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It turns out that picking your EP's ex-boyfriend to profile you for New York magazine leads to a cover story called "The Greater Fool." Ha ha ha! Brian is my favorite character on this show now. Will does not take the hit piece well because he is a giant insecure oversensitive baby, so he overdoses on a combination of Effexor, bourbon and painkillers to wind up barfing blood and half-dead on his bathroom floor, where he is discovered by Terry Crews, MacKenzie and his doorman. When he wakes up two days later, MacKenzie is waiting to yell at him. He says he's not going back to NewsNight. But we all know he will because we've already seen clips of his triumphant return broadcast. Suspense = killed. What finally convinces Will to go back to the only thing he's not good at? His mean nurse's old great aunt isn't allowed to vote in the election because of new voter fraud rules, and her story Must Be Told.
Meanwhile, Evil Gossip Lady Nina tells MacKenzie that she knows Will was high during the Bin Laden broadcast and just needs to find a second source to confirm it before she'll be forced to tell the world in TMI. When Will mentions that he left MacKenzie a voicemail that night that she never talked to him about, Charlie realizes that MacKenzie never heard the voicemail because TMI's crack phone-hacking team got to it first, listened to it and then deleted it. And since Will mentioned in the message that he was high, that's how TMI knew what happened – not because, say, Neal's girlfriend told them. Oh, and speaking of Neal? His grand plan to try to out the troll responsible for the death threat leads to 100 more death threats. Nice going, idiot. On the plus side, I think that means we'll get more Terry Crews season!
It's a good thing Charlie figured out that crucial phone-hacking clue, because Solomon Hancock ends up giving him absolutely nothing on it and then, when Charlie tells him they can't use him as a source for the NSA stuff because he kind of seems like a crazy person, Hancock jumps off a bridge. But he still serves his purpose, as Charlie, MacKenzie and Will (now out of the hospital, back at work and making crude comments to Leona about how she should pose for Playboy) meet with Leona and Reese to try to trick Reese into admitting that he ordered Will's phone hacked. Because Reese is a moron, he does. Leona has no choice but to keep Will at ACN and let him go anti-Tea-Party crazy or else her son might go to jail. She also has to shut down TMI, so there goes your job, Nina!
And in the romantic subplot almost no one likes, Don decides to ask Maggie to move in with him. He tells Dr. Dr. Sloan about this when she tells him she's going to quit ACN because she's sad that she hasn't informed anyone in America about the debt ceiling despite yammering on about it for months. Believing that she's three days away from leaving ACN forever, Dr. Dr. Sloan admits that she has feelings for Don. For some reason, Don still asks Maggie to move in with him when he should have dumped her for Dr. Dr. Sloan. Before that happens, he cancels dinner with Maggie and Lisa, leaving poor Lisa alone with Maggie, who tells her that Jim wanted to see her that night and not Lisa. Lisa is disgusted and leaves the restaurant. Maggie tries to follow her, only to get drenched when a Sex and the City tour bus splashes her. I don't know why people are on a Sex and the City tour at like nine at night, but there you go. Maggie then proceeds to scream at the tour bus and all of its passengers about how awful it is to be single in New York City and have feelings for your roommate's boyfriend, only for Jim to suddenly pop up on the tour bus, having heard everything. He and Maggie kiss, then remember that they're both with other people. Maggie leaves to dump Don, and that's when he asks her to move in with him. The easily-distracted Maggie sees all the candles and roses and says yes. Jim tries to call her. When she doesn't answer, he figures that she decided to stick with Don and makes nice with poor Lisa. Also, Dr. Dr. Sloan decides not to leave ACN, so now she's stuck working with Don. Awkward!
Finally, after everyone soothes his ego by telling him not to worry about that magazine article, Will does another one of his signature anti-Tea Party lecture-broadcasts, touching on the mean nurse's great aunt, the founding fathers, Michele Bachmann and Jesus. When he's done, he sees a woman waiting to interview for an internship (at nine at night? I guess she can still catch the Sex and the City tour when she's done … ) and realizes it's the "sorority girl" who asked him that stupid question in the first episode. He hires her. The circle, it is full.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!Oh, I see. For this Very Special Season Finale, they made the episode five minutes longer than usual. Thanks, Sorkin. Five extra minutes with you feels like a lifetime.
Fast-forwarding through this terrible theme song one last time. I bet Sorkin fantasized about how it would sound when the Emmy orchestra played it over and over again as the show racked up awards for being so awesome.
Will greets the audience on Monday, August 8, 2011. He says that the S&P downgrade of America's credit rating will not be the top story. Nor will the stock market's latest plummet, nor the riots in Europe (this is America -- we don't care about news in other countries anyway), nor anything any politicians said lately. Instead, the top story is... Dorothy Cooper!
I know you're all dying to know who this Dorothy Cooper is, but you'll have to wait. Because it's now "eight days earlier" and MacKenzie (wearing yet another clownshirt), Terry Crews and the doorman of Will's building enter his apartment looking for him. We never find out why they decided to break into Will's place tonight, but it might have something to do with what Terry Crews sees on Will's coffee table: a copy of the latest New York magazine. Cover story: "The Great Fool: The Arrogance and Failure of Will McAvoy." HA HA HA HA!!! Brian wrote the best article ever! Remember how Will was convinced that Brian wouldn't dare to say anything negative about him because of MacKenzie? He was wrong! He was wrong about everything! If they just ended the episode right now, I would pronounce this the greatest show ever. But they didn't. Instead, Terry Crews points to a spot of blood on the magazine cover and then realizes there's a trail of it leading to Will's bathroom. And that's where they find him: unconscious on the floor to toilet with blood down the front of his shirt. MacKenzie makes some weird noises while Terry Crews does something useful and checks to see if Will has a pulse while calling 911.
At the hospital, Charlie is clearly upset because he didn't even put his bowtie on before joining MacKenzie and Terry Crews. A doctor comes out and informs them that Will was vomiting blood, probably from a perforation. MacKenzie has no idea what any of this means, so Charlie translates: Will had a bleeding ulcer. Hey, I had one of those! Actually, just an ulcer. I don't think it ever got to the bleeding point since -- despite being a stupid silly woman -- I noticed that my stomach really hurt and I was throwing up a lot for seemingly no reason and went to a doctor before things got worse.
The doctor asks if Will takes a pain medication. MacKenzie says he does for his stupid baseball injuries, but very rarely. Terry Crews gives the doctor the name of the medication (naproxen), as well as the anti-depressants Will is taking now (Effexor) that MacKenzie had no idea about. All MacKenzie wants to know is when this started, like that's really important now. The doctor asks if Will's been "particularly depressed about anything recently," and everyone knows the answer to that is yes, over a magazine article that "mocked" everything NewsNight stands for. "He's taken it very personally," MacKenzie says. Yes, well that was his giant face on the cover of the magazine, so one can understand why. The doctor informs Terry Crews, Charlie and MacKenzie -- none of whom are a member of Will's immediate family or authorized to hear any of Will's confidential medical information -- that Will may have been "self-medicating." Naproxen can burn a hole in your stomach lining, but Will might have needed it because he kept getting migraines from the combination of Effexor and bourbon. Wow, these guys are like House right here. Even MacKenzie, who can play the part of one of House's ditzy female Cottages. The doctor decides that Will took too many anti-depressants. So he overdosed? He got an overdose ulcer? Now I'm confused like MacKenzie.
It's not like Will's in any danger of dying, since we know he's well enough to tell us about Dorothy Cooper eight days later. Dorothy Cooper is a 96-year-old Tennessee resident who's been voting since she was 21. But soon she won't be able to vote anymore, because the Evil Tea Party is trying to enact voter ID legislation and she doesn't have a government-issued photo ID. I'm assuming she also doesn't have the ability to get one because her age makes tracking down her birth certificate difficult -- if she even has one. Will doesn't touch on that point, though. Also, remember in Episode 2 when MacKenzie said they wouldn't focus stories on one person because it was audience manipulation? Well, MacKenzie apparently doesn't.
Will continues that 20 million people somehow don't have government-issued IDs. I'm sorry, but no. You cannot tell me that 20 million people who regularly vote in elections don't have an ID. I really think that number is just a little bit inflated. They say 50 million Americans don't have health insurance. I know several of them. I don't know one person who doesn't have some kind of government-issued photo ID. Will throws to a clip of Rick Perry talking about how important it is that we put laws in place to prevent voter fraud, then comes back to drop this knowledge bomb: out of 196,000,000 votes, there were all of 86 cases of voter fraud. That's 0.% of the votes cast. And they put that in red text so you know that It's Serious. I get what Will is saying here and I agree with him, if not the "facts" he's using to make the argument. I mean, okay, there were 86 cases of voter fraud that we know of. The whole point of voter fraud is that we don't know that it happens. It could just be that those 86 were really bad at being fraudulent voters.
Anyway, Will says Republicans are for voter ID legislation because the people who would be disenfranchised by it predominantly vote Democrat. But Will is not ashamed to admit that he is a Republican and that, he says, is tonight's second story. So... three seconds in, we're done with Dorothy Cooper? We didn't even get to interview her! They just slapped two photos up behind Will and called it a day! Lazy. Also, it shouldn't surprise anyone that the second story is apparently about Will himself.
Seven days earlier, Jim calls the morning meeting to order. Once again, a plate of delicious pastries is in the middle of the table, untouched. While Jim's underlings propose stories, Jim tells them to hold up because he wants to talk about something truly important: Sex and the City. Tess asks if he's talking about the show or sex in general. Maggie is furious because she knows Jim is only asking about this because of Lisa. Oh my god, are women still this hung up on Sex and the City? This was only a year ago. Lisa is supposed to be 26 years old. Sex and the City went off the air when she was 20. Anyway, Jim needs a Sex and the City crash course. It's called Wikipedia. Or perhaps you could read some of TWoP's delightful recaps! Or maybe you could take Neal's suggestion and go on a three-hour-long bus tour.
Looks like Will fell asleep reading a copy of New York magazine. Or maybe MacKenzie just put it on his chest so it would be the first thing he saw when he woke up. Wearing a third clownshirt, MacKenzie stands over him and says he needs to rest. How can he when she's looming over him like that? She takes the magazine away and then smacks him with it while screaming at him, saying she waited for him to finally wake up so she could assault him and then tell him to "stop being so sad about this." Will says he's "over it." MacKenzie finds that hard to believe. I thought they were talking about MacKenzie cheating, but I guess this time it's about the magazine article. MacKenzie points out that Will has gotten bad press before and even from Brian a few times. Also, Jane is hosting the show in Will's absence. GOOD. Jane, as we learned a few episodes back, is QUALITY. I'll bet MacKenzie is only hanging out in Will's hospital room instead of being at ACN right now because she's afraid of Jane after cutting off her signal.
MacKenzie says the article was a "hatchet job" written by "an idiot ex-boyfriend" that isn't worth the two weeks Will's apparently been sulking about it. Will quotes the article: "It's as though McAvoy is unaware of how ridiculous he looks doing what he thinks passes as a Murrow (mention #50,004) impersonation." And some stuff about how Will's premise is antiquated and irrelevant. And, he says, they're right. "Being a cynic is easy," MacKenzie says. Actually, you know what's easy? Being a journalist when you have a personal connection to every big story.
MacKenzie tells Will to get over himself. Will says this is his Don Quixote moment and this article is his mirror. MacKenzie doesn't know what he's talking about because we all know how very little she knows about Don Quixote. He says he's not coming back to ACN. MacKenzie says he will if she has to chop him up, put him in a duffel bag and re-assemble him behind the anchor desk. She could have just said "drag you back to the office." Much less violent. Her phone rings, but she ignores it for a while because she doesn't actually know how to answer her own phone.
Evil Nina, TMI's top reporter, a.k.a. the only journalist on this show who seems to know how to investigate a story (except for the whole possible phone tapping thing), meets MacKenzie in Columbia Circle. Look at me, recognizing NYC landmarks! I'm such a New Yorker now. Nina says she has a story she doesn't want to write. "Then don't write it," MacKenzie shrugs. Yeah, I'm sure that's why Nina called you here, MacKenzie. For your sage wisdom. Nina says she has one source. If she gets a second one, she'll have to write the story. MacKenzie finally asks what the story is about. Nina says she knows that Will went on the air high to announce the death of Osama bin Laden. MacKenzie takes way too long to respond, so Nina knows she's right. MacKenzie insists that Nina's source lied to her. Nina says the source is "unimpeachable." MacKenzie stammers out more denials, but Nina tells her to shut up and listen because she's trying to "help." She says as soon as she gets the second source, she'll go to press with the story.
MacKenzie says she doesn't trust Nina. Why not? MacKenzie knows that Nina is telling the truth, so she must also know that Nina has nothing to lose by telling MacKenzie about it. Instead, MacKenzie's going to judge Nina and her work while allowing a guy stoned out of his mind to go on the air. Nina admits that she doesn't like "some of the things" she's written about Will, MacKenzie and several others. MacKenzie smirks and says she doesn't believe her. Nina asks what she wanted to be when she grew up. Apparently, MacKenzie wanted to be the worst best EP in the business, so she's happy. Nina says she, too, wanted to be the worst best EP in the business. Instead, she's a horrible gossip reporter. She says no little girl ever wants to grow up to be a gossip columnist. Speak for yourself, Nina. I wrote my own tabloid when I was nine years old and it was AWESOME. MacKenzie says she doesn't feel sorry for her. "Make sure I don't find a second source," Nina says. They part ways. "It's not true!" MacKenzie calls out after her. "Yes it is," Nina says; "I'm sorry." Nina is more competent than 10 MacKenzies.
MacKenzie explains things to Charlie, who has a hard time believing that Will was high since he did that bin Laden story so well. Yes, he was great, wasn't he? In those 15 or so seconds he spoke before throwing it to Obama, he was masterful. "He's a savant," MacKenzie says. She says only she, Will, Neal and Neal's girlfriend knew what happened. Charlie says he's sure none of them went to Nina. Really? He is? He barely knows Kaylee. We don't even know if Kaylee and Neal are still together. MacKenzie asks if this is the thing Reese and Leona could use to fire Will. Uh yeah... you think? I would. He's a liability, as is the EP who knew he was wasted and put him on the air anyway. Frankly, I don't understand why Charlie is so okay with all of this. He wonders why TMI hasn't published the story yet. It's not like a crappy gossip rag to need a second source. MacKenzie changes the subject to Will and how depressed he is. Charlie is sure Will will come back to ACN. For now, he has to go talk to Hancock.
They meet in a park. Charlie tells Hancock they can't use him as a source. Hancock doesn't understand why he's not a "credible witness" after 35 years at the NSA. He denies that his security clearance was ever downgraded and says Jim must have been fed false papers because the NSA wanted to discredit him. Charlie doesn't want to hear it. He says he's sorry, but Hancock will "contaminate" the story. "Do you like beef stew?" Hancock asks Charlie, who has no idea what's going on now. Hancock starts talking about how he made really good beef stew when he used to have his kids over on Sundays. Charlie recommends a doctor he can see. I hope it's not Jack. That guy couldn't even keep Will from overdosing on anti-depressants.
Charlie asks Hancock for the proof that TMI is hacking phones. Hancock has no intention of giving it to him if he won't keep up his end of the deal and put the NSA story on ACN. Charlie says he needs the TMI evidence to "help out a friend" who is "a lot like" Hancock. So... Will is a crazy old man who loves beef stew and prostitutes? Okay then. Charlie promises that Will will get around to the NSA story at some point later. Hancock doesn't believe him. He knows that as soon as he gives Charlie the TMI proof, Charlie won't need him anymore. "Do you know how many years it's been since my kids have come over for dinner on Sunday?" he asks. I guess the kids weren't cool with dad stalking mom or going to the prostitutes? Or maybe they turned vegetarian.
Five days earlier, Dr. Dr. Sloan wraps up her afternoon economic report. Don walks up and asks if it's true that she's taking another job. Dr. Dr. Sloan says a recent poll showed that 42% of Americans still don't know what raising the debt ceiling means, even though Dr. Dr. Sloan has been boring them with the details of it every night since the midterm elections. Don says she won't inform anyone if she takes this venture capital job. Dr. Dr. Sloan says she'll at least get paid. She doesn't think Will is going to come back to ACN. And even though she took the job at ACN before Will became the news savior, he's apparently the only person keeping her there now. "Friday will be my last day," she says. Not even a two week notice? How professional, Dr. Dr. Sloan. I'm pretty sure she's in breech of a contract or two as well. Don thinks he can change her mind. But first, he wants her thoughts on whether or not he should ask Maggie to move in with him.
Dr. Dr. Sloan doesn't see what she can say to Don about this, as we all know how horrible she is at relationships. Don doesn't know how he's supposed to ask Maggie to move in. Dr. Dr. Sloan suggests a marriage proposal. Don is not interested in that. Thank god. It's bad enough that he wants horrible Maggie to actually live in his space. If he proposed, I'd have to disown him entirely. Dr. Dr. Sloan decides that she can be honest with Don since she's leaving soon, and what she wants to say is that someone must have told Don he was a "bad guy" once and he believed him, but he was wrong. "You think you're a bad guy, and you're just not," Dr. Dr. Sloan says. But then she kind of gets mixed up and says that because Don is a bad guy, he tries to do things he thinks good guys do, such as committing to someone he likes, but maybe doesn't love. That's something "good guys" like Jim do all the time. Also, I don't think Dr. Dr. Sloan is referring to Maggie here because she says she's "sweet" and "smart," and Maggie is neither of those things. Don's response to this is "why are you single?" Dr. Dr. Sloan says she's too smart for most guys. Also because Don never asked her out. Don is pretty shocked to find out he had a chance with Dr. Dr. Sloan. The appropriate response would be to dump Maggie yesterday and get with Dr. Dr. Sloan, but then Jim walks in and interrupts, as usual.
Dr. Dr. Sloan tells Jim that Don and Maggie are moving in together. Jim tries not to look bitterly disappointed. "That's great! Cool! I didn't -- all right. Good luck... " He should be so happy that Don is with Maggie so he gets to be with awesome Lisa. Don says he can't remember why he asked to see Jim. Jim takes the hint and leaves. Don tells Dr. Dr. Sloan that he really does want to commit to Maggie. I guess he's blind and deaf, then.
Why do they keep letting MacKenzie back into Will's hospital room? Surely Terry Crews is supposed to be keeping potential threats away from Will? MacKenzie is a five-year-old, so she gets bored and starts flicking at Will's IV bag, almost immediately causing the tube to dislodge from the bag. This either wakes Will up or kills him, as he's suddenly staring at her. Oh, he's alive. He calls for the nurse. While they're waiting, Will notices that he's wearing pajamas instead of his hospital gown. He doesn't remember changing into them. MacKenzie says the nurse changed him while he was asleep. That seems wrong. Also, how sick is he at this point? It's been three or four days and he's still sort of comatose, enough so that someone can totally change his clothes without him waking up?
The nurse comes in and is the typical cranky overworked nurse character we see on every show. MacKenzie blames Will for the IV tubes coming loose. The nurse puts them back in and leaves. Jim enters to tell MacKenzie what's going on today. The Mars Rover may have found water. "Where?" MacKenzie asks. "On Mars," Jim says. MacKenzie is so stupid. She tries to make the news sound fun and important so Will will come back to ACN, but that doesn't work. So she asks Jim for an update on "office gossip" instead. Oh, so office gossip is okay but gossip columns are wrong? Double standard! Jim says people miss Will and Don is going to ask Maggie to move in with him. Also, the vending machines have Fresca now, for all the 60 year olds who apparently patronize them. MacKenzie doesn't understand why Don and Maggie are still together when she gave Jim that inspirational speech two months ago and apparently didn't ask for a follow-up. Only now does she find out that Jim "accidentally" asked Lisa out instead of Maggie and so he's with Lisa and Maggie is still with Don.
MacKenzie responds to this as you might expect: by grabbing one of Will's pillows and smacking Jim with it several times. "You want to end up like me and him?!?!" she shrieks. Yeah, because whatever is going on with Maggie and Jim is totally the same as whatever's going on with MacKenzie and Will. Actually, they are the same, in that I do not care. She insists that Jim "do something" to stop Maggie from moving in with Don. She says if he doesn't, then Maggie will be like MacKenzie, who thinks she's a "strong, beautiful, vital woman" and Jim will be like Will, "a hollowed-out shell of a man." Will asks if MacKenzie is aware that he is awake and able to hear her. I'm not sure what she's playing at. She's the one who cheated on him, so she doesn't get to be so mean and antagonistic now. Jim decides to leave, telling Will the New York article was "bullshit."
Poor Will is left with MacKenzie, who demands to know why that article meant so much to Will and why he wanted it done in the first place. Will says he was trying to make this his Camelot moment when King Arthur ordered some kid to run to all the villages and spread the word about how awesome King Arthur was. Will needs to stop basing his actions on books and musicals. MacKenzie is determined that Will is going to come back to ACN and everything will be fine. Also, Nina knows he was high during the Bin Laden broadcast and might write about it soon and then Leona will fire Will and his career will be over. Will doesn't seem to upset about it, since he wasn't planning on going back to work anyway. "I like Jell-O," he says, eating some. "SNAP OUT OF IT!" says the woman who just told Will he was about to be fired and watch his career go down in flames.
For those keeping score, Atlantis World Media's offices are on 6th Ave. and 42nd St. Field trip! Jim walks into Charlie's office to give him some bad news. Charlie asks if it "can wait." Who says that? If someone comes to me and says "I have some very bad news" I don't ask them not to tell it to me in the hopes that it will just magically go away. Whatever, Charlie's drunk. Jim says Hancock just jumped off a bridge, so that's that. And for those of us (me) who thought this show had taken away Sam Waterston's ability to act, it didn't! He gets very old and sad and teary-eyed and says "all right." Then he yells at Jim to call his parents more often. I guess it's Hancock's kids' faults that he killed himself? Better to blame them than yourself.
Back in the present of the past, Will is at the news desk telling the world that he is a "RINO" (Republican in Name Only) to the Tea Partiers, but he thinks that they are the ones who are not real Republicans because they "love America" and "hate Americans." For example, Tea Party Representative Allen West says he thinks anyone with an Obama bumper sticker is a "threat to the gene pool." Grover Norquist would like to drown the government in a bathtub. Tea Partiers think liberals want to drag America down and don't think political parties should compromise ever. Creepy Senator Mitch McConnell says that the Senate's priority should be denying Obama a second term. Okay, but don't tell me that Democrats weren't saying the same thing when Bush was president. I know they were, because I'm pretty sure I said it. Finally, Will says, Tea Partiers think poor people are simply "too lazy" or "too stupid" to be rich. They can go ahead and think that, too. Most of them aren't rich themselves. I mean, the politicians they elect certainly are and the Koch brothers who fund a lot of their campaigns are, but the majority of Tea Party supporters aren't rolling in it. Will gets a particularly nasty quotation from South Carolina's lieutenant governor Andre Bauer (no, NOT Andre Braugher): "My grandmother was not a highly educated woman but she told me as a small child to quit feeding stray animals. You know why? Because they breed."
Four days earlier, Neal and Terry Crews are in Charlie's office. Can't Jane deal with this stuff? Or MacKenzie? Why must they bother Charlie? Neal wants to keep pursuing his troll death threat buddy. Terry Crews thinks that's a terrible idea. Some guy comes in with an envelope for Charlie. Neal says all he has to do is tell Charyzma that the FBI came after him, and Charyzma and his friends will be mad that Neal is getting FBI credit for their death threats. Charlie gives him the go ahead because he's drunk and wants these people to leave his office. Charlie looks at the envelope. The return address is "The East River," so I guess it's from Hancock.
Will decides to watch his greatest hits on YouTube. Namely, when he told off that girl at Northwestern for asking him why America was so great. Charlie and MacKenzie walk in and tell Will that the nurse told them that Will can go home Monday and be back to work in a week. Hey, doesn't Will have several siblings? Why aren't they visiting? Will has no intention of leaving the hospital or going back to work, apparently. Charlie lectures him on taking Brian's article to heart, saying Brian is "second rate." And Will is supposed to be first rate? I doubt Brian ever went on the air while high. Will says the article was full of quotes from colleagues he respects who clearly don't respect him. Charlie says Will will just have to learn to respect better people and not "pussy-ass coward-ass pussified pussies." Well, we definitely haven't used enough synonyms for the female anatomy there.
Charlie has a solution to Will's problems. He calls in the nurse, whose last name is "Cooper." With an eye-roll, she tells Will about her great aunt, Dorothy Cooper, who lost the ability to vote at the age of 96. Nurse Cooper (is she related to Gary Cooper, by the way? Because I don't see how Will can do a story about Dorothy Cooper if she isn't related to a member of his staff) demands that the story of her great aunt be the top story on the news all the time. "I wanna see this story on the news," she says and storms out. Charlie mutters that he wouldn't mind seeing that story on the news, too. Will tries to think, which is difficult when MacKenzie keeps nagging him. Finally, he turns to her and asks about a voicemail message. MacKenzie doesn't know what he's talking about. Will says he left MacKenzie a voicemail message the night he did the Bin Laden story. MacKenzie still doesn't know what he's talking about. It's entirely possible that MacKenzie doesn't know how to check her own voicemail.
Will says he began the message with "I'm not just saying this because I'm high." MacKenzie says, again, that she never heard that message. Will thinks she's just forgetting about it. MacKenzie says, for the fourth time, that she never got the message. Charlie somehow knows enough about what's going on to realize that Nina's source is Will's voicemail message. That's why she needs the second source -- because she can't admit that she hacked MacKenzie's phone to get the first one. MacKenzie just keeps whining that there was no voicemail message. "Because your phone was hacked and they deleted it," Charlie spells out for her. I'm trying to figure out why it took TMI three months from when Will left that message until now to get it to Nina or Nina to decide to go to MacKenzie with it instead of running it.
And then the theme song from CSI: NY starts up. Oh, good. I'd much rather watch that. Oh, no, I'm sorry -- it turns out this is just a The Who montage ramping up as Will disconnects himself from his various medical devices and quotes Don Quixote. "Sancho, my armor! My sword!" he says. "Which one of us is he talking to?" Charlie wonders. "GET BACK IN BED!" MacKenzie tries to scream over the music. Nurse Cooper comes back in, since Will's vital signs show that he is dead now that he's pulled all the tubes and things out, and asks who pulled the IV out this time. "She did!" Will says. And asks about her great aunt.
And then he's back at work! He's wearing real clothes instead of pajamas this time and MacKenzie is wearing her fifth or sixth clownshirt of the episode. Of course, the newsroom explodes into applause to see their leader back in action, and gets right to work. Maggie finds a clip of Mitt Romney saying that Obama made the economy worse and then another one of him saying that Obama did not make the economy worse. She is brilliant. No one ever caught a politician saying two different things before. Also, I thought this was supposed to be a broadcast about the Tea Party? Romney is a Republican... I don't think he's a Tea Partier.
Gary Cooper finds a graphic that says Obama is a hero or something.
Maggie throws sandwiches at everyone. The toss to Jim knocks over all most of the stuff on his desk. Isn't she wonderful?
Tess whips out her Bible and puts her glasses on. She puts the highlighter to work. This is journalism, you guys.
Will drinks cough syrup -- Effexor? Liquid vicodin? -- out of a bottle while watching Michele Bachmann.
Dr. Dr. Sloan does... something. I'm not sure what.
Don tells the room that Obama has taken much fewer vacation days so far than Reagan or the second Bush did at this point in their terms. Why does Don still work for NewsNight, by the way?
Maggie runs into Will's office with quotes from various founding fathers that she found in her fifth grade history book. By the end of the night, she looks like a hot mess with all of that running from her desk to Will's office while holding a single sheet of paper. MacKenzie tells her to go home and get some rest. "You look terrible," says the guy who just left the hospital early; "I've never seen you look so bad." HA HA HA! I love Jeff Daniels. Even though he's on this show. Maggie responds to this by tripping over Will's trashcan on her way out.
Maggie meets Lisa for dinner. Don was supposed to be there, too, but he bailed and left Maggie a text telling her to come to his place "around midnight." Maggie says Don's just working really hard for the show he doesn't even work for, but Lisa says it makes her sad to see Maggie with Don. "In a year you've gone nowhere," she says; "it's hard to watch you." "IT'S HARD TO WATCH YOU!" Maggie manics so loudly that it disturbs other diners. Lisa asks what she means by that, and Maggie hesitates for just a second before saying she thinks Jim came to see her and not Lisa that night. Lisa takes that in, realizes that her only friend in the world is a horrible person, and leaves.
Maggie tries to run after her, but Maggie sucks at everything, so instead she just gets splashed by a passing Sex and the City tour bus. Yes, one of those late Sunday night tours of the city, which can be seen so well when it's dark. The bus manages to throw a tidal wave in Maggie's face, and water splashes on the window of the freaking restaurant. The diners Maggie's shrieking disturbed before giggle at the sight. "Are you fucking kidding me?!?!?!" Maggie screams. Boy, I'll bet Sorkin was positively giggling to himself when he wrote this delightful scene. He probably thought that it was the funniest thing ever to be shown on TV and that sitcom writers had nothing to complain about because their jobs were so easy.
The Sex and the City tour guide shows everyone Carrie's apartment. Whoever lives there must hate that tour, driving around on a Sunday night with the theme song blasting out of the open-air second floor. The guide says Carrie lived "the typical life of a single woman in New York City." Maggie responds to this by being her usual demure self and screaming at everyone while overacting with every muscle of her body. Maggie says she is a single woman (no, she's not -- she has a boyfriend) and she doesn't wear heels to work and her job doesn't pay well so she just spent her last seven dollars on dinner with her "best friend" whose boyfriend she is in love with. Oh, and of course it turns out that Jim was on the tour and heard everything! Is anyone surprised by this development? No. We all saw it coming from miles away, like a loud huge open-air Sex and the City tour bus. Jim stares at Maggie with his mouth hanging open as usual.
So Maggie runs away (very mature) and Jim jumps off the bus to chase her. But she hides in someone's doorway and he misses her. These guys are like eight years old. I don't care about the romantic entanglements of eight year olds. And then Maggie decides to reveal herself to Jim and they kiss. Wow. We have been waiting all season for this moment. The moment where Maggie screws over her boyfriend and her roommate/best friend at the same time and Jim cheats on his girlfriend. What a great couple they make.
The kiss ends and Jim says "I'm with Lisa." Maggie nods. "And you're with Don," Jim says. "I don't know if I want to be," Maggie says. Well, make a decision. Or just go in for another kiss. Denied! Jim pulls back. Didn't we see this happen on The Office? Except that Pam was the one who pulled away from Jim. And Jim wasn't dating Pam's roommate. Anyway, it would seem that Jim cares more about Don and Lisa's feelings than Maggie does. "You should get some sleep," Jim says. "You too," Maggie says. Whatever that means. Maggie says she's going to talk to Don. Jim walks away. He'd better not try to get back on that tour bus. No refunds.
Will continues to hate on the Tea Party. Here come Maggie's found quotations to show that the Founding Fathers weren't all as psyched about Christianity as the Tea Party claims they were. And then Will says the biggest "enemy" of the Tea Party isn't a Democrat. It's JESUS CHRIST HIMSELF! OH SNAP, TEA PARTY! YOU JUST GOT TOLD! Will's going to smirk at you now! And then quote the Bible, where Jesus said we should all feed the hungry, take care of the sick, and keep our prayers to our own damn selves. I'm sure the Tea Party will totally change its stance once it sees those Bible quotes. Our problems are solved!
Maggie is so bad at everything that she had to write down her break-up speech before giving it to Don and also rehearse it by talking to herself. You know she's determined because she's sticking her lower jaw out.
When she gets to Don's apartment, he's waiting for her in the hallway. Maggie looks for her speech paper. It takes her a while to find it. I can't believe Don would rather have her than Dr. Dr. Sloan. Maggie begins her speech, only for Don to interrupt her and invite her inside. She does, and finds the apartment full of lit candles. Oh my god, is he trying to KILL Maggie? She can't handle herself around a wastebasket! How the hell is she going to get out of this apartment without setting herself on fire at least eight times? The sight shuts Maggie up, and Don asks her to move in with him. He hands her a key. Maggie says she already has a key. "This one's in a box," Don says. He's all sincere and sweet, so Maggie's decision to dump him and get with Jim flies right out of her stupid little head. So he calls her. She doesn't answer the phone.
The day, Charlie swings by Will's office to pick up him and MacKenzie. The three head into a meeting with Reese and Leona. Will thanks Leona for the gift basket she sent him at the hospital, full of Tabasco sauce and cayenne pepper. Ha! Leona rules. And then Will decides to be very professional and tell Leona that she has "a body that refuses to quit" and could be in Playboy. Leona ignores him and says Reese told on Will about him being high on TV during the Bin Laden story. Will ignores that to keep going with his Playboy spread joke. If I were Leona, I'd fire him just for that.
Charlie asks Reese how he knows that Will was high. Will admits that he was high on the air. Leona did not expect him to admit it so easily. "Could not feel my face," Will continues to admit. Leona says Will did a "very good" job in spite of that and now he's fired. "You can't fire him," Charlie says. "I just did!" Leona says. Will just smirks. Charlie says if Leona fires Will, her son will go to jail. Leona and Reese laugh at this. MacKenzie says she knows Reese hacked her phone. Does she? MacKenzie herself was barely able to understand it. Reese fires MacKenzie. Leona asks why they're accusing him of this. Reese says they're desperate and have no proof of what they're accusing him of. Charlie says he does, and explains that an NSA guy was giving him information until he jumped off a bridge four days ago, leaving behind an envelope with records of Reese ordering phones to be hacked. He had Casey Anthony's lawyer, MacKenzie and Howard Stern's phones hacked. Also the relatives of people killed by Somali pirates, for extra evilness. I'm still confused how the NSA plays into this. Did Reese ask them for permission to hack the phones?
Leona asks Reese if this is true. Reese says he was just trying to make sure TMI "stayed competitive." And yes, he ordered hacking. Wow, that was easy. He didn't even ask to see the proof or talk to his mother about this in private like any normal, reasonable person would have done. "This is what you wanted," Reese says. No, it is not what Leona wanted. And then Charlie whips out his recording device. Yes, he was recording this the whole time! Of course he was! He thinks he's pretty freaking special now, and smirks accordingly. There was a lot of smirking in this episode.
Reese tries to call their bluff. He says he'll go to jail before he lets these people blackmail him. Good for Reese! I don't care that he's a sleazebag for hacking phones! I'm rooting for him against Charlie, Will and MacKenzie any day of the week. But Leona gets to make the final decision. Charlie says it's time for her to "stand for something," like Will and MacKenzie do (they do? Will just admitted that he went on the air high. He has no right to hold himself up as a paragon of journalistic virtue here) or like Hancock did by throwing himself off a bridge (uh... okay). Charlie says they can "do the news" and stand up to those bigots in the Tea Party. "You and me," he says. Ah, Sam Waterston and Jane Fonda are trying their best in this scene, but it can't be easy. These are really bad lines. Also, every time Sam Waterston gets this cheesily sincere, I remember that SNL commercial he did for robot insurance.
Leona doesn't say anything. Charlie tells Reese that TMI won't run the story about Will because TMI no longer exists -- Reese is going to shut it down. Leona says she doesn't "negotiate" like this. Charlie says this isn't a negotiation. While Will does the show tonight, Leona can think about what she's done here and either send her son to jail or not. Will stands up looking insufferably smug and tells Reese to "give six month's salary to a school or something." "Don't shoot and miss," Leona tells him. Will and Leona exchange ridiculous nods, only for MacKenzie to ruin the moment by saying "lucky for Will, he's got the aim of a sharpshooter who's been trained to shoot and... hit the target... " She closes her eyes and turns around to leave. "You can't just start to say something ... " Will mutters after her. If MacKenzie hadn't spent the season being so awful at everything and so unbearable to watch, I would have really enjoyed that little scene.
Leona grabs the envelope and opens it to find... a recipe for beef stew. Not even an original, either! Hancock sent Charlie a COPY of his recipe; like, who was he saving the original for? He's dead and his kids don't visit. Anyway, Leona and Reese got played. Because they are idiots. That is the oldest trick in the book.
Dr. Dr. Sloan yells at her audience about the freaking debt ceiling again, then they go to a commercial. Will asks Dr. Dr. Sloan who the blonde girl sitting in the newsroom is. She doesn't know. Will says she's been there "all day." Dr. Dr. Sloan tries to get him to focus on her and the speech she's had prepared for him for like two weeks now. She says "The Greater Fool" is an economic term for someone who makes a bunch of mistakes so the rest of us don't have to. He has "the perfect blend of self-delusion and ego to think that he can succeed where others have failed. This whole country was made by greater fools," Dr. Dr. Sloan says. And yes, she's staying at ACN. No $4 million a year venture capital job for her! Who's the Greater Fool now?
In the control room, MacKenzie suddenly realizes that she has no idea what Will's voicemail message said. And she has to know RIGHT NOW even though the show is about to return from the commercial break in ten seconds. She slides over to Will and asks him what the rest of the message said. He doesn't want to say. She bites her lip and thinks she's adorable. And then she chickens out first and walks off the set just as the show comes back from the break.
And here's Will's big wrap-up, which is kind of like a Jerry Springer Final Thought. He lists the fundamental ideals of the Tea Party, according to Sorkin: ideological purity, compromise as weakness, a fundamentalist belief in scriptural literalism, big complicated words apparently denying science, unmoved by facts, undeterred by new information, a hostile fear of progress, a demonization of education, a need to control women's bodies, severe xenophobia, tribal mentality, intolerance of dissent and a pathological hatred of the US government. This, Will says, makes them "the American Taliban." "And the American Taliban can't survive if Dorothy Cooper is allowed to vote." Leona watches and nods. With that, Will tells his audience to stick around for a real news show hosted by a real journalist -- Terry Smith!
The show ends, and everyone in the newsroom cheers about how awesome it was. Many hands are shaken. Excuse me, but where is Rodney Dangerfield guy? Did he get fired? Is he unconscious on his bathroom floor? I'm worried!
Dr. Dr. Sloan and Don have an awkward conversation, now that Don knows how she feels about him and she's not leaving. "We will never speak or make eye contact ever again starting now," Dr. Dr. Sloan says. Well, that's one way to handle it.
Don and Maggie make out in the middle of the newsroom. Jim stares at them. Don walks away and Jim comes over. He says he thinks Maggie might be avoiding him. She is such a child. Apparently, she talked to Lisa, who told her that she and Jim had "a good talk." Jim says that when Maggie didn't answer his phone call, he figured she got distracted by something shiny and forgot that she didn't want to be with Don anymore and agreed to move in with him. As for Jim, he told Lisa that he came to the apartment to see her. Not Maggie. It was a lie, so we can all look forward to Maggie "accidentally" telling Lisa this season.
Will tries to make it to his office without talking to MacKenzie, who chases after him, desperate to find out what the message said. Will won't tell her, so she tries to bore it out of him by saying that Maggie and Don are moving in together when Maggie should be with Jim and Don should be with Dr. Dr. Sloan. How does MacKenzie know about Dr. Dr. Sloan's feelings for Don? Maybe Dr. Dr. Sloan told her over drinks when she was assuming that MacKenzie wasn't paying attention?
Will mentions his hallucination of MacKenzie at Northwestern, because Sorkin is determined to wrap up almost every loose end with this season finale. Even the ones no one remembers or cares about. MacKenzie whips out her trusty, unused for almost two years now notepad with the "IT'S NOT" and "BUT IT CAN BE" written on it. She's been carrying this pad around for this long, just waiting for the right time to spill the beans? Or maybe she just doesn't ever write in the pad because she's illiterate. Will stares at them and realizes that it wasn't a hallucination in the audience after all. "You're melting now, aren't you?" MacKenzie asks, grinning like an idiot; "Your heart is full. Just say what you're feeling." And she leans in for a kiss, only to get this: "Why the... FUCK! Didn't you tell me?!" Ha ha ha! No special moments for you, MacKenzie!
MacKenzie asks again what the rest of the message said. Will asks who that random girl is. MacKenzie says she's just a woman applying for an internship. Will says she looks familiar.
And then Neal and Terry Crews walk in. MacKenzie leaves. Neal updates Will on his stupid troll/death threat/FBI storyline. Basically, it caused the community to send Will several more death threats in protest of Neal's fake FBI arrest. So now Will is going to have Terry Crews around for a little while longer, which is good because he's much better against him than MacKenzie. Also, nice fail there, Neal. But Will is still hung up on the mystery girl so he doesn't get mad. And then he realizes who she is. Of course, it's the "sorority girl" who asked him that question at Northwestern 18 months ago and caused this show to be so horrible.
Will runs out of his office. Past Tess, who says "Good show!" "I don't care!" Will says. "Okay," Tess shrugs, being awesome. Will runs into the conference room. "Sorority girl!" he greets her. Her name is "Jennifer Johnson." Oh, good, yet another alliteration name. Jennifer says she graduated from Northwestern a year early because she's on a Sorkin show and therefore must be so brilliant that four years of school are just too much for her. "You ruined my life!" Will tells her. Jennifer says she wants an internship. Why? Because she wants to be a "greater fool." Will decides that Jennifer is "the kid at the end of Camelot" after all. He asks her to ask him "her idiot question" again. She does. This time, the answer is... Jennifer Johnson! Jennifer Johnson makes America the greatest country in the world! And now she gets to work at ACN as an intern for little or no pay and no health benefits! Hope she doesn't get a bleeding ulcer!
Terry Crews walks Will out of the building. He says he gets paid $1,700 a week "plus health and dental," which is more than the new intern gets. Will walks outside, where a crowd is waiting for him. He signs autographs and doesn't get shot, although it'd be easy for a death threatener to get at him out there. Nice job, Terry Crews.
Remember Nina? She's listening to the stolen voicemail message. Will says he's "never stopped" and then Nina cuts it off. I think it's pretty clear the rest of that was "loving you." And since MacKenzie never returned the call or mentioned it to him, he spent the last three months thinking she didn't care when she really just never knew the message existed. Which it doesn't now, since Nina puts it in her computer trash and then empties it. Why does Nina have a Mac OS from like ten years ago, based on the "are you sure you want to do this?" prompt that comes up when she empties the trash? This show is so old and crappy. Will sits in the passenger seat of his car as it drives him home.
And that's it for this season for The Newsroom. From the highs to the lows -- actually, there weren't any highs. This show is really bad, you guys. Aside from a couple moments where some of the actors managed to rise above the material they were given, it was awful. I thought it would be really good, but it wasn't. Which is just fine, because I had a lot of fun tearing it apart. I might even just miss it while waiting for the second season to begin. Until then, thanks for reading!
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.
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