The Newsroom - Season 1 Episode 7 - Recap and Review - 5/1
The Newsroom breaks its biggest story yet: the death of Osama bin Laden. "5/1" is a gripping hour of television in which the ACN team unites in a big way, despite the interpersonal conflicts that make their workplace so explosive: from Will getting high on the night of the biggest story in a decade, and Jim and Maggie facing the truth of their attraction to one another.
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As the episode opens, Charlie Skinner (Sam Waterston) gets a mysterious phone call from a Deep Throat-esque source, claiming that he will receive an email from the White House press secretary, telling him to get to work. The source claims that the call is merely to establish his credibility, and that it is not meant as “a scary phone call,” but the interaction rattles Charlie as much as it confuses him. What news is coming over the horizon?
As it turns out, it's a pretty huge one.
The date is May 1, 2011, and the ACN staff (most of them, anyway) are at a party at Will's place. Will (Jeff Daniels) has opted to hit up Neal's girlfriend for some weed, while Mac (Emily Mortimer) questions Charlie about a vague email she's just received from one of their sources about an impending news story. Jim (John Gallagher, Jr.), meanwhile, still finds ways to be working during yet another office party (although not before having an impromptu jam session on guitar with Will, in a moment I wish had lasted a bit longer, as we rarely see either man so loose and free-wheeling). Things are complicated between he and Maggie's roommate Lisa, who confessed her love to Jim, leading him to reciprocate out of pressure (and typical Jim politeness).
Maggie (Alison Pill) is immediately critical of Jim for returning Lisa's affections if they aren't sincere, and an argument ensues that distracts them from the budding news story right in front of them. Elsewhere, the rest of the ACN team is stuck on a landed plane that seems to be taking forever to reach the gate. Don (Thomas Sadoski), Elliot (David Harbour) and Sloan (Olivia Munn) can do nothing but check their phones for updates and wait it out, though they do use Sloan as a flirty bargaining chip with a young passenger named Lester, who refuses to switch seats. It allows Olivia Munn to flex her comedic chops in a limited capacity, and provides a welcome bit of levity to the episode. But there remains the looming threat of what the news might be. The crew continues to speculate about the nature of what the White House is going to announce at 10:30. Did they get Gaddafi? Is America at war with Libya? It's full-on madness, made worse by a flight attendant who refuses to let Don get up to switch seats to speak with Sloan.
Once it becomes apparent that the mysterious source (whom Charlie codenames “Late For Dinner” after the source's sarcastic suggestion) is correct and that the White House is going to be holding a press conference in ninety minutes, it's all hands on deck. The crew makes for the newsroom while Charlie speculates that, between the secretive nature of the story and a patriotic tweet from the Navy Seal brother of Neal's girlfriend, the White House is announcing the capture or death of Osama Bin Laden. But, much like with the Gabrielle Giffords story, Charlie refuses to allow his team to report without concrete confirmation, even after several verifiable, independent sources come forward that verify Charlie's suspicions about the pending announcement.
Ignoring Aaron Sorkin's self-congratulatory nature in having ACN figure out the story before everyone else and then break it before the other news networks, this was The Newsroom at its finest. The team assembles to cover the biggest story since 9/11, and the atmosphere of the newsroom is electric with speculation and anticipation. Mac sticks to her guns in refusing to allow temporary anchor Jane go rogue and report the death of bin Laden without official confirmation, owing to her respect for Charlie, the president of ACN's news division. This develops the relationship between the cogs in the ACN machine, showing the reverence they have for one another, and how the newsroom cannot thrive if each cog in the wheel moves independently of the others. They must respect one another, because they all need one another. It might not be strictly true in the real newsrooms of the world (I wouldn't know), but at ACN, each part of the machine is as valuable and necessary as any other, from producer Jim right down to blogger Neal.
During all this, Will is stuck in traffic with his bodyguard, Lonny (Terry Crews), who turns to rage when Will goes running off on his own. Will is hardly in his right mind, having smoked the weed Neal's girlfriend gave to him; he's on his way to the newsroom to report the biggest story in a decade, and he's high as a kite. It doesn't take Will long to get to the newsroom, leaving Lonny to be accosted by two nervous, suspicious police officers in a bit that shouldn't be funny, given that the cops' fear is predicated on Lonny being big and black, but manages to feel lighthearted due to how well Terry Crews delivers his one-liners.
Jim, while trying to get work done in the midst of this huge story, is continually accosted by Maggie, who insists that Jim talk to Lisa and tell her how he really feels. Lisa, Jim's date for the party, accompanied him to the newsroom at his invitation, and now it's an issue Maggie insists he's going to have to deal with, head-on. Of course, Maggie doesn't see the possibility that Lisa can take care of herself, in this regard. Understanding that she was wrong to pressure Jim into reciprocating her love, Lisa breaks up with Jim, letting him “off the hook,” and then bringing Jim and Maggie together to confront the fact that they have feelings for one another. Maggie staunchly denies that she feels anything for Jim, while Jim continually skirts the question entirely. We're getting progressively closer to the Jim/Maggie dynamic reaching a boil, but that will have to wait, for now: Jim asks Lisa for a second chance, to take her out on his terms and not as part of a setup he didn't ask for.
Back on the plane, Don is at his wits' end with the cantankerous flight attendant, who refuses to allow Don to stand despite the fact that the plane isn't moving. This eventually pays off in a funny little gag in which Don falls flat on his face as the plane lurches forward. But it's all window dressing for the real payoff of the storyline, as the flight attendant calls for the captain after Don refuses to take his seat. Don, seeing the stripes of the captain's uniform and the first officer standing behind him, becomes filled with a sense of duty and pride. He states he would like the captain to be the first person on the flight to hear the news: Osama bin Laden is dead. The cheesy music swells, but the moment is nonetheless moving, as Don turns to Elliot and Sloan to let them know that even though they're missing out on being a part of the coverage, they've still reported the news.
Back at the newsroom, Charlie still refuses to go on the air without confirmation – and Will is still high. So high, in fact, that he failed to realize he's had a text from VICE PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN sitting in his inbox for the last twenty minutes, alerting him to the news that Osama bin Laden is dead. Charlie is livid while Will can only laugh it off. But he's all business once he's in front of the camera. And that's where the episode ends, allowing the story to speak for itself, as Obama's announcement plays over the end credits. This was a magnetic hour of television, concerning itself with the buildup to a major story as opposed to the story itself. The character stories were still pretty interesting, with Don continuing to be concerned about his relationship with Maggie, while Jim is forced to confront exactly what it is he wants out of his life, romantically. But the business of the newsroom itself is the star, the story its foundation. It's an episode befitting of the momentous news story around which it's centered.
