that sexy. Jim snaps his fingers at her like she's a pet dog whose attention he's trying to get and reminds her that Tapley is ACN's national security analyst. He asks Maggie to figure out what Tapley is on about while he checks in with MacKenzie. "Do not take a tone with me, American Gigolo," says the woman who thinks it's cool to date her former boss while pining after her current boss, who she fixed up with her roommate that she is now demanding he dump.
"Sing more!" MacKenzie asks Jim when he tries to talk to her about Tapley. Jim tells MacKenzie what the email said and her reaction is, of course, "Why is he hitting on both of us?" Even senile drunk Charlie knows that's not what's happening. "He's not hitting on either one of you. He's saying he's available to go on the air." Jim and MacKenzie didn't get phone calls from Late for Dinner, so they don't know why Tapley would go on the air. Charlie checks his watch and tells them all will be revealed shortly. Sure enough, everyone's phone beeps as an email from the White House tells him to "get to work." Is that really what the White House sends out? How abrupt. Charlie's is a little bit more polite, simply saying that the President will address the country at 10:30 EST "on a matter of national security."
Charlie walks up to Kaylee and awkwardly claps his hands on her shoulders. "What's wrong?" she asks, looking terrified. Charlie asks if The Rock has a cousin who is a Navy SEAL. Kaylee follows The Rock on Twitter and so knows all about him. She re-reads his tweet and guesses, again, that he's talking about Triple H. But Charlie knows better and that The Rock has the inside scoop on matters of national security. He tells the room to shut up and Will to turn the music off. Will asks Martin to throw him the remote. Martin does. It flies past Will's head, out the window and plummets to its death. "Martin! Throw me the remote!" Will repeats. No one seems to think this is as weird as you'd expect.
Neal turns the music down manually and Charlie says it's time to go to work because the president is going to address the nation in 90 minutes, so they have 30 minutes to figure out why. While the underlings pack up to go to work, MacKenzie, Charlie and Will try to guess what's going on. "I think we got bin Laden," Charlie says. Wow, isn't he just the man with these correct predictions made over a year after the actual event happened?
Terry Crews has to escort Will to work because that storyline is still happening. Lisa finally appears just as everyone is leaving. "Can I come watch?" Lisa asks. Sure she can! It's not like ACN is a place of work or anything.
By the way, in case you were wondering where Dr. Dr. Sloan, Don and Elliot are, they're on a plane heading back to New York from D.C., where they apparently just had an informative weekend conference with a bunch of people who you wouldn't expect to be working on a weekend. Don spent the entire time talking about Maggie, including to Timothy Geithner, who asked Dr. Dr. Sloan when Don would "shut up about Maggie." Geithner is correct. Don should shut up about Maggie. Everyone should. Now she's terrorizing D.C. without having to be there. Dr. Dr. Sloan says she was embarrassed by this, especially since it came "right after [she] accidentally set him on fire." Oh, of course. It totally makes sense that Geithner (or anyone) would react to getting set on fire by asking the person who set him on fire why her co-worker keeps talking about Maggie.
Dr. Dr. Sloan also scolds Don for turning his phone on when the plane hasn't landed yet. Don says he always turns his phone on when the plane hits 500 feet. Really? Either have it on the entire time or don't. Turning it on right when the pilots probably need the navigation system cell phones supposedly mess with is such a fuck you move. Elliot says he's only turning his phone on because he saw someone else do it. Dr. Dr. Sloan asks the guy sitting to Don (for some reason, Elliot and Don are in the window and middle seat, some guy is on the aisle and Dr. Dr. Sloan is in the middle seat of the row across from them. Nice job, ACN flight bookers) to take his phone away because he's going to get everyone killed. Don informs the plane that he is not trying to get them killed and that Dr. Dr. Sloan can't talk since she set the Treasury Secretary on fire. Everyone on the plane must be so happy it's about to land so he doesn't have to listen to this anymore. Also because it's kind of scary when someone says someone else is endangering people's lives on a plane.
Dr. Dr. Sloan's neighbor asks her why she set Geithner on fire. "To show the other cabinet secretaries that I could," she says. And with that awesomeness, the plane touches down and the flight attendant gets on the PA to welcome everyone to LaGuardia. Where was that flight attendant when Don was willfully disobeying the cell phone rule? Meanwhile, karma just bit him in the ass because his phone is out of batteries. He asks Elliot and Dr. Dr. Sloan to check if there's anything important he missed. Elliot's daughter emailed him to ask if he's the smartest man in the entire world. Dr. Dr. Sloan got a message from a fan asking her to please "be a lady" and button her top button and/or spill water all over her blouse. Finally, both Elliot and Dr. Dr. Sloan see the email about the White House press conference. Don asks his neighbor to switch seats with Dr. Dr. Sloan so they can talk about it. The neighbor only agrees to do so if Dr. Dr. Sloan gives him "a chance." Even though he looks all of 18 years old and clearly does not have a chance with her. Dr. Dr. Sloan is not about to give him any chances, but he agrees to switch with her anyway.
OR NOT! Since the flight attendant was listening this entire time and refuses to allow the guy or Dr. Dr. Sloan to remove their seat belts and stand up to switch seats before the plane arrives at the gate, as per federal law or airplane rules or something. Dr. Dr. Sloan tosses Don the phone as the captain gets on the PA and announces that because they're 10 minutes early, the airport doesn't have a gate open for them. Don groans and tells the kid to switch with Dr. Dr. Sloan now. Flight attendant Bernice (I don't know her name, so I decided to go with something out of that '50s baby name book Sorkin uses) is not having that. Even though the plane is now stopped, it is not at a gate, so no one is allowed to get up. "This is a bit of an emergency," Don says. Is it? Talking to Dr. Dr. Sloan about the news is a "bit of an emergency" now? I think that falls under "something I want to do at this moment in time." Not an "emergency." Bernice reminds Don of FAA rules. We find out that the kid's name is Lester. WHO IS NAMED LESTER UNDER THE AGE OF 75? Don says that he would like to "apply logic" here and let Lester switch with Dr. Dr. Sloan, since there's no way anything bad could happen to him or anyone else on the plane if he were to stand up. Bernice does not appreciate his tone.
Elliot moans that no one is answering his phone. Don figures their co-workers are on the subway. He demands to be let off the plane. "If you knew what we know... you'd be behind us and they'd be behind us and I think later on tonight you're gonna be saying 'I wish I'd been more cooperative to that passenger,'" Don says. I'm sorry, but no, she won't. "Damn, if only I'd let that news producer off the plane to produce the news because he's the only person capable of broadcasting the news on the only channel on television and also there is no Internet!" is something she will not be saying. Bernice basically tells Don to stop before she presses charges. Even Elliot thinks it's time to just sit back and be patient and he got beaten up in Cairo like a real newsman.
Will is stuck in traffic, calling someone on one phone and checking his email on another. Will's attempt to get information goes awry, however, when he forgets how to count past two. What is he, Maggie? Terry Crews urges Will to "sit tight." "I'm gonna run. I can run fast," Will says. True. He was a gold medalist in the 100 meters at age seven. Terry Crews orders him not to leave the car without him. Will unbuckles the seatbelt and takes off. "Motherfucker!" Terry Crews screams after him. Oops! The two police officers didn't see the stoned white guy running around, but they did catch Terry Crews screaming in the middle of the road. "I'm private security!" Terry Crews says. Yeah. They don't care. "Turn around and put your hands on the car!" Police One says. "I'm gonna kill him," Terry Crews mutters. You'd think he would know better than to say things like that. Police Two pats Terry Crews down and asks him not to do anything that would make them "nervous." Terry Crews points out that he can't control the fact that he's big and black.
Maggie, Jim, Lisa and Kaylee arrive at ACN. Maggie gives them a brief tour of the newsroom as if they've never been there before and then gets lost in thought trying to remember what food is in the kitchen. So stupid. So stupid. So stupid.
MacKenzie enters the control room, where the crew is setting up and "warming up" the studio. It takes 15 minutes to do this, they say. Uh... good thing ACN doesn't cover things like breaking news that can happen at any moment and so can afford to have 15 minutes of warm-up time like this. The old guy in the control room says they're going with the feed from their D.C. anchor until Will gets in. MacKenzie warns them not to let the D.C. anchor give away any cool news because that's Will's job.
MacKenzie then heads into the meeting room and asks what they know they know so far. The answer is nothing. But wait! Tess knows that the networks are interrupting their programming for the President's address as well, which, as Kendra explains, means a big loss of ad money. "It's bin Laden," Gary Cooper says. Charlie reminds them that they shouldn't just keep assuming that it's bin Laden just because they want it to be. Did people really think it was bin Laden like this at the time? I remember being pretty shocked that after all this time they found him. It would definitely not have been on my list of possibilities. Then again, if I was thinking about it a year after the whole thing actually happened, I can see how I would be pretty sure it was about bin Laden.
Martin suggests Gaddafi is dead, because he's reading the script for season. Kendra suggests a "foreign attack" as if Obama would wait an hour and a half after it happened to announce it and they wouldn't have heard anything else about it before. Come on. But MacKenzie thinks they should explore it by talking to their connection at NORAD who does the Santa Tracker story every Christmas. MacKenzie thinks that's better than "doing nothing." I'm not so sure. And then MacKenzie gets really stupid and asks for suggestions that are "way, way outside the box" and Neal can no longer keep silent. It takes him long enough to get there, but he finally sort of suggests that the President is going to announce that there are aliens. "Come back in the box," MacKenzie orders. I don't know; why not aliens? Maybe they found evidence of life on Mars, like a tiny little bacteria thing. Maggie's out of the box guess is even worse than Neal's: that Obama's U.S. birth certificate was proven to be false. At this point, MacKenzie finally realizes that Will isn't there yet. Nor are Elliot, Don, or Dr. Dr. Sloan.
MacKenzie dismisses everyone. Charlie asks her why she can't just wait for Obama to tell everyone what's going on. Uh... because that's what their job is? How does he not know this? Does he really run a news channel with that kind of nonsense? Then again, MacKenzie's answer isn't much better. "America thinks bin Laden's alive" (actually, no, I had assumed the guy was long dead at that point) "if I can make him dead one minute sooner, my entire life in journalism up until this point will have been worth it." Uh, no. Your entire life in journalism is worth it if you can break a story about an assistant coach who sexually abused children and the university that let him get away with it for years, and tell the world about it and stop him from doing it again. That kind of thing. When information actually helps people in some way as opposed to just putting a useless "I reported it first!" feather in your cap.
Elliot reports that it looks like Obama will be making his announcement from the East Room. Don reports the news to MacKenzie, adding that this means he has good news, as bad news is always delivered from the Oval Office or the briefing room. MacKenzie thanks Don for that and then asks if it's at all possible that Obama is announcing first contact with aliens. "Keep it together, would you?" Don snaps.
He hangs up on MacKenzie and sees that his nemesis, Bernice, has left her post to go to the bathroom. Oh, I see how it is. Bernice can stand up and move around all she wants, but not anyone else. Bernice gets to go to the bathroom, but Don isn't even allowed to unbuckle his seatbelt. That's a little bit hypocritical, don't you think? Don takes advantage of the lack of Bernice to unbuckle and get up to talk to Dr. Dr. Sloan. But Lester would rather discuss his chances with Dr. Dr. Sloan and if she's dating Don. "I'm not the type of guy who likes to play games," he says. Dr. Dr. Sloan's neighbor reminds everyone that Don is dating Maggie. Dr. Dr. Sloan's assignment is to find a way to legally escape the plane. It looks like she can circulate a petition for the other passengers to sign, but they probably don't have the time for that. Dr. Dr. Sloan says they can also shout unpopular political views or wear revealing clothing. Don orders Dr. Dr. Sloan to undress for this. Lester supports this. "I'm gonna lose my shit on you," Don tells him.
With that, the plane lurches forward and Don falls down. Bernice exits the bathroom and wanders around the cabin (which she's allowed to do and no one else is) and sees Don sprawled on the aisle. Bernice I told you so's him. Don says the worst thing that could have possibly happened to him if he stood up did just happen, and he's clearly fine. I don't understand why the entire plane isn't laughing at Don's obnoxious face flying into the carpet. And then the plane rolls forward all of ten feet before stopping again. The captain gets back on the PA to tell the cabin that they'll have to wait a few more minutes. Don screams that he is willing to get out and push the plane to the gate himself. "Maggie's a lucky girl," Bernice says. HA! Bernice rules.
Neal tells Lisa and Kaylee that they know the announcement is not a North Korean missile or a biological weapon attack. I'm sorry, but why? We all know what Obama's address is going to be about. There is no suspense here. How much better would this episode have been if we didn't know? Even Lisa knows bin Laden is dead at this point and Maggie thinks she's stupid. She asks Neal why the place isn't "more chaotic." Neal says they have monthly breaking news drills. That's ridiculous. Please tell me that is not a real thing in newsrooms.
Will somehow makes it into the office. He also managed to buy a falafel on his way to work, which is impressive given his current state. Neal informs Will that Obama's address was pushed back to 10:45 just to give us that much more time to know what he's going to say already. Will wonders why no one seems to know how to spell "Gaddafi." He also says he spoke to NATO and therefore knows the address will not be about Gaddafi, just in case Neal thought he wasn't able to do his job while wasted.
"You can't imagine how important this night is," Will says to Kaylee, who kisses him on the cheek like that's appropriate. She urges him to drink as much water as possible. Will heads into his office.
ACN's D.C. bureau does MacKenzie's job for her. The anchor informs MacKenzie that they just saw that Keith Urbahn tweeted that bin Laden is dead. MacKenzie says she already saw the tweet, but that they will not be reporting it. The anchor does not understand. MacKenzie says they need double confirmation and a tweet doesn't even count as one confirmation. The anchor -- named Jane, of course -- doesn't understand why she can't just report that Urbahn tweeted that without saying whether or not what he said was true. Why not? Because MacKenzie is the best EP ever, Jane. Duh. MacKenzie leaves the control room to tend to Will and all Jane can do is make snippy comments.
Will can't figure out how to tie his tie. Also, Geraldo is on Fox telling everyone the news has something to do with Gaddafi. Will tells MacKenzie that he'll go on the air real quick to tell everyone that it isn't Libya. MacKenzie says that sounds like a good idea. So good that Will repeats himself. And that's when MacKenzie realizes there's something wrong with Will. "I'm wasted, okay? I'm completely baked!" he admits. MacKenzie is understandably horrified. She says there's no way they can put Will on the air like this, no matter how many men he thinks he has the tolerance of. "There is no way -- no way -- I'm not reporting this story," Will says. MacKenzie nods. No, nope... don't you nod. You do not let a guy like that on the air. "We got Obama!" Will cheers. MacKenzie kind of sobs. Will hurriedly corrects himself: "bin Laden!" He is full of Vicodin and pot cookies. What was Fox's excuse?
On the plane, Dr. Dr. Sloan says she just got first confirmation -- something saying "enemy killed in action."
Will goes on the air to tell the world that Obama will not address them until 11 PM now. He throws it back to Jane and manages not to embarrass himself or the network. MacKenzie meets him in the hallway afterwards and says that Dr. Dr. Sloan just called in with the first confirmation from some guy in Tampa. Jim screams that they just got the second confirmation: Helene Cooper at The New York Times is reporting that bin Laden is dead. MacKenzie calls Jim, Will and Maggie (???) into the meeting room to ask Charlie if they now have enough to report that bin Laden is dead. Charlie is willing to believe that bin Laden is dead, but not to let Will report it. He says Helene Cooper claims she has two sources, but Charlie isn't willing to trust her or them apparently. "There's nothing wrong with waiting for the White House to tell us it's reportable," Charlie says. If that's the case... why did they leave the party at all? They could have stayed until five minutes to 11 if all they needed to do was show the address. Why bother with all of this?
Charlie explains his reluctance to report the news. You see, in 1991, Charlie oversaw a reporter who told his audience where Scud missiles were landing in Tel Aviv. The Iraqis used that information to aim other missiles and three people were killed and 96 others injured. It's all Charlie's fault! He's a murderer! Maggie makes a frowny face. "We're going to get this one right," Charlie insists, even if they report it two minutes later than everyone else. Um, at this point, Helene Cooper reported it like 15 minutes ago, so... you're already too late. MacKenzie, Jim and Maggie tell Charlie they agree with him. Will just has a dopey smile on his face.
Charlie will report the bin Laden news to the newsroom and happily. But first, a speech: "I need to tell you that you're going to remember this night for the rest of your lives. It's going to be a long night and we need you to work fast (why? They're not reporting anything) and we need you to work well (but Maggie works there still, so... ). But once in a while, take three seconds -- you can't spare more than that (because this speech just ate up any and all free time you might have had) -- take three seconds to notice where you are and what you're doing (in a newsroom that won't report the news). Will's gonna go on the air in a few minutes so that we can report that on the order of the President of the United States, U.S. Special Forces shot and killed Osama bin Laden."
And then the newsroom erupts in applause and cheers. That's kind of gross. You know who wants people to die? Osama bin Laden. You aren't that much better than him when you burst into applause because he's dead. I mean, you are better than him because he's a horrible murderer, but being this gleeful and congratulatory over someone's death is pretty unseemly and doesn't really tell the truth about people's reactions. There were plenty of happy people and there were cheers, but there were also people who urged us to tone it down a bit. The only people who don't look thrilled are Kendra and Kaylee.
I don't know what Kendra's deal was, but Kaylee makes her way out to the balcony. Jim finds her there, followed by Neal. Neal is still bouncing up and down in delight over bin Laden's death. Jim asks Kaylee why she isn't happy right now. Kaylee ignores him and tells Neal she thought she would "feel better" when bin Laden died, but she doesn't. It turns out that her father died in 9/11. Wow, her dad died in one terrorist attack and Neal almost died in another? This is one couple with terrible luck and a personal connection to every news event ACN covers. Meanwhile, Jim might want to back off and give Kaylee and Neal some space. He doesn't.
Jane in D.C. is kind of furious that Charlie is making them wait to report. "We are the only ones who have double confirmation!" she says. Um, no -- the New York Times does too, and reported this, like, three weeks ago at this point. Jane demands to go on the air with the news, accusing MacKenzie of holding back so Will can deliver the news instead. "I don't want it reported like the Redskins won the Super Bowl!" says the woman who just led her entire office in a round of applause for bin Laden being dead. Jane says she will not wait on this and picks up the phone to her reporter. He starts talking about how he "just received confirmation," so MacKenzie orders the control room guy to cut the feed. And ACN just went off the air. It's color bars. Everyone else is reporting that bin Laden is dead and ACN is color bars. MacKenzie thinks this is funny. No one is watching ACN at this point. After about 30 seconds, MacKenzie has the feed restored. She tells Jane that if she tries that again, she'll be off the air for the rest of the night. She might as well be, since she's not doing anything worth watching. "The announcement will be made by the face and voice of Atlantis Cable News: Will McAvoy," MacKenzie says, as if she's won something.
Let's sum up what just happened: MacKenzie will not let a perfectly fine anchor who is not baked off her ass report a well-sourced piece of information that every other outlet is reporting at this point because ACN's president contributed to a few deaths 20 years ago and can't deal with it still and MacKenzie would rather have a guy is barely coherent and just confused Obama with Osama tell the world what they already know instead. This is just fantastic professional journalism, you guys. Murrow used to go on the air after eating 18 pot cookies. Cronkite announced JFK's death three weeks after everyone else did while tripping on acid. Thank you, Sorkin, for giving us this gift of How the News Should Be Delivered.
Maggie doesn't have more than three seconds, yet finds several minutes to waste urging Jim to dump Lisa. "Are you kidding? I'm not doing it tonight!" Jim says. "You have to," Maggie orders; "you can't sleep with her again." Then she says "sexy" a bunch of times until Jim gives up and agrees to dump her. "Tell me what you're going to say," Maggie demands; "YOU NEED TO REHEARSE." Ugh, mind your own business. Maggie says rehearsals are important because the Spider-Man musical cast didn't rehearse enough and people died. Jim reminds Maggie that no, they didn't. No one died, idiot. If anyone did, the producers still wouldn't feel as guilty about it as Charlie does about those dead Israelis.
Lisa walks over and asks if she can talk to Jim. Alone. Maggie leaves and we all love Lisa for getting Maggie to go away. Before Jim can say anything, Lisa says that she realizes that when she said "I love you" to Jim, he only said it back so she wouldn't feel bad and that he's only been dating her because of this "forced fix-up" in the first place. She says he's so "nice" that he'd never dump her himself, which isn't nice so much as it is wimpy and wrong. It's not "nice" to stay with someone because you don't want to hurt her feelings by leaving. Grow up, Jim. Lisa dumps him. "I really did like you," he says. And then Lisa sees Maggie staring at them like a weirdo and figures she should talk to her . But before she leaves: "Thanks for bringing me here for this." Yes, the magical night that she found out Osama bin Laden died. Unforgettable precious memories, those are.
Lisa tells Maggie she broke up with Jim. Maggie tries -- not very hard -- to look sad about this. Lisa says she did it, because she saw the look on Maggie's face when Jim told her he loved her. Maggie pretends she has no idea what Lisa is talking about. Or maybe she really has no idea what Lisa is talking about. She is very dumb. "I'm with Don," Maggie says. "I saw your face," Lisa says. So Maggie drags Lisa over to Jim and says Lisa seems to think that Jim has feelings for Maggie. Um, that's not what she said. Maggie continues that Lisa also seems to think that Maggie has feelings for Jim. Maggie demands that Jim say that none of this is true, as if that will convince Lisa otherwise. Jim and Maggie emphatically state that they do not have feelings for each other. Lisa laughs at them.
Don likens himself to "the guy who wins the lottery and loses the ticket." Because he can't help produce the pre-presidential address news segment? YOUR JOB IS NOT THAT IMPORTANT. He calls this the "biggest story in a generation." Uh... no. That would be the thing bin Laden did 10 years ago, probably. "I'm just a spectator," Don moans. Yes, you are. You would have been anyway. Elliot tries to remain positive, which Don does not appreciate. "I can never count on you to be Jewish," Don says. He whines that he wants to be in the newsroom right now with Charlie and Will and other people. He does not say Maggie's name, which both Elliot and Dr. Dr. Sloan's neighbor notice. The neighbor wonders what will happen after Don and Maggie break up -- which neighbor is certain is going to happen -- and Jim is with someone else.
Don doesn't get a chance to answer, because everyone else on the plane suddenly got text messages saying that Obama is going to address the nation and now they're worried there was another terrorist attack. They pump Don for information until he takes off his seatbelt and stands up to make an announcement to all of them. He doesn't use the PA to do so, so I'm sure half the plane can't hear him. He assures the cabin that no one is in danger and then Bernice wakes up and tells Don not to "take over control of the cabin." Don gets pissy, so she tells on him to the captain.
Don rants that he'd love to talk to the captain because Bernice is being paranoid thinking that he's trying to take control of the airplane. The captain walks out with the co-captain behind him and asks Don what his problem is. Don suddenly stops talking and looks at the captain's uniform. Then, sounding much less angry and slightly ashamed, he introduces himself to the captain and says he works for ACN and wanted the captain, his first officer and "flight attendant crazy lady" to know that the United States just killed Osama bin Laden "for you." I mean, the actor who plays Don does a great job of trying to sell this cheese, but it's still cheese. Oh, and then the captain turns around and shakes hands with his first officer while Bernice gasps, then hugs them. This is the kind of reaction one might have to being told that his wife just gave birth, but on this show, it's because someone died. And now Don is satisfied because he got to report the news to three people.
Jim wants to talk to Lisa. He admits that he started seeing her because it was "a fix-up [he] didn't want" and that Maggie forced him to behave the way he did on Valentine's Day but... he wants to try again. "Complete do-over. I like you and I'm asking you out on a date," he says. Great, they can just drag this storyline out even more.
Terry Crews finally makes it into ACN, those two police officers with nothing better to do in tow. Also, he's furious with Will. But he also needs Will to tell the cops that he's Will's bodyguard. They'll believe what big goofy white guy Will says, but not what Terry Crews says. Will says Terry Crews is also a former military policeman and thus should hear the great news. Will whispers something in his ear and Terry Crews' mood lifts considerably while Will grins like an idiot. He tells Terry Crews to tell the cops. "Officers, I have some news for you," Terry Crews says.
Charlie gets a call from a private number. It's Late for Dinner again. I hope they change his name. Late for Dinner makes me hungry. Charlie guesses he works for the NSA. LfD says he does and that he's been monitoring "illegal electronic surveillance." And AWM is guilty of it. Apparently, TMI is hacking phones. LfD says he'll call back some other time and hangs up on Charlie. Ooh. Intrigue.
MacKenzie and Will walk in. MacKenzie whines that she wants to report that bin Laden is dead. The White House hasn't told them that it's okay to report it, but as she points out, it hasn't said it's not okay, either. Charlie says he hasn't gotten any emails from the White House. Will hasn't checked his email in ages, due to being stoned. He does... slowly... and sees an email from 20 minutes ago that says "OBL" is "reportable" and to "knock 'em dead just like we did." It's from Joe Biden. Charlie screams. Will shrugs that he was on a softball team with Biden once, so they are BFFs, which is how ACN does the news. "GET ON THE AIR!" Charlie orders.
The newsroom springs back into action. Charlie accuses Will of being "Ted Baxter." "Enjjooooyy the mommmmeennntttt," Will says.
Tess decides to give Will a few last-minute notes to glance at while he's reporting on camera: "Obama good" and "Osama bad." "Good thinkin'!" Will tells her. I hope the viewers at home can't see those giant pieces of paper on Will's desk.
One of the guys in the control room whips his FDNY baseball cap out of the desk drawer and puts it on. Really now? Oh, and that wasn't cheesy enough so he stands at attention too. Such a big important moment this is, turning the feed on so Will can tell people that bin Laden is dead 30 seconds before the president does. The rest of the control room, followed by the newsroom, follow the guy's lead and stand too.
"Do it for me, Will," MacKenzie says. Yeah, for you. MacKenzie. Not for the airplane captains or Kaylee or the guy wearing the FDNY cap. For MacKenzie.
And he does. ACN really lucks out and Will manages to not seem totally wasted when he reports that "the world" no longer has any reason to fear Osama bin Laden. Um... I'm pretty sure there are certain parts of the world that never feared him. America is not the world. Will recaps that almost 10 years ago, bin Laden masterminded the death of thousands of people and transformed the nation into a "more fearful" and "more hostile" one. Meanwhile, Will is stoned out of his mind, so this speech just isn't going to have the same seriousness and impact that Sorkin probably thought it should. Will then concludes by saying that this will be among America's "finest hours." And then he throws it to Obama, who walks up to the podium to give his speech. Which means that Will finally delivered this "news" like an hour after everyone else did.
And then Obama gives a speech that is much better than Will's could ever be.
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.
Think you've got game? Prove it! Check out Games Without Pity, our new area featuring trivia, puzzle, card, strategy, action and word games -- all free to play and guaranteed to help pass the time until your show starts.
What are people saying about your favorite shows and stars right now? Find out with Talk Without Pity, the social media site for real TV fans. See Tweets and Facebook comments in real time and add your own -- all without leaving TWoP. Join the conversation now!