The Newsroom - Season 1 Episode 9 - Recap and Review - The Blackout Part II: Mock Debate

“The Blackout Part II: Mock Debate” was not necessarily a bad hour of TV, but it was certainly underwhelming, given the creative pedigree behind The Newsroom, in addition to how good the past two episodes have been. This has been a strong freshman season, and one would think that the show would be on surer creative footing as we near the end of it. That wasn't the case here, however, as “The Blackout Part II: Mock Debate” meanders instead of casting new light on the characters, save for the Jim/Maggie/Don plot, as we head into next week's season finale.

First, a quick recap of last week's half of this two-parter:

Last week, we saw Charlie (Sam Waterston) discover, via an NSA whistle-blower, that Leona Lansing (Jane Fonda) and her son, Reese, might be involved in illegal hacking in order to get stories for TMI, their gossip publication. Meanwhile, Will (Jeff Daniels) hires Brian Brenner (Paul Schneider), Mac's journalist ex-boyfriend, to write an all-access story on News Night, which is now being forced to cover the Casey Anthony trial due to dwindling ratings. The salacious nature of the story is in direct conflict with News Night 2.0's mission statement of essentially covering “the boring side of the story,” and Mac (Emily Mortimer) is convinced she'd get support from Will in taking a stand against covering these kinds of stories, which include the late-breaking Anthony Weiner scandal. But Will has his been backed into a corner, as Leona Lansing, president of the network's parent company, continues to look for a reason to fire Will, who opposes her private business interests with his abrasive, no-nonsense onscreen persona. So we leave off with a crew who are doing what they must in order to get higher ratings and keep the ship afloat, to say nothing of News Night's intention to hold a mock Republican debate, which will not be approved by the higher-ups unless they can maintain ratings supremacy. However, just before the team is about to pretape a segment with Anthony Weiner's former mistress, the newsroom suffers a blackout.

This week, we pick right back up with Mac rallying the troops, saying this blackout is a blessing in disguise, allowing them a loophole out of covering Casey Anthony and Weiner-gate. As if on cue, the lights return, dashing all of Mac's idealistic hopes about covering substantive news. It's a rough week for Mac, who finds herself breaking under the stress of trying to secure higher ratings so that the network can get the rights to the Republican primary debate. The mock debate for the GOP representative is a disaster, as the rep believes that Will, as moderator, is out to embarrass the Republican candidates with his hardline questioning. For ACN to get the debate, the representative demands that Mac be removed as producer of the segment, requesting the “old Will McAvoy” back (i.e., the soft, gladhanding anchor he was before Mac came back into his life). Will tells the rep to essentially get the hell out, while the rest of the News Night crew turn down the rep's attempt at salvaging the debate segment by offering the moderator position to one of them instead. Losing the debate, coupled with a combative argument with Brian over their past relationship, causes Mac to snap. Will calms her down and reaffirms his trust in her as EP of News Night. However, Will is working through his own Mac-related issues.

In a visit with his psychiatrist, Will details how he knows that forgiving Mac is what he has to do in order to move on with his life. He recognizes that they're both different people now and that a lot of time has passed, and so he should be able to forgive Mac for her rejection, particularly after Dr. Habeeb (David Krumholtz) explains that the reason Mac cheated on Will was because she felt rejected by Brian when he broke up with her, and saw the opportunity at undoing that rejection by sleeping with him, once he started calling her again. However, it required achieving closure with Brian to realize how she really felt about Will. Of course, by then, the damage had been done. Will continues having difficulty processing his feelings, when Dr. Habeeb explains that the reason it's so difficult to forgive Mac for her rejection is because Will wasn't rejected. He was betrayed.

At this same level, Don (Thomas Sadoski) may have betrayed Maggie (Alison Pill), as flowers are delivered to him from a woman he was seeing while he and Maggie were briefly broken up. Will explains to Don that Jim (John Gallagher, Jr.) signed for the flowers upon delivery. This tips Don off to Jim's true intentions later in the episode. Lisa, Maggie's roommate, is being courted unsuccessfully by Jim, owing to her insistence that Jim and Maggie have feelings for each other. When Mac finally convinces Jim that he needs to declare himself for Maggie, Jim races to her apartment only to find Don there with Maggie and Lisa. The roommates were discussing Jim, and Maggie admits to having a brief crush on Jim, but insisting that it's over. With that, Lisa feels free to pursue Jim, and she kisses him before he has the chance to tell her why he's really there. Don, for his part, deduces that Jim was there for Maggie, not Lisa – due to Jim having signed for the flowers earlier, implying that he might have been trying to indirectly break he and Maggie up. Don confesses to Maggie about the other woman, and the two work through their old relationship while Jim and Lisa get started on their new one.

The formerly intriguing Jim/Maggie subplot is rendered less effective by making Lisa such a viable option for Jim, much more so than Maggie. But the midpoint turn of this development of an unwilling Jim/Lisa pairing gives the story legs it might not otherwise have had, as it feels the “Will they/won't they?” tension of Jim/Maggie has gone on for too long to remain compelling without new elements being added to the fray. That said, Lisa is a great character, and “The Blackout Part II: Mock Debate” serves her well, as Jim and Maggie talk her into going live on the air as a guest to discuss Casey Anthony, whom she knew in high school. Lisa, who was resistant to go on the show in the first place, utilizes the segment as a sounding board for the marginalization by the media of missing minority children, and how anti-abortion laws force motherhood on women who don't want children or are simply unfit for parenting. This leads to Lisa's boutique being vandalized by pro-lifers. Kelen Coleman does a great job with the material she's given, and is arguably the centerpiece of the episode, given her involvement in the Anthony trial and the Jim/Maggie/Don triangle. The show can only benefit from such a disruptive element, even one as benignly disruptive as Lisa.

In other developments, Neal (Dev Patel) pursues his “internet troll” story with the help of Sloan Sabbith (Olivia Munn), who gives her consent to allow him to slander her name online to provoke a response from educated commenters on an economics website. What, exactly, this will prove is beyond me, and Neal is a moron if he thinks it's a good story. But really, they're two desperate people trying to get any story of theirs on the big show, given how little Mac seems to care about the economy. Ultimately, Sloan's patience pays off as Mac, on Will's advice, throws out the Casey Anthony/Weiner-gate show format out the window, and lets Sloan discuss the economy for two full segments. It's definitely the weakest of the plots this week, to say almost nothing of the continuation of the NSA whistle-blower plot, as Charlie attempts to vet the credibility of the whistle-blower, named Solomon Hancock. After researching his past, it's revealed that his security clearance has been lowered due to a failed psych examination. In addition, he was arrested for solicitation in 1979, and was recently found to be in violation of a restraining order by his ex-wife. Hancock might well be telling the truth about Leona Lansing's invasive information procedures, but it's going to be a hard sell getting anyone to believe it, when the credibility of the source could be ripped to shreds in an instant.

This leads us to the stinger of the episode, as Neal's trolling attempts lead to a commenter in a chatroom making a death threat against Will. We now have our setup for the season finale, as not only is Will's career in danger, but his life might be threatened as well.

As stated, this was sort of a weak episode for The Newsroom, as none of the things the show usually does well (news coverage, the insight into the process of getting the news on the air, the zippy one-liners) were really in evidence tonight. That's not to say the episode was bad, as there was plenty to like, from Jim commenting on a customer's dress in Lisa's boutique, to Will's seeming inability to put his pants on. But this is a show that works better the farther it gets away from standard melodrama. This was a fairly melodramatic episode, owing to the Jim/Maggie/Lisa/Don love quadrangle, and Will's continued struggle to come to terms with how he feels about Mac. These aren't storylines that the show does poorly, per se, it's simply that they don't do these stories as well the other, news-intensive stories. Although I suppose I should be thankful for the romances, otherwise we'd be left with Neal researching bigfoot and internet trolls for an hour every week. That said, the NSA plot feels like it holds richer dramatic promise, as the ACN brass continues to have it out for Will, and vice-versa. This arc holds much of the threat and intrigue for next week's season finale.