One Step Forward...(Review)

Series: The Newsroom
Episode Title: "One Step Too Many"
Episode Grade: B+

Last week, I wrote that it would be a mistake for Aaron Sorkin to step away from the reality that the staff of "News Night With Will McAvoy" had screwed up in pursuing the Operation Genoa story. With this episode, Sorkin comes close to doing just that. It works, for now, because of some quality acting from Hamish Linklater and solid writing in giving Linklater's Jerry Dantana character reasonable motivation.

"One Step Too Many" unfolds over the course of several months, but the crucial action takes place over the a couple scenes, spread out over the course of the episode. The newsroom staff tracks down a Marine general, who will henceforth be referred to as "General Stephen Root" because his actual character's name is long and not readily available on the internet at the moment, who they suspect has knowledge of Operation Genoa.

General Stephen Root, played by Stephen Root, is a chemical weapons acolyte. Charlie and MacKenzie use this to wheedle an apparent confirmation out of General Root in an excellent scene that shows how these two people actually become high-ranking journalists.

Dantana is dispatched to interview General Root, and their conversation is fascinating. Root is distracted by a basketball game (more on that in the notes); he's uncooperative enough to be disquieting, but not incoherent or apparently un-credible. He has Maggie and everyone else leave, which is easy enough for a motivated Dantana to wave off as understandable paranoia.

But Dantana doesn't hear what he wants to hear. He hears something perilously, achingly close to what he wants to hear; General Root confirms the existence of Genoa, but when Dantana presses him on the use of sarin gas in the operation, Root instead talks about how the US would use sarin if they had used it.

Back in New York, Dantana doesn't hesitate. He cuts the tape of the interview and removes the word "if" in Root's "if we used sarin gas" statement. When he presents the interview to MacKenzie, Charlie and the rest of the newsroom staff (Will is still being left out of the story), he shows them tape of Root flatly confirming the use of sarin gas.

How does all this work? It would be fair to ding Sorkin for taking the easy way out and making Dantana openly unethical. Dantana deceiving MacKenzie and Co. can be seen to remove any sense of responsibility or fault from the core cast, essentially skirting the promise of the Genoa storyline.

And yet I'm basically on board, with some reservations. Much of this comes down to Linklater's outstanding performance here; Dantana is motivated by a sincere concern over the state of civil liberties in the Obama era. Linklater spends most of the episode on the "sincere" and "passionate" side of the line, but falls onto the "strident" side just often enough to make his actions predictable.

And the the motivation here is sound. Dantana clearly believes in Genoa, and it's not hard to see how he can justify his actions; Root's statements, if viewed in the right light, with a certain amount of squinting, can be seen as something close to confirmation. Dantana didn't so much slide down the slippery slope as take one wrong step when he thought he was already off the slope.

This reading is based on what we saw of Dantana's interview with General Root, which is only a few questions. If it turns out that Root explicitly denied the use of sarin in Genoa, then Dantana's motivations become much less understandable, and the whole storyline suffers as a result.

For now, however, "One Step Too Many" is compelling television, even if it deliberately avoids some steps that could have made it truly outstanding.

Notes:

• On the other hand, shouldn't MacKenzie have watched the entire interview? Unedited? She even asked Don if he trusted Jerry.
• About that basketball game: General Root loves March Madness and refuses to do the interview without a game on. But what's shown is actually a regular season Kentucky game in Lexington. And, if I'm not mistaken, it's Florida-Kentucky. (Stephen Root the actor is a Florida grad. And as a "by the way," UK won that game, 76-68)
• Yes, there are other storylines in this episode. Will's obsession with his ratings continues, and Nina advice leads him to an appearance on the ACN morning show. That appearance ends with Will throwing a football at a stand of lights and then breaking up with Nina. It's...not much.
• "I think you're lovable, but your numbers are problematic."
• There's some excellent comedy in the other story, which has Jim planning on dinner and soooo much sex with Hallie (who is still on the show, for you Grace Gummer fans). Sorkin has always done well with plots where a frustrated and desperate man has obstacle after obstacle thrown in his way.
• Constance Zimmer continues to do good work as the (now-fired) Romney spokesman who tags along at Hallie's request. "I know this is a special evening for you, so of course I said yes."
• Taylor: "I loathe you in ways that are unquantifiable." Neal: "Cool."
• "How do you know Reagan's horse didn't dance?"
• Hallie brings along a friend for Neal. She's the worst sort of Sorkin character; I really wish he'd stop with the ditzy women.
• Will doesn't want Sloane to spoil John Carter.
• Maggie is also in this episode.