The Newsroom. “Don’t screw me on this, James Tiberius Harper.”

July 23, 2012 in off-color commentary by Molly | 11 comments

If you do, you will see that I’m human and relatable because I’m clumsy!

I’ve never seen Rudy, so sorry in advance for me not getting all of Will’s speech perfectly fit into this recap. That being said, I liked this episode more than last week’s. It was less preachy and less misogynistic, which was nice.

We’ve made it to early February and the episode is all about the Arab Spring and the events in Cairo’s Tahrir Square. Elliot, the 10 o’clock anchor, is reporting from Cairo where he is stationed in a hotel room. ACN cameras taken down, gunfire under the correspondents room, and other than that he doesn’t have much information. To find out more he bravely/stupidly goes outside and is promptly beaten up by a bunch of thugs. Or something. Long story short he broke some ribs, an arm, and his face is all cut up.

Don’s still lurking around because his boss is a foreign correspondent this week and he has nowhere else to go? I’m not sure. I still dislike him, but I’m starting to recognize Don’s merits. Perhaps because we didn’t see as much of him this week? Anyway, as much as I dislike him on a personal level, Don makes a good antagonist. He annoys Mac in the control room and instigates trouble with Jim (understandably so, what with Maggie’s attention waning). But you can’t say that he doesn’t care. He fights valiantly for what he believes in, even if that’s the opposite of what everyone else thinks is right.

Jim and Maggie are still in that limbo where Jim has a crush on her but isn’t making moves and Maggie has a crush on Jim but is in full-blown denial. So, to make life easier on herself, Maggie corrals Jim into being Lisa’s date for Valentine’s day. Jim’s confusion with “us” is adorable because, No, Jim. Of course Don didn’t get a hotel room for you and Maggie. But where Jim is funny, Maggie, try as she might, is not. It’s cute how she wants to tease Jim and pull his pigtails and dip them in an ink well or whatever, but her jokes fall flat.

Being the good guy that he is, Jim agrees to a Valentine’s day dinner with Lisa. Of course he forgets, what with the mild concussion he probably got when Maggie kept swining the door into his forehead. (Sidebar: did anyone else think of Mean Girls when Maggie was doing first-aid? “You’re hair looks sexy pushed back.)  Lisa turns into a raging she-monster and tears through the office screaming for his attention. Apparently Lisa gets stood up every year (and yet V-Day is still her favorite holiday? Okay, girl.)

So let’s take a little poll? Who is worse about the airing of public grievances? Lisa, Maggie, or Mac? (Surprise! They’re all women!) I’m going to have to go with Lisa, right? Because at least when Maggie and Mac freak out it’s in their place of work and it’s directed toward someone else who works there. But Lisa storms into someone else’s workplace disrupting who-knows-what. Right?

Moving on. Normally I would rant about Will pointing out that Mac has to subtract on her fingers, but I do too, so… Solidarity! Also, this tiff brought us the delightful fact that Will took tap-dancing when he was eleven, which is adorable, and I’m still giggling. So we’re cool on this one, Show. This interaction makes me believe they were a couple and could be again. Especially when Will tells Mac that everything will be alright after ACN Morning Show talks about Mac’s boyfriend being such a frequent guest-of-the-show and her showing favoritism, yadda yadda yadda. (Man, I wanted to pull a Neal and just punch the screen when that guy wouldn’t shut up. Good on Charlie for shutting him down.)

But the women of this show can’t catch a break. While neither Mac nor Maggie had a huge in-office break-down, freak-out, what-have-you, Maggie was still clumsy and Mac was still painted as incompetent. Then again, sometimes I am both of those things. Mac doesn’t understand the economy at all, you see. But neither do I. And that’s why we keep Superwoman Sloan in the building anyway, for stuff like explaining the American banking system.

On the news end of things, ACN needs a foreign correspondent and Neal found one, once again giving me all of the feelings, guys. His rapport with Khaled, the Egyptian journalist is awesome. Neal talks about how he got his start in journalism and why he didn’t end up being a mechanic like his father. It’s a heartbreaking story about him being on one of the London trains that was bombed in July of ’05. He recruits Khaled to be their on-the-ground Egyptian correspondent and does a bang-up job until he is captured trying to get footage of the government burning documents.

At the end of the episode, we see everyone in the office chip in to get Khaled back and it’s really cute. The “coach” memo line on the checks have to do with the whole Rudy metaphor, but you know, I don’t get it. Still, it’s a nice scene.

Will graced us with another speech this week. He defended his employees and all of the work that they do. It was nice to see Will showing that he’s been paying attention to his staff, doing more than rote memorization of their names like he was in the beginning of the season. I don’t particularly care if Will is a good guy or a self-involved a-hole, as long as it moves the plot. Instead of his staffers constantly talking about what a good guy he is, with the audience only seeing some of his douchey actions, we got to see him genuinely being a good guy this week. it was a nice change.

So, what did y’all think? Still sticking around? Still shipping characters? I really enjoyed getting a better glimpse into Will/Mac this week and am starting to be excited about them as a possible couple. Jim and Maggie still have a long ways to go and I’m not quite there yet. Almost, but not quite.

Related posts:?

  1. The Newsroom. “I don’t care if she writes for Mein Kampf.”
  2. The Newsroom. Would you stop acting so enthralled with the act of punching a ballot?
  3. The Newsroom. “When Don says ‘eat me’ that’s usually the end of the conversation.”
  4. The Newsroom. “Boy, that Ghengis Khan had some pretty good ideas.”
  5. The Newsroom. I’m going to take out your teeth one punch at a time.

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  • Sarah

    First of all, Rudy! Rudy! Rudy! Rudy! Rudy! Rudy! You must watch it–so classic, so, so classic. And the scene Will loves IS an awesome scene. I looooooved that they took time in a meeting to hash out the plot of Rudy and that scene. Loved it.
    Yeah, there were some cringe-worthy moments, more Maggie than Mac I think. With Mac, I just wish she was ‘one or the other’–good at love and spastic at work or great at work but spastic at love…but she’s just spastic at both. She’s ‘the best EP in the biz’, or so people say, and that is possible, but we just haven’t seen enough of that yet. And it’s okay for characters (male and female) to have times where they just fall apart emotionally, but when you are in single digit episodes, it’s a little too soon. Though I do sort of like her friendship with Sloan. I just wish she had other friends too. There was one moment where she sort of gave Jim a nudge on the shoulder, and i remembered that THEY have a ton of history. Show, I would like to see a LOT more Mac/Jim scenes, please!!!!
    I was thinking about love triangles the other day, because I was thinking about The Hunger Games and how in some ways, Katniss wasn’t good enough for Gale OR Peeta (all I’ll say about that), and in Awkward, I’m shipping Jake/Matty friendship pretty hard and Jenna is getting a little annoying to me. I feel like with HoD this year, Zoe’s character ended up being awful (and so did George in some ways) between George and Wade, and now…here, with Maggie, Don and Jim…Maggie is looking like the worst.
    I think the writers have to make Don out to be NOT the worst, and obviously Jim is going to be The Best, but when writers choose that angle, then someone has to be the worst–and in this case, it’s Maggie, which stinks. It was interesting last week when Jim sort of got in her face about his feelings for her (sort of…sort of) and she sort of flinched. There is no way Maggie is that clueless, and that is the hard part. Either she is (and I don’t see how), or she’s the worst, because she knows what she’s doing with Jim and Don, and that is not cool. The show should be quick to build up her character a little more–though of course, that could have been done via bff Lisa, but she’s now been used as a character for Jim, so not sure if Lisa can work as Maggie’s confidant anymore. Possible, but just not sure.
    The problem with her characterization now is that there is not a good reason for Jim to like her anymore. It worked at the beginning, because she was this great girl who was passionate about her work and happened to be sort of on the bad end of a jerky boyfriend. But now she just makes fun of Jim all of the time. I agree–her jokes just aren’t funny. It will be interesting to see if anyone calls her out on them.
    I liked Will and Mac in this episode, and like last week’s ep, I can start to see more and more why they care about one another. Have you ever loved someone so much and yet you just can’t ‘be’ with them because it’s just too much? that is what I think is happening with the two of them. Loved Will threatening Nina…offering himself up for ridicule if she’ll leave Mac and the rest of the crew alone. Loved that during that scene he couldn’t help but dis her journalistic non-qualities.
    I liked this episode, and I’ve pretty much decided that I like this show–I don’t think it’s going to save the world or win awards or anything, but it’s a good hour a week and I like the character work, for the most part.
    Rudy, Rudy, Rudy, Rudy!! Watch it!

  • Nicole_OCTV

    Well, between the great recap and Sarah’s comments, all of my feelings are pretty much covered. I’ll just go ahead and co-sign both of those right now. I can’t help but like the show, despite the fact that I do see those flaws, particularly the Woman Issue. Like, I can’t believe that there hasn’t been an episode yet where the women of the office have all synched up and there’s a wacky, emotion-filled PMS Day that all of the men have to muddle through while trying to avoid becoming a casualty of a rogue emotional bitch monster. A part of me can’t help but feel like that day may come. I’d try to predict an episode number, but I just don’t have the energy to do all that finger-counting. Math is hard!

    But besides that, I do like it. And I haven’t seen Rudy either (I know), but the explanation of the scene early in the episode made it easy to appreciate the ending.

    Also, shame on everyone for not mentioning that the dick morning show host was none other than Mr. Professor Jeremiah Lasky, the only good thing to come out of Saved By The Bell: The College Years, besides the classic so-terrible-it’s-awesome Vegas Wedding tv movie.

  • http://twitter.com/MollytheGhost Molly Kasperek

    Okay, I’m responding in order.
    1) I will immediately put Rudy on my to-watch list. Consider it done.
    2) Yes, I agree. Mac needs to be spastic at either/or. Seeing her be “best in the biz” would ultimately be really rewarding for viewers, as would seeing more of the Mac/Jim “we were embedded together” rapport.
    3) Hee. Thanks for referencing some of the best love triangles of 2012. It made me giggle (and agree).
    4) I think Lisa worked really well when she was off-screen during the panic attack. I’d like to see more of that confidante/best friend relationship. That seemed healthy and fun. But you’re definitely right with Jim being a major complication, seeing as he’s boning Lisa and wants to bone Maggie. But I feel like if anyone could be non-threatening enough for their friendship to heal, it would be Jim.
    5) Agreed. It’s hard to reconcile the fact that Jim’s still so into Maggie yet it’s been so long – when you go back and think about it they’ve been dancing around their feelings (and Maggie’s been going to-and-fro with Don) for, what, almost a year? But then apply that timeframe to Mac and Will and it totally makes sense that they’re able to be comfortable and jokey around each other. Maybe the months are flying by too quickly and the writers are having trouble advancing the relationships believably? It’ll be interesting to see how that comes together as they get more experience.

    Last but not least, I think it’s taken me a while to fall so in like with the show because I’m trying to balance watching it for fun and being critical of it, and taking notes. Once the season ends and January rolls around I’ll probably rewatch it all to see if I feel any differently than I do now.

  • http://twitter.com/MollytheGhost Molly Kasperek

    Fact: Zack Morris was my first pop-culture crush. But, God. Saved by the Bell: College Years. I tried to block those out. To put things in perspective, though, I wasn’t even born when regular Saved by the Bell started. So forgive me for missing that connection.

  • http://www.twitter.com/ReelStina Lemonade

    I don’t actually watch this show, but I saw my first love’s name (Zack Morris) so I had to jump in! :D

    Nicole, you are absolutely right: Prof. Jeremiah Lasky was The Best part of The College Years. And I always figured his role as Prof. Landry on Veronica Mars was a shoutout to SBTB, which just made love VMars even more.

  • Nicole_OCTV

    Oh, well now you’re just making me feel old, Molly. I’m going to have to go ahead and dock your non-existent OCTV blogger paycheck for that one. :)

  • http://twitter.com/MollytheGhost Molly Kasperek

    1 Youre not old!
    2 It’s not my fault I’m young!
    3 To quote Joey Tribianni – “I’m sorry?”

  • Nicole_OCTV

    No need to apologize! I made someone at work feel old today and it made me feel young, so I’m over it. To quote Joey Tribianni, it’s a moo point. It’s a cow’s opinion. It’s moo.

  • Sarah

    Okay, well, Rudy isn’t like BEST MOVIE OF ALL TIME or anything, haha, but it is just a feel-goodery, and I thought it worked in this episode. If you don’t like the movie, don’t blame me. Blame Sorkin (good band name!) I totally agree with your Jim/Lisa/Maggie analysis.
    Lastly, I totally know how it feels to recap/review a show and then all of a sudden–the show feels like ‘work’! Not saying that is happening to you, but I absolutely know what it’s like to try to get that balance between watching for fun and taking notes, etc.

  • mayadolid

    I don’t know what to say about a show that is making me seriously dislike Emily Mortimer and think Olivia Munn is awesomeness.

    Does Aaron Sorkin hate women??? Because that’s the only way I can explain the existence of Maggie in that world. Women are horrible because Maggie is a woman. Sigh, I don’t know.

    Other than that, I was a bit disappointed with how they seemed to encapsulate the entire Arab Spring, which I would think would be a journalist’s wet dream, into one episode. I thought that they would start off with Tunisia and slowly show governments topple before our screens over the course of a few episodes.

    I’ll keep watching I guess.

  • http://twitter.com/jpcwood jpcwood

    what didn’t you understand about the Rudy metaphore? it’s not that deep.

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