The end has come. Tonight, the series finale of The Newsroom, “What Kind of Day Has It Been” aired and brought the series full circle. Check out our recap of the episode.
‘The Newsroom’ series finale recap
The episode begins with Charlie’s funeral service in a charming white church with all ACN staffers in attendance. Mac returns to the service from taking a call outside to tell Will that her doctor just phoned and told her she’s pregnant.
Will flashes back to three years earlier where Maggie is still timid, he is yelling at everyone like they’re his inferiors, Don is his EP, and Charlie is motivated to make some changes. After Will finishes the broadcast that night, he goes up and visits Charlie and between their talking about music and having a drink, Charlie talks to him about the broadcast.
They relocate to a nearby restaurant, and Charlie asks Will if he is interested in being a father, and now the flashback makes a LOT more sense. Charlie is planting the seeds for the person that Will has become right before our eyes over the last three seasons. Present day Will is excited to be a father, cares about the content of his show, and is more interested in doing the right thing than getting ratings. Charlie would be proud.
Will puts himself in charge of morale for this pregnancy (cue loving eye rolls from Mac). As per usual for men in this type of situation, Will is freaking out a bit and overreacting. He proposes that they just hook Mac up to an epidural in the hospital now, and she quickly shoots it down. Boy are we going to miss their banter. Leona takes Mac to ride to the cemetery with Pruitt.
Maggie and Jim are riding together, and we learn that Jim recommended Maggie for a Field Producer’s job in D.C. She is incredibly excited, and they are both ridiculously adorable, but more on them later.
Leona is confronting Pruitt for pay inequity at a company he owns called Kwentch (don’t worry, Leona eviscerated him about the whole spelling thing, bless her heart), and then regales Mac with the additional detail that he hired ‘models’ for his birthday party a few weeks ago, creating a PR nightmare.
Don, Sloan, and Will are riding together, and Don and Sloan take it upon themselves to fill Will in on the details of what had been going on at ACN while Will had been in jail. She lets him know what happened the night of Charlie’s death, including that she feels at least a little responsible for his demise. She then tries to pass the blame on to Don, and the scene shifts to Mac bowling three years earlier.
Turns out, the bowling thing was back three years ago because Charlie shows up. Mac is pursuing the ability to bowl a perfect game (a goal which remains VERY far away), and then they go to the bar to grab a drink. Mac starts telling Charlie about how she had been unable to find work, and he proposes that she take over News Night.
Still in the past, Sloan goes to meet with Don to address some concerns she had about Will dropping the financial news ball on the previous night’s interview. They square off and it’s absolutely brilliant how well matched they are (they both rip into each others’ shows, and it’s awesome).
Mac and Charlie are chatting about how she should take the job. He wants to turn News Night with Will McAvoy into a show he can be truly proud of, not the high ratings circus that it is at that time. He leaves her with the suggestion that she either take the job or relinquish her right to comment about how poorly the news is being done.
We then see her pick up her tickets for Will’s panel lecture from the pilot. Mac meets Jennifer and when she hears that she wants to ask each of the panelists, “Why is America the greatest country in the world?” Mac tells her that she can give her tips as to how to be the first person to the microphone. Clearly Mac wants to know what Will thinks of that question.
Back in their limo in present day, Pruitt is giving Mac and Leona a laundry list of things he is planning on doing to revive his image. Leona tells him that the reason he has a PR problem is because he has an actual problem.
Maggie takes a second to ask Sloan about the situation with her and Jim and him recommending her for a job out of town. Typical Maggie to be making a huge deal out of Jim just trying to be nice. Moving on.
Moving back into flashback world, Charlie is watching footage of Will’s little meltdown (which took this writer right back to that epic monologue from the pilot), and Mac calls and accepts the EP job.
Next we see Mac visiting Jim at his apartment, which is furniture-less. He is curled up on the floor with his laptop and a guitar. They chat a bit about the girlfriend he just broke up with, and then she smacks him in the face with a job offer. She tells him about Charlie’s intentions and practically begs him to come be her Senior Producer. She says that Charlie messengered her a book and drops a thick copy of Don Quixote on the floor.
Back at the funeral, Will practically told the entire newsroom staff that Mac was pregnant (whoops) while asking Kendra to smack him in the face if she ever sees him smoking again.
Sloan went to Jim and told him about Maggie’s concerns, so Jim took it straight to Maggie to clear up. Maggie makes sure that he knows she’s not trying to take things more seriously than they should given they’ve only been dating three days.
Leona, Mac, and Pruitt meet out in the parking lot about their current situation, and while Mac is still pretty much lost, Leona is trying to convince Pruitt that firing Mac and/or Sloan is not the answer, and that her desire to fight him is exactly what any good newsroom needs.
Then we cut to the basically empty newsroom, where the three guys that were running the website in Neal’s absence are writing up an article about the nine most overrated movies of all time (with the earliest film being The Matrix from 1999). Neal tells them how embarrassed he is by what they have done to ACN digital. He tells them that they’re going to rebuild the entire website to fix what they had done in his absence.
Don finds Charlie’s widow, and he tells her that he feels responsible for Charlie’s death. He clearly has a LOT of guilt over the situation, and doesn’t feel better until Charlie’s wife tells him that she doesn’t care, that she only cares about what he did for Charlie while he was alive. She then gives Don a manila envelope with a tie inside. She wanted Don to have it.
Will goes to Charlie’s grandson, who is sitting sadly on a bench. Will asks him to take him to see Charlie’s other grandson, Beau. Beau plays the stand up bass, and when Will picks up a guitar to jam a little, he starts singing “That’s How I Got to Memphis.” Jim then walks in and picks up a guitar to jam along (bless you Sorkin for writing this scene into the finale). The three of them soon draw a crowd as the rest of the newsroom staffers gather to listen. Will offers an ear to Beau if he ever needs one, then takes the younger grandson in hand.
Mac then confronts Will about telling others about the pregnancy. Pruitt pulls Will aside, and then Will addresses the crowd.
Will gives them all a few words about the man, and then breaks the news that Mac is now the new President of ACN. They then go to the newsroom, and Mac tells Jim that Don is staying at 10 o’clock, so Jim is now the new EP of ‘News Night with Will McAvoy.’ His first move is to ask Maggie to be his senior producer, which she refuses. She wants to be a Field Producer, and they are just going to make their long distance relationship work. She then asks Jim why this one will work, and he says, “Because I wasn’t in love with them.” (Feel free to sigh now, we know this is a big deal for them.)
Don presents Sloan with the tie Charlie’s wife wanted him to have, telling her that Nancy wanted her to have it. Such a sweet move, Don.
Flash to Will and Charlie in the newsroom where we are reminded of Charlie’s speech to Will including the phrase, “Because we just decided to” (cue chills and tears). As the staffers go about doing their jobs, we get a closeup on all of their faces before it closes on Will’s face as he begins his broadcast with “Good evening.” (Cut to black.) The silent credits are heartbreaking because we will never hear the tones of the theme song again.