Well, it's the beginning of the end for News Night! Don, Jim, and Dr. Dr. Sloan find out about Operation Genoa as the team responsible for disproving it. Due to the fact that Dr. Dr. Sloan and Don are awesome, the first meeting is hilarious and involves reindeer.
And in romantic foibles, Hallie is in town to see Jim! He's very excited and books them an expensive hotel room, but then Hallie goes and invites an alcoholic Ron Paul supporter and MTVU reporter (because of course, MTV News is terrible. I guess Sorkin never heard of the amazing Kurt Loder?) along to double date Neal. At the very last minute, Taylor the Terrific Romney Spokesperson invites herself along too, just to fuck with Jim. It's pretty great, until she reveals that she's just been fired. Things are nearly as bad for Jim, as by the time he gets Hallie back to the hotel room, she's suddenly called away to Colorado.
It might be even worse for Will, who is still with Nina (yay!) until she reinforces his love of focus groups and likability to the audience (which isn't great, due to his constant lecturing of guests and refusal to smile ever) by urging him to go on ACN's morning show. Unfortunately, ACN's morning show is watchable and fun, so Will ends up destroying lighting equipment and screwing over a cancer charity. He breaks up with Nina, like it's her fault that he's no fun on the air.
Don continues to be jealous of Dr. Dr. Sloan's dates, the latest of which is a football player for the Giants.
Also, Jim and Hallie run into Maggie at the hotel bar, where she's drinking alone until she leaves with a random guy.
Meanwhile, MacKenzie and Charlie go on a fun road trip! Because MacKenzie doesn't know how to drive, she runs over the trash bins in front of General Stomtonovich's house right before she and Charlie head in to ask him about Operation Genoa. In between college basketball games (it's March Madness), he agrees to talk on camera about it with Dantana.
Dantana and, for some reason, Maggie, do the interview, although Stomtonovich insists that Maggie leave the room. All she hears is Stomtonovich say "it happened." Dantana hears him refuse to say directly that Operation Genoa used sarin gas. He then edits the footage to make it look like Stomtonovich said it definitely did. Uh oh!
And then, at the last minute, the one Marine they hadn't talked to about the mission (because they erroneously thought he was dead) calls up and says he'll talk to them. They get nearly 6 million viewers.