So to recap, it’s Election Night 2012, the News Night team is coming apart on the eve of the launch of Jerry Dantana’s frivolous lawsuit, the network’s disgraced after Genoa turnout out to be entirely made-up, Leona Lansing won’t let anyone quit, Will fired Mackenzie in a fit of spite, and Don just got a scoop about the resignation of David Patreous. What else could go wrong on The Newsroom? Let’s find out.
The Patreous matter is ended swiftly. Despite two congressional sources, and two sources each from the Departments of Justice and Defense, or in other words “as confirmed as anything has ever been,” Charlie and Mac decide to run the Brody quote instead as it will have immediate impact on voters. Don’s disappointed, but he supports the call.
As for Will, he’s still wrestling with Taylor. He notes that a group called Concerned Citizens for Truth got 50,000 signatures on a petition demanding that Will and Charlie be fired, no one trusts them across demographics and the op-eds are only getting worse. Taylor then says that she wants to poach Jim for a new consulting business she’s starting. Will’s taken aback, and Taylor tells Will that she had heard that the senior staff is resigning. So Will gathers the senior staff and tells them that only he, Charlie and Mac will be quitting, and the staff, via Don, respectfully refuses to let them take the fall alone.
Meanwhile, upstairs at the party, Charlie tries again to petition to Leona, who is, again, stoned. Stoned, but defiant. Leona tells Charlie that she’s leaving the final decision to Reese, and she’s sent him out for a walk to consider the options. Charlie is some what reassured knowing that Reese was of the “fire them” persuasion, but on his way out of the party, he runs into Lisa, Maggie’s former best friend and roommate, who’s serving at the party. Oh, and by “run in to” I mean physically ran in to her, knocking her serving tray on the floor. Lisa is doing a side job as a cater-waiter, and she doesn’t want Jim to know she’s in the building.
Jim, meanwhile, is still Skyping with Hallie at Romney HQ, and it’s Hallie that makes the comments about Maggie cutting her own hair. Jim is distracted from that train of thought though by the news that Lisa is in the building. Neal notices that someone in the party upstairs has their phone and is Tweeting pictures, and one of them was of Charlie’s accident with Lisa. Naturally, Jim goes upstairs to talk to Lisa, and they end up talking about Maggie. Lisa says she doesn’t know anything about what happened to Maggie in Africa, but she does confirm Hallie’s hunch to Jim that she cut her own hair.
But finding Tweets isn’t Neal’s only detective work of the night. He’s also still trying to get a Wikipedia entry about Mac corrected and he does manages to track down the person who bought the signed copy of her book. Sort of. The highest bidder was Sidney Falco, a character from The Sweet Smell of Success. Indeed all the bidders were characters from the same movie. So did Don buy the book? Probably. Will Sloan find out by playing anagrams with the name “Sidney Falco?” Doubtful.
As for the more pressing matter of the pending firings, Will gives Elliot the anchor chair to announce the victory of the Republicans in the House of Representatives, and Mac leaves it to Don to produce for the moment. Despite Sloan’s protestations that things are getting out of hand, it is done, and Will and Mac take the moment to work out their own personal issues. Mac tells Will that she was wrong to think he didn’t want to fire her out of vanity, and Will admits that the ring he showed her as one he intended to propose to her with was bought as a practical joke.
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