The Newsroom - Recap: Wrongful Termination

Credit: HBO

The strength of the episode is in how it examines just how a massive screw-up like Operation Genoa could have happened. We see the story as it airs on News Night, with team coverage of the story taking center stage. It's a wise decision from Aaron Sorkin to allow us to actually see the story as aired, as it provides context for what comes next. Not only is the government livid and looking into legal action against ACN to get the story retracted, but even their own sources are turning against them. General Stomtonovich is incensed at being edited out of context, yet no one believes that he actually had been edited, as Mac (Emily Mortimer) insists that Jerry presented them with the raw, unedited footage. The belief is that Stomtonovich got cold feet and wants to back out of the story now that it has aired, an opinion held even by higher-ups like Charlie (Sam Waterston) and Will (Jeff Daniels). But it becomes readily apparent that there were several problems, beyond Jerry "cooking an interview," that somebody should have caught during the Red Team meetings. For example, we learn that Will decided to back Charlie and Mac on the story because he claimed to have a source of his own to independently corroborate that Operation Genoa happened. However, at no point during any of the three Red Team meetings did anyone think to investigate Will's source. If they had, they'd have discovered that Will's source was the same unreliable source Charlie had.

Credit: HBO

The source, the man who delivered the helicopter manifest to Charlie, is revealed to have had a motive for lying to ACN about Operation Genoa: revenge. His son, David, had been an intern at ACN before being fired. As a recovering addict, David was let go on his 90th day sober for saying something online about News Night that the higher-ups didn't appreciate. This triggered a depression that ultimately led to his overdose and tragic death. The source feels that Charlie should have done something to keep his son from being fired. He indirectly blames Charlie for David's death, and cooked up Operation Genoa as a means of getting back at ACN. Of course, Charlie wasn't the one who fired David, it was Neal (Dev Patel), yet that doesn't stop the grieving father from slapping Charlie across the face for suggesting that David “deserved to be fired.” Yet even that slap isn't insult enough. The source gets in a final dig at Charlie by saying that if he'd held the fake manifest over a lightbulb for ten seconds, he'd have seen a special message that would have made it obvious he was being snowed from the start. The message? "F*** you Charlie." Well, so much for subtlety.

Credit: HBO

But the failures of Genoa aren't simply Charlie's, or Will's, or even Jerry's. We eventually learn that Mac, during a pre-interview, may have indirectly put suggestions in the head of Herman Valenzuela, a soldier once thought-dead, who verified what the News Night team had already discovered without his help, that Operation Genoa was an extraction mission to rescue two captured marines -- a mission which saw U.S. Armed Forces using chemical weapons on civilians. In essence, Valenzuela wasn't offering any new information, he simply spit back the details that Mac already fed to him. Yet there is even more blame to go around, as Don (Thomas Sadoski) failed to discover that one of their key witnesses covered up an injury in which the primary symptom is memory loss. Meanwhile, Maggie (Alison Pill) never told anyone that she wasn't actually in the room during the Stomtonovich interview, which meant that no one ever questioned the interview more directly since the assumption was that there was an independent third party in the room to verify everything that was said. It's a far-reaching failure from the News Night team, where everyone shares a portion of the responsibility. Hell, Neal catches flack for delegating a crucial responsibility to an intern. Even Jim (John Gallagher, Jr.) and Sloan (Olivia Munn) share some blame for not fighting harder to have their objections heard and considered. But the story airs and the News Night team is worse for it.

Strangely enough, it's a relatively innocuous conversation with Will about shot clocks in sports that gets Mac's wheels turning. While going over the "raw footage" of the Stomtonovich interview, Mac notices that the shot clock in the NCAA basketball game in the background jumps all over the place, from three seconds to twenty, and vice-versa. The footage has clearly been edited, and she wastes no time confronting Jerry with the truth. He doesn't deny he edited the footage, but states that he did it for a good reason, claiming that Stomtonovich said they used sarin gas, but he said it before tape started rolling, and refused to say it again, so he edited Stomtonovich to say on-camera what he'd already admitted to off-camera. But it's a B.S. explanation that Mac doesn't appreciate. She fires him on the spot and then tearfully breaks the news to the ACN staff that they'll have to do a full retraction on that night's broadcast. The retraction is the top story for the night's broadcast, and the ACN team is so terrified at having gotten such a huge story wrong that they do cookie-cutter, by-the-numbers reporting on what would have been a huge story for them if they'd just had enough confidence in their own abilities to dig deeper. The newsroom learns about the assault on the U.S. Embassy in Cairo and the consulate in Benghazi, but it gets put on the back-burner despite the better instincts of some of the ACN staff.

Credit: HBO

Of course, heads must roll, so Charlie, Will and Mac tender their resignations with the network. However, corporate head Leona Lansing arrives and quickly declares that she will not be accepting their resignations. At first, it seems she's simply in a salty mood from the disastrous fundraiser from which she's just escaped (it was to feature a screening of Skyfall with a live appearance by Daniel Craig, yet it all fell through thanks to Hurricane Sandy). But it becomes apparent that Leona has a different motivation other than her cranky attitude for refusing to accept their resignations. “You will resign when I fire you out of petty malice and not before,” she tells Charlie. She refuses to let Jerry Dantana win a $5 million settlement just to make the black eye on the network news division go away. Rebecca (Marcia Gay Harden) backs up Leona and insists that they shouldn't accept the resignations of their staff. They're going to fight this lawsuit tooth-and-nail. But Charlie doesn't believe there is any other recourse but their swift termination. “Leona, we don’t have the trust of the public anymore!” he shouts. “Get it back!” Leona roars, and the camera abruptly cuts to black in one of the best endings the show has done.

"Red Team III" is the best episode of the series, keeping all the extraneous workplace romance drama to the side, and remaining tightly focused on this status quo-changing dilemma facing the News Night team. It's remarkable storytelling in how the blame is parceled out among the principals, and shows that no single character is above flaw. This is The Newsroom's finest hour, in a season that should go a long way in silencing many of its critics.