In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.
It's time for an hour in the life of News Night! It's six months after the last episode (there goes Occupy Wall Street!), but Maggie just can't let Africa go so she's drinking and sleeping with strange men. Jim notices, but she criticizes his possible girlfriend Hallie's women's rights column and insists that whatever her problem is, it's not affecting her work. And then she edits the George Zimmerman 911 call misleadingly. Even though that got an NBC employee or two fired, Maggie just gets told off and then has the temerity to tell her boss off right back for giving up an interview to Hallie. And she still isn't fired! Also, her hair is long and blonde, so I guess she didn't decide to cut and dye it until well after she killed that kid.
Meanwhile, Dr. Dr. Sloan's naked photos are all over the internet because she broke up with a guy and he decided to revenge-porn her. It really doesn't seem consistent with Dr. Dr. Sloan's personality whatsoever to have posed for those pictures in the first place, so, I don't know. She deals with it by sulking in Don's office for an hour and feeling humiliated and betrayed and violated, and then she gets over it, goes to her ex-boyfriend's office and viciously assaults him. Makes him bleed and everything. It's still not charming when women attack men on this show, no matter how many times Sorkin insists on writing it.
MacKenzie does her job by preventing a show guest from coming out on the air, accusing him of trying to get famous and turning News Night into Maury Povich, because coming out is totally the same thing as confronting your mustard phobia or finding out who the father of your baby is. What a freak show that would be! What an attention whore that kid who's terrified of telling his parents about his sexual orientation is! Good thing Maggie shut that circus down!
Jim and Martin, being sensible and rational men, deal with a call from the victim of an explosion in Syria, only to find out that it's a prank call before it ever makes it to air. Disaster averted, boys! Unlike Maggie's mistake, which has to be corrected at the end of the show.
Charlie gets a visit from a government official who knows that Dantana has been poking around Operation Genoa and seems to know what he's trying to prove. He asks Charlie why the government shouldn't use any available means to save its soldiers, and Charlie is now convinced that Operation Genoa is real. By the way, if you haven't been keeping score this whole time: it's not.
And Will finds out that his father had a heart attack right before the show starts but keeps it together because he's a man and that's how men roll. MacKenzie keeps nagging him to call his father to make amends, but by the time Will does that, his dad is dead. After a few seconds of dead air, he goes right back to doing the news. He doesn't screw up a 911 call edit or pose for a naked photo or anything!
Finally and most importantly, Twitter is still evil.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!It's time for another episode of NewsNight! Except, as I'm only now finding out, it's actually News Night. I've been doing it wrong this entire time! As the credits roll, Will gets a phone call and decides to see who it's from, because 10 seconds before you go on the air is a great time for that. Why would he even have his phone there at all? But it's a good thing he did, because the call is from his father, who I'd always assumed was dead. Will sends it to voicemail after two rings, just like all those men always do to Maggie.
Will opens the newscast with the Trayvon Martin shooting death investigation, because it's suddenly March 16, 2012, and we've skipped over six months. Six months! You're telling me they couldn't think of any stories to cover between October 2011 and March 2012? Nothing more about Occupy Wall Street, which is now basically over?
In the newsroom, Kendra gets a breaking news alert, but it's about Syria and bombs so no one cares. Maggie brings it to MacKenzie and Jim anyway, telling them the two bombs are the work of rebels, then admitting to Jim that she's just guessing. Good job, Maggie. Three years she's been doing this now and she's learned nothing? I learned more in the six months of journalism school I was attending in those six months Sorkin just skipped over than Maggie's learned in a lifetime.
MacKenzie tells Maggie to set up a spot for the Syria news (which, by the way, happened on March 17, so AMAZING job by News Night getting that footage from the future!), only to watch as Will stumbles a little when introducing the speaker. She makes fun of him, and he tells her that he's distracted because his dad just called him "like he fucking doesn't know where I'm at at eight o'clock?" And then asks the control room to switch off his feed before they have to hear any more of it or it is "accidentally" leaked online.
Speaking of things that were accidentally leaked online, Reese found some naked photos of Dr. Dr. Sloan. Charlie insists that they aren't real and someone must have photoshopped them. Reese says that's not likely since she's wearing the same necklace in the photos as she's wearing now. And that's probably the only thing she's wearing in those photos. Also, Reese took the photos to like three experts who all agreed they're the real thing. Dr. Dr. Sloan admits that they're real.
Charlie gets a phone call and leaves, probably pleased with the timing. He tells his assistant to "take him somewhere," referring to a mysterious unseen guest, then returns to his office, where Dr. Dr. Sloan is explaining that she was "seeing a man over Christmas." Charlie tells her she doesn't have to explain herself, but Reese says he needs to know that there aren't more photos out there. Dr. Dr. Sloan says there probably are.
And there goes that female character! Not that taking naked photos is wrong or anything, but in this day and age, especially if you're any kind of celebrity, it's stupid. Stupid to trust some guy you've only been seeing for a few weeks not to show them off to his friends and stupid to trust that they won't get hacked somehow. Of course, that doesn't stop some people from doing it (coughcoughAllisonPillcoughcough and also possibly Olivia Munn) and it doesn't mean they deserve those photos to get out there without their permission, but it still shows a real lack of forethought that seems inconsistent with Dr. Dr. Sloan's character. I don't get it.
While Will interviews a military guy about the Robert Bales slaughter, the control room gets footage of Syria. MacKenzie tells Jim to go write some copy. Instead, he marches over to Maggie's desk and asks her what she's doing right now. She says she's waiting for the George Zimmerman 911 call tape to come in. Jim heads over to Tess and tells her to write the copy instead, even though Tess says that as of now, they don't know how many people died. Somewhere between 15 and 100. Go with that!
And then Martin, who has apparently being dealing with some issues these past six months and has really messy hair and hasn't shaved in days, tells Jim he has a Syrian woman on the phone. She's staying on the W Hotel in New York right now, but her husband is trapped in the rubble of one of the bombed buildings in Damascus. Jim talks to her. She says she has her husband on the other line and he's kind of upset because no one is coming to rescue him and he's dying. Jim asks to speak to Mr. Kouri, who says "thank god" when he hears Jim's voice. Jim pauses for a second then introduces himself.
Jim returns to the control room and tells MacKenzie that he has a couple on the phone who are hoping some international news coverage of the bombing victims will get Mr. Kouri help sooner. He mentions that Mr. Kouri said "thank god." "You want to let me do some good?" he asks. "Just be right," MacKenzie says.
Will goes to commercial and decides to give his dad a call back. Don't these people need to, like, focus on the task at hand here? The all-important news? By the time MacKenzie gets to Will's desk, he's already found out that his dad didn't call him after all. It was the guy who called the ambulance for his dad after he collapsed. Will's calling Nebraska to talk to the hospital that admitted his father. MacKenzie is very concerned. Will's acting like he isn't.
And then Neal walks in to ask Will about "something someone posted on Twitter," because that's definitely something that needs to be addressed in the middle of a commercial break while your boss is on the phone with someone. Will gets off the phone with the hospital, which readily gives up patient information as long as you tell it that you're the patient's son, saying he'll call back to talk to his father once the show is over. He assures MacKenzie that his father, who apparently had some kind of heart attack, is doing fine and responding to medication.
He turns his focus to, as MacKenzie describes it, "some bullshit on Twitter." "@PepperBurk" tweeted something, Neal says. Will asks who Pepper Burk is. MacKenzie says if it's not an emergency, then she doesn't care and Neal should "clear the studio." Which is totally correct! Neal should not be bothering Will with Twitter fights in the middle of his show. He leaves, and MacKenzie urges Will to call his father before the show ends. How about you butt out, MacKenzie? Surely you know that Will's father was abusive. Everyone knows that! Even Charlie, before he'd ever had a conversation with Will, knew that.
Dr. Dr. Sloan tells Reese and Charlie that a consultant for AIG she'd been dating for about six weeks booked a hotel room for Christmas Eve with her, because who doesn't want to spend Christmas Eve in a hotel room with a guy she's been dating for just six weeks? Charlie would rather that they stopped talking about this, but she keeps going, explaining that she bought the guy a camera for Christmas, they were drunk, and he asked her to pose for him. That was fun until last night, when she broke up with him and he got his revenge.
Because he doesn't understand how the internet works, Charlie asks if they can get an injunction to have the pictures removed. They cannot. He asks if they can sue the ex-boyfriend for defamation. They cannot. Copyright? Nope. Dr. Dr. Sloane says she's supposed to go on TV in two hours. "You're trending number one," Reese says. "What do you want to do?"
Jim asks Neal to unblock a phone number for him. Neal says he told him to do it himself, but obviously Jim never paid attention to him then. Neal gets stuck doing it for him.
And Maggie is taking an online IQ test! But she's already lost 30 points by using Internet Explorer as her web browser. I hope computer security wasn't important to ACN! To prove to us that Maggie is so smart, Sorkin has her answer two questions correctly and then squint to try to figure out the third (by the way, it was "Guru Rug") when the 911 call is finally posted. She starts downloading it, but that's going to take a while. Maggie basically asks Jim to find something else to do while they're waiting and stop standing over her shoulder.
Meanwhile, Neal offhandly mentions to Don that there's an organization called the "Righteous Daughters of Jihadi Excellence." Don laughs, then realizes something and asks Neal what context the Righteous Daughters of Jihadi Excellence was used in. Neal says that World Net Daily is reporting that some guy named Simon Weingarden was paid to speak to them. Neal makes fun of World Net Daily, which I was going to defend until I saw the names of some of its columnists. You're on your own, publishers of Ann Coulter. Don says that in this case, World Net Daily's source is Don. "I need to make a call," he says, running off.
Don is so unmoored by everything that he doesn't even turn his light on when he gets back in his office. He calls someone named "Phillip" and leaves a message on his voicemail telling him to call him back ASAP. He hangs up and is startled to see (inasmuch as one can see in that dark office) Dr. Dr. Sloan sitting in the corner of the room. She says her officemate was in her office, so she snuck into Don's to be alone. Oh, and now she has to act and say ridiculous lines about her officemate's Bassett Hound. Olivia Munn, god bless her, does her very best. She's better than Emily Mortimer, at least. Then she tearfully tells Don she never saw "this coming." Her ex-boyfriend was a "really nice guy" she "totally trusted." Don figures there's something wrong.
Jim is still standing over Maggie waiting for the download. It's taking forever. Maggie attributes that to every media outlet ever trying to download it at the same time. While they're waiting, she tells Jim that she read Hallie's column about Sandra Fluke, and "that chick can write." Jim says he'll be sure to tell Hallie that, so I guess they're seeing each other? Maggie wants to know how Hallie knows who Maggie is, like it's so weird that Jim would talk about his co-workers with another journalist.
And then Maggie gets mean, saying that Hallie is "on fire" about Sandra Fluke, much like everyone else with his or her "phony outrage." Jim pointedly changes the subject back to the 911 call. Maggie changes it back to Hallie and how she keeps writing about Sandra Fluke and how much she hates white men. Jim says Hallie's beat is women's issues and this is what's in the news now. Maggie blames that on people like Hallie who keep writing about it.
And then, because Maggie is, like, stalking Hallie, she shows Jim how her blog post about Fluke was picked up by the Huffington Post. Jim says Hallie was "very happy about that." Yeah, no. No legitimate journalist is "happy" that Huffington Post lifts his content and puts it on its own site without paying for it. Also, Maggie points out that Hallie's "We Are All Sandra Fluke" post is buried amongst numerous posts about sideboobs and celebrity nipple slips. The 911 call is now 17 percent downloaded.
Neal is called back into the studio when Will's on a commercial break. Will really wants to know what the "Twitter problem" was, and quickly before MacKenzie sees Neal and kicks him out again. Neal says that NY Post reporter Pepper Burk tweeted that Will was rude to her at a restaurant. So rude, in fact, that she somehow tweeted way more than 140 characters about it. Will angrily says that some woman said hello to him at the restaurant and he said hello back. Then MacKenzie comes in to regulate but Will is up in arms over this Twitter thing, especially when Neal tells him that BuzzFeed picked it up, like Will would have any idea what BuzzFeed even is, especially back in March 2012. He says they'll "compose a response" during the commercial break. MacKenzie is not happy about that. Neal isn't, either, saying that he works for two people but doesn't get paid twice as much.
He leaves, and MacKenzie bends over Will's desk to Get Serious. "Nothing bad is going to happen if you're kind to him right now," she says. But if Will is not nice to his father and his father dies, then Will will regret it forever. Maybe Will's dad can regret beating his family forever first? Why should Will be the bigger person here? To get MacKenzie to leave him alone, he says he'll call his father and leave a message during the break. And then he goes back on the air.
MacKenzie finds Neal in the hallway. He says he should compose a Twitter response from Will to Pepper Burk, but MacKenzie says she'll have to become famous in her own right by doing something or sleeping with someone, which is how Sorkin imagines most women become famous. Neal says he has a more pressing Twitter issue that MacKenzie might actually be interested in. He was looking at people tweeting "#newsnight" and found one from News Night's makeup room. Whatever it is, it upsets MacKenzie so much that she informs Neal that even though this isn't his fault, she hates him for it anyway.
Charlie lets his weird friend, "Shep," into his office. He reveals that he's the "press liaison for the ONI." I'm guessing ONI is the Office of Naval Intelligence here. They fight over whether or not Shep is a secret agent (Charlie insists that he is, Shep insists that he isn't) and then have drinks. Charlie doesn't understand why Shep doesn't want ACN to report about a secret computer center in Utah that will hold "yottabytes" of data. Charlie explains that a yottabyte is a whole lotta bytes. But he still doesn't see why the ONI would care if they revealed its location and purpose or not. Man, I just can't wait for the Newsroom episode about the NSA reveal. It's going to be awesome. Yep. Sigh.
Shep also says that we don't have to worry about a world-ending attack from North Korea anymore – it will all come down to a disgruntled kid who hacks into the grid and causes everything to shut down, dams to break, and gas pipelines to explode. "How's Nancy?" he then asks. Charlie says that Nancy, who I'm guessing is his wife, is "finishing up a book on Jackson." He doesn't say if she's writing it or just reading it, or if it's about Andrew Jackson or Michael Jackson. Charlie's daughter, Sophie, is in college, majoring in philosophy. Whoops.
And then Shep reveals the real reason for his visit: to discuss Dantana's Operation Genoa investigation, which has now taken seven months and I still don't care about it because we already know it'll turn out not to be real.
Dr. Dr. Sloan regales Don with a joke about lions, zebras, giraffes, and frogs. Don laughs politely. Dr. Dr. Sloan says she's going to have to tell her parents about everything soon, since her father Googles her every morning and that is not the way you want your father to find out about this. No, the way you want your father to find out about this is to tell him that the photos are fake and his little girl does not pose nude for asshole ex-boyfriends. Deny everything when it comes to your dad and sex photos. Don thinks Daddy Dr. Dr. Sloan will understand. "This is who I am now," Dr. Dr. Sloan says. Enh, I think people will forget or move on at some point. But for now, yes, just about everyone who watches Dr. Dr. Sloan will think about how he saw her naked on the internets.
Don just wants to know how Dr. Dr. Sloan could be going out with someone for so long without Don knowing. Um. It's been seven or eight months since he broke up with Maggie, right? Why hasn't he made a move on Dr. Dr. Sloan yet? She's obviously interested. But she just exposits that she met the ex at a Forbes party and didn't think their breakup was particularly bad. Then Dr. Dr. Sloan says she's feeling "so intensely something" but isn't sure what that feeling is, because a 30-something woman on this show doesn't understand her own feelings. Don suggests it's rage. Dr. Dr. Sloan asks him to take her off Elliot's show tonight because she doesn't think she deserves to interview the Chancellor of the Exchequer now that people have seen her naked.
Don jumps up and calls Phillip again about the World Net Daily article that reported erroneous information about a guy who's apparently in the running to be the solicitor general. He leaves another voicemail message and sits back down with Dr. Dr. Sloan, who says she doesn't feel rage but wouldn't mind if she did since that's much more fun than humiliation. Don can't tell her how long it'll take for her to switch from humiliation to rage; it took Germany 15-20 years but Wile E. Coyote does it in less than a second. They sit in silence for a bit until Dr. Dr. Sloan whispers that she wants to die. She should just settle for cutting off all her hair and dying it red, like Maggie.
In the newsroom, Tess and Martin are on the Syria call and the 911 call is 68 percent downloaded. So Maggie decides to rant again. She wants to know what's so wrong with being called a slut. Having casual sex with lots of different men is okay with Maggie as long as it's consensual. Maggie announces that she likes sex and so does the majority of people in this country.
With that, Jim decides to mansplain to Maggie that she should drink vodka because its odor is less detectable and also he noticed that she's wearing the same clothes she was wearing yesterday. He doesn't think she's drunk at work; just that she goes out after work and gets drunk. And then pours alcohol all over herself, I guess? If she's not drinking at work then I don't know why she'd still smell like alcohol. Maggie says it's none of his business what she does after work. I don't really care one way or the other since we just skipped six months of Maggie's downward spiral so it's not going to have much of an emotional impact on me now.
Maggie sends Jim off to find out how much time she'll have to prepare the call once it's finally downloaded. On his way to find out, he asks Gary Cooper how long it took him to "straighten out after Africa." "I wasn't holding the kid," Gary Cooper says.
MacKenzie says they won't have much time to cut the 911 call down to 20-25 seconds, but Jim assures her they'll get it done somehow. On the show, Will is yelling at someone who thinks it's hard to speak up for conservative values these days. Like Pat Buchanan, she says, who was fired from MSNBC because of his book. Which wasn't so much "conservative" as it was racist and anti-Semitic and homophobic (no, those are not one and the same. Sometimes). While they're fighting, MacKenzie heads down to the makeup room and meets upcoming guest Jesse. She tries to impress him with her 1930s journalist talk, but he doesn't get it.
Jesse is on the show because he's the head of the Rutgers Gay-Straight Alliance and Dharun Ravi, who secretly filmed and broadcast his Rutgers roommate Tyler Clementi making out with another man, leading to Clementi's suicide, was just convicted. And now they both get to be used as a subplot on The Newsroom. Jesse says he never knew Tyler but thinks that what Dharun did was a reprehensible invasion of Tyler's privacy. "To take the most intimate moment of someone's life and use it for entertainment" makes Dharun an asshole, Jesse says. Oh. Then … what does that make Sorkin?
MacKenzie says she saw Jesse's tweet, where he bragged about his TV debut and said he would "make some waves." "#parentspleasedonthateme," he concluded. She wants to know what he meant by that. Jesse admits that he's going to come out to his parents. "I'm sorry, you can't," MacKenzie says. Why not? "Because you can't take the most intimate moment of someone's life and use it for entertainment." Jesse protests that he's doing this voluntarily. MacKenzie says that he also tweeted about it voluntarily, and Twitter is evil. "It's just not that kind of show," she says. With that, she excuses herself, saying they'll talk again later. I'm honestly not sure what her problem is. It's not like Jesse's planning to come out by having sex with a man on Will's desk. How is it that "that kind of show" have random talking heads going on and on about drones but Jesse can't come out? Because that would actually be interesting?
MacKenzie finds Will and Neal discussing Pepper Burk Tweetgate during another commercial break. She tweeted again, saying "another battle lost in the war on women." Because Will didn't recognize her at a restaurant. God, these crazy feminists and their crazy feminism!! Neal runs away and MacKenzie ensures that Will called his father. He says he did, but she knows he's lying. "Come on, do it now," she urges. "It's not that simple," Will says. And he would know, seeing as he was the one his father beat up when he was drunk and not MacKenzie. "Start to turn this around!" she says, like that's Will's responsibility. Will would rather focus on Pepper Burk, because that's easier. "Forget about THE FUCKING TWEET!" MacKenzie screams. Will says that he has to fix things with Pepper Burk because when someone who is supposed to represent the rest of the world tells you you're a bad person, that stays with you forever. Hey, guys? I don't think he's talking about Pepper Burk anymore. MacKenzie says it doesn't have to be forever. How would she know? Her dad worked for Margaret Thatcher in America when she was born even though she has to be in her late 30s or 40s. Clearly he's a time-traveler, and those types tend to be non-violent.
Oh, and then she tells Will that he'd better not be "ignoring" his father to stick it to him on what could be his deathbed to get revenge on him. Then she nags him forever until he agrees to call and leave a message on his dad's voicemail during the break. He also admits that Pepper Burk tweeted that she was not going to watch News Night anymore because of his behavior. Yeah. Like she even watched it in the first place. No one watches News Night. "She knows what she's doing," MacKenzie mutters.
The 911 call is 98 percent downloaded. Maggie, seeming less angry now, asks Jim how long he'd been waiting to say something about her after-work activities. Jim claims he doesn't know. She asks if he has something to tell her about drinking and men. He says he does not. She says she's single and her performance at work isn't suffering for it (because it's not possible that it could since it's just so bad already) and Lisa is still furious with her so life in the apartment is not fun. Wow, eight months and Maggie can't find another place to live? It's really not that hard. I live in New York. I lived in Manhattan as a full-time grad student (a.k.a. super poor) for one year. It's possible.
Jim suggests that Maggie move out of her apartment and also stop being so "unpleasant" and "moody" at work. And then the 911 call is finally downloaded. Jim runs off to write the copy (why … didn't he do that already?) while Maggie runs to the edit bay to cut the tape down to 25 seconds.
Charlie tells Shep that Dantana was just chasing a rumor that he's not going to tell him any more about. "Something to do with chemical weapons?" Shep asks. Charlie won't say. "It's a fucking serious allegation, Charlie," Shep says. It would lead to riots in the Middle East and America's loss of its (self-appointed) position of moral authority of the world. Plus, it's not like using chemical weapons to extract captive Marines is all that bad, right? Shep asks Charlie what he would think if his son were one of the captive Marines, a few hours from being beheaded, and MARSOC unit used "any means necessary" to rescue him. Charlie reveals that Shep's hypothetical situation sounds a lot like ACN's rumor. "Does it?" Shep asks with all the faux innocence. I like Shep. We'll probably never seen him again.
Maggie and the editor work to cut down the Zimmerman 911 call.
Jim tells Martin to keep Mr. Kouri talking.
Some guy tells Will that Obama should lower gas prices even though Will doesn't think the president has the ability to do that. Stupid conservatives blah blah blah.
Jim writes the copy.
Maggie and the editor finish up.
Will catches the conservative using faulty logic, of course.
Good montage! Shep asks Charlie, again, if he wouldn't do "it" were it his son who was captured. "Do what, Shep?" Charlie asks. Shep just says that the problem with Al Qaeda is that it wants to live in the eighth century but use weapons from today. That's a "crazy problem," Shep says. "What are you telling me?" Charlie asks. "Wouldn't you insist it be done?" Shep asks. "Do what?" Charlie asks again. "I'm sorry and all, but you have to fix the crazy problem because this is what happens when you make it ours," Shep says, now making less sense than before. He leaves Charlie with a crumpled piece of paper that he says will give him more information about those yottabytes of memory.
In the office of darkness and embarrassment, Don asks Dr. Dr. Sloan why she dates "men like this." She says she doesn't know that they're "men like this" until they turn into "men like this." Don says he doesn't believe that the ex could be this much of a "shithead" and Dr. Dr. Sloan wouldn't have figured it out in the seven weeks that were dating. Don says Dr. Dr. Sloan must not have a very high opinion of herself and he doesn't know why not. Also, he'd just like to point out that if a woman posted a man's sexy photos on the internet, her friends would all be saying "you go, girl!" Yes. Double standards are so rough on men. I don't know how they deal with it all. "You're impressive," Don says. But then they don't make out, so, whatever.
MacKenzie wants to make sure Will called his father. He says he did. She says he did the right thing and he can live with that forever. And Will's dad will be so happy when he gets the message. "I know," Will says.
Don calls Phillip again, then explains that he joked with Phillip the other day when he asked if Simon would have any problems getting confirmed for solicitor general, like a speakers' fee at the Righteous Daughters of Jihadi Excellence or something. And apparently Phillip took him seriously and tipped off World Net Daily, who posted it without checking if it was true. Dr. Dr. Sloan suggests that Don try contacting World Net Daily's editorial staff. Don looks him up and realizes that he's about to call a guy named "Munch." He dials. A man answers. "Mr. Munch?" he begins. Dr. Dr. Sloan busts out laughing. That was a nice moment. See? I can admit when this show does things right.
Will plays the 911 tape. There's Zimmerman telling the operator that Trayvon "looks like he's up to no good" and then "he looks black." OOPS.
Don tells Munch that he made the crack about the Righteous Daughters of Jihadi Excellence and it was just a joke. Munch says they have it "from multiple sources." "You gotta take it down and run a retraction," Don says. Uh, no, they don't. I mean, they should, but Don must know by now that very few websites or even broadcast and print outlets will do this. For example, just wait to see how News Night handles its inaccurate portrayal of George Zimmerman. Munch refuses, insisting that Don wasn't his only source. "It turns out your joke was right on the money," Munch says.
At this point, Don explodes and screams at Munch that he knows that's not true since he made up the Righteous Daughters of Jihadi Excellence in the first place. Also: "WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU?!?!!?" and he calls Munch a "fatass," because, you know, all internet people are fat. Dr. Dr. Sloan hangs the phone up. She says Don can just have Neal use the recording of the call to clear Weingarden's name and show that World Net Daily is bad at journalism, problem solved. Not if Don was using Will's recorder, it's not! "Thanks, pal," Dr. Dr. Sloan says.
Dr. Dr. Sloan walks out of the newsroom, exchanging a high-five/handshake with Charlie as he walks in. Aw.
Someone from the NAACP tells Will that Trayvon's murder was obviously racially motivated, based on what she just heard on the 911 call. Man, it's rough that Maggie has to get fired this way, but I don't see how she can't be. That's what happened to the people at NBC when they did this, right?
Charlie calls MacKenzie into the hall. He shows her what Shep gave him: the manifest from one of the Operation Genoa helicopters. MacKenzie recognizes everything on it except for something called "MX76." Charlie thinks that's the sarin gas. "We dropped sarin. This is a true story," he says. "It happened and we're gonna prove it." MacKenzie asks Charlie where he got the list, but Charlie just shakes his head. I'm not sure if Charlie's actually shaking his head or Sam Waterston is just being extra head-shaky today. Also, I must admit I'm curious to see how or why Shep lead Charlie astray like this. Maybe Operation Genoa was real but only dropped white phosphorous?
Neal runs up to Maggie and tells her that he's been transcribing the Zimmerman 911 call and he noticed that Maggie cut out the operator's question about Trayvon Martin's race and only used Zimmerman's answer. It takes Maggie a while to realize why this is a problem. She runs to MacKenzie and Charlie. We don't hear what she says, but the reaction is Charlie angrily turning away and MacKenzie face-palming.
MacKenzie finally gets back to Jesse to tell him that his segment's been cut because Will needs extra time to apologize for screwing up the 911 call. "We had a badly edited tape," she says. I'm disappointed we didn't get to see the part where Maggie was fired on the spot for what she did, but overall happy that it happened. It must have happened. Right?
Jesse assumes he's being bumped because she found out about his closet-exiting plans. MacKenzie says it's not, but he doesn't believe her and threatens to tweet about what MacKenzie and News Night did. MacKenzie pooh-poohs this, telling him to make sure he blames Will so he can get maximum traction.
"Why are you acting like such a bitch?" Jesse asks. MacKenzie is annoyed now. She says that yes, she was going to drop his segment because he was planning to come out, and that's not what News Night is all about. Only Will's whims may be indulged on News Night! "He's not Maury Povich!" MacKenzie adds, like that's the same thing. Maury Povich is a freakshow. Jesse wants to tell the world that he's gay. I don't understand why MacKenzie is making this comparison.
Jesse insists that he's coming out on his own terms, which Tyler never could. Except that he did. To his parents. Before he left for college. This has been well-documented. "You're full of shit," MacKenzie tells him. "You want to be a D-lister and that's it. You want to get on stage. And you want to call him 'Tyler' even though you told me you didn't know him so you can bathe in his reflected tragedy." Yes. Unlike News Night, which isn't using Clementi's death for attention at all. Or Newsroom. Or Aaron Sorkin, whose name is on the credits like 18 times.
"Fuck you, Jesse, that kid killed himself because his privacy was stolen. And you think you're honoring him by tweeting about coming out in front of a million and a half strangers?" MacKenzie concludes: "I'll put up color bars before I'll put you in front of our cameras." That seems harsh. Maybe I'm missing something but I don't get what her problem is. Jesse doesn't seem like that much of a famewhore to me, and, again, coming out on TV isn't exactly a desperate plea for attention. Jesse says he thought this was a way for him to come out to his parents without having to be in front of them to see their reactions. "Good luck with that," MacKenzie says. She might be feeling a little bad because she tries to "help" by telling Jesse about the "it gets better" videos. Yes, I heard that that disgusting famewhore Ellen DeGeneres made one. What a monster she is. "How would you know?" Jesse snaps. "I guess I wouldn't. Take it easy!" MacKenzie says.
On her way out, she tells Jesse that she knows people who have "relationships" with audiences, like Will. She thinks those relationships should only be one-night stands. "They don't feel about you the way you want them to," she says. "You were gonna get killed. I did you a favor." Uh, yeah. Such a favor, with the "fuck you" and the "Maury Povich" dig. I'm still not sure why she thinks Jesse would've gotten "killed." Most times when people come out, it's seen as brave and it makes for good viral videos. I think Jesse would've been fine. Not sure how he'll take her and her show's rather cruel rejection.
MacKenzie heads back into the control room. Martin and Jim are there, and the Kouris are on the line. Remember them? Trapped under a building in Syria? MacKenzie puts them on the speaker phone and notes that Syrians rarely say "thank god," which Mr. Kouri said soon into his first interaction with Jim. Also, no one with the last name "Kouri" is registered at the W in Manhattan and there's no cell phone signal in the area of the bombings because they took a cell phone tower down with the buildings. Also, they unblocked the phone numbers and traced them to some guy named "Stewart" who is about to be arrested. I'm not sure what for. Is prank calling a crime now? Was it in March 2012? Martin picks up the phone. "Baba-Booey, motherfuckers!" he Howard Sterns, hanging up. Love Martin and that line but that wasn't much payoff for all that build up. "Tonight we take care of all family business," MacKenzie says smugly, just before preparing for the segment of her show, in which it apologizes for its tremendous fuck-up. By the way, how long has Will been going on and on about that racist 911 call with the woman from the NAACP while his staff knows that the tape was edited misleadingly now? Immediate retractions for Simon Weingarden, heels dragged for George Zimmerman. World Net Daily is scum, News Night is pure and shan't be sullied by famewhores. I see.
Analysts meet and analyze things. Dr. Dr. Sloan walks in. "Kathy told me to come back," she says. So, Kathy's fired. She asks "Scott" if they can talk for a second. Scott smirks and approaches Dr. Dr. Sloan, who kicks him in the balls. He just stands there and lets her punch him in the face. He collapses to the ground covered in blood, so, that's hilarious. Dr. Dr. Sloan snaps a photo of him with her phone. "I made it to the rage phase," she says. Yes. Causing someone physical pain (and breaking his nose with your bare hands while somehow not hurting your own hand) is definitely an even trade for the entire world having access to your sex photos.
Are we supposed to be rooting for Dr. Dr. Sloan here? What Scott did was awful and he deserves to be punished for it, but physical violence is wrong. It was wrong when Shelly punched Neal, it's wrong with MacKenzie shoves Will up against a wall, and it's wrong when Dr. Dr. Sloan smashes a man's face and also his testicles. It's also disappointing that this was the best Dr. Dr. Sloan could come up with. I thought she was smarter than that.
Dr. Dr. Sloan walks away. Scott follows, but of course he's not going to attack her because that would be scary and not funny. Women hitting men = comedy gold! Men hitting women = terrible, terrible. Fortunately, Don appears and blocks Scott from following Dr. Dr. Sloan. "No no," he simply says. Phew!!! Good job having that man there to protect you when things got real, Dr. Dr. Sloan.
Jim asks Maggie what happened. Maggie insists that the mistake was simply because she had so little time to prepare the tape and she wasn't thinking. "You weren't trying to see justice done?" Jim asks. Maggie snarls that she doesn't think she should be disciplined by a guy who gave away an interview with Romney to save Hallie's job. Also, she thinks he is gross for defending Hallie's column. Actually, Maggie, Jim can discipline you for screwing up on the job because he is your boss. Or he was your boss. He isn't anymore, since you are obviously fired. "I never remotely prepared for this scenario," she says. Also, she's afraid to sleep alone at night so she hooks up with random men, like sleeping with virtual strangers isn't scary at all. Jim just mutters a "yeah." Why does no one even raise his voice at this horrible woman? She screws up all the time and she's a liability for News Night and they just pat her on the back and wait for it to happen again. And then they're surprised when it does.
MacKenzie meets with Will during yet another commercial break. She tells him to apologize but "make it brief," as "a full mea culpa isn't needed." And then he'll play the call in its entirety. Will asks about Dr. Dr. Sloan. MacKenzie says she's fine and even put herself back on Elliot's show. From wanting to die to wanting to go on TV in less than an hour! Good work, Dr. Dr. Sloan. Hope you aren't arrested for assault before showtime! Please don't turn Elliot's show into Maury Povich. Will seems kind of quiet, so MacKenzie decides to fill the silence with statistics on how likely it is that Will's dad will be fine. "He died," Will tells her. HA! Great timing, Will.
Needless to say, MacKenzie is shocked. Will says it happened about 12 minutes ago. He called his dad like he told her he would and his sister answered the phone and told him. He assures MacKenzie that "it's all right," so she heads back into the control room for the final segment of the show.
Will comes back from the break and … just sits there. MacKenzie asks if he's okay. He just sits there. Hmm. I guess it wasn't such a great idea for Will to call home during the show after all. MacKenzie orders to go to commercial, but there isn't one. She asks if they can cut to Terry Smith early. YES!!!! IT'S TERRY SMITH'S TIME TO SHINE! FINALLY! Oh, wait, no – he (or she) isn't at the desk. No! I've been waiting a season and a half for this moment!
So MacKenzie talks to Will again, and this time he snaps out of it. Jeff Daniels is a good actor who deserves a better show. "Well I guess it's just us, now," he tells the audience. Yeah, BuzzFeed just posted like five articles about that weird two minute pause we just saw on News Night and Pepper Burk tweeted 80 times and god knows what World Net Daily wrote but Will totally recovered, so, no worries. That wasn't weird at all!
Will finally snaps back to reality and says ACN has an important correction to make. Let's end there.
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.