Director: Alan Poul
Writer: Aaron Sorkin and Jon Lovett
Synopsis: When the team attends the White House Correspondents’ Dinner in Washington, Mac makes an unexpected acquaintance and Will gets a surprise.
‘Main Justice’ kicks off where we left the last outing with the FBI raiding the ACN offices as they search for Neal (Dev Patel) and evidence regarding the illegally sourced government information and secret contact. As Will (Jeff Daniels) stays silent, Charlie’s (Sam Waterston) team try to start up the Newsroom as they pretend to ‘go live’ on the raid and this temporarily calls off the search. There’s a few different moods being thrown around, especially as the chief FBI Agent is Molly Levy (Mary McCormack), an old friend of MacKenzie’s (Emily Mortimer) and she’s not very happy about what’s occurring. In terms of calling the FBI’s bluff, it seems unusual for The Newsroom to step away from the realms of reality but it does make logical sense that the Police would probably shy away from being broadcast live on a news network.
Although in places not one of the strongest episodes they’ve ever run, it still works a treat and helps to develop everything that’s happened so far. When a series consistently sets the bar high, it’s difficult to believe in when they start to bend the usual truth they offer. It caught me off guard and even more unusual was the lack of news reported, beyond the unexpectedly hilarious news segment concerning the end of the world, which was the outcome of the exclusive interview Maggie (Alison Pill) booked last time.
This episode introduced us to more new faces in the shape of new HR man Wyatt Geary, played by 30 ROCK’s Keith Powell, who’s looking to run things a little different to previous administrators and Don Keefer (Thomas Sadoski) has a lot of fun with a few white lies. We also encounter B.J. Novak’s creepy character, a super-rich business man who’s looking for that stake in ACN and also appears to be some form of a moralistic sociopath or, at least, somewhat obsessed with either power or just picking up a trophy wife – the wife here being represented by ACN and everyone involved with it. We also witness a Sauna sequence, yes I said it, where MacKenzie secretly meets with her FBI Molly Levy and is strongly advised to bring Neal back in, so he can save himself and reveal his source. Although not best pleased, Mac acknowledges she’ll try and find out if anyone is in contact with him.
‘Main Justice’ has two standout segments with the first being the boardroom scene as the government takes on our stubborn, brilliant ACN team. After initially wanting to help and co-operative, the interviewer/government official comes across as a power-hungry ass with no sense of connection to real people. The result is the team feel like they’re being bullied for no fair reason and the response is one of Will McAvoy’s best speeches in ages. He stands up for his fellow co-workers and friends to stand his ground, and echoes the pure passion similar to that speech in the very first episode.
The other part is the highly entertaining ‘Climate Change’ interview, setup as an exclusive thanks to Maggie in the previous episode. It was expected to be a discussion over what the human race could do to help stop the end of the world, but it devolved into a fact-based monologue where we learn that the world was coming to an end and that there was no hope. Well, there was some form of hope but it would have been 20 years ago and now we’re all in a garage, with the exhaust on and the only outcome is death via our own carbon dioxide. Will tries to gather some hope from the situation but there’s none forthcoming, as the last time our CO2 levels were like this, the world was desolate and in essence we’re now about to become the factual representation of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road. Of course, this is a serious situation but the interview becomes an amalgamation of bleakness and humour because there’s nothing we can do to save ourselves.
To close the episode, we’re at a huge White House Correspondents’ Dinner for journalists, business folk and government officials and then Mac unexpectedly meets Neal’s source, or so we’re led to believe, who’s there to insist that the Kundu story is broadcast but obviously there’s a lot still to decide and much to debate. On the flip side of this revelation, The Newsroom team are literally faced with the reality of where they are, to where they used to be, as Will McAvoy is handed a subpoena for with-holding information regarding what he knows about Neal and secret government official. ‘Main Justice’ comes to its climax and feels a little like one of those pinning together episodes with a lot of things linking together but with much greater things to come and when they connect, I’m sure there’s an enormous array of surprises to be discovered.
[usr=3] The Newsroom continues on Sky Atlantic every Wednesday. For more details click here and for the rest of our The Newsroom blog head here.
