And now The Newsroom....

I still think it's pathetic but lets underline what broke Maggie.

If the gunmen didn't want the camera, the kid would have lived.

If they had left the kid under the bed, the kid would have lived.

If she wasn't using the kid as a human shield she would have died.

She's ecstaticly happy and over joyed that he died to save her but she feels rotten about surviving under those terms and feeling good about it.

If the kid just would have got in the Van when he was supposed to, every one would have lived.

And Gary... You don't lift the bed off it's bolts with a lever, you use the lever to hit the kid until he gets out to stop you hitting him. In the real world it would not have been that easy to move the bed, or it would have already been stolen/used for firewood in winter.

 

I don't see her being ecstatically happy about anything. She's glad she's alive, but wishes it were her and not Daniel who died. She feels responsible on many levels, not just the accidental human shield issue. She tried to connect with him and he felt age with her, hence why hiding under her bed seemed like the best place for him to go.

The biggest thing that she probably blames herself for is that of she hadn't had all of the personal crap in her life, she wouldn't have tried to dig so deeply in her work and desire to prove herself to Will and Mac, if she hadn't hidden a report on the increased danger in the region, if she hasn't insisted on going, Daniel might still be alive.

That's what I took away from the episode.

 

You do understand a downward spiral? Survivors guilt? Her happiness feeds her depression because she cannot be allowed to be happy, so you can't see her happiness because it never has a chance to make it to the surface through all that processing where it's instantly transformed into guilt, sadness and anger.

 

And tonight's episode was what I was talking about; it felt like something from season one. I hope the rest of the season can keep it up.

 

I care so much more about Don and Sloan than I ever could about Jim and Maggie.

 

This ep rocked pretty hard. Sloane was great, even though she was going through a bad place, her hand clasp with Charlie as they passed was nice, and her taking out scumbag ex was top class.

Will's expression when he go the news from the hospital, very still and heartbroken. McKenzie confirms she's crazy with her talk with Neil confirmed it.

So much of this ep was just great, I'll have to watch it again.

ETA: the Maggie-Jim thing needs a reboot into the friends zone, the will they/won't they thing ain't doin' it for me.

 

Actually I really disliked this episode. There seemed to be six stories going on at the same time and I found some of the storylines too difficult and/or irrelevant to follow. IMO the writing and acting was frenetic and disjointed, far more than ever before. If they're trying to surpass Game of Thrones in multiple storylines at a mass level, they've succeeded - and that's not a compliment.

The Sloan bit was touching and tragic. Olivia Munn never fails to disappoint. A shame she had to go through that, and with a dickhead like that, I can understand why many women oftentimes think men are pigs in general. That kind of behavior is really reprehensible and lacking any kind of moral compass. Will's scene with the dad stuff was also quietly tragic. He was trying like hell to stay professional, but you could tell he was just about to come apart, especially during the dead air. Jim and Maggie are, as usual, a big fat whatever, and for some reason I really had a difficult time trying to figure out what was going on with the tweets.

I short, the good parts seemed really good and the rest I could have done without.

 

Good episode but, damn, how does Sloane still have a fucking job there?!

The Maggie stuff is just... ugh at this point for me. And did I miss something? What happened to her cropped hair?!

 

The cropped hair didn't happen until after the Genoa incident, it didn't happen after she came back from Africa.

 

Didn't the previous episode end with her clipping her hair? Or is this non-linear story-telling messing with my mind?

 

I'm feeling a little mixed up on that myself. Great episode overall, but Maggie is pretty much a useless character and the sooner she leaves the show the better.

 

The actress was a celebrity before the Newsroom, I'm not saying that viewers will walk if she is pushed, but think of the cross promotion if Maggie is crushed under the Sex and the City Tour Bus, and in the real world they paint/dye (safely and legally) the tires red, and dent the front grill a bit?

She needs to go.

 

That's the weird thing - they've already gotten back. Jim asked the other guy how he handled Africa and he said "I wasn't carrying the kid", and Maggie now apparently stinks of alcohol on a regular basis to cope with the trauma. The hair thing doesn't seem to have happened yet, though, and as someone else said, the after-action legal review seems to have been held after all these other events in the season. Way too much going on here...

 

The legal stuff is a giant framing device the season is being told within. It gives them an excuse to tell things out of order.

 

This newest episode took place six months since Maggie went to Africa. Plenty of time for her hair to grow back out.

 

Ah - yes it is. I must have missed that line of dialog. Not surprising - due to the number of story threads woven through this particular ep, I wager I missed a great deal of critical dialog like that. It got very blurry after a while.

 

I really didn't enjoy this episode. the last few have been quite tightly woven together... this one just felt out of place and "odd". dunno how else to describe it

 

Odd, I think the exact opposite.

Not rubbishing you or anything, just shows how this show brings something different to everyone.

 

The blood on her knuckles was hot.