Season 3, Episode 21: “Run”
Leave it to “The Newsroom” to tackle the most burning and divisive questions of our time, and Sunday night’s episode was no exception.
The question: Are there women who have memorized every single scene of “The Godfather,” or is that just a guy thing? That, at least, seems to be an issue to Aaron Sorkin, the show’s creator, who has sometimes been accused of sexism and maybe showed a little here with the implicit assumption that having a woman correct a man on a “Godfather” fact would be surprising. The woman was Rebecca, the lawyer played by Marcia Gay Harden, who one-upped the anchor Will McAvoy (Jeff Daniels) at “Godfather” trivia in the midst of a think session over what to do about the blogger Neal Sampat (Dev Patel) and the document leak. No matter who was correcting whom, the moment wasn’t very convincing, because the “Godfather” scene they were talking about — the pivotal moment when Michael commits murder — is so memorable that no one would get a major detail wrong the way Will did.
This episode was called “Run,” but it might well have been called “How Many Moral Quandaries Can Be Crammed Into an Hour?” The document leak, of course, was central, though one wishes for a half-speed function on the remote just to slow down some of the Sorkinian dialogue where the legalese of the matter was being explained.
Meanwhile, in the boardroom, another moral issue was being thrashed out: Do you manage and possibly sell a company for profit, or do you run it for the public good? Putting Kat Dennings in the role of one of the spoiled stock-inheriting children was a delicious bit of casting. She went from being one of the “2 Broke Girls” to being a birthday away from billionaire-hood. And she was quite good in the part, didn’t you think? Well done, “Newsroom” casting department. Now all we need is for her character’s oft-referred-to father to show up with Beth Behrs (the other half of “2 Broke Girls”) as his trophy wife.
We also saw Don Keefer (Thomas Sadoski) and Sloan Sabbith (Olivia Munn) wrestling with a moral problem, theirs involving Don’s insider trading. Is it just me who finds these two a bit wearying when in couple mode? They’re great at their jobs, but the head games they play with each other, alternately childish and byzantine, are just annoying. In last week’s recap comments (a bracing read, by the way), Alex P expressed doubt that Will and MacKenzie McHale (Emily Mortimer) will ever marry. I like that line of thinking. So I hereby revise my prediction from last week of how this series will end. My new vision: Will and MacKenzie’s wedding collapses when she once again strays with that ex-boyfriend, but since the hall is all paid for and the gown fits, sort of, Sloan and Don decided to replace them and tie the knot. Fine by me, but now they need to have a baby immediately. Because there’s nothing like having a kid to make too-smart people realize they’re not really very smart after all.
Lastly, Maggie Jordan (Alison Pill) had a moral issue involving a public official who seemed not to have gotten the memo about talking loudly on a cellphone on public transit. Yes, I know people still do this, but do people as high-ranking as an E.P.A. deputy still do it, especially when blabbing about confidential matters? Feel free to provide your best I.W.C. (Idiots With Cellphones) examples in the comments. In any case, we now know which Maggie has showed up for Season 3: Smart and Principled Maggie. But someone should tell that law professor she now seems destined to hook up with that just two seasons ago, she was Ditzy Maggie.
Oh, I almost forgot: We also have now learned from “The Newsroom” that though titanic foul-ups, like the one last season, can’t get ranking executives fired, a single Twitter misstep can get you fired even if you’re a character (Hallie) played by Grace Gummer, the daughter of the greatest actress of our time, Meryl Streep. Sigh. Feel free to elaborate on what this says about modern society.