What I’m Watching: The Newsroom

The Newsroom: Season 2, Episode 7 “Red Team III” (B+)

Here we have an episode to essentially wrap up all this Genoa drama, revealing in its opening moments why exactly Marcia Gay Harden’s Rebecca was asking everyone so many questions about what happened. The idea that Jerry sued the network because he felt that he was wrongly scapegoated and terminated for his role in the production of the false story is ridiculous since he, above all, was always pushing the story even and especially when others expressed doubt, and that’s made clear by Jim’s strong objections to it and Jerry’s response that he doesn’t like it because he’s not the one in charge. It was hard to foresee the devastating discovery that Charlie’s contact actually hated him and wanted to punish him for firing his son, and not even that was as wounding as Mackenzie’s gotcha moment of watching the sports footage behind the general’s head to deduce that Jerry had in fact edited the footage. Weaving in the Genoa retraction with Benghazi was effective, and this was one hard-hitting, dramatic episode. The final scene of the episode was pretty terrific, with Jane Fonda’s Leona Lansing stopping by to chew some scenery and take Will’s Daniel Craig and Mackenzie’s McMac down a peg before telling them that they and Charlie need to earn back the trust of the public. With just one two-part episode left titled “Election Night,” I suspect that this too-short season is going to go out with a bang, and we’re going to see some exciting developments in the final two hours.