Tonight’s episode of The Newsroom pushed the Genoa storyline to the forefront and made us all even more eager to see the last three episodes, as if we weren’t anxious enough already.
In the preview and sneak peeks of tonight’s episode, we saw that Will McAvoy was going to embrace his softer side and try to get a little more personable by giving an interview on a morning show, while the rest of the staff continues to dive into the Genoa story and investigate its veracity. But little did we know, that was just the beginning.
The episode begins with an extended version of the sneak peek scene we saw of the Red Team being finally let in on the Genoa story. Jerry presents all the proof that we have seen them gathering over the last few episodes, including the eye-witness Sweeney, the tweets from the guy on the ground, and the munitions manifest. Jim finds the entire story to be far-fetched and at one point begs Charlie to see reason and consider the possibility that this never happened.
Charlie admits that he believes that Genoa did happen, and that they are close to discovering the proof to clinch the story. Charlie then tells about an interview that he and Mac are going to go do in person in Maryland with a chemical weapons expert named General Stanislaus Stomtonovich. Jim seems satisfied that they are doing their due diligence with this and exploring every possible lead for proof before deciding whether they are or are not going to air the story.
On a lighter note, we also get some progression on the Jim and Hallie storyline. They have continued to skype and keep in contact after he left the road and returned to the newsroom. She is going to be in NYC with the Romney campaign the following night and Jim has planned a lovely evening together of dinner and some hotel time later. Hallie then breaks it to him that she would like to try and set up a friend of hers that has been covering Ron Paul for MTVU with Neal and asks Jim to bring Neal along to dinner. Jim reluctantly agrees after some coaxing from our favorite Newsroom staffer, Gary Cooper, and invites Neal to tag along.
While everyone else is trying to decide what they think/believe about Genoa, Will is looking into his audience again, and since Charlie has banned him from being evaluated by his audience anymore, Will sets up a personal dial panel to evaluate him and the show. Sloan and he have a heartwarming discussion about a story she wants to write on the John Carter failure for Disney, and how it will not affect their bottom dollar at all.
We then see Mac and Charlie arrive in Maryland at the home of General Stomtonovich and knock over his garbage cans, leading to one of the best lines of the episode when Mac responds to the General’s accusation that she was texting while driving, “No sir, it was regular negligence.”
The General seems a bit off as he looks to have forgotten that they called and scheduled this appointment to meet and talk with him just a day earlier, and later as they are interviewing him, he refuses to turn off the March Madness game on TV. He then goes on to respond directly to many of Charlie and Mac’s questions regarding chemical weapons. He admits that the United States does have them in our possession. When asked if Sarin gas was used in the Genoa case, he never directly says yes, but he hints to that end. Before they leave to return to NYC, the Gen asks Mac how they found out about Operation Genoa and she responds, “Just a lucky tip.” The irony of that statement could not be any more clear as we all know exactly how unlucky that tip will turn out to be for the ACN news crew.
We are then led into the funniest section of the episode as Jim and Neal meet Hallie and her friend in the lobby of the Romney event and Jim runs into his former adversary, Taylor, the Romney spokesperson that threw him off the press bus. She delivers another of our favorite lines of the night when she tells Neal, after asking him if he works for ACN, “I loathe you in ways that are unquantifiable.”
Taylor then tells Jim that Hallie invited her to tag along at dinner, so the party of five depart for the restaurant. They continue to bicker as they walk to the restaurant, with Taylor acting out of character and swearing numerous times as she continues to berate Jim on many of the things he was upset about while on the road with the Romney campaign.
We also got a chance to see Don and Mac interact a bit at Hung Chews and talk about both business and personal matters over a few after dinner drinks. One of the most memorable moments being when Don accuses Mac of not trusting Jerry because he isn’t Jim Harper. She vehemently denies her lack of trust, and Don goes on to accuse her of not trusting him. She outright protests her lack of trust in him, and states that she trusts him with her life. (cue Awwww… chorus. This was such a cute moment between these two.) In a revisiting of this pair later in the episode, we see Don implore that Mac not run the Genoa story even if it proves to be true, simply due to the enormously serious consequences that could result from their accusing the United States military of committing a war crime.
The dinner does not go well, what with Taylor and Jim fighting at every possible opportunity, Hallie’s friend spouting drunk nonsense about Ron Paul at a group of people that clearly know more than she, and also the continued discussion and viewing of the Sex and the City tour bus video. Jim and Hallie somehow escape dinner and make it to the hotel, only to run into Maggie at the hotel bar. Jim awkwardly introduces the two, never clearly defining his relationship with Hallie to Maggie, and lies by claiming he was there to fix Hallie’s laptop. When they finally escape to their room, Jim and Hallie are quickly interrupted by her ringing phone and she finds out that she has to fly out to an event in Colorado in 90 minutes, leaving no time for their planned rendezvous.
Will is talked into going on a morning talk show by Nina Howard in order to soften his often stark demeanor. After it goes disastrously, he tells her that he has to break up with her and that she should have just told him to ignore the private polling he had done.
This scene leads to him and Sloan having a older brother/little sister exchange, wherein she psychoanalyzes him after reading one page of a psychology textbook and they both admit to their fondness for each other. Sloane says, “I love you, Will,” to which he replies, “Thanks, sis.” After seeing and loving the Mac and Don bonding moment from earlier in the episode, it is comforting to see that Sloan and Will are developing the same type of bond.
Next we see Jerry and Maggie at General Stomtonovich’s house in Maryland, setting up for the interview. The General insists that Maggie not be present for the proceedings as when he discussed this with Mac and Charlie, they only mentioned Jerry Dantana, and therefore he only did a background check for Jerry. Maggie and the rest of the staff leave the room, allowing Jerry to interview the General alone.
Throughout the interview, Jerry asks tough question after tough question, sparing no time for frivolous explanations, until he comes to the only question that matters, “Did we use Sarin gas?” The General never directly admits to the use of the banned substance, prefacing his answer with, “If we used Sarin gas,” much to Jerry’s chagrin. After repeating the question numerous times without getting the disclaimer, the episode cuts to Jerry editing the raw footage to eliminate the disclaimer spoken by the General. He then presents the edited footage in the next Red Team meeting and never admits to it having been edited by himself.
After seeing Jerry’s footage, Charlie insists that they need another witness before they decide to report Operation Genoa. Jerry does not take this well at all, and goes on a lengthy rant in which he gets close to alienating much of the staff.
The episode wraps up with a montage of headlines delivered by Will from behind the desk, including President Obama taking a stance on same sex marriage and the Chik-fil-A controversy, effectively passing time and bringing the show to three days before the Republican National Convention of 2012.
That same evening many months after most of the events of the episode, the staff at ACN get a tip that the soldier they had presumed to be dead at the beginning of the episode, Lance Corporal Herman Valenzuela, is in fact alive, and is willing to talk about Operation Genoa.
We then cut to Charlie discussing Genoa in the infamous meeting room with Marcia Gay Harden’s character, where he says that the audience was close to 6 million people for the Genoa broadcast and five minutes after the broadcast wrapped, he knew they were in trouble because none of it was true.
Finally, it seems that next episode we will see the Genoa broadcast and the immediate aftermath. The event that the previous six episodes has been leading up to is here, and we cannot wait to see what Sorkin has in store for us. Check out the preview below:
