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It's election night at ACN! Spoiler alert: Obama wins. Also: Taylor is back! She's ACN's newest analyst, and spends most of her camera time fighting with everyone, which is great. Even better is when Dr. Dr. Sloan tries to defend Will's rampant criticism of Republicans by pointing out that he once reported on a Democratic president's military's use of sarin gas, although that did turn out to not be true at all, whoops.
Speaking of the Dantana debacle, Charlie, Will, and MacKenzie still want to resign even though Jane Fonda won't let them. Charlie asks Reese to help him out, but he says he can't because his mom thinks he's gay. And because she's his boss. Marcia Gay Harden skulks around the premises to show off her "liquid sex"-ness (I don't know, but she said like 10 times, so I guess it's important) and make sure no one resigns. Also to inform Don that Dantana is suing him for $20 million because Don told someone who called for a job reference that Dantana was a sociopath. Well, that was dumb.
Speaking of dumb, Jim doesn't know Michigan from Mississippi and accidentally tells ACN to call an election in the wrong state. Instead of retracting it, he hopes no one will notice because Charlie is threatening to make whoever screws up work for the NYC Department of Sanitation. Is that supposed to be a bad thing? Those guys probably make more money and have much better job security than 99 percent of journalists. Dantana should work there.
Maggie, meanwhile, manages not to make any mistakes! And, thanks to Taylor, gets a scoop that a Congressman once wrote that most women cry rape. Don asks the Congressman's office for comment and is promised a big scoop with on the record sources if ACN ignores the story. That scoop? That all kinds of weird things are about to happen with the director of the CIA and his biographer, who he's having an affair with. That's a big story, but ACN's not really in the best position right now to run it.
And in the really important storylines, Dr. Dr. Sloan feels bad about accidentally faking out someone who bought a book she didn't sign from an ACN charity auction for $1,000 and MacKenzie spends a good part of election night fretting over the fact that her Wikipedia page says she went to Oxford instead of Cambridge. Good news, though! She manages to convince Will (after way too much rehashing of their past relationship) to fire her over Genoa, and he does – effective at the end of the broadcast, which will continue in week's episode.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!I'm back! Did you guys have fun with Kim while I was away? Did you miss me? I certainly missed this theme song, which makes me feel like I'm having a seizure and also about to fall asleep, somehow at the same time.
Speaking of falling asleep, we have to listen to everyone recap what happened last episode like ten times. I know the show took a week off, but come on. First up, Jim is filling Hallie in over Skype. He makes her swear their conversation is off the record like 500 times because you can't trust a journalist! They are evil.
Jim says that everyone in the opening credits was planning to resign from ACN, but then Jane Fonda wouldn't let Will, Charlie, and MacKenzie resign so they didn't. Hallie can't BELIEVE this. "This is unprecedented!!" she says. You know what else is unprecedented? The number of conversations this "couple" have over Skype while at work. Like, Jim is sprawled across that random staircase in the middle of the newsroom talking to her right now. Why? Also why not a phone call? Also why did he wait until several hours later and during work to tell her this at all?
Charlie and Will ask Marcia Gay Harden how they can quit their jobs. MGH says they can't; they're under contract with ACN and Jane Fonda will sue them for breach if they try. This makes Charlie explain to us all, again, why he wants to resign. Will, on the other hand, maintains that ACN's Genoa story was great. "If only it had been true," MGH smirks.
Charlie isn't getting enough attention so he screams "Hey! I'm not fucking around!" He says ACN lost all of its military sources and the Department of Defense won't talk to them anymore. "Do you think that's maybe because you falsely accused them of a heinous war crime?" MGH says. Great, now she's telling us what we already know. MGH and Charlie agree that ACN's credibility has disappeared.
"One less thing we have to worry about," Will says, apparently being "jovial." I mean, I didn't get "jovial" from that, but Charlie did and asks him what's up. Will responds that he has appointed himself in charge of morale.
"We aired a doctored tape – " Charlie begins and I KNOW I SAW THE SHOW. Even if I hadn't, I would've known from that last 20 times Charlie said it in the last two minutes. "We have gone to the ZOO!" Charlie says. I hope they didn't go to the San Diego Zoo, which closes its Hummingbird Aviary earlier than the rest of the park and I didn't know and by the time I got there all excited to walk around with hummingbirds the door was locked. That zoo sucks. I'm going to the Bronx Zoo this weekend and it's going to be so much better.
With that, Charlie asks if Reese is upstairs having an election night viewing party. MGH says he obviously is, because "look at me." "I dressed for the party," she says. "I look hot. Liquid sex. I just described myself as 'liquid sex,'" she purrs. Um … what? Oh, right – MGH was the last woman left on this show who hadn't felt the need to point out to everyone that she is a woman. Tell me, how many $1500-an-hour lawyers do you know who say these things in a professional setting (that is not the company Christmas party)? Charlie says he's planning to go up to the party and try to convince Reese to let him resign. Wow, these people really must hate their jobs to be so passionate about not having them anymore. But that's okay. It's not like it's tough to find work in the field of journalism.
The real reason why MGH is in the newsroom, it turns out, is to talk to Don. She won't say what it's about, but hints that it's not great news. Charlie says whatever because no one cares about Don and then tells her to leave the menfolk to talk. He tells Will that MacKenzie is taking the whole "failing at her job" thing the hardest out of all of them. Yeah, probably because she has the most to lose. She's the youngest and the poorest; Charlie and Will could probably never work again and be comfortable. She can't. Also she's an emotional woman.
Charlie suggests that Will fire MacKenzie. Will refuses. Charlie takes his cigarette away from him and wonders why he doesn't "set [him]self on fire instead of the cigarette." Charlie is kind of a pyromaniac this week. They hug it out. Charlie leaves with Will's cigarette.
In the makeup room, ACN's election night talent prepare to go on. And just WHO IS THAT in the makeup chair? None other than Taylor! Dr. Dr. Sloan and Elliot go over interesting races around the country and Dr. Dr. Sloan "calls" discussing one that Elliot brought up to her. He protests that he wants to talk about it, but Taylor says that she's pretty sure one has to call one's stories before air. And this story is about a guy who is gay and his dad was in the KKK and something to do with trains, so.
Jim and Maggie enter. Maggie is still sporting that hair we have no explanation for. I mean, I assumed it was because of the Uganda stuff but she cut it months and months later so I don't know? Jim assures Taylor that she shouldn't be nervous that it's her first time on the air and so she might be bad. Very nice, Jim. Taylor says she's not worried at all. Why is ACN introducing a brand new analyst with no prior on-camera experience on presidential election night? That makes no sense.
Jim then informs Taylor that the race has already been called for Romney in Indiana and Kentucky. "Yeah, baby!" Taylor says. Jim tells her she has to remain non-partisan, in which case maybe he shouldn't have hired a Republican presidential candidate's PR person to do this. After reminding Taylor that he isn't her little reporter embed she can lord her candidate access over, Jim leaves. Elliot asks her why she and Jim seem to hate each other. Taylor blames it on her tattling to MacKenzie that he gave away an interview to Hallie, who is now his girlfriend.
Maggie steps forward and cuts Taylor off to introduce herself and say "I hate Jim, too." Huh? Since when? Why? Even Taylor thinks "hate" is a strong word to describe her relationship with Jim, but she's willing to give Maggie a scoop if it means Jim will be annoyed she got one and he didn't. "Talk to me!" Maggie says. "Talk to me too, sistah!" Dr. Dr. Sloan says. "Be less desperate for female friends!" Elliot orders. It should be noted that Elliot doesn't appear to have any friends, male or female.
Dr. Dr. Sloan meets Neal in the hallway. He tells her that the autographed copy of her book she put in the charity auction sold. Dr. Dr. Sloan has no idea what he's talking about, so he clumsily exposits (seriously, what is with the exposition on tonight's episode? I mean, it's never done particularly gracefully but it's especially bad tonight) that various ACN personalities put things up for auction for Hurricane Sandy relief. Will put a round of golf with Will up for bid, while Dr. Dr. Sloan decided against dinner with Dr. Dr. Sloan and chose the book instead. I'm pretty sure Dr. Dr. Sloan would already know that? But good call on not doing the dinner, Dr. Dr. Sloan. You would've gotten a very, very creepy person. Dr. Dr. Sloan says that she did it because she didn't think anyone would bid on either prize and she didn't want to be embarrassed when no one bid on the date with her. Um. Okay. People bid on a round of golf with Will, and he's horrible and no one likes him and he's not a very attractive woman. Anyway, Dr. Dr. Sloan says she's donated money "directly to Sandy." I'm sure Hurricane Sandy appreciated your donation, Dr. Dr. Sloan.
Neal informs Dr. Dr. Sloan that the book went for $1,000 and Dr. Dr. Sloan is shocked that anyone would pay that much for a book about economics in post-WWI Germany, especially when she didn't even sign it. Neal says she did sign it. Dr. Dr. Sloan insists that she didn't. Neal recites the inscription to her, part of which is in German. He says someone must have signed it for her and sent it to the auction. Dr. Dr. Sloan says she feels really bad now that someone gave so much money for a fake signature. There's a pause, and then Neal realizes he's about to be ordered to help Dr. Dr. Sloan find whoever bought the book on one of the busiest news nights of the year. Cheer up, Neal! That's not the stupidest and most useless thing you'll be asked to do tonight.
Maggie stops by Don's office to tell him about the scoop she got from Taylor. Some guy named "Brody" in California waited until election morning to come out against Todd Akin and his comments about women's bodies having ways of "shutting that thing down" when they get raped so they won't have a baby. It turns out that, in 1990, Brody wrote some kind of op-ed about how women "cry rape" and that's why we shouldn't make rape exceptions to abortion laws. "Children are conceived by love, not by rape," he concluded.
So now that Maggie has failed at trying to get a comment from Brody's office, she's hoping Don can help. "Didn't you used to take showers with his chief of staff?" she asks. Don says they played tennis. "And then took showers together," Maggie says. "They're individual showers," Don says. "When you cut your hair, where you trying to look like Joey Heatherton and something went terribly wrong?" Yes. Joey Heatherton, that 68-year-old well-known to young people.
Don calls John, the chief of staff. He asks about Brody's op-ed. Before he tells John what Brody wrote about, John says he already knew about it. And he's willing to "trade" Don a scoop if he keeps this one quiet. "You know we're in no mood to be fucked around with, right?" Don asks. John gives him his special shower promise. Don gives him until 8:30. He hangs up and wonders if ACN finally caught a lucky break. Yes, that's right. It's a lucky break. Not the result of any reporting or journalism.
MacKenzie watches over her underlings, all of whom have such better hair than she does this week. Like, take a shower, MacKenzie. Use some shampoo maybe. Also, I see that intern is still hanging around. Nice two-year-long internship you have there. I'll bet it's unpaid! The staff is sent away so MacKenzie and Will can talk about how Will and Charlie can't quit their jobs. Remember when we heard the explanation for this in the beginning of the show? Well, we're hearing it again! MacKenzie freaks out that Dantana's lawsuit will be filed tomorrow morning and then all of their fuck-ups will be a matter of public record unless Leona agrees to settle. If not, the lawsuit is sure to include "a full-on description of every embarrassing thing that's gone on here in the last 14 months." Will says it'll probably include more than that. Yes. I can imagine a lot of embarrassing things have happened. Will tells MacKenzie to just focus on election night because she can't do anything about anything else anyway.
MacKenzie asks Will for a favor. "I'm not fucking around," she adds. We get it. No one here is fucking around. That's great. Lines like this are why this show has to be on pay cable. The favor? That Will says what he wants to say to her. Will says she looks really tired. "You look like you were grown in an environment where it's dark and damp," he says. But MacKenzie means she wants Will to yell at her for screwing up Genoa. Will would rather not. Then there's some talk about nice shoes, because woman like shoes. MacKenzie says Will reminds her of "a bomb that hasn't detonated." So … a ticking time bomb, then? She'd appreciate it if he exploded now rather than later.
Will says he's not a bomb. In fact, "I've been put in charge of morale." "By who?" MacKenzie asks. "I did it," Will says. MacKenzie keeps trying to get him to explode or whatever and he keeps informing her that he's a morale officer now. "I want to know what the punishment's going to be this time," MacKenzie says. Yes, she's talking about their past relationship YET AGAIN. "I was fucking my ex-boyfriend!" she says. Will says he was more upset that she lied to him. Also, "I've never heard you use that word as a verb before." Really? Because we all just heard her say it like one minute ago.
MacKenzie says that Will still holds that whole cheating thing against her six years after the fact, so she can't imagine how long he'll hold Genoa against her. "You know what, hon? Can I just say 'fuck you?'" Will asks. "Hon." LOL. "I've never punished you," he says. "KING GEORGE FORGAVE AMERICA IN LESS TIME THAN IT'S TAKING YOU – " MacKenzie starts. Okay, first of all? It's called the War of 1812. Second of all, King George was crazy a lot of that time. Will asks what is the proper amount of time for time to get over it. "Twenty-eight months!" MacKenzie says immediately. That's seven months for every month that she cheated on/lied to him!
Charlie makes a speech to the staff before the election night coverage begins. He goes on and on about how awesome America's elections are and even has a slideshow of people in other countries enjoying the American elections to prove it. And all to stress how important it is that they don't fuck it up tonight. He suggests that anyone who does make a mistake run away immediately. Maybe if he didn't spend so much time making dumb slideshows he'd be a better supervisor of his mistake-prone staff.
MacKenzie takes her place in the control room as November 6, 2012 flashes on the screen just in case you forgot what day the elections were held last year. After a getting ready montage that includes one of the ACN anchors in Washington (is that you, Terry Smith?!?) and a long shot of the back of Will's neck, the show goes on the air.
Oh, I guess it wasn't Terry Smith in Washington, as Will says someone named "Jane Barrow" is reporting from D.C. Lame. Will runs through the election results so far. Romney is projected to win Kentucky and Indiana, and Taylor does a fist pump under her desk even though she already knew about this and even though Romney fired her like two weeks ago.
Charlie heads into Reese's party. Reese is talking to some people about a porn stars wearing condoms or something. He introduces Charlie to some of his former classmates even though they all look like a decade apart from each other in age so it's kind of hard to see how they all went to school at the same time. Charlie pulls Reese aside and informs him that Dantana's lawsuit is going to be filed tomorrow, which we and Reese already knew. Charlie says it'll be a "public shaming." Reese tells him to go downstairs and do his job. Charlie asks if Reese can help him resign from that job. He says ACN needs to get its credibility back or else and the only way to do it is by letting Charlie and Will resign.
"There are people here. From Jane Barrow, Terry Smith (THE BEST), everyone at the D.C. bureau to Sloan Sabbith, Elliot Hirsch, everyone on dayside. These people don't deserve to have a piano strapped to their back," Charlie says. Notice how he gave Terry Smith a shout-out! That's because he (or she) is awesome. Also, does everyone on dayside really not deserve to have a piano on his back? That morning show guy kind of sucks.
Suddenly MGH is standing behind Charlie. "I'm stealthy," she smirks. Reese tells Charlie that he's preaching to the choir, here. He'd love to get rid of Will and Charlie and thinks what they did was terrible and shouldn't have been 'solved' by firing one guy. Now, he sighs, everyone is going to know about all the non-relationships in the newsroom. That's going to be such a boring lawsuit. Also that Dr. Dr. Sloan punched a guy in the face. That's slightly more interesting.
Reese says he'd accept Will and Charlie's resignations, give Dantana a settlement, and get on with it, but his mommy won't let him. "Reese!" Charlie croaks. Yeah, well. Jane Fonda is Reese's mom and boss. And when he tried to convince her to can Will and Charlie, she just started asking him when he'd settle down and give her some grandchildren and if maybe he was gay. Reese wondered if her "obsession with grandchildren" was because she wanted "a do-over" and this seems like a well-run, functional organization. Reese says there's nothing he can do. The lawsuit will be filed and Charlie will have a job at ACN forever. "Keep trying," Charlie says.
An hour into the election night broadcast, Will has some more projections on the presidential election. By the way, guys? Sorry to ruin this for you but Obama wins. I saw this episode in advance. In November. On the sixth. In 2012. You know, when it actually happened. I can't believe this show is now clumsily expositing the 2012 president election.
Jim is back on the newsroom stairs of Skype love, talking to Hallie. She tells him that Romney is upstairs waiting for the results. Jim wants to know what the "mood" is. Hallie says people seem convinced that Romney is going to win this thing. Maggie comes down the stairs from nowhere and informs Jim that she's going to break news all over the place tonight and also takes a second to say hi to Hallie even though I'm pretty sure Maggie hates her. "I really like your hair," Hallie says, oddly not sounding totally sarcastic, which she must have been. Maggie walks away and Hallie tells Jim that Maggie's haircut, which she is seeing for the first time, could be a Big Deal. She tells Jim to ask Maggie about it. Jim's not particularly interested in doing that.
Don whispers sweet nothings into Elliot's earpiece as Elliot tries to get ready for a segment in ACN's election HQ decision desk, which is full of statisticians and experts trying to figure out the polling data but not doing much work on how to appear on camera without looking horrified and then angry, Cathy Ling.
Neal asks, in German, if anyone speaks German. While Maggie and that other woman (it's either Tess or Tamara but they've gotten such woefully little camera time this season that I forgot who was who) wonder what he's talking about, Gary Cooper proudly volunteers that he knows German. "Not as well as you think," Neal says. "Come with me." "Shit," Gary Cooper says.
Back in the statistics lair, Elliot tells the camera that the nerds stay secluded so they won't be influenced by whatever any other network is calling. Except that there's now a giant camera crew standing in the middle of the room so there goes that seclusion. Elliot asks Cathy Ling if she has anything new to report. "Takes a little time," Cathy Ling snaps. Elliot decides to leave the nerds alone and focuses on ACN's crack producing team instead. Unfortunately, Maggie is part of that team.
Meanwhile, MacKenzie uses the break in the studio to brief Will and tell Taylor she's been great so far. Yeah, she has. Because she's awesome. Taylor decides to return the suck up by saying she's impressed with the fact that MacKenzie was the president of the Oxford union. MacKenzie says she was the president of the Cambridge union. Taylor says Wikipedia told her it was Oxford. MacKenzie is shocked that Wikipedia would say such a thing. I'm shocked that MacKenzie is in Wikipedia at all. I just looked to see if I finally made Wikipedia's apparently low threshold for inclusion and found my name under the "plus-size model" entry, so. I mean, I've been a little sensitive about my weight recently and this doesn't help at all. Meanwhile, my brother is in there as a notable Skidmore alum for something he didn't even do. Anyway, my point is that Wikipedia is stupid and no one should care what it says unless it falsely accuses him of being, like, a pedophile.
Will suggests that MacKenzie "let this one go." MacKenzie storms off, furious that she was accused of attending Oxford. She tells Neal she needs to see him later as he walks in with Gary Cooper. Gary Cooper tells Dr. Dr. Sloan that he signed her book because she forgot to do it. He meant to write "I hope you enjoy this book" but got it wrong and wrote "I hope you shred this book." I don't know why Gary Cooper didn't just sign his own name. It probably would've gone for more than $1,000 with a Gary Cooper autograph. Dr. Dr. Sloan demands the name of the person who bought the book right now. Cool, it's not like the social media blog whatever it is that Neal is supposed to do at ACN doesn't have anything else to do on election night.
Neal heads into the control room to check in with MacKenzie. He says people like Dr. Dr. Sloan are being weirdly controlling over minor things because they feel like they have no control over the real issues in their life, at which point MacKenzie, of course, gets weirdly controlling over her Wikipedia page and orders Neal to fix it. She lists off a few of the awesome people who went to Cambridge, like, whatever. My alma mater has Carter Bays and Joss Whedon and Bill Belichick and a prominent plus-size model, according to Wikipedia.
With MacKenzie done nagging Neal, Maggie starts nagging Don. He hasn't heard back from his "shower buddy" yet. He thinks he'll come through.
As the anchors get ready to come back from a commercial, Will morales them all but they have no idea what he's talking about or why he's being so weird-friendly. On the air, Will asks Taylor if that 47 percent tape had an effect on voters. Taylor says the biggest effect it had was on the media.
Don returns to his office, where Marcia Gay "Liquid Stealth Sex" Harden is waiting for him. "Am I being sued again?" he jokes. "Yeah," MGH says, not joking. Yes, Dantana has filed a separate suit against Don for "tortious interference." He's asking for $20 million. Don needs a minute to take that in. MGH explains that because of Dantana's "wrongful termination" from ACN, he can't get work elsewhere, especially since when he put Don down as a reference for a job at Kickstarter (which … what? Why there? Is this Sorkin being down with the hot new trends?), Don told the guy who called about Dantana that he was a "very hard-working sociopath." Therefore, he intentionally interfered with a business relationship through "dishonest means."
Don asks how he was dishonest. MGH says sociopath is a clinical term. "How much training as a psychiatric diagnostician did you get at the Columbia School of Journalism?" MGH asks. Well, I went to that school, too, and the answer is a lot more than you'd expect. Don realizes that he's kind of screwed. "Why in the world would he put me down as a reference?" is a question Don should've asked himself before telling Kickstarter that Dantana was a sociopath. Also, way to tell Dantana that his reference called him a sociopath, Kickstarter HR tattletales. MGH says he did it just to sue Don. If Don loses, he owes $20 million. If he wins, he'll have to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in lawyers' fees. Don does not like lawyers.
Taylor rants about "the liberal media bias." Will protests that the liberal media bias doesn't exist. Well … okay. Dr. Dr. Sloan tries to bring up Elliot's interesting election in Kansas she "called" in the makeup room, but gets it all wrong when she forgets which candidate is gay. "What's that an example of?" Will asks. "Elliot?" Dr. Dr. Sloan says. "Nothing!" Elliot says. Hooray! ACN's election night special is officially a shit show!
Jim reports to the nerd room, where Cathy Ling asks him why Will called Michigan's first district when no one in the nerd room called it. Jim makes an "oh shit" face and runs to Maggie to find out who screwed up. It turns out that, by some miracle, it was NOT Maggie who made a mistake but JIM! He wrote down "MI" meaning Mississippi when everyone knows that MI is short for Michigan. Even Wikipedia knows that, and it doesn't know where MacKenzie went to college. Cathy Ling is summoned into newsroom. She has to be blindfolded because of seclusion. Jim explains that they called Michigan instead of Mississippi. "You have to retract it!" Cathy Ling says immediately. "It's not ready to call." Jim is hoping Cathy Ling will tell him that it's really, really likely Michigan's first district will go to the Republicans so he won't have to admit his mistake. Cathy Ling thinks it will. But she doesn't think so enough to make the call. "It's both too close and too early to call," she insists. Cathy Ling rules. There's no way Jim is retracting that call.
He says they'll just take the call down and never mention it on the air again and no one will notice. Maggie says the candidate they called it for already has, surely. "Have Mac have Will retract the call!" she says. At that point, Charlie runs in waving the entrance exam for the NYC Department of Sanitation, which he will give to whoever makes a mistake tonight on that person's way out the door. Maggie and Jim decide not to retract the call. Yeah, keep judging those NYC Department of Sanitation jobs, you silly journalists who will be out of work in ten years because of reddit.
Meanwhile, Taylor is still fighting with everyone over liberal bias in the media with the liberal members of said media. "ACN's star anchor is a Republican who spends an awful lot of air time reporting stories about crazy Republicans being crazy," Taylor says. Terry Smith is a Republican? I guess so, since we all know that she (or he) is ACN's star anchor. Oh. I guess she meant Will. Also, she's right. "In fairness, he did anchor a report about a Democratic president committing war crimes, and that wasn't even true," Dr. Dr. Sloan says. "Elephant in the room." This is the best show ACN has ever done.
Meanwhile, instead of getting things under control, MacKenzie is talking to Charlie about their desperate quest to be unemployed. He fills her in on stuff we already know, and then Neal tells MacKenzie that he changed her Wikipedia entry but Wikipedia changed it right back and said Wikipedia doesn't use information that comes directly from the source of the article. Once again, the internet is evil. Stay off the internet, guys. Apparently, Wikipedia was mean to Sorkin once.
MacKenzie explains that she must get her due for her amazing presidency of the Cambridge union. "Don't I know," Neal says, and MacKenzie thinks he's trying to say something about colonialism (he's not. He claims). MacKenzie insists that it's really important to get this right. Neal says he will. "Thank you. Ruling India was wrong," MacKenzie says. "It's a little late," Neal says.
During a commercial break, Dr. Dr. Sloan has to apologize. Taylor says that she, as a public relations expert, thought Dr. Dr. Sloan's "elephant in the room" comment was "perfect." Elliot calls Taylor "an enemy of all that is good." Taylor calls him too tall and apologizes to Will for mentioning his Republicanness. He says it's fine but don't do it again and walks off.
Dr. Dr. Sloan spots Neal and tries to get an update on the book thing which is so stupid it's not even funny.
Jim asks the control room guy to take the Michigan results off the scroll. "ARE WE TAKING BACK THE CALL?!!?!!?!!" asks control room guy as everyone spins around to stare at Jim accusingly. "We're … not flaunting it," Jim says, asking Don not to let Will or MacKenzie know about this. Before Don can, Maggie runs in and says his shower buddy is on the phone. Control room guy takes Michigan off the scroll, but he doesn't like it.
MacKenzie spends the break looking at voting trends in Ohio. Will stops by her office and says she should be enjoying this because the broadcast is going well so far. MacKenzie says if he fired her, it "wouldn't necessarily look like scapegoating," but a "necessary and appropriate step." She really hates working at ACN. "Fire me! You're the only one who can do it!" MacKenzie demands. "I was a really good boyfriend," Will sayzzzzzzzzzzz
Oh, and then he gets mad at MacKenzie for thinking the only reason why he hasn't fired her yet is because it would make him look bad. She says he clearly cares about his image. "What have I ever done to deserve that?" he asks. "How big a dick do you think I am and how long have you thought it?" Um. Didn't he conduct his own likeability poll like two episodes ago? "I was a good guy. I was a good guy," Will Sincere Whispers. The camera zooms out of his face real quick. "You're fired," he says. "End of the broadcast." Hooray! But it won't stick. I think we all know that.
Don and Maggie go tell Charlie, Will, and MacKenzie about that guy in California. Maggie makes another gay joke about Don and John. Don says they if they put off reporting on Brody's rape comments for a day (which, why? The elections are already over) then he'll give them two on the record sources for another, bigger story. Charlie says as long as that story isn't about potentially libelous misconduct in the armed forces, he's on board. Oops! The story is that General David Petraeus is about to resign from the CIA because he had an affair with his biographer who is also in the Army Reserve. Also there's some weirdness about a socialite in Florida. Charlie lets out a scream of agony and a fuck.
Will and MacKenzie get back to work. Will tells Taylor to go ahead and lay into him about his personal politics after all. "Take me apart," he says. Um … ok? What can she really take apart there? And why does he think the audience cares to see it during the election results show? Then he stares into the camera at MacKenzie for a while. Tune in week to find out who wins the election!!!
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