The Newsroom, Season 2, Episode 9: “Election Night Part 2″ Written by Aaron Sorkin Directed by Alan Poul Airs Sundays at 10:00 PM ET on HBO While the first season of The Newsroom focused on the idea of a news organisation that eschewed ratings for journalism, a lot of the show’s forward momentum seemed to …
With the exposure of News Night’s major story of chemical weapons use by the American army turning out to be a complete fabrication last week, the team as a whole, and Will and Mackenzie in particular, face a long road ahead in rebuilding what they had before the Genoa report, despite the surprising vote of confidence from Leona Lansing. This week’s episode focuses on the aftermath of Leona’s unexpected decision on the news team, examining the toll the story takes on the emotional state and decision-making capabilities of various members of the team, in a well-done setup to the end of the season.
The US military’s apparent use of chemical weapons has been a looming story over much of The Newsroom’s second season, with the story of the Genoa mission and its implications not escaping anyone who learned of the case. Previous episodes have indicated that something goes terribly wrong with the story, necessitating the presence of a high-priced lawyer to clean up the ensuing mess, casting a shadow of dread throughout the developments. The story comes to a head this week, with the ACN team going live with the news of Genoa as the final pieces click into place, leading to a compelling episode that explores the idea of bending small truths to get to a larger one.
One of the big weaknesses of the first season of The Newsroom, alongside the poor characterisation of many of the show’s women, was the often preachy tone that would accompany storylines, as the writers often struggled to balance the show’s depiction of a fearless news team with an ability to humanise the opponents to the debate, or a portrayal of the core cast as three-dimensional characters rather than simply mouthpieces. The exploration of real-world consequences and conscience attacks suffered by the team at ACN did a lot to mitigate this issue, and while the second season premiere showed promise in further exploring this storyline, this week’s episode manages to fall down the rabbit hole once again, taking a few steps backward from a lot of character progression the show has made, and delivering an unpleasant episode this week, where the bad qualities outweighed the good.
The second season premiere of The Newsroom last week hinted at a major catastrophe that engulfs the station, but buried amidst the discussions of the events that led to lawyerly intervention was the question of why Will McAvoy and the news crew would take on such a volatile story in the first place. This week’s episode dives deeper into the psyche of the individuals who comprise the news team, and their emotional and psychological state leading up to the Genoa revelation, in an episode that unfortunately brings back large chunks of previously problematic storylines, but nonetheless gives a better idea of what makes certain characters tick.
With shows such as Sports Night and The West Wing under his belt, many people were excited to see Aaron Sorkin return to television, particularly after finding big screen success with The Social Network and Moneyball. Tackling journalism, Sorkin’s The Newsroom premiered in 2012 on HBO, with a cast that included Jeff Daniels, Emily Mortimer, Alison Pill, and Dev Patel, and ended up receiving uneven reviews throughout the season, with most of the audience qualms coming down on his portrayal of Mackenzie and Maggie, the two key female characters on the show, who often acted out of character when engaged in romantic entanglements, which dominated much of their storylines in the first ten episodes.
The Newsroom, Season 1, Episode 10: “The Greater Fool″ Written by Aaron Sorkin Directed by Greg Mottola Airs Sundays at 10:00 PM ET on HBO Season finales are difficult to pull off for any show. The final episode is meant to resolve season-long arcs while still progressing along, or starting, enough story threads to intrigue …
The Newsroom, Season 1, Episode 7: “5/1″ Written by Aaron Sorkin Directed by Joshua Marston Airs Sundays at 10:00 PM ET on HBO News, perhaps more than anything else, cannot exist in a vacuum. The importance of news is largely determined by how people react to it; occasionally, some news pieces unexpectedly become important based …
The Newsroom, Season 1, Episode 5: “Amen″ Written by Aaron Sorkin Directed by Daniel Minahan Airs Sundays at 10:00 PM ET on HBO Journalism can be a dangerous profession. Trying to cover the news in, or tell the story of, volatile or war-torn regions, especially, can be downright fatal, the most obvious example in recent …