Newsroom Recap: Will Goes to Therapy

Wall’s allowed to get off a few good jabs, but he also gets progressively more hysterical as he tells Will’s he’s not just defined by his race or sexual orientation. But he is a one-issue conservative, and that issue is anti-abortion so it’s a wash and once he’s finished defending himself against Will’s egregiously unprofessional attack (Where’s Charlie to scream at Will?) Will’s all butthurt and asks one final, demeaning question…that Wall answers instead of just telling him to fuck off, which would have been the right response.

You, sir, are a douchebag!

Lest you think we’re supposed to be repulsed by Will, he has a sad about it because he was the bully. So fuck, Wall. It’s Will we’re supposed to pity. Then he goes off on a self-aggrandizing rant about how he united the far right, the LGBT community and the African-Americans in their “hatred” of him and then…hoo, hoo, Sorkin you slay me…the “internet exploded” because Will acted like a dick. This circles back to Jenny from the pilot and how he barked at her, too. He says he “scared” her but no, Will. You bullied her like you bullied Wall like you bullied Sloan like you bullied Don, which is what he told you in the pilot, too. You’re a bully, Will.

It bounces back to the start of the episode only now we’re in Sloan’s office. She’s still packing up and Don comes in. He’s asking about the story so he and Sloan can get heated and sail that ship further out to sea…where it capsizes when he asks if Maggie’s into Jim. Who cares? Sloan’s all deflated but tries to buck him up by saying no. Don, remembering this is Sloan, asks if she’s good at knowing these things and she says no. Seriously, dude. How dumb are you?

Will’s on his way out and Mackenzie tells Lonny to take him to Dr. Habib’s office in the morning. Out of the blue Lonny rushes past everyone in the inappropriate category and explicitly sexually harasses Mackenzie, whom he just met, and she treats it like it’s no big because a man wrote this episode.

Before they can leave, Charlie comes into the newsroom and rather than go up to Sloan’s office, he barks out “Hey girl.” Dick. Will gets a brief moment of awareness and asks him not to do that but since Charlie thinks he’s figured out a way to make it all go away, he also thinks he’s entitled to demean her in front of the staff and Will joins in. Sloan and Don come out of her office (Squee?) and Charlie suggests that she lie and pretend she confused the Japanese words for “four” and “seven” since they’re somewhat similar. Sloan chafes at lying, especially since Media Matters will be all over it, but Charlie and Will just keep telling her to lie and say she was confused, even though she wasn’t.

Listen to us. We’re old white men. We know what we’re talking about.