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The Newsroom is back, even though I don't think anyone actually likes it except for Sorkin, everyone who makes decisions at HBO and maybe Jeff Daniels. It has promotional art that looks like a bad Christian rock album, a slightly less pretentious opening credits sequence (but it's still pretty pretentious), a slew of journalists serving as "consultants" to add some credibility and the exact same bunch of completely unlikeable characters it's really hard to care about. Also, Dr. Dr. Sloan and Jane Fonda, who are great. Also sometimes Don.
Will has recovered from last season's ego battering and ulcer problems just in time to screw something called "Genoa" up and require a high-powered lawyer played by Marcia Gay "Didn't You Win An Oscar? What Happened?" Harden to fix it. But we won't know what that is just yet! First we have to go all the way back to August 23, 2011, where AWM is persona non grata everywhere because Will called the Tea Party the "American Taliban" last season. They're even having trouble lining up guests for the big 9/11 anniversary special, so Charlie pulls Will off of it. This makes him sad and Mackenzie angry, but there's nothing they can do about it except allow a weird military analyst to espouse the benefits of drones against goat herders. That weird military analyst, by the way, will be what causes Genoa to happen. In another episode.
Meanwhile, some random guy we don't care about breaks his ankle while covering the Romney Republican nomination campaign (remember – this is IN THE PAST, so Romney doesn't have the nomination yet) and Jim, still hung up on useless horrible Maggie, takes his place in New Hampshire to get away from the cause of his broken heart. Some guy named Jerry covers for him and brings in his favorite military analyst, because of course none of Will's regular employees would be capable of bringing such a liability onto the show.
Also, Neil finds out about Occupy Wall Street weeks before it even happens and thinks it's going to be an amazing and as big as Arab Spring. So he goes to a planning meeting and tells one of the organizers that he supports her cause and gives her advice that we know she won't take. It probably sounds a lot like to advice people give to Sorkin to try to make his show better that he also does not take.
Finally, after two weeks of being a good boyfriend, Don finds out that Maggie has feelings for Jim via a Youtube video of her annoying a New York City street and a busload of tourists and dumps her. He's pretty nice about it, too, probably because he's looking forward to getting with Dr. Dr. Sloan.
Oh, and Maggie screws up a fact check and Mackenzie doesn't know how speakerphones work.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!Welcome back to Season 2 of The Newsroom! It's been nearly a year and I still can't figure out what HBO sees in this show. Maybe it'll be better now? I'm hopeful, but I wouldn't bet on it.
Ooooh, look at these opening credits now! I think they are trying to be less self-important than last season's, but they are not. But I am pleased to see the meeting pastries get a cameo. Also, some idiot spilled his coffee on his desk in excitement. It was probably MacKenzie.
We open on Will being his AWESOME sassy self and calling out Marcia Gay Harden's assistant for typing "Geneva" in his computer instead of "Genoa." When Marcia Gay Harden is impressed, Will tells a "joke." Marcia Gay Harden doesn't like jokes. Or rather, she doesn't like "jokes." Will's joke, I must remind you, was not funny. Maybe season Sorkin gets some comedy consultants to go with along with those journalism consultants. And maybe also a Marcia Gay Harden consultant to show us the best use of Marcia Gay Harden because this is not it.
Anyway, Marcia Gay Harden tries to tell us what's going on but all I can hear is "nerve gas" and "war crime" as she and Will talk over each other. Marcia Gay Harden might be a high-powered lawyer who pays attention to detail, but she gets so flustered by Will's hilarious retorts that she calls it "Geneva" and then lets out a, "Fuck me!" To which Will asks her male assistants, "Well? Would one of you fuck Ms. Halliday, please?" "That was a little funny," Ms. Halliday admits. But it wasn't.
They get down to business, and Will says tells the lawyers that ACN ran "the story" and then retracted it. But not because the DoD told them to! Because, I'm guessing, they were wrong. All will be revealed. week.
Maggie suddenly enters with a head of short red hair to update Will on Romney's latest movements (REMEMBER, GUYS: This takes place IN THE PAST so Romney still hasn't gotten the Republican presidential nomination or lost it all or gone on that log flume ride at Disney yet. I think. Wait, no, this takes place in the FUTURE of THE PAST which is still the past but not as much. So Romney is the nominee but the log flume is still yet to be. Got it). She leaves, and Marcia Gay Harden wonders what happened to Maggie's hair. Right? Will's answer: "Women try things." And then, "She went to Uganda" and "it got real very fast," and she hasn't been the same since. I can't tell if he's "joking" or not, but this seems like something Maggie would do, except replace "Uganda" with "outside."
Marcia Gay Harden doesn't like Maggie's new look and thinks it will ruin her credibility as a character witness. As opposed to the fact that she's Maggie and acts like Maggie which, frankly, is enough. Will says that if "what happened to" Maggie happened to Marcia Gay Harden, "You'd kill yourself for the rest of your life" and "sit in a room and cry forever." There's no way he could be saying those lines seriously, so this must all be a joke and Maggie didn't go out and have a worldly life-changing experience and probably just got her hair stuck in the garbage disposal while also trying to see if the garbage disposal would work as blender and mix up a batch of Kool-Aid.
Marcia Gay Harden tires of Will's snarkiness and tells him that if she loses this case then everyone who had anything to do with this mysterious "Genoa" will never work again. Especially not Will. Also, bullshit. Piers Morgan published fake photos of the military abusing Iraqis on the front of the English tabloid he ran and he now has his own primetime show on CNN.
But let us flashback to two weeks after the season finale. An innocent time, when Maggie's hair was like golden straw and Will was calling the Tea Party "the American Taliban." And there's Reese (who still somehow works for Atlantis after his mom-boss found out that he was hacking people's phones? Also, isn't he on another show? What is he doing here? Run away, Chris Messina!) headed into some important meeting in Washington D.C., only to be stopped by a security guard at the door. His name isn't on the list. Huh. He probably should've checked to make sure he was invited before he came all this way. Reese says he sees people he knows inside because that works. It doesn't. The guard refuses to let him in.
Leona is back, so that's awesome news. Hooray for Jane Fonda! She calls Charlie into her office to blame Will's Tea Party Taliban comment for Reese not getting let into what turned out to be a SOPA hearing. This is very bad, Leona says, because AWM loses lots of money to piracy every year and SOPA could prevent that. "I want the fucking pajama people to stop stealing" AWM's intellectual property, Leona cries. Sorkin!!! Will you ever consider the possibility that there are people who use the internet and wear regular clothes and not muumuus or pajamas? Leona also points out that since AWM owns a bunch of internet delivery systems, AWM could be on the hook for a lot of trouble if SOPA passes. Therefore, she says, she'd like to have something to do with writing the bill that will lose her company money no matter what happens.
Leona says she actually dug it when Will said the Tea Party was the American Taliban. But now she does not because it's a new season and we need Conflict. She storms out and Reese tells Charlie that "people" are mad at Will and they'll be mad at Charlie, too. "Fuck 'em," Charlie says, followed by a less rebellious, "I don't know."
And stuff is happening in the news! It's August 23, 2011, which means the rebels just took Tripoli and I'm a few weeks into journalism school. There's something happening in Libya, but whatever! It's five days before my BIRTHDAY! Which was also the day Hurricane Irene hit. FUN. Also, Will's newscast is super-boring. I would've changed the channel by now. Was the Casey Anthony trial still happening? I definitely would have watched that.
While ACN's Libya correspondent reports from Tripoli, a.k.a. the alley behind the LA studio where this show is filmed, Jim runs into the control room to tell MacKenzie that they have to pull the segment on Dominique Strauss-Kahn because they suck at life and said he was being charged with attempted rape when he was simply being investigated for it. But oh my god! That package is set to roll in 90 seconds! MacKenzie gets to work to try to prove to us that she is actually competent at this after spending the entire season showing us otherwise.
Jim tries to get some guy on the phone (his name is Ryan and he's at a Benihana with his kids but answered the phone anyway), puts him on speaker and has him say the correct phrase at the correct time and it all looks seamless. The show is saved! The control room erupts in applause for MacKenzie BUT HER JOB ISN'T OVER YET! For some reason, the entire control panel thing goes crazy and now Will doesn't have any graphics. You know, all of these problems MacKenzie has to solve could be avoided if ACN's fact-checking system worked correctly and ACN's graphics computer thing worked correctly. Also Will is now singing that Rebecca Black "Friday" song because, remember, it's in THE PAST. Although not that much the past. That song was at least three months past its funny viral date by August 2011. Anyway, Will ends up doing the report with the graphics on a monitor behind him instead of full-frame in the broadcast. And this is why Sorkin brought on all those newspeople consultants! For these awesome tense lifelike scenes that last maybe five minutes of an hour-long show.
When MacKenzie gets out of the control room, Charlie is waiting for her to let her know that one of the ACN reporters covering the Romney campaign (which is still for the nomination, remember -- we are in THE PAST PAST) got drunk and jumped off a balcony into a hotel pool and broke his ankle in two places. They need to replace him. Charlie suggests, "Whoever you want to punish." How about that fact-checker?
Hey look! It's Dr. Dr. Sloan, coming up behind Charlie just in time to hear him say something sexist. She's also the commissioner of this year's Fantasy Football draft, which she says is a very important elected position. Charlie points out that she ran unopposed in that election, just as she did in the election for class treasurer. "Why does it have to be like this?" Dr. Dr. Sloan asks as we see that she is, once again, the shining star of this pretty bad show. Although we're only 14 minutes into the second season so there's a chance it could get better! A chance!
Anyway, Dr. Dr. Sloan is filling in for Elliot this week, given that he's off somewhere again. He takes a lot of vacations. She wants to report on a drone strike. No one wants to listen to her.
Don wanders in and tells Maggie that her cousin is sending him a lot of spam through the evil internets. Also, he is trying to be the perfect boyfriend, which sucks for Jim, who has to listen to it. Maggie does not seem too concerned about his feelings because she is awful.
Charlie's in Will's office. The new intern stops by. It's still the woman from the beginning of the first season, who we can blame for all of this, really, and they're still calling her "the sorority girl." Will emerges from his bathroom and sends her away to research Broadway plays. Charlie wants to talk to Will about the upcoming 9/11 anniversary, and how he doesn't want Will to have anything to do with it. Elliot and Dr. Dr. Sloan get to do it instead! Will is about to be "officially condemned" in the House of Representatives, so, I guess after all of Charlie's posturing about how Will is awesome and what he's doing is awesome, he's just as quick to give in to external pressure at his bosses are.
There's also the fact that no one wants to be in the 9/11 special with Will anchoring it, including Rudy Giuliani and some 9/11 widows and first responders. Will claims that he, "Totally gets it." Except he clearly doesn't. He says he called the Tea Party the Taliban, and the Taliban didn't attack on 9/11 -- Al Qaeda did. Charlie points out, probably rightly, that the 9/11 anniversary special is not the best time to get into semantics. Will agrees to "get the flu" right before the special and not be on it. He'll have to get it pretty far in advance for them to get Rudy Giuliani and the widows back on, won't he? Also, even though Will will have the fake flu, Charlie is going to have his name removed from the broadcast entirely. I'm sure no one will notice that.
Maggie decides to make conversation with Jim. He's clearly not as thrilled about doing that as she is, so she asks if things are brutally awkward between them. Maggie must ask that question a lot, as she's brutally awkward all the time around everyone. She says she wants to "go back to the way things were," because that would be convenient and easy. Jim's not willing. And he reminds her that since she is "staff," this conversation is "inappropriate." Oh. NOW he's drawing the professional lines. Okay. "All right. We'll try again tomorrow!" Maggie says, still not getting it. Oh, and by the way? Guess who screwed up that DSK fact-check? That's right, it was Maggie! And her response? A defiant, "I know," rather than an, "I'm sorry," or "It won't happen again." Ugh, she's somehow even more awful than last season. She can't even read Wikipedia right.
Jim heads into MacKenzie's office and volunteers to go to New Hampshire while that other guy recovers. MacKenzie doesn't see any reason for that; it's not the presidential campaign yet and no one cares what happens there. Finally, Jim yells at her that if she doesn't let him go to New Hampshire, she'll have to fire him. That's great, except that I'm pretty sure I saw this in the third season of The Office when Jim went to Stamford to get away from Pam because she rejected him for her fiancé after they kissed. Try again, Sorkin.
MacKenzie senses there is something deeper than Jim's love of New Hampshire going on. Jim points out that when MacKenzie "blew it with Will" (because remember it was all her fault and Will was perfect in every way) she went to a warzone. Jim's only going away for a few weeks and some guy named Jerry Dantana can cover for him. And Jim still hasn't figured out how to close his mouth once he's finished speaking.
Jerry Dantana is in ACN's Washington D.C. bureau, which I used to think was the better bureau except that it has this Jerry Dantana guy there bitching to Charlie about how drone strikes are happening and no one cares and they should be investigating them. "Sorry for annoying you with the news!" Jerry whines. MacKenzie calls. He's happy to hear from her, probably because he knows that her show only reports the news that people should care about but don't, so the drone strikes will be perfect there.
Will sulks, smokes pot (because weed worked out so well for him the last time, so why not try again?) and listens to Van Morrison. MacKenzie calls to yell at him for not telling her that he was taken off the 9/11 show. "Bullshit!" McKenzie says about all of this, and why can't Emily Mortimer act still? Or at least figure out how to say Sorkin dialogue in a slightly convincing way. Will claims he's fine with Charlie's decision. MacKenzie gives up.
The morning! Jim pulls his adorable little rental car up to the New Hampshire hotel, throws on his press pass, and runs for the reporter bus. The guy in charge smirks that the bus is "full today." Jim is confused; he can see 40 empty seats. "I wasn't wild about the American Taliban broadcast," says the guy. "You can't keep me off the bus just because you didn't like our reporting," Jim says. Okay, well, first of all, it wasn't "reporting," it was Will's opinion. And second, apparently he totally can. Did he do this to the other guy every time? It doesn't make sense that he'd just pick Jim out to do it to now. Also, I have no experience campaign reporting but I have a hard time believing a campaign would go out of its way to antagonize the press like that.
Jerry Dantana is also reporting for duty, arriving at ACN straight from his flight into NYC and not even going to his hotel first. Dedicated! Also: "You hear about the latest drone strike?" asks the guy who I'm starting to think doesn't have anything else to say. MacKenzie brings him in to meet Will, though Jerry says they've already met. MacKenzie doesn't think Will will remember that. Jerry thinks he's just that unforgettable. "We had a long talk to last time he was in D.C.," Jerry explains. Will calls him Terry and whines about how he doesn't like that Jim is gone. Then he calls him Harry. It's funny that Will is an asshole.
Undeterred, Jerry starts talking about drone strikes and how he wants to get ACN reporting on them more. Will's not interested. Jerry reminds him of their long talk that Will claims he remembers but clearly does not. It involved the difference between leading and following. Leaders talk about drone strikes nonstop, I guess.
Then Dr. Dr. Sloan runs in waving around a piece of paper and shouting "drone strike!" and Jerry is in love, even though Dr. Dr. Sloan's piece of paper is just a blank prop that she only brought in for effect. And then there's a "humorous" conversation about that that is so self-consciously clever that I don't know how anyone could find it funny but I guess this is what the Sorkin fans come for. I think it's trying too hard.
Dr. Dr. Sloan and Jerry make their case to Will that this is an Important Issue and should get a panel discussion loaded with liberals who will talk about how bad drones are and like one guy to say they're great. MacKenzie gives in and suggests one of Jim's guys for the panel, but Jerry has his own military analyst named Cyrus West he wants to use instead. MacKenzie tells him to go ahead. After she and Jerry leave Will's office, Will finally gets his name right.
MacKenzie and Jerry head for the rundown meeting, where Maggie finds out that her precious Jim has gone to New Hampshire. Also, welcome back, other newsroom people whose names I forgot over the past year but who I do remember liking more than the "real" cast members! They suspect that something is wrong because why would Jim have to go on the Romney bus? Don doesn't want to talk about that because his time is precious. So precious that he's wasting it in a rundown meeting for a show he hasn't worked on in years now. Why do they still need his help? Oh, because Charlie wants them to do more cross-network stories and that's only possible with the EP in the meeting.
MacKenzie then proceeds to insult everyone by calling Elliot's show Will's "warm-up hour" and saying the Washington D.C. primetime show (that I still maintain is better than all of them, ever) doesn't even count as a warm-up because no one cares about D.C. She then apologizes to Jerry. And then to the rest of the Washington contingent who are currently listening in on the speaker phone. Don finds this delightful. MacKenzie is an embarrassment to everything. Those pastries look delicious!
And then they all go around the meeting with story ideas (except Maggie, who doesn't have any, because, useless) until MacKenzie gets to Neal, who says he's got a great idea. Eyes roll. Neal continues as "August 24, 2011" flashes on the screen, just in case you forgot it was the day after August 23.
Neal says that a new website was registered called Occupy Wall Street and he believes America is on the verge of its own Arab Spring. LOL. Come on. No. Please don't dirty this pitch session with your histrionics, Neal. MacKenzie tries not to laugh at him as she dismisses the meeting. Neal follows her, insisting that this Occupy Wall Street thing just might be big. Look at all the Twitter and reddit support it has! Also it is viral! And 50-100 people are showing up for its general assemblies even though the initial emails about it went to 90,000 people! Neal says OWS has one goal in mind and it is great: get money out of politics.
MacKenzie shows Neal a fax she gets every day listing the protests in just New York City. There are a lot of them. Some are topless. "You've gotta wait until something's real," MacKenzie tells him. Neal looks dejected, so MacKenzie sends him off to check out OWS's general assembly.
Cut to the big ACN drone panel! It's Dr. Dr. Sloan's time to shine! She's clearly against drones, which is kind of weird since she's also the 10 p.m. anchor so shouldn't she not be so clearly biased? What if she has to report on drone strikes at 10 p.m.? Although I guess the 10 p.m. show gets the stories people actually want to watch, so, no drones ever. But, though -- ACN should stock its panels with people who aren't also anchors on other shows. That's just weird. Will tries to make Dr. Dr. Sloan focus on the economic argument for or against drones, asking if they're cheaper than troops. She says they are not.
Cyrus West has finally had enough of all of this! He says no one is talking about the cost of American lives and how drones are meant to save them. Except for the times that they kill them by mistake. The ethicist asks if drones can distinguish between terrorists and goat herders. "I don't care and neither should you," Cyrus says. MacKenzie gets in Will's ear to give him points to counter Cyrus's arguments (I've got one! "Goat herders are innocent, so, yeah. We should totally care."), but Will just lets him go on and on, then goes to a commercial. MacKenzie is horrified. She first turns around to yell at Jerry for this, although I'm not sure how it's his fault. The guy gave them a counterpoint. It's not his fault that Will decided not to listen to MacKenzie today. She tells Jerry to use Jim's military analyst in the future, then shoots Charlie an accusatory glare. Although that might just be her normal expression.
Jerry tells Cyrus that he was "a little over the top" and doesn't think Cyrus will be asked back anytime soon. But Cyrus is determined to be back on the show for whatever reason so he decides to give Jerry a big story -- IF Jerry makes sure Cyrus is involved in following it. Cyrus says this is the kind of story that will "make careers and end presidencies." Jerry looks dubious. Cyrus says it's about a "black op called Genoa." Is Maggie in Uganda yet?
Will signs off for the night, throwing it to everyone's favorite anchor, Terry Smith on Capital Tonight! Will we get to see Terry this season? I hope so! Will walks off the set and is immediately attacked by MacKenzie. Literally -- she throws him against the wall. Will says he agreed with Cyrus. MacKenzie says he couldn't have agreed with the way Cyrus said it and he ignored her besides. And went to break 41 seconds early. "Sorry about that," Will says. You guys, I don't think he's very sorry. MacKenzie gives him one last shove and walks off. It wouldn't be charming if Will shoved MacKenzie around; it's not charming when she shoves him.
Oh. Good. It's Occupy Wall Street, Sorkin-style. So awesome. It's not like I didn't get enough of this when I lived in New York while it was going on which was just last year and also I was in journalism school and heard about it every freaking second. So we're at a meeting in the middle of a park with all of 20 people including Neal. Even though the woman in charge (even though no one is in charge) asks that there be no reporters or police officers present, Neal just sits there, then is shocked when the girl figures out he's a reporter. He's also wearing an ACN press pass. Idiot. Turn around and go home at this point, you failure.
Neal asks if he can "observe" the meeting. "No journalists. No exceptions," says one guy. Neal says he can "get the word out" about their little sit-in. Another guy named "John" says they don't need his help. The woman says they're trying to make sure their message is clear before putting it in the media's hands. Okay, well, the media is at your meeting right now, so it's in their hands already. Might as well make sure they get the story right.
Neal says he read the email blast and the demand that private money is taken out of politics. The two guys who hate journalists quickly say they want more than that. No one else at the meeting can say anything because they aren't paid to have lines.
Dr. Dr. Sloan ends her night filling in for Elliot and then heads back to the office. Charlie meets her and asks if Will was "okay" during their panel thing. Dr. Dr. Sloan admits that she didn't know why Will didn't argue with anything Cyrus said or at least cut him off and let someone else speak. She thinks Will wanted to make sure everyone at home knows that Will is anti-terrorist. When Don emerges from the control room, Charlie scampers off.
Don also tries to scamper off because things are still Awkward with Dr. Dr. Sloan even though it's been two weeks since she told him she wanted him to ask her out. She clears the air, saying she only said that because she thought it was her last day. Well, yeah. Obviously. "It just sounded like a good line," she says. I'll bet Sorkin says that a lot, too. Like about every line in this and every script. Don tells her he figured she was joking. She says she was. It's somehow even more awkward now than it was before.
Even though Don clearly knows that Dr. Dr. Sloan likes him, he rubs it in her face that he has to go home to his girlfriend. I still can't understand why he's choosing Maggie over Dr. Dr. Sloan, who has two Ph.Ds and loves football and is gorgeous. Is it because she talks about drones too much?
I guess Neal didn't get kicked out of that OWS meeting, since he's now taking a walk with Shelly and talking to her about the movement. Shelly assumes that Neal's executive producer is a man, like, open your mind a little bit you stupid woman. Neal says MacKenzie wants to do this crazy thing called "waiting for the news to actually happen before reporting it," whereas he is hoping to "get in on the ground floor." You can do these things when you have the benefit of hindsight. Good job, Newsroom!
Shelly introduces herself as a Ph.D. candidate who teaches at NYU and was arrested for protesting once as a "minor." Neal actually needs her to clear up if she means "minor" or "miner." Despite this, Shelly lets him interview her about OWS and its demands: "The arrest of prosecution of the people responsible for the crash, the formation of a presidential commission to investigate... " I fell asleep but it's a lot of things that aren't necessarily related to one another.
Neal is dubious that they'll get everything accomplished. Or anything. Neal wonders if OWS's "horizontal structure" and lack of leaders could give power to people who shouldn't actually be leaders, a.k.a. those two guys from before. Neal points out that they started out with one goal and now that have several, none realistic.
"Are you doing a story or giving advice?" Shelly asks. "I haven't been assigned a story, so I'm giving advice," Neal says. Oh really? Because that's totally not the way you're supposed to "get in on the ground floor" with stories. Giving advice means you're creating and participating in the story. You're supposed to be observing it.
"You don't have the patience for complicated things," Shelly says of mainstream media. "I do," Neal says. Shelly asks why news channels are covering the Casey Anthony trial while the world crumbles under their feet. "We were the last ones to do that," Neal says. Yeah, by asking your newsroom if anyone knew anyone who knew Casey Anthony and then twisting Maggie's roommate's arm into appearing on your crappy show. Oh, yes: I remember.
Shelly rants about how no one covered all the horrible things banks did to cause the financial crisis but everyone covers girls going wild. You know who doesn't? Joe Francis, the guy who created Girls Gone Wild. Because he's in jail. Or about to be. Or he just got out? Or all three. "I just don't trust you to get a fucking story anywhere close to right," Shelly says. She's right. I don't trust NewsNight or Newsroom, either. Neal insists that he wants OWS to succeed. "Then you're on the wrong side of the camera," Shelly says. Pretty much. Neal gives her his card and tells her to have "one clear message" or OWS will be "a joke." Shelly storms off. I'm sure this storyline will really pay off and not be ridiculous at all.
Maggie sleeps. Don packs. And then knocks over a lamp, waking Maggie up. Her keen journalistic eye notices that Don is fully clothed and is putting all of his stuff in suitcases. She asks what's going on. Don says he's on his way to a hotel for the night. "I don't want you to get upset," he says, but he's made arrangements for Maggie to move back into her old apartment with Lisa (yay!) because they are BREAKING UP. Again.
But this time for real because Maggie's cousin emailed Don a link to the evil internets and a YouTube video entitled "Another New Yorker Loses It." It's Maggie screaming at a bus. Yeah. I would leave Maggie too for that. She crazy! But actually, Don is more upset about what Maggie is saying than the fact that she's saying it to a bus.
"Shhhhit!" Maggie says, which is the appropriate reaction. Don just laughs at her. "If I weren't a cast member in this story, I'd think it was pretty funny," he says. Trust me, Don -- it isn't. Don can't believe that Maggie, a so-called "news producer" didn't realize that her mental breakdown in front of a bus of tourists wouldn't wind up on YouTube. Don says he wasn't in love with Maggie anyway, so, whatever. He basically gives her his blessing to go for Jim. He can pursue Maggie's cousin, who told him all of this in the first place to break them up and claim Don for herself. "You should call Jim. Tell him to get off the fucking bus. We're trying to do the news," Don says. Best break-up line ever. I'm totally using that.
MacKenzie finds Will in a bar and smacks him on the head as a greeting. Will admits that he's "flipping out" about being taken off the 9/11 anniversary show and he doesn't understand why his precious audience doesn't want to see him anymore. "I remind people of the enemy? Jesus!" Will says.
And then, apropos of nothing except that I guess Sorkin heard this song on the radio while he was writing the script, Will launches into a rant about The Who's "You Better You Bet" and how it reminds him of his relationship with the audience. MacKenzie says the song reminds her of her relationship with Will. Self-absorbed much? Oh, and just in case we didn't get it the first time MacKenzie said the song reminded her of her relationship with Will, she says spells it out three more times. And then she realizes that she left her purse at work and makes Will pay for her drink, her cab home, and her cab back to work the day. Once again, MacKenzie has failed at some of the simplest of adult tasks. Also, Sorkin? CSI owns the TV show/The Who market. Give it up.
Cut to the lawyer's room. Now MacKenzie is the one talking. She says that if a lot of things hadn't happened, Genoa wouldn't have happened either. "It was impossible to believe," MacKenzie says, "but piece by piece the evidence started coming in and suddenly it was impossible to deny. It was the biggest thing any of us had ever touched, including Charlie." Except it's not, since it wasn't actually real. But it quintupled their ratings and was "the most-viewed program in the history of cable news," MacKenzie says, so I guess it paid of pretty well! People don't stop watching news channels that get major facts wrong, from what I've seen.
"For a guy who lives to be liked by the audience, he puts his life in danger a lot," MacKenzie says of Will. Is that supposed to be admirable or a cautionary tale? Oh, and now MacKenzie is telling stories of her childhood and how much lawyers cost. Marcia Gay Harden says she costs a lot.
Cue The Who! MacKenzie states her full name for the record. I know you'll be shocked, but it turns out that her middle name also begins with the letter "M." Sorkin never met an alliteration opportunity he didn't love.
And in the hallway, we see Will and post-Uganda Maggie sitting around, waiting. I have to admit, I want to know what happens .
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.