The Newsroom “Willie Pete” Review: The Problem with Political Campaigns

Jim being tired with all those campaigns on The Newsroom

Photo Credit: HBO

Bullet point thoughts on “Willie Pete” as soon as I remember that text message….

Alright another bullet point review so I don’t keep repeating myself. So the review and other musings:

• So arguably the biggest talking point of this episode is Jim covering the Romney bus. As much as I agree with everything Sorkin is trying to say through Jim the character of Jim himself comes off as a huge jerk. Not even an endearing jerk but in fact an annoying one. I don’t really know how much Sorkin feels that these characters are good people or if he thinks they are just crusading morons who are right but go along the wrong way about it. To me he just comes off very obnoxious and makes the message that Sorkin is trying to get across about political campaigns (which is a good message ultimately) seem preachy. In other words when Sorkin is trying to get across the message I feel bad for agreeing with it. That should never happen.

• The men got to have tech blunders in the Charlie and Will tried to blackmail the head of the network to stop famous gossip columnist Nina Howard from running the 9/11 coverage story. They couldn’t get the voice recorder to work and ultimately Will had to rely on Nina’s goodwill for her to not run the story. It works mostly (save for the romantic part which we’ll get to briefly) and it provides a somewhat humorous and somewhat heartfelt end to an originally boring subplot.

• The romantic comedy that ensues with Will and Mac, like most other romantic comedy on the show, doesn’t work all that well. It’s nowhere near as mindboggling and awful as the Jim and friends (because there are so many players in that one it’s not worth typing all the names) but it’s still not all that interesting in almost any way. I care the slightest more about Will and Mac but only because I don’t want to throw the remote at the television as I watch it.

• That leaves us with the final big tidbit which is the ongoing Genoa screw up set up. It’s the one exciting thing about the show at this point and watching the steps towards the screw up (and how it actually almost got pulled) is actually very good. It provides not only tension but the chance to make these characters go into actual interesting places, something of which doesn’t happen too often. It works and works well and I’m actually curious to see where it’s going.

That’s just me though. What did everyone else think?