The Newsroom Recap: Aaron Sorkin Saves the News

The Newsroom

By vallegirl | Wednesday, June 27, 2012 | 1:00 pm | 11 Comments
Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in: Recaps, The Newsroom

As hopeful piano music shows hopeful staff thanking Jim for being so noble and Mackenzie stares into space like she’s my cat, Jim and Maggie flirt about how, despite not knowing how phones work, she did really good work but he’s Batman then Don comes up and kills the mood. Jim wants to buy Don a drink but Don wants a rain check. Then asks Maggie if she wants him to come down with her to the lobby to meet her parents, as a compromise. Before she can answer, Will bellows HEY in her general direction. Like all good, spoiled boys who managed to make a poop on the potty all by themselves, he tells her that her name is Margaret Jordan. Want a cookie, Will?

Oh, look how happy she is that he’s not calling her “Ellen” anymore.

Don congratulates Will and tells Mackenzie she was right. Not satisfied, Will wants to know what the other shows had. Flights resume in Europe and iPhone prototype left in some bar. But they did close with the explosion, but only on the search & rescue. With their day over, Don and Maggie leave while Will gets ready to and Mackenzie tries to give Jim a mimed pep talk about Maggie, even though she could have just taken a few steps and said whatever she wanted in private.

Whatever, the whole point was to keep her in the newsroom long enough to talk to Will on his way out. It’s after nine so he doesn’t owe her anything and she chases him down. Before he leaves he tries not to be a complete asshole and thanks the crew in a control room…except it’s not his crew. D’oh. Still a dick.

As he blows past her to the elevators, Mackenzie follows him, telling him he won’t remember this, but when he met her parents he took her father to an Orioles game and he was “perfect.” But he’s not a complete dick. He recounts the whole day to her. Awww….blech. They continue bonding and smurfing about how she’s exhausted but really just wanted to be in a newsroom again. Will’s elevator arrives and as he gets on to leave, he confesses that it wasn’t vertigo medication. He thought he saw her in the audience, urging him on. She tries to stop him from leaving, clearly having something to tell him, but the elevator doors close. She calls for another elevator then….

Really, Sorkin?

Her elevator comes but she lets it go and heads back to the office, happy with the knowledge that he may be a rude, vulgar, self-absorbed jerk but he still loves her.

Thanks for slogging through that with me. Here’s hoping next week is just an hour, especially since they easily could have cut the extra 12 minutes from this episode. Be like Diana Vreeland and before you shoot a script, take out a scene or five.

As far as first episodes go, though, it was a first episode. Had some good moments and bad and I could have done without that maudlin ending, but overall I liked it. It certainly wasn’t the travesty the reviews made it out to be. Maggie could be a little (a lot) smarter and Will’s “he’s too important for manners” will get old quick, but it had more highs than lows. But what did you think?

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vallegirl
About

Vallegirl has never actually lived in a valley, has a lot of time on her hands and likes to yell at kids about how things were in her day.  Currently in LA, she's also spent a lot of time in the great states of  New York and Florida so she's not crazy, it's just a cultural thing.

11 Comments

  1. 1
    ChaCha
    Posted June 27, 2012 at 2:55 pm

    Loved your recap, Valleygirl, but I didn’t come close to loving the show as much as you say you did. Maybe that’s because I worked in and around television news for sixteen years (the fabu career portion of my life) and I couldn’t help but nitpick the really showbizzy, stupid stuff that never happens like applause by EVERYone at the end of a seat-of-the pants newscast. Really? Not bloody likely! And an open, obvious liquor bottle in the news set–not unless you want to get fired, and there is certainly someone higher up than Charlie in the network. I won’t be watching that silly treacle anymore, but I will be reading your recaps because they’re waaaay better than anything Sorkin could write.

  2. 2
    maryedith
    Posted June 27, 2012 at 3:51 pm

    I think the record-scratching noise in my head when I reached the end of this recap may have been loud enough for vallegirl to hear. Because, if this was a show she liked, I seriously want to read a negative recap of hers!

  3. 3
    vallegirl vallegirl
    Posted June 27, 2012 at 4:28 pm

    I liked it…but I never said I liked it because it was good. It has a lot of kinks to work out and isms to get over, but Sam Waterston was pretty great. (Even if he would have been fired for drinking in the office.) And, despite being the designated jerk, I rather liked Don, too.

    But maybe it was seeing Alicia Corwin in the opening scene that threw me.

  4. 4
    ChaCha
    Posted June 29, 2012 at 12:26 pm

    Judging from the lack of commenters, I’m guessing that this show is not going to be a hit with Gasmii. Don’t let that discourage you, Vallegirl, from recapping it.

  5. 5
    vallegirl vallegirl
    Posted June 30, 2012 at 8:25 am

    Oh, I’m in it for the season. Unless they bring on a Safe Haven baby.

  6. 6
    maryedith
    Posted June 30, 2012 at 9:10 am

    *coughs* POI? *coughs*

  7. 7
    maryedith
    Posted June 30, 2012 at 9:14 am

    Oh. DUH. You WERE referring to POI there, weren’t you? I forgot that one amidst all the other plot disasters. So that was the straw that broke your back? Because I did wonder.

  8. 8
    vallegirl vallegirl
    Posted June 30, 2012 at 9:19 am

    Nah, that was just the beginning of the end. It was a perfect storm of things that came together. But the baby really started the ball rolling.

  9. 9
    maryedith
    Posted June 30, 2012 at 11:22 am

    I became obsessed with the Gawker recaps of “Girls,” did you see them? The comments afterward that complained about them made me think of you. People would be like, “Why are you recapping this show if you hate it so much?” I really appreciated your analysis of why POI was going south and I think it’s important to point out intelligently just what makes a show bogus. So I hope you stick with this show even if it gets bad — you put your snarky finger on things so well!

  10. 10
    maryedith
    Posted June 30, 2012 at 11:26 am

    I don’t mean that I want this show to get bad. I realize that comment may have come across like that.

  11. 11
    Jaycee
    Posted December 5, 2012 at 11:33 am

    Something I just realized. Mackenzie shouldn’t have been able to alter Will’s title card by changing a chyron. The title of his show is in the clip. Even if a title card is just a still image, you can’t just hop onto your chyron program and change the embedded text. I’m pretty sure they designed it that way so producers couldn’t be assholes and give the program a new name whenever they feel like it.

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