The Newsroom Recap: Springtime for Cairo and Madison

Don’s on top of it and telling Neal that Khalid has their satellite phone so they can find him by tracing its GPS. With Neal’s drama settled, Don takes Elliot up to Charlie’s office. Charlie looks to be all business but when he establishes he can’t hug Elliot he…OMG…so many feels:

Sniff, sniff…

Then Charlie kindly tells him to never fucking do that again. Will filled in for Elliot on Friday but they have another anchor scheduled for that week. Don wants him on the air that night but Elliot tries to beg off. Don thinks Elliot’s ordeal is worth telling. Not because it gives another perspective on the protesters but because it shows that journalists aren’t effete, elitist assholes. Dude, in a few weeks we’ll see Richard Engel literally get shot at while filming in Libya if that’s what you’re worried about. Frustrated that he still can’t sit at the big boy table, Don storms out telling Elliot he’s benched.

Back in the newsroom, Will’s on his way in and Gary follows him to his office. First, he wants to relay “Maria Guerrero’s” apology for the empty suit’s little jab on the morning show (Seriously, is Will the Godfather and they all need to show him due fealty?) then tells Will that Nina’s planning on writing a story about Mackenzie almost getting a crew killed in Pakistan. Okay, hold up. If it’s anything other than just the normal dangers of reporting from a war zone that’s bona fide news and if Will quashes it by paying Nina hush money…how is that ethical? Ethics requires accepting the consequences of your actions, right?

Jim gathers Will and Gary for the morning meeting. He’s spent the weekend reading Daily Kos and Think Progress and found the link between the Koch’s and Citizens United in their archives. I thought they were looking for links between the Kochs and Scott Walker? Does Sorkin read his own scripts for continuity? Jim and Maggie rehash the story and bring up the myriad ways several Supreme Court justices are compromised so Mackenzie, hard-nosed newswoman that she is, innocently asks if it’s unusual that Scalia and Thomas didn’t recuse themselves. HAHAHAHAHAHA. She’s an idiot.

Will and Charlie recap the results of Citizens United and why union-busting has suddenly become paramount to conservatives but Neal busts into the meeting. Timmy fell into the well. I’m sorry, they can’t get a signal from the phone and Neal jumps three steps ahead to assume Khalid’s been taken. Everyone pretends to spring into action, but Neal knows News Night‘s staff is worthless so he beelines over to Don and Elliot. He starts to wobble because it’s all their fault and Don promises they’re not losing Khalid.

Have no fear…UnderDon is here.

Man, this show would be so much better if it were about dim but noble Elliot and his intrepid producer Don. But it isn’t. Neal punches a computer monitor because some random AP has Mediaite up and is watching Rush Limbaugh be a repulsive human being by mocking journalists who’ve been captured in Egypt. Umm, why didn’t the extra just close out the window? Regardless, Jim leaps to Neal’s rescue and diagnoses him as having two broken fingers, because he’s tired of being impotent this episode.