That headline is appropriately hilariously awful, for a tabloid.
The next day, Will’s made the tabloids for that little adventure. Charlie tells him this in Charlie’s office, reading aloud the article’s accusations that “newly-minted liberal” Will drunkenly groped the woman. Will denies this, starting out with the fact that he’s a registered Republican who only seems liberal because he believes that “hurricanes are caused by high barometric pressure and not gay marriage.” You know, I heard that line more than once in the promotional material for this show but I’m still fond of it. He goes on that he didn’t grope her, he was trying to block her unwanted advance while attempting to convince her not to write a take-down piece. Charlie gently ribs him for his “mission to civilize”, and agrees that Will should not make any public statement in response to the article. Then he adds an observation that Will’s dating again, and that these women are all people he wouldn’t ever want to spend any daylight hours with. Will seems fine with that (obviously), but Charlie thinks he’s “asking out the wrong women.”
Will goes into a conference room where the team is gathered. As soon as he enters, everyone throws water into his face and cackles, including an adorable Mackenzie. She hands him a towel, and when Will starts to explain about his mission to civilize, the two of them banter in front of all about Don Quixote. Finally, they actually start talking about the ideas Jim gathered for stories they missed or didn’t pay enough attention to in 2010. Will shoots all the suggestions down until they come to Jim and Maggie’s, about Obama’s supposedly expensive trip to India, and how the far right has been claiming that Obama wants to take away Americans’ guns but he actually has showed no evidence of any interest in such a plan. Those, Will likes.
The news segment was well done, but this makes an adorable & more interesting illustration, so I’m using it here.
Next is a sequence of Will reporting on the gun issue. Contrary to what the likes of Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, and the Executive Vice President of the NRA said in 2010 about the dangers to Americans’ gun rights, Obama has actually up to that made no actions to endanger the Second Amendment. In fact, Will informs us that in his first two years in office, Obama signed more repeals to federal gun laws that George W. Bush did in his entire eight years in office. Swell. Will doesn’t know why the aforementioned people are lying so broadly to Americans, but he does know that when people talk like this, TV ratings go up, as do political contributions and gun sales, while Obama’s approval ratings go down. I don’t think I even need to add anything here.
Afterward, we see Maggie encouraging Lisa before her date with Jim. She says she imagines that Jim would be great to go on a date with (ahem). She also tells a worried Lisa that he won’t think she’s stupid just because she works at a high-end fashion boutique. I like Lisa – I’m glad she doesn’t seem to suck.
This isn’t what it looks like. I’m guessing Sorkin will save the actual character peril until at least the season finale.
For Will’s part, he’s just been out with a self-described “Southern liberal”. Sloan set the two of them up, apparently. He takes her back to his place, and she offers him weed that she has in her purse. There’s another item to check off from your list of Sorkin-approved plot points. Will finds a handgun in there first, however. The woman’s not ashamed of it – she says his position on guns is wrong. He points out that he didn’t take a position, and removes the clip from the weapon. She kind of shrugs and says that if she’s walking through town and a guy comes up and tries to rape her, “This is going to happen.” She points the gun at him. Will replies, “Actually, statistics show this is going to happen,” and he easily knocks the gun from her hand and points it back at her. The woman’s eyes widen and she asks if it’s wrong that she’s turned on by that. Will tells her it is. There, I actually don’t think he’s being patronizing at all.