The Newsroom - Recap: Red State, Blue State, Pink Slip

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But, once again, this is really only half of the story, with the conclusion coming next week. And even without that caveat, there are still some character-centric stories that the episode does well. Chiefly, there's the conflict between Will (Jeff Daniels) and Mac (Emily Mortimer), the latter of whom wants to be fired for getting Operation Genoa wrong. However, due to the provisions he had built into her contract in season one, Will is the only person who can terminate her. And so she tries to get him to ax her from the News Night team, but there's much more going on beneath the surface, as there is still a considerable amount of unresolved tension between the two former lovers over how their relationship ended six years ago. We know that it ended after Mac cheated on Will with her ex-boyfriend, and things have never really gotten back to the way we've been told it used to be between them. And it doesn't seem likely that it will be getting to that point any time soon. For one, there's election coverage for Will to worry about, as he'll be anchoring the desk for the six-hour cycle. Yet he has additional, self-appointed responsibilities, as he's proclaimed himself the "man in charge of morale" around the News Night office. But this strategy doesn't really work, as no one seems any less miserable than before, particularly Mac, who resorts to picking at the old wound of their bad breakup in order to get Will to fire her. After what feels like an eternity, he relents. "I was a good guy," Will says, angry nearly to the point of tears. “You’re fired, end of the broadcast. Please don’t tell anyone.” It's an act both of anger and of mercy that reflects Will's conflicted feelings about his ex. It's the best part of the episode, despite the inherent melodrama of the storyline itself. Daniels and Mortimer always manage to have engaging chemistry in their interactions onscreen, even the antagonistic ones.

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But there are bigger fish to fry at ACN, as Jerry Dantana continues his legal campaign against the network over his wrongful termination. His strategy seems to involve bombarding ACN with a litany of separate lawsuits related to his time with the network with the hopes that the Lansings will just pay to make the whole matter go away. Hell, we learn he's suing Don (Thomas Sadoski) for calling him a "sociopath," so it's hard to know where Jerry will draw the line. Yet Jerry's hopes are more than a little misplaced. Rebecca (Marcia Gay Harden) tells Charlie (Sam Waterston) that Leona (Jane Fonda) intends to fight Dantana in court, adding that she’ll sue the ACN team if they try to leave, since she's refusing to accept their resignations on a moral principle. However, Leona has never really been one to care about doing something simply because it was the right thing to do, and so I'm immediately a little suspicious of her reasons for refusing to accept Charlie, Will and Mac's resignations. Charlie, in particular, is having a hard time understanding why Leona won't just give them the boot, as he states that Jerry's lawsuit features details that could potentially embarrass the network, and adds that the credibility of ACN has been compromised, and will continue to be suspect in the eyes of the public if they're allowed to stay.

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Reese (Chris Messina) agrees with Charlie completely, basically saying that he'd love to fire them. However, his mother outranks him, so he's essentially powerless to do anything about it. Reese then regales Charlie with resentful stories about Leona, stating that she often rags on him for possibly being gay, since he hasn't given her any grandchildren (that sounds a lot more like the Leona Lansing we've been shown so far, as opposed to this other Leona Lansing, who apparently believes in preserving others' careers out of a belief in "what's right"). These windows into the characters' lives and their motivations help us to understand why Reese has such a bitter relationship with his mother, and Charlie's episode-long campaign to be let go reveals his rationale for wanting to be fired, illustrating that he's willing to put the credibility of the network before his own self-interests. It's scenes like these that keep the episode afloat throughout the moments that don't work nearly as well.

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For instance, we have Jim (John Gallagher, Jr.) having a screw-up of his own, as he mixed up Michigan and Mississippi, which leads to him having the network call a race for one candidate when the election isn't exactly over yet. Fearing the loss of his job, Jim tries to cover things up without anyone noticing, and if the storyline delivers anything of merit, it's in Grace Gummer, who returns via Skype as Hallie, a character I've strangely grown to miss, if for no other reason than for the chemistry she has with John Gallagher, Jr. It's a chemistry that far outpaces the diminishing connection between Jim and Maggie (Alison Pill), who's finally dyed her hair red, several months after the traumatizing experience that compelled her to do so. I don't know why, really, but Maggie has pretty much been a non-issue the last several weeks, drifting to the periphery of the narrative to neither be seen nor heard from in any substantive fashion, and that's a shame since Alison Pill is a tremendous talent, even when the writing doesn't always support her strengths. However, there is a bit of a development towards the end of the episode that gives me some hope for Maggie in the future, as she and Don get the scoop on a potentially huge story. “As long as it’s not a potentially libelous story about misconduct in the armed forces, I’m listening,” says Charlie. Cue the pair informing him about the "almost too scandalous to actually be true" affair between Gen. David Petraeus and Paula Broadwell. How Charlie holds it all together, I'll never know.

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Meanwhile, Sloan (Olivia Munn) is on the panel for Election Night alongside Will, Elliot (David Harbour) and former Romney public relations director Taylor (Constance Zimmer), but she has a hard time keeping her mind on her work. It turns out that an autographed copy of Sloan's book is being auctioned off for a Hurricane Sandy relief charity...with a forged signature. She's freaked out about it, but thankfully, Neal (Dev Patel) is on the case, leading to an amusing interaction between the two during a commercial break in their Election Night coverage, as Sloan wonders aloud to Neal whether she'll ever stop talking in hypothetical questions. Again, Munn is terrific with what little she's given, while Patel doesn't have much of anything to do now that his Occupy Wall Street storyline has unceremoniously come to a close. I could see why they went with this storyline, as a way of keeping the two characters in the mix and providing a sense of community among the News Night team, but far too much time was spent on this storyline that didn't really amount to anything. Maybe they're saving the real meat-and-potatoes for next week?

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"Election Night, Part I" lacks the momentum of a penultimate episode, and I chalk it up to two factors: 1) the end of the Operation Genoa storyline, and 2) the split nature of the episode. This is only part one of the finale, and I don't feel like the episode is strong enough to stand on its own without the second half. Whether that second half retroactively makes this a better episode is anyone's guess, but I imagine we'll get a clearer picture of where the show is going once we can pair the episodes together into a cohesive whole.