What did you think of The Newsroom season 2, episode 4 “Unintended Consequences” which aired Sunday night on HBO? Let our recap help you.
In the new episode of The Newsroom, we got to see Will interview Neal’s contact from Occupy Wall Street, Jim’s on-going journey covering the Romney campaign, and the continuing saga of the Genoa tip and how exactly the News Night’s staff is handling the coverage of the soon-to-be disaster.
The episode opened up with Maggie being questioned by Rebecca with her mess of a hair cut. We flashback to September 30 when she’s about to head out to Uganda. That’s when Neil gets the tip he needs from his Occupy Wall Street friend – who’s in studio for Will to flame her – about someone she knows who wrote a report on the chemical weapons.
Will’s grilling upsets her, and she no longer promises to take Neil to the guy who’s got more information on the chemical weapons misuse.
Jim is in Massachusetts following around Romney’s campaign and trying to check into a hotel for the night, but his protest staged in the last episode lost him a room.
Back in New York, Neal’s OWS friend is willing to hand over the chemical weapon information if she gets an on-air apology from Will. We then learn that Will doesn’t know about Genoa because his producer wants to keep him on the red team – a group of people who will review all the information once the other team puts the report together.
Once again we return to a recap of Maggie’s trip to Africa, where she reveals she read a crocodile children’s story to one special boy who wanted the book read over and over again. They end up having to stay the night in the town they visited because they can’t drive at night.
Jim makes progress on Romney’s press lead, driving her so crazy that she tells Jim to f— off. This on the record remark lets Jim barter for an interview with Romney, and he passes the interview onto his fellow press protestor. This naturally upsets MacKenzie who pulls him off the campaign.
Will makes it to the Wall Street protestor’s college classroom to apologize personally which she appears to accept. The apology wasn’t necessary, because Will tells her they already tracked down her guy. The two have a great rapport, and Will asks if he can audit the rest of her class.
On the eve of having to leave the Romney campaign because he gave up an interview, his romantic press interest Hallie speaks to him in an honest moment. Jim gets the kiss he’s been longing for.
We finally reach the conclusion to Maggie’s story and the answer to why she’s been so disturbed. After a communication break down, cattle bandits assumed the orphanage where she was staying was housing animals, so Maggie and the adults evacuated the kids. Daniel, the kid who had been wanting Maggie to read to him, was stuck under her bed. They get him out and run, but on their way to the bus Daniel is shot. His body protects Maggie’s back from being hit.
At the end we’re back in the frame of the episode which is Maggie’s wrongful termination lawsuit inquiry. She is asked again if a retired general said “it happened” in reference to a Genoa interview. She denies the person said those two words.
The dots between Maggie’s hair change and Daniel’s death are connected. She cut of her hair after his death because he admired it so much and had never seen blonde hair before.
Don’t forget to check out the trailer that we got following “Unintended Consequences” for next week’s episode, “News Night with Will McAvoy”:
Make sure to leave us your comments on tonight’s episode below and let us know what you think about all of your favorite characters. Do you like where the storylines are going this season? And who else is ready to see Jim return to the newsroom? (We definitely are…)