Charlie seems confused by a Rocky 2 analogy in The Newsroom
That’s much better. After a
little bit of a misstep last week the Newsroom returned to a much higher level
again this week. The pace was the winner this week as the show moved lightning
fast in only the way Aaron Sorkin can. There were still some problems in the
episode but overall this episode was mostly a fun, positive experience.
Let’s start with the pacing
and time displacement, which was the both the best part of the episode and the
missed opportunity of the episode. On the positive side the episode did ton of
amazing fast paced newscasts over the course of six months. Newscast has rebooted
starting with an apology from Will to his audience for the newscasts of the
past and ends with the election for congress in 2010. The structure of the
episode was wrapped around Will’s boss Charlie getting reprimanded for some of
the things said (which led to a fantastically funny scene with a really strange
analogy to Rocky 2). Jane Fonda played the station president who, quite
fantastically, stayed quiet to the last moments of the episode allowing for her
speech to have more of an impact. The big wigs weren’t happy that Will and Mac
have been spending most of their time on the newscast bashing the tea party
(which despite the potential to offend people made for some really great
moment). For the most part it worked well despite the fact that it pretty much
removed the tension established between the characters. Aaron Sorkin likes a
well oiled machine to work with but the character tension was almost completely
gone this episode; it was essentially reduced to the small yet kind of fun date
fu that Will and Mac played throughout the episode.
The political commentary was
much betters this episode as well as despite really going after the tea party
Sorkin did it in a way that worked well. None of the characters had future
vision this week (despite Sloan coming very close) and overall it was mostly
done through successful newscasts that are the high part of the show. The
episode didn’t have the same clumsiness that “News Night 2.0” had and overall
all was smooth in the land of political correctness.
So back to the plot of the
episode; Charlie not telling Will about the meeting could be problematic (ie
Jane Fonda saying “I’m going to fire him if he doesn’t tone it down”) and
Charlie nerves about doing the right thing may back him into a few corners. As
mentioned briefly earlier Mac and Will played date fu that had some fun
dialogue but really didn’t move their characters forward (despite Will really
being damaged by Mac having a boyfriend after he had several young girls
meeting him). The corporate discussions were well done (Rocky 2 for the win) and
was solid for Charlie who hasn’t had much to do (PS on that point apparently from
my readings Charlie is very similar to Aaron Sorkin characters of the past.
While I never watched any of the other Sorkin series I do find that to be an
interesting point). The only frustrating character point of the episode was
Maggie who had a really odd panic attack that continued to demine her character
which is a sad thing.
Overall “112th
Congress” set The Newsroom back on track. No truly infuriating stuff and the
episode had a reboost in quality. So far I have liked this show, despite its
missteps, and I’m hoping the show will continue down the path of the pilot and
this episode and not the one set out by “News Night 2.0”.
Other
thoughts:
- What’s with the whole Don and Maggie thing. They break up every week according to this episode which continues the trend of making their relationship underdeveloped and weird (although considering how Sorkin has handled Maggie I don’t know if I want more development in their relationship…)
- Seems Will has gotten a connection with the crew now. This was another thing that felt unearned because of the episode moving very quickly, but hey if it’s a well oiled machine he wants it’s a well oiled machine he gets
- Oh and ROCKY 2! So strange yet so awesome.
That’s just me though what
did other folks think?
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