On the Frontlines:

After Election Night, Part I, I had little hope The Newsroom would come up with a strong final effort to show why it deserves viewers attention for a third season. For an episode that was supposed to chronicle the rest of election night, the second act was a surprising departure from the messy first entry. With petitions calling for Will and Charlie to resign and the rising sentiment in the newsroom that ACN has lost the trust of its viewers, the episode was set to resolve the Genoa fallout once and for all. As expected, Sorkin settles the tab.

“We are not resigning,” Charlie empathically tells Will. “Are we out of our fucking minds?” And with that Charlie Skinner finally comes to his senses. I thought this latest take was The Newsroom’s strongest job of measuring the Genoa fallout, particularly in dealing with situations where there isn’t always a right answer. Whereas most people tend to view the media as an attack dog, constantly looking for its next victim to “screw over,” Sorkin consciously tries to convey that the people within his newsroom have a moral obligation to do everything in their power to serve their audience.

Will’s crew has been an outstanding embodiment of the effort it takes to do things the right way. However the process of rehabilitating ACN’s image is where Sorkin’s patented romanticism gets in the way of reality. From the top down, respect, egos and the almighty dollar are on the line. Can we really expect an entire senior staff to quit their jobs on principle? In this economy no less? No, probably not. But The Newsroom carries on, finding out that the people upstairs are just that: people.