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For some reason, we're rehashing storylines from last season in this episode, as Evil Gossip Columnist Nina Howard returns with a big scoop about how Will got kicked off the 9/11 broadcast and Will decides to "civilize" her by giving her a mimosa and asking her not to publish the story. It works, so Will asks Nina out. She turns him down because she knows he has feelings for MacKenzie from that message. And then I guess she got over it because by the end of the show, she's sleeping with him. And when MacKenzie asks her what that message said, she conveniently leaves out the part where Will said he loved her. By the way, Nina Howard is basically the best journalist on this show except for the part where she hacked people's phones. That was bad.
MacKenzie also has her hands full with Jerry Dantana and his Operation Genoa Investigation. They meet with Eric Sweeney, whose story seems to check out, but can't find anything to back it up. But then! They scan Twitter for sarin gas-related tweets and at the very last minute, they find them. So the thing that we all know didn't happen seems to have happened, according to one guy on Twitter.
Also, MacKenzie is still taunting Neal about Occupy Wall Street, so he snaps and tells her that maybe she can't understand it because she's rich. ACN needs to pay its staff better. Maggie's been there for years now and she still can't afford not to live with Lisa, who hates her. Speaking of Maggie, she takes malaria pills without reading about their potential side effects and this is who they're trusting to report from Africa. I can't imagine how that could possibly go wrong.
Jim gets fed up with the campaign gig he wanted so badly. The campaign gets fed up with him and dumps him, Hallie, and Stillman on the side of the road when they try to lead a mutiny against the Romney campaign workers who are giving them free food and board and transportation. Who could have ever seen that coming.
Don has gotten over his sadness over an innocent man being executed and has turned to fixing his office furniture.
And just in case you thought women were the only people on this show incapable of operating electronics, Will and Charlie discover that their blackmail tape of Reese admitting to hacking phones has nothing on it. They don't know how to operate a recorder. It doesn't matter anyway, as Reese has decided he won't be blackmailed by his underlings (even though he was pretty willing to do that last season) and proves it by leaking the Will 9/11 information to Nina Howard.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!We begin the show with more of Will's Republican-bashing. He shows clips of Michele Bachmann, Herman Cain, Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum talking about how great the troops are and then Captain Stephen Hill, currently serving in Iraq, asking them via YouTube if they'll prevent gays and lesbians like him from serving in the military if they are elected. A few people in the debate audience boo loudly.
Will says those audience members are in Orlando, but "soon they'll surely be in hell." Um, they're in Orlando, which is in Florida. So they already are. Will says he's sure that the members of that audience would cross-dress to get out of military service while Capt. Hill is desperate to stay in the military despite being gay. Because cross-dressing and being gay are totally the same! Anyway, what Will's really annoyed about is the fact that none of the candidates told the boo-ers to shut up, thereby making them "witless bullies and hapless punks." I think he might also be mad that Fox News got to show the Republican primary debate and not ACN, like he wanted last season. With that, he says goodnight to the three people still watching his show, which won't devote more than ten seconds to celebrity news but will spend five minutes being a lesser Maddow.
Also, Terry Smith is with the Capital Report. I'm still waiting to see the awesomeness that is Terry Smith. I hope the show's been doing okay without Dantana around.
Once the show's over, MacKenzie asks Will to position himself half an inch back when he's looking at the keylight in the future. Will throws a hissy fit about this and basically refuses. MacKenzie's second request is that he not stare at his guests' ridiculous toupees. He won't agree to that, either. Diva.
And then MacKenzie asks him to tell her what he said on that message he left her last season while he was high, as she's apparently asked him every day since she found out about it. Will insists that he doesn't remember what he said. I hope we're not going back to this well. I was pretty happy leaving Season One back in Season One, weren't you?
Will heads into Charlie's office, where Charlie says he should've told "what's her name, the moderator" to "go fuck herself." I believe her name is Megyn Kelly, and that's disrespectful. Oh god, this show is making me defend Fox News. Will says he's "not allowed" to say things like that. Charlie says he is – "we're protected" because they have that recording of Reese admitting to phone hacking. Again with the Season One! None of this was referenced in the first two episodes of this season – why now? Also, what is Charlie doing wearing a regular tie and not a bowtie? Everything is different, but also the same.
Charlie's feeling so powerful right now with his tape that he compares himself to various Mafia movie characters. He can't think of any who didn't die horribly, so he changes the subject to Republicans and how Will is one. Will insists that he's changing the party "from within." That's better than what everyone else is doing, which is apparently letting the Democratic party get away with whatever they want because they're under the assumption that Democrats do nothing wrong, ever.
Remember gossip columnist Nina Howard from last season? Well, she's back, too! And she somehow knows that Will didn't have the flu on 9/11. And she's going to write about it. ACN's press person recommends not responding to Nina at all and wait for the story to disappear. Oh, I'll bet that's what the press person recommends. Do you know how hard it is to get journalists/journalism organizations to go on the record about anything? Charlie says they can also just lie and say Will had the flu.
Will thinks there's a third way: he tries to "civilize" Nina. "I really thought we were done with the mission to civilize," Charlie sighs, as do we all. He wants Will and ACN to keep quiet. Will wants to tell the truth and "appeal to [Nina's] god-given humanity." Yes. Because only an inhuman monster would dare say that a primetime anchor wasn't allowed on the air on 9/11. Charlie doesn't think gossip columnists have any humanity. "The bitchiness has to stop, Charlie!" Will says. I'm not sure how not responding to Nina is exactly "bitchiness."
"Snark is the idiot's version of wit and we're being polluted by it!" Will says. OMG you guys. It's so true. I have been polluting your minds for years with these recaps. I am not a human. I've got to stop this, NOW.
Instead, I'm going to be more high-brow like Will, and damn to hell (and wish death on) a bunch of people I've never met on a national TV show because they booed someone. Not to say that I agree with what those people did, but how is saying they can't go to hell soon enough any better?
Will thinks "one great man" can stop gossip columns forever. I think he should die and go to hell. Charlie makes fun of him, so he should die and go to hell, too. Oh, fuck it, I'm going back to snark. Wit is such a downer. Will says he's going to meet with Nina. "Nothing about that idea is good," Charlie says. But he agrees to have Nina in for an off the record meeting with Will anyway. Yes. Because Nina's all about journalistic ethics. Charlie says Will is a "delusional drag queen." I guess cross-dressing jokes are witty.
On the New Hampshire tour bus. Cameron recites the email he sent the press pool the night before, and Jim calls him out. Then he asks how Romney intends to reduce the country's debt by changing the entitlement program. Cameron says that's all explained on Romney's website. Jim says there's nothing there about that.
"Every fucking day with this guy!" mutters one of Jim's fellow reporters. Undeterred, Jim demands that Cameron tell him Romney's plan. Cameron can only give him talking points, because Cameron isn't running for president. "Are you a cyborg?" Jim asks. "Are you a moron?" Hallie finally pipes up, never far away from Jim. "You think you're scoring wiseass points and he's plainly fucking with you," she says. "Learn how this works, cause you're driving the rest of us crazy." That stops Jim for about 15 seconds. Then: "You can't blame me for trying." "I am," Hallie says. I think I like her, but I can't be sure yet. It seems that women in Sorkinland are either cold, all-business, and awesome, or Maggie.
Cameron stupidly asks if there are any other questions. There's one! Jim asks if he can get 30 minutes with Romney. At this point, Cameron is going to give every single person on that bus 30 minutes with Romney EXCEPT Jim just to spite him. Stillman asks what's for lunch.
Dantana walks in on MacKenzie doing her daily newspaper read. Supposedly, she's a speed reader. Dantana wants a military expert to accompany him to meet with Eric Sweeney. MacKenzie's still not buying Operation Genoa. Chemical weapons are illegal, and the US military would never do something illegal. But MacKenzie decides to go with Dantana anyway.
Will enters MacKenzie's office, which is Dantana's cue to leave. He tells MacKenzie that the "ground zero mosque" opened a few days ago and no one cared. MacKenzie is SHOCKED. Little bit of overacting there. "Nobody – including us – covered it," Will says, "I found out by walking in there." Oh, so … Will went and did journalism, rather than try to speed read it into being? How quaint.
And then Will suddenly segues into Nina Howard and how she could have possibly found out that he was dumped from the 9/11 special. He's assuming someone on his staff leaked it. MacKenzie says that's not possible. Also, how come every time someone finishes his or her line the camera zooms in on him or her? Like, every time this episode. Too much. Back off, camera!
MacKenzie thinks Will's plan to meet with Nina is a terrible one. Will says he's going to ask Nina if she can be "a little bit human for a day" and not besmirch 9/11 by writing accurate stories about how an anchor was taken off its tenth anniversary show. MacKenzie admits that she once had a "nice conversation" with Nina, mainly because Nina "expressed remorse." "We had (camera zooms in) a connection," MacKenzie says. And then she tries to get Will to tell her what was on that message again.
"You know what I think? (camera zooms out)," MacKenzie asks, "I think you got home after the Bin Laden broadcast and for a minute (camera zooms in) – just a minute – (camera zooms in some more) you forgot that you were mad at me." And then there's some more zooming into people's faces. Will tells MacKenzie that it's not about him being "mad at" her; what she did was the worst thing ever and he doesn't appreciate her trying to be "cute" by reducing it to that. "You're right," MacKenzie says, since of course he's right. It's totally understandable for Will to harbor all this resentment years and years after the fact and hold it over his co-worker's head like that. "I want. To know. Who leaked the story (camera zooms. Out)."
Uh oh! Cameron got himself a female assistant. Or maybe she's the boss and he's the assistant? Anyway, her name is Taylor and she's about to meet Jim. Guess what? She doesn't like him already because he's from ACN and she saw Will go off on every Republican candidate during last night's broadcast. She asks Jim what Will thought any or all of the candidates should have done. Jim says telling the booing audience members that they didn't want their votes would be nice. And if Romney had done so, Jim says, he would have won the election. If supporting gay soldiers would win the election, every single candidate ever would have already done that.
Taylor asks Jim how long he's been covering politics. "Almost two weeks," Jim says, as the extras roll their eyes. His actual question, supposedly, is why Romney hasn't mentioned his so-called proudest moment of bringing universal health care to Massachusetts during his campaign for the presidential nomination. "We're really gonna do this?" Hallie groans. Taylor says that Romney is thrilled with what he did in Massachusetts and that it's nothing like Obamacare, which he'll repeal ASAP. "What do you expect us to report tonight?" Jim smirks.
Cut to all the reporters reporting that Romney was pleased by the latest polls. Including Stillman, who is somehow an on-air personality even though he's greasy and unkempt. And also Jim.
MacKenzie and Dantana meet Eric Sweeney at a Random Diner. Sweeney tells them that some Marines were captured by the Taliban, who were going to sell them to Al Qaeda to behead for propaganda purposes. Sweeney's unit wore hazmat-esque suits and crossed into Pakistan without any ID or dogtags, which Sweeney thought was a little weird. And then he says a bunch of military terms that MacKenzie translates for Dantana. Once they got to the site for the "extraction," he says things went bad because the village where the POWs were held had a "shit-ton" of civilians in it. So the helicopters shot a bunch of white phosphorus at them.
Sweeney says he figured the white phosphorus was the give them a smoke screen while they searched for the POWs. Suddenly, he noticed that there were a bunch of screaming burned women and children on the ground. Then they found the POWs, grabbed them, put them in the helicopter and left. Not sure how those POWs didn't also suffer from the sarin gas, but okay. Sweeney says he asked one of his guys what was in that white phosphorus and the guy told him it was sarin gas. MacKenzie hands Sweeney a pad of paper and a pen and tells him to write down as many names as he can remember.
Nina arrives for her breakfast/lunch/whatever with Will. It's in AWM's executive dining room but no one is there except for Will, a former New York City police detective working security, and a pianist. "Am I about to be murdered?" Nina wonders. Will says she looks "good." Yes, because she dressed up for the occasion, unlike Will who is wearing jeans. Will invites her to sit down and have a mimosa. "No pulp," Will asks the waiter. "I learned that on Facebook," Will smirks. How much Facebook stalking do you have to do to know that someone doesn't like pulpy mimosas? Creep.
Will escorts Nina to her chair and tells her that she can start a "revolution." He goes on about that for some time and then admits that he didn't have the flu during the 9/11 broadcast. "We," he says, thought those Taliban remarks made him a poor choice to lead the 9/11 broadcast, so Dr. Dr. Sloan and Elliot did it instead. Also, "we're on the record," he says. "Why are you being this way?" Nina asks. Will cues the piano to play "What the World Needs Now is Love" and says he's a "big believer in self-censorship." He wants Nina not to write the scoop about him and say she's had a "bellyful of this bullying bullshit," which, how is that "bullying?" She's writing about a thing that happened. It's interesting to the public because ACN lied to the American people it claims to love so much to protect one guy's ego. He says Nina doesn't need the $250 he's sure is all she'll make for this story. Nina says she'll get more than that. She's probably wrong.
Will admits that Charlie took him off the broadcast and then denounces her profession as "being mean girls and Heathers and whatever the male equivalent of that is." Is it … Will McAvoy? I think it is. Nina goes with Lord of the Flies and then agrees not to write the story. She says Will told her the truth that Charlie took him off the broadcast, and I guess the truth has set Will free from her hit piece. Will can't believe his stupid plan actually worked. He leaves, then comes right back and asks Nina out. Now that she is civilized, she's totally dateable! And even though Will has said some pretty nasty things to her in the past, Nina immediately says she'd love to date Will, but will not. She heard his message to MacKenzie.
She adds: "I would love to go out with you. I wanted to go out with you New Year's Eve a year ago, the first time you told me that you have no respect for me and what I do." Yes. That's such a turn-on. Surprising, then, that the fact that she knows Will is in love with MacKenzie is the only thing keeping her from dating him. That suggests a modicum of self-respect I thought she didn't have.
Nina recites the message, which she has memorized, to Will, so now he definitely can't truthfully claim to MacKenzie that he doesn't know what he said. Will explains that – and now he's back off the record because I guess there are limits to his expectations for Nina's civility – he ate two pot-filled cookies. "That message was the real thing," Nina insists. And she knows that message better than anyone. After an awkward pause, Will sums up the meeting as having gone "really well" except for the part where he asked her out. "Welcome to the high ground and McAvoy's Team of Champions," he says. Yes, the high ground, where we wish death and hellfire upon people on national broadcasts.
Dantana and MacKenzie go to Charlie with their Operation Genoa findings. He's skeptical. Dantana thinks Eric Sweeney is totally legit. MacKenzie says his story sounded "a little rehearsed." Plus, she and Charlie know more about helicopters than Dantana does, and the village's location has pretty thin air, which is bad for helicopters. Charlie gives Dantana the go-ahead to keep looking into the story, then asks him to leave the office so he can talk shit about him with MacKenzie.
Charlie and MacKenzie insist that they don't believe the story is true, although MacKenzie is open to "taking it seriously" if Dantana can get more confirmation.
Dantana marches into the newsroom and commandeers a desk and several NewsNight employees. Stupidly, he drafts Maggie onto his taskforce. I guess he doesn't want to do a good job? Before he can say much more, MacKenzie walks in and tells Dantana to relegate his investigation to times when there's nothing else that needs doing.
On the way into the rundown meeting, MacKenzie checks in with Maggie, who just got all her Africa travel medicines, including Mefloquine, for malaria. MacKenzie warns that that has some pretty harsh side effects that Maggie didn't even bother to look up before going ahead and taking some. Really? Maggie didn't bother to do any research whatsoever on the drug she was going to put in her body? God knows what's in her panic attack pills. They're probably Mike N Ikes.
MacKenzie leaves Maggie to look up Mefloquine's side effects. It took her all of 30 seconds, tops, to find them. No excuse why she couldn't have done that before. She's a little concerned. "Depression, confusion, hallucinations, severe vomiting, suicidal thoughts, homicidal thoughts and extreme fear!" she lists. Also, itching. I don't understand how Maggie did this much research on Africa and didn't know about malaria pills. Those aren't just possible side effects; there's a pretty good chance you'll experience at least one of them while on the drug. It is no joke. Maggie is an idiot.
Gary Cooper is sitting pretty, since he took the malaria medicine that doesn't have severe side effects. MacKenzie recommends that Maggie just go back to her doctor and insist on the other drug, but it's too late! Yes, Maggie just took her first pill. "I can feel my mood changing. I can feel it. It's happening right now," she hypochondriacs. Martin tries to pitch a story, and she snaps at him to go to hell. MacKenzie informs her that it takes about a week for the side effects to kick in, so Maggie just yelled at Martin for no reason except that she's a nasty piece of work.
Will enters and what is THAT? On the table?! A pizza? Where are the delicious pastries?!!?! Also, Will wants to know who told the press that he wasn't actually sick for the 9/11 broadcast. Oh, and Neal wants his pitches about OWS marches to make it to air, but there's no time because Romney met Donald Trump. Will rants about the leak, and Maggie wonders how one even knows if one is delusional. MacKenzie gives up, which is how most of these rundown meetings seem to end.
Will chases after her to apologize for snapping at her earlier and holding all of her sins against her still. "I'm impressed it doesn't happen more," MacKenzie self-flagellates. And then they stare longingly and awkwardly at each other.
Jim watches ACN with his campaign bus buddies, who I'm surprised are willing to drink with him. Jim notes that there was no OWS coverage again, and he's sure Neal will be very upset about that. They take a shot except for Hallie, who tosses hers over her shoulder. Some other woman wants to know more about Jim's personal life so she can write about it in her blog. Who are these bloggers who are so interested in other people's lives? Aren't most of them only interested in themselves? Cameron has the misfortune of walking past, so Jim asks him for 30 minutes with Romney. Cameron says no.
Don has gotten over his sadness about Troy Davis and is now trying to put tires on his wheely chair. Somehow, this has caused him to disassemble the entire thing. Dr. Dr. Sloan walks in and asks him for help with her executive producer. He wants her to recommend a stock, but she doesn't want to because the company makes drones and she has an ethical problem with that. So she went on the air and told viewers not to buy the stock, and now her EP, "Zane," is very angry with her. Don says her position is "commendable" but that she should listen to Zane. Dr. Dr. Sloan adds that she's pretty sure she's the reason why Nina found out about Will being pulled off the 9/11 broadcast.
Here's what happened: Dr. Dr. Sloan was invited to a wedding on 9/11 (really guys?), but the 9/11 coverage meant she couldn't go. So she had to tell the guy who invited her that she couldn't go after all and had to tell him why. Also, the guy is Nina's book agent. Don recommends that Dr. Dr. Sloan never ever tell Will about this. Also, he's clearly jealous that Dr. Dr. Sloan had a date with someone who wasn't him.
Jim is still asking campaign workers questions that they will never ever answer. On the bus, he lets Hallie know that he's been reading her work. Hallie finds this creepy, but Jim goes on, saying he thinks her stuff is good and asking her why she's mean to him. Hallie says she's not thrilled with the way Jim is "slumming it" and trying to "school" everyone else. Jim says some people "need to be schooled." Really? Because it's not like Jim has gotten anything great from the campaign so far. He's been filing the same reports as everyone else. Hallie says this is the third presidential campaign she's covered – four years ago, she followed McCain until he got the nomination and her job at the Denver Post replaced her with someone more experienced and less annoying.
So Hallie set up her own website "with an investor" (a.k.a. rich parents) so that wouldn't happen again and she'd be able to ask the tough questions. Jim points out that she hasn't asked any so far. "I'm starting to understand why Maggie was running so fast," Hallie says. Oh. Burn.
Team Dantana is going through the list of names Sweeney gave them and calling them. "We should be checking Twitter, too!" Maggie says. There was, after all, that tweet about Bin Laden. Maybe someone tweeted about the sarin gas attack, too. I hope not. People need to stop tweeting all the time. If you are close enough to a sarin gas attack to know that it's a sarin gas attack then you are too close to whip out a phone and tweet about it. Dantana doubts anyone in that remote village would even have cell service, let alone Twitter. Neal instantly knows that they do, in fact, have cell phone in that area. And they can use Topsy to try to find tweets from a certain date and area.
Back on the campaign trail, Taylor tells the group about Romney's plan to get the American people working again. Jim points out that some study he read said that 12 million jobs will be created over the four years no matter who is president. Okay, but what if the president is Paula Abdul? Do you think she will create jobs? Anyway, Taylor just tries to ignore Jim, who then asks her if someone is inside her operating her with controls. Wow, that's almost as funny as his cyborg comment to Cameron earlier. Sorkin is now ripping himself off in the exact same episode. I'm impressed. "Good one, Jim," Taylor eye-rolls. And then everyone does his news reports to his camera except Jim, who just stares at his camera disgustedly.
That night, Stillman is annoying again, demanding that Jim open up to him so that they may truly bond like what happens in most road movies. Instead, Jim shows Hallie something on his computer that makes her upset.
The ACN newsroom is abuzz with Operation Genoa research! The tweet translator insists on communicating via fax for maximum dramatic impact, but so far he's found nothing useful.
MacKenzie apparently has nothing to do, so she taunts Neal and his love of OWS by ordering him to fix the website without knowing what exactly the blog is doing wrong or how to fix it. This would be funnier if MacKenzie didn't act like that as a matter of course. Neal's not in the mood. He shows MacKenzie how Fox News covered the OWS march that ended in people being illegally pepper sprayed by the police, with Megyn Kelly wondering if pepper spray really hurts as much as the protestors are implying with all of their carrying on. Okay. Far be it from me to defend Fox News, but I don't think all of its OWS coverage was Megyn Kelly wondering if some of the demonstrators were being demonstrative about their face-burns. Neal says for all its flaws, Fox News actually covered OWS. ACN did not. What is Sorkin's problem with Megyn Kelly this week, by the way?
MacKenzie says the OWS movement is flawed and stupid and she's not interested. Also, when MacKenzie was on her way to work this morning, an OWS person somehow made it so that she had to walk to work instead of take the cab and it got her shoes wet. Also, they "make the Tea Party look good." The Tea Party got some of its members into Congress. OWS has a "cardboard library." Well, that's hardly fair. OWS hasn't been around as long as the Tea Party. That said, history shows that it will not, in fact, be as effective as the Tea Party.
Neal points out that MacKenzie's ruined shoes cost $1200, so, it's not like she's feeling any of the fallout from the bank failures the OWS is protesting. MacKenzie appreciates his spunk and offers an OWS member of his choosing five minutes on NewsNight, getting told off by Will McAvoy. Neal is thrilled. "You're in the batters box now, brother. You brought my shoes into it!" MacKenzie says. They've got to stop giving her these lines with "man" and "brother" in them, because Emily Mortimer is just not going to say them right. I think it's because she's English? Or just not very good in this role.
Dantana gets another translated tweet. It's not useful. He grows impatient.
And then Dr. Dr. Sloan is led through the newsroom by the hand by her executive producer. For those of you who forgot, Dr. Dr. Sloan has two Ph.Ds and is really good at being an anchor person when Will is fake sick. She's really earned her way out of being lead by the hand anywhere. As did we all when we reached the age of, like 10.
Zane brings Dr. Dr. Sloan into Don's office, where he is sitting on a clearly not fixed chair. It's very low to the ground. For comedy. Zane is angry at Don for telling Dr. Dr. Sloan that she was right to tell people not to buy that stock. That is not part of her job, he says. "We are not talking about drones!" he says, then demands an apology from Don. "You put shit in her head!" he says. Don explains that Dr. Dr. Sloan is kind of a genius and way smarter than both of them put together, so she can think for herself. With that, Don leans back in his chair and falls backwards. He stands up and tells Zane that he told Dr. Dr. Sloan to listen to her EP. Dr. Dr. Sloan says she decided not to listen to that part of his advice. Also, "Zane, I'm telling people where the fucking money comes from, and if you have a problem with that you should speak to the president of the news division, Charlie Skinner." Also, she will destroy his hand if he uses it to lead her through the newsroom again. Don sits back in his chair. And falls backwards. That was an enjoyable segment! Except for the leading Dr. Dr. Sloan through the newsroom part. Zane leaves, and Dr. Dr. Sloan says she's going to come clean to Will. Don offers to accompany her if she needs a witness.
Dr. Dr. Sloan finds Will hanging out with Charlie. She gets right to it, admitting that she was the leak. Will seems okay with what happened until Dr. Dr. Sloan admits that the guy she told about him was Nina's book agent. Then he starts getting upset. As does Don when Dr. Dr. Sloan admits that she went out to drinks with the book agent. He and Dr. Dr. Sloan will make a lovely couple.
But Charlie realizes something: Nina thanked Will for telling the truth that Charlie bumped him off the broadcast, but there's no way Nina would have known that was the truth if she heard it from her agent, because Dr. Dr. Sloan didn't know that. Charlie decides that Reese must be the leak. What about MacKenzie? She said she was all chummy with Nina, right?
Will heads for his safe to retrieve the recorder while Dr. Dr. Sloan is greatly relieved to find out that she wasn't the leak after all – though not from lack of trying. Will goes for the drama as he opens the safe, but he forgot the combination so it's going to take a while. Dr. Dr. Sloan wonders what's happening at this point. Don says he'd tell her if she didn't date book agents. Will finally gets the recorder out of the safe, tosses it to Charlie, and they're off, feeling pretty darn proud of themselves, too.
They march right into Reese's office. Reese readily admits that he was, in fact, the source of the leak. Aw. I was hoping it was MacKenzie. Will asks why he did that. Reese says he didn't really appreciate being blackmailed by Will and Charlie, nor did he like that they blackmailed his mother. Also, they make fun of him too much and that's mean. And his ratings suck. Since Nina won't write the piece, Reese will just find someone else to give it to. Will is going to have to civilize a lot of people!
Charlie says they'll just reveal the tape, then. Reese claims he doesn't care, although I don't see how he couldn't since phone hacking is illegal and all. Charlie decides to remind him of what's on the tape, and presses play. Commence Will and Charlie's triumphant smirks. But … there's nothing on the recorder. These two idiots managed not to record the incriminating evidence and then not check after the fact to make sure they had it. You'd think they would've at least tried to make a few copies? "You're such a dumbass!" Charlie screams at Will. Reese takes the recorder and throws it in the trash, which is a waste of a perfectly good recorder. He says he's the president of AWM, so "you don't meet me halfway. You meet me the whole way." He's right, but it's kind of weird that he was apparently fine with letting Will and Charlie blackmail him for four months and has only now decided he's done with it. Why didn't he do this earlier?
Campaign bus. Taylor tries to make an announcement, but then Jim raises his hand. "Did you have any friends in school?" she sighs. Guys, I really like Taylor. She's fun. And reminds me of Daria. Tonight, Jim is asking questions about the Middle East and how Romney plans to solve all of its problems. Also some other stuff. And then he asks for 30 minutes with Romney, again. "A half hour!" he snaps. Taylor tells him to sit down. But no! Jim has decided it's time for a revolution, and he's sure his fellow campaign busriders will agree, even though they all very clearly hate him. "Sit down!" they groan. Jim urges Hallie to ask "the question" as Cameron starts to order him to sit down. Jim says if Hallie doesn't ask it, he will, and then she'll be a "lame fraud."
But she doesn't ask it, and then he sits down. Suddenly, Hallie stands up and asks about an abortion questionnaire Romney filled out where he said that he respected women's rights to choose. "We're not talking about that today," Taylor says. "I'm talking about that today," says Hallie, continuing that Romney said in June that he wanted to reverse Roe v. Wade. What's up with that? She wonders.
And then Jim stands back up and asks his fellow reporters why they, too, aren't insisting on having their questions answered. "They want to stay on the bus," Taylor says. Jim says they should all get off the bus, rent cars, and cover the campaign the way he thinks campaigns should be covered. Um, yeah. Turns out that not every media outlet can afford to give its stringers car rentals. Which is pathetic, but true. Jim says they can all force Romney to answer their questions as long as they stick together. "They need us!" Jim says. "Who's with me?!" The answer is: Stillman. And that's it. Ha ha ha! Jim isn't inspiring after all!
Cut to Jim, Hallie, and Stillman being left on the side of the road in the middle of the night. The bus pulls away. That's pretty harsh, bus. Understandable, but harsh. Stillman proves his worth by pulling out a big bag full of stolen turkey sandwiches. "Nice," Hallie deadpans.
MacKenzie calls Maggie into her office to inform her that Africom wants to pull Maggie's clearance because the area has become dangerous. Maggie reacts to this ridiculously, of course, cutting MacKenzie off with "Oh God Oh Jesus" and then ranting about how horribly her life has gone for her recently and how much of a sport she's been through it all. MacKenzie finally gets a word in and says Maggie will get her clearance as long as she reports on a human interest story about how the troops are nice to orphans. Maggie's fine with that. She assures MacKenzie that she won't "make a fool" out of herself or ACN, except that she will. She already has. MacKenzie gives her a hundred dollar bill, saying it could get her out of trouble. Oh really? Like the trouble of not being able to find a single place that can break a hundred dollar bill? Or that takes American money? Although I guess it's supposed to be symbolic. MacKenzie says either Maggie will come back with the money or a story of where it went. I hope that's off-camera. But it won't be, huh?
With Maggie gone, MacKenzie decides to give Nina a call to thank her for dropping that story. A freshly-showered Nina says she owed her for hacking into her phone, so it's no problem. They are total besties now! And then MacKenzie asks Nina what was on that message Will left her. Nina stammers that Will said MacKenzie did a great job or something. It was definitely about work, though. Not anything personal.
Why is Nina lying? Because she's at Will's apartment right now! She tells him that MacKenzie just called her and she feels kind of bad. "You don't have to look like you did something wrong," Will says. I actually kind of like him with Nina. Except for the part where she thought it was hot that he had no respect for her.
Charlie walks in and tells MacKenzie it might be time to cut Team Dantana free from its search for Genoa evidence. She agrees. "I gotta pull the plug," she tells Dantana. He insists that the story is true, then tells the team they can stop. Just in time, too. Martin's hair has been looking more and more crazy this episode. He needs a good night's sleep.
But then, just in the nick of time, a translation fax comes in! Someone tweeted about "Willie Pete," which is a nickname for white phosphorus. I'm not sure how Dantana doesn't already know that, but okay. Charlie explains it to him. Someone named "Hamni8" apparently live-tweeted Operation Genoa, describing it just like Sweeney said it happened. If it were me and my village was being invaded and filled with poison gas. That's cool and all, but since we know Operation Genoa didn't happen and Hamni8 is probably made up, then I just feel kind of … meh.
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