The Newsroom S3 Ep5 – Oh Shenandoah

This actress did a good job, though.

I hardly know where to start with this one. I really wish Sorkin had decided to leave the issue of campus rape alone, because dealing with it this way – which is to say, almost not awful but then awful – is not better than nothing. To have Don say that he has a moral obligation to believe the accused rapist’s side of the story, to have the guy we’re supposed to be rooting for say there’s a chance this website may falsely ruin a man’s life… I mean, if he’d just stuck with the part about how a televised ‘debate’ between both sides is a terrible idea for so many reasons, that could have been fine. But instead we have, as PreviouslyTV has pointed out, #NotAllMen. Thanks, Mr. Sorkin. Thank you so much.

I’ll let other reviews go into more detail about what else is wrong with that infuriating plot line, though, because as a fan of The X-Files I’ve had practice with cognitive dissonance. The least important other story line this week is Maggie and Jim in Moscow to interview Edward Snowden. Even though it’s been 52 days since the events of the last episode, Maggie is still badgering Jim about his breakup with Hallie. Except once they pay ridiculous amounts of money and lose personal belongings to get on the right plane with Snowden, he’s not on the flight, of course. So Jim decides to finally admit his true feelings to Maggie. They kiss. I guess it’s cute. I’m pretty bored of them by now.

Good casting for this guy, too.

Will has been in prison for more than 50 days now. His cellmate for this time is a prejudiced, blue-collar man in prison for domestic battery. He argues with Will about who has the biggest chip on his shoulder about each other. This is the most interesting part of the episode. The reason? This hateful person ends up by telling Will, basically, that not all hills are worth dying on – and that Will’s father, who is featured in one of three pictures Will has on the wall, did after all teach him how to fish. Because it turns out that Will had his own cell all along, and he was just hashing out his issues with his dad in his head. I started to see that coming as the episode went on, but it was very well done.

Last, but not least, is the saga of how ACN has deteriorated in quality since Pruit took over. They’ve got ‘citizen journalists’ and an app that allows people to stalk celebrities, and it’s all blatantly awful. And yet Charlie is the one encouraging people to follow Pruit’s horrible directives. For example, he’s furious with Sloan when she awesomely destroys the guy who created the stalking app on live television. But he’s also still trying to protect his team – right up until he has a heart attack in the studio and dies.

That sucks. It sucks that Will didn’t have a chance to see him now that he’s finally out of prison, and it sucks that Pruit all but killed him with his horribleness. But (despite everything) I do want to know what will happen to ACN in next week’s episode, which is of course the series finale. What did you think?