Antics and Anxiety (Review)

Series: The Newsroom
Episode Title: "Election Night, Part 1"
Episode Grade: B

"Election Night, Part 1" is an example of an episode type that Aaron Sorkin has made an important part of his repertoire: a manic, hyperactive pace  that somewhat shrouds the reality that nothing much happens.

So, no, there isn't much plot in "Election Night, Part 1," and what's there doesn't add up to much. But it is fun. It is a wonderful, hectic hour of television, with dialogue that bounces off the walls in a style that is reminiscent of Sorkin at his best.

"Election Night..." takes place in the aftermath of the Genoa debacle (Rebecca: You aired a bad story. Will: It was a good story. Rebecca: Shame it wasn't true. Will: Sure, we don't meet your East Coast liberal standards...), Charlie and Will still employed at ACN despite their best efforts. Leona won't accept their resignations, and Jerry Dantana's lawsuit will be filed the next day.

This story branches off in two directions: in the first, Charlie heads upstairs to beg the company president (Leona's son, in case you forgot) to accept their resignations. Turns out, Reese would love nothing more than to settle the case and chuck Will and Charlie overboard but can't, because...well:

Charlie: Then why don't you?
Reese: My mom won't let me.

The other branch is much less fun, as it focuses on Will and MacKenzie and their utterly tedious romantic past. There's an interesting dynamic here, in that MacKenzie also wants to fall on a sword after Genoa, and actually has an out: Will can fire her. He won't, of course, and perhaps too much of this episode is taken up with Will simultaneously refusing to fire MacKenzie and berating her over the the failure of their relationship.

Emily Mortimer continues the good work she's been putting in over the last few weeks; she is at once harried and hassled and utterly competent. MacKenzie runs the newsroom (hey, I get the title now!) on an anarchic night with complete confidence and efficiency, but the strain of the Genoa disaster show son her face throughout the evening.

Of the many effective and funny sub-plots in "Election Night," one of the best actually belongs to Jim and Maggie. Throughout The Newsroom's run, Jim has always been the worst sort of insufferably arrogant Aaron Sorkin character: the kind we're clearly not supposed to find insufferable or arrogant.

Sorkin's critics often characterize his shows as replete with insufferable characters, which is true enough but misses the point. When Sorkin is at his best, his arrogant characters are on the side of the angels, but the arrogance is actually acknowledged and criticized in-universe. When he's at his worst, as in Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, the arrogance and insufferability is apparent only to the audience.

In The Newsroom, Jim has always played the latter role. So it's nice in this episode not to just see him screw up (he calls the Michigan First Congressional District for the incumbent before the sequestered analytic experts say that's kosher) but to actively avoid doing the right thing. And Jim's reluctance to have the call publicly retracted is understandable; Charlie is on the warpath regarding election night mistakes (which is itself thoroughly understandable), and the expert assures Jim that the incumbent will win.

An election night in a newsroom is really a perfect setting for Sorkin, and "Election Night, Part 1" demonstrates why. The plot lines here exist mainly to set the stage for next week's season finale, which means there's a lot that's half-formed, and what's here isn't terribly meaty. But it is an excellent display of Sorkin's ear for dialogue and raw talent, and it's simply a joy to watch.

Notes

• The episode ends with Will agreeing to fire MacKenzie at the end of the broadcast. I'm looking forward to the heartfelt scene at the end of next week's episode where that decision is reversed.
• Constance Zimmer is back, and that makes me happy. Her patter with Maggie where they bond over a shared hatred of Jim is wonderful.
• "You're like a foot taller than a person is supposed to be."
• Allison Pill gets some funny moments here, especially when she insists that Don used to shower with the chief of staff for a candidate in California (they were on the tennis team).
• "There are individual showers."
• Sloane has a reasonably funny sub-plot here where she finds out that someone at the network forged her signature on an economics text as part of a charity auction. Turns out it was Gary Cooper, the production assistant who accompanied Maggie to Africa. Olivia Munn is quite good playing obsessive.
• Sloane wants to track down the guy who bought the book, and naturally enlists Neal's help. "You need to hurry before the trail gets cold.
• Dev Patel is really doing outstanding work this season. 
• Grace Gummer's Hallie appears again in a Skype conversation with Jim and demands to know if he can tell her the color of her hair. "Your hair is the color of goodness?"
• Charlie launches into what appears to be a stirring Sorkin speech on the beauty of American democracy, only to see it quickly become a threat directed at anyone who makes a mistake on election night.