The Newsroom - Recap: Well, I Guess It's Just Us Now
Recap and review of The Newsroom - Season 2 Episode 5 - News Night With Will McAvoy:
Though a lot of The Newsroom deals directly with recent history, and the inherent drama in the stories that constitute the news, episodes like "News Night With Will McAvoy" demonstrate the extent to which the show is mostly about character conflicts that, more often than not, exist independent of the news. While I tend to enjoy the show more when it's engaged with the business of reportage, episodes that function as large-scale character studies are interesting in their own right, especially when they're executed with the sobriety of tone in evidence here. There's a somberness that permeates the episode and makes it feel far different from your average Newsroom, which is often replete with witty repartee and rapid-fire dialogue.
This is a much more careful examination of what makes these characters tick, and how their present circumstances inform the decisions (and mistakes) they make. Outside of the Charlie (Sam Waterston) storyline, "News Night With Will McAvoy" largely pushes Operation Genoa to the sidelines as the story largely focuses on the inner turmoil of the characters as they try to do their jobs. The biggest of the stories centers on Will (Jeff Daniels), whose father has been rushed to the hospital with heart problems. When he gets through to the emergency room doctor, he's told that the complication isn't severe, and that his father should recover. Yet Will is still clearly unsettled, even if he refuses to acknowledge as much to Mac (Emily Mortimer). Will instead simply throws himself into his work, and into less pressing concerns, such as Neal (Dev Patel) coming forward with a tweet from a woman who is slandering Will online because she claims he was rude to her. The tweet is such a minuscule thing for Will to be worried about, yet the tweet serves as a way for him to process his complicated feelings about his father. He lashes out against Neal and against Mac, who tries to help him through it. But, as with just about everything, Will isn't receptive to her approach.
The episode, which takes place over the course of the March 16, 2012 airing of News Night, shows Will in his element, covering the news and remaining calm, cool and collected. Between the beginnings of the Trayvon Martin case to the suicide of a college student who was outed online by his roommate, Will is on top of the developments of the day, reporting from behind the desk while Mac produces from the control room, occasionally popping in to the studio itself to interface directly with Will. It's an interesting look into the machinery of cable news, with both Mac and Will proving themselves effective at the jobs they've been tasked with performing -- at least until the end of the episode. Will learns that his father has suddenly passed away, due to an atrial fibrillation (a form of cardiac arrhythmia). Will puts on a brave, uncaring face when telling Mac, but once he's on the air, he freezes. Mac pleads with him through his mic pack to come back down to Earth, but Will is off in his own world. Given that this is the last segment of the hour, they can't throw to a commercial, leaving the show with a bunch of dead air while Will just looks off into space. However, at the last moment, Will comes to, saying, "Well, I guess it's just us now." He then reports the story as if nothing has happened. It's a poignant window into Will McAvoy's character, as he has a very different way of processing his emotions than most people on this show. His immediate instinct is to tense up, to lock down. Yet some things can't be faked or tucked away. It's Aaron Sorkin at his most understated, as a writer, and Jeff Daniels carries off the performance well.
Credit: HBO
The other storylines are interesting for different reasons, though they all have their own brand of solemnity and seriousness. Sloan (Olivia Munn) is in hit water with Reese (Chris Messina) due to nude photos having been leaked online. Sloan is immediately penitent, admitting that she wasn't being coerced or photoshopped, and accepting responsibility for her actions. In an extended sequence with Don (Thomas Sadoski) that plays out like a one-act play, Sloan works through her issues with men, talking about the seven-week relationship that resulted in the photos getting leaked. Six months have passed since last week's episode, and in that time, Sloan had a brief relationship with a well-respected analyst who convinced her he was a caring, respectful man. They went out, had a bit much to drink, she gifted him a camera and he convinced her to pose nude. The analyst posted the photos online after Sloan dumped him, and naturally, Sloan beats herself up over it. But Don makes sure Sloan understands that the blame lies squarely with the analyst who can't keep private things private. For her part, Sloan helps Don through a problem of his own, as he inadvertently got a major rumor started that gets picked up by several major news outlets. Ultimately, it's a storyline that contributes to the general feeling of rapport that exists between the two, beyond whatever romantic tension they might have, as Don accompanies her to the analyst's workplace, where Sloan kicks him between the legs, punches him in the face, and takes a pic of the damage to post online. The analyst follows after her, but Don steps in and keeps him at bay, and while the story seems a bit implausible (why would Sloan further jeopardize her career by making an assault public?), it's a real fist-pumping storyline to see the bad guy get put in his place.
Credit: HBO
Meanwhile, Jim (John Gallagher, Jr.) has serious concerns about how Maggie (Alison Pill) is holding up, even though six months have passed since she returned from Uganda. Maggie insists she's fine, and her conversations with Jim are fascinating for the restrained approach they take to the question of Maggie's fitness for work. There's an underlying romantic subtext, and they even lightly address the history they share, but for the most part, the storyline is squarely about how Maggie is (or isn't) keeping it together. As it turns out, the psychological damage carries over into her work life after all: in editing George Zimmerman's 9-1-1 call for air, she excludes the 9-1-1 operator's question to Zimmerman, leaving the clip with no context and only giving one side of the story. Jim's concern is apparent, and Maggie recognizes the severity of her mistake, so hopefully this is a trigger for progress, although the flashforwards suggest that Maggie only grows more tortured as time goes on. The storyline also dovetails into Mac's storyl with the college student looking to come out on News Night in honor of his friend, who committed suicide after his roommate outed him over the internet. Once Mac learns what the kid plans to do, she puts the kibosh on the story under the pretext of allowing more time for the George Zimmerman 9-1-1 call, but she later admits to her lie. She tells the student that he's not really honoring his classmate by mugging for the cameras in hopes of becoming a D-lister, at which point the student admits that he only wanted to come out on the air so he could let his parents know he was gay without actually having to be there. If nothing else, the story is interesting for how it provides two relatively sound arguments and pits them against each other. I felt bad for the college student even though I understood exactly where Mac was coming from in shutting the story down. Those tend to be the best kinds of stories that Sorkin chooses to explore in any given week, the ones in which two valid positions compete for the viewer's sympathy.
Credit: HBO
Of course, there's also more of the story with Operation Genoa, as Charlie meets with an old intelligence contact (Frank Wood), who gives him the scoop on the secretive project and why such a tactic would have been necessary. Even though I didn't really find it all that compelling in isolation from the other storylines this week, there's something bold about Sorkin's approach in having the overarching story of the season, the event that serves as the very basis for the flashforwards, unfold largely in the background. This Operation Genoa story is going to catch the ACN team all sorts of hell, yet it's hardly ever the A-story from one week to the next. It's an approach that works better some weeks than others, but I can definitely appreciate it for what Sorkin is going for, as it sort of sneaks up on the ACN team. Sure, they're all a little suspicious in the early going, but the Operation Genoa story -- with its claims of sarin gas use and government server farms -- looks like a duck and sounds like a duck, so of course the ACN team is going to think it's a legitimate story. It's the one story this season that I'm most interested in seeing unfold, and I think Sorkin more or less nailed it, if his intention was to hook interest by withholding information and only doling it out piecemeal, suckering the viewer into the story in the same way the ACN team is. It's sound storytelling.
"News Night With Will McAvoy" is a fine episode of TV, taking a somber approach to a handful of stories that could have been marginalized completely. It takes a deft hand to make an episode unfolding in realtime feel as organic as this does, but Aaron Sorkin and director Alan Poul kept things not only afloat, but compelling to watch.