The Newsroom Recap: Girls Drool

Over in a posher part of town, Will’s walking his date, Carrie, into his apartment. They’re both soaked. She excuses herself to change into some dry clothes and offers to get high with Will so he can find her gun. Really, Sorkin? They have a chat about guns and how she’s pro-gun even though she’s a liberal and none of it makes sense except to have Will take the gun away from her and hold it sideways like he’s in a Guy Ritchie movie. Where’s John Reese to grab Will’s wrist and make him shoot himself in the kneecap?

Dude, you still have that Gumby face.

It’s showtime the next night and it turns out that Sloan set Will up with Carrie. How would those two even become friends? Will is all righteously indignant that Sloan set him up with a crazy person who carries a concealed weapon and Sloan is all “Dude, you have to go out with her again because you haven’t seen her crazy side,” and this is exhausting. Can’t one woman on this show not be a neurotic mess with bad judgment?

But since this week isn’t about the “inside baseball” aspect of putting together a news program, we jump ahead to the adoring staff hopefully watching the end of broadcast and then Maggie and Jim discussing whether or not he’ll see Lisa again. He says no because there was no connection and Maggie is glad to have her puppy back in his kennel so I’m sure this won’t come up again at some point.

And now it’s time for another condescending lecture from Will. He’s on yet another date with another woman who watches Real Housewives of New Jersey. After trying to explain the Page Six piece and fumbling with Brittany’s rather easy Italian surname (try Sforza) Will’s date gets gossipy about the show. Then Will calls her a bitch, really and sincerely, and explains that reality TV is turning us into a bunch of gossip mongers. Yes, it’s reality TV and not just human nature.

She tries to defend it as a “guilty pleasure” but Will’s in full-on hypocritical scold mode telling her the spectacle of “human cock fighting” that is reality TV is making us (and by “us” he means the wimmins) mean and insensitive. When she confirms he thinks she’s mean and insensitive she finally throws her drink in his face. As she walks off Will ridiculously wonders why that keeps happening. Is he brain damaged?

Were you raised in a barn by wolves?

Oh, here comes my favorite scene. Maggie and Don are sitting in his posh bed. Don’s playing around with his laptop while Maggie’s mildly shrieking about how Jim and Lisa didn’t hit it off so why is he so anxious to make them happen. Don’s incredulous and yet resigned to her ridiculous behavior but points out that Jim lied because, per Lisa, they were out on a date at that moment. Maggie, now that Lisa isn’t there, pshaws this because it’s Lisa. Don jokes that she should call Jim to see but when Maggie says she’s not going to check up on Jim Don magically finds a story that Maggie will have to call him about.