Saturday Night Live's 39th season kicks off soon and the hosts for the first few episodes have just been announced:
Season Premiere, Sept. 28th- Host Tina Fey; Musical Guest Arcade Fire
Oct. 5th- Music and Guest Host Miley Cyrus
Oct 12th- Host Bruce Willis; Musical Guest Katy Perry
So we're back after a two week break, and it's Part 1 of Election Night 2012 (as the title so aptly describes). As you'll remember, Leona has refused to accept the resignations of our heroes, Will, Charlie and Mac, which has caused wariness and anxiety among the staff, as we see Charlie raving about in Will's office to Will and MGH, who is apparently their lawyer in this whole thing- and boy do I feel stupid, but I must have completely missed that while I've been watching this season. For the life of me, I was under the impression that lawyer lady MGH was working on behalf of disgraced producer Jerry Dantana this whole time. I guess I was put off by how much everyone constantly belittles her and assumed she was the villain. Not that she can't take it, as she continues to do in this episode, seemingly getting quite a kick out of it, actually.
Anyway, MGH agrees no one should resign, but Charlie is especially disturbed by this and doesn't see how they can stay on- Will apparently is doing fine though, appointing himself in charge of "morale" for election night coverage and doing his best the whole episode to be friendly and encouraging for once, which is kind of amusing. Mac doesn't buy it however, and spends the hour asking him to tell her how he really feels about the whole Genoa thing and her responsibility for it, saying he's just a time bomb waiting to explode. Will disagrees and tells her they ought to put if off until the next day at least, refusing to tell her what she wants to hear, and somehow this all comes back to their continuing relationship problems stemming from Will's inability to forgive her for her affair, which was now 6 years ago. Will feels he shouldn't have to get over it on anyone else's timeline, and we see once again, how deeply the hurt he felt from that incident has affected his interactions with Mac ever since. But I don't know, for me all this was kinda redundant and at the same time, sprung out of nowhere, because they haven't focused much at all on Will and Mac's relationship this season (to my ongoing appreciation actually- I like seeing them work together, but there's really no need to get them together romantically, in my opinion).
Mac wants to be fired by Will personally in this episode, since he's the only person who can do it without needing Leona's permission, and by the end she wears Will down to the point where he agrees to fire her the next day (but something tells me that won't actually happen). Elsewhere on Election Night, Jim spends his time skyping with Hallie to update her on the situation at ACN, and I'm sorry but these skyping scenes are so silly to me- he's always doing it right in the middle of the whole room, and just to update her on the latest gossip within the office? He also mistakes a call for a congressional race in South Carolina, which freaks him and Maggie out because if they're seen retracting a called race Charlie will send them to work in the Department of Sanitation (Charlie's pretty funny tonight actually, running around threatening people and pleading to be fired), so they decide to leave it and hope the race holds on as it should. Maggie in this episode declares that she hates Jim (???) and in her quest to scoop him on breaking news, she works with Don to squeeze a story out of a source in exchange for holding off information about the source's congressional candidate making similar comments to those of the infamous Todd Akin ones about rape. The mystery of Maggie's ridiculous haircut continues and deepens this week, and of all the compelling storylines that I've wanted to see resolved, the questions about Maggie's hair were definitely NOT the most pressing on my mind. But if that was the engine pulling you along all season, it does promise to resolve itself in the season finale, so there you go, one more reason to tune in. I'm sorry, I know I say this every week, but I really can't stand this character and I think Alison Pill needs to make a swift exit off this show. She's the only weak link in the cast at this point.
Meanwhile, Sloan, who was already my favorite and just becomes more and more so every week, has had a book of hers sold at an auction for $1000, but the problem is she didn't sign it herself, which makes her feel bad and she begs Neal to find out who bought the book so she can correct this error. She's adorably funny, guilty and witty about this throughout the whole episode, and it's not revealed yet, but since they didn't have a scene together tonight, I'm willing to bet a million bucks it was Don who bought the book, which will lead them to their long awaited hook-up (I hope) next week. Don tonight is also funny in the bit parts he's in, as he has an encounter with MGH because Jerry Dantana is now suing him in a separate suit from the one he's filed against ACN, claiming Don labeled him a sociopath when he was called as a reference when Jerry applied for a new job at Kickstarter. Don did of course, but he's amusingly defensive and self-righteous about it.
If you can't tell, this was another bounce-around-the-newsroom episode, because it all takes place on Election Night with everyone in the same place, and some characters are relegated to even smaller parts, like Neal, saddled with Sloan's task and Mac's, who forces him to change her Wikipedia page because it claims she went to Oxford and not Cambridge, an egregious error to which she takes great offense- but really it's all because of her desperation to get even minor things right in the wake of the massive failure that was Genoa. We see Will at the news desk, having to spend the night doing the rambling that all cable news guys do on nights like this, where results come in slowly, leaving them with lots of air time they have to fill with mindless chatter and bickering, mostly with Taylor, who's come back to be the on-air Republican strategist they can fight with over the 47% tape (was wondering when that would get brought up). There's also Elliott in a spoof of Fox News and CNN's constant wandering into the "data rooms" to harass the people at the computers who have no new information to share with them at any moment- and that's all pretty accurate as I remember it from watching election night coverage on the various cable channels.
No Jane Fonda this week, but we do get Reese, in a really funny scene where Charlie drags him away from his upper floor viewing party to again beg to be fired, and Reese actually agrees and wants them all gone, but confesses in a hilarious rant that he has no power and his mom doesn't let him do anything. Charlie leaves defeated as MGH smirks in the background, and Chris Messina was so good in that scene that it kinda makes me wish we got Reese more often.
The episode ends with Don and Maggie getting the hot story that his source (or "shower buddy" as Maggie calls him) promised, and the two of them telling Mac, Will and Charlie that General Petraeus is about to resign over his affair and the ensuing soap opera that was the nutty scandal engulfing the military generals last year. The three are of course, stunned that it happens to be a story involving armed forces shenanigans after the fake scandal they just had to retract, and Charlie throws a tantrum in the middle of the newsroom as Will gets back on the air, telling to Taylor to have at him over his personal politics. I can't remember exactly when that Petraeus story broke last year (it was close to the election, but was it that close?), but I suppose them having a source that knew about that is at least more plausible than the guy they had last season who knew literally everything about the BP oil spill on day one (actually it was minute one) of that story. And that's it, folks- come back next week for Part 2 and our season finale! The show's just been officially renewed for Season 3, so we'll have a lot more Newsroom to look forward to for quite a while.
Wow. Now that was a heartpounding experience. Our fourth to last episode ever of Breaking Bad opens with the new meth crew consisting of Todd, Uncle Jack, Uncle Jack's right hand man, and Lydia overlooking the new batch of meth, where we find out that Todd has managed to cook it to 76% purity, although the color isn't blue, a fact which disturbs Lydia, as she says her buyers will accept the lower quality but not the color.
Jack laughs at this and offers food coloring as a solution, but Todd later creeps up to Lydia and promises her he'll get better. Todd's uber-politeness is so creepy here, as he gets up in Lydia's face and appears to have some kind of odd attraction towards her, but she cooly tells him she appreciates his efforts and walks away. As she goes Todd caresses her coffee cup and drinks from where she left a lipstick mark (sooo weird!) and then he gets the call we saw Walt make in the last episode, telling him about the hit on Jesse. Predictably, Todd's only reaction to this is to agree pleasantly and go back to caressing Lydia's coffee cup. So eager to please, that Todd.
Hank and Gomez meet up after the botched attempt to trap Walt last week, and agree to hear out Jesse's idea. Apparently Jesse's threat to get Walt where he "really lives" involves finding his buried money, so he offers up Huell as the guy who might know where it is. Hank and Gomez have Huell put into a motel room and Hank proves himself nearly as sneaky as Walt in fooling Huell into thinking that his life is in danger from the almighty Heisenberg. He splatters some bloody meat on the floor to look like brains and has Jesse lay his head down next to it while he takes a picture to prove to Huell that Walt had Jesse killed and is now coming after him. Huell buys this convoluted explanation a little too easily in my opinion, but that's all it takes for him so spill what he knows about the money- which as we saw, isn't much except that Walt took the barrels and a shovel and drove off in a van.
Meanwhile, Todd's set up a meeting with Walt and Uncle Jack, where Walt explains that he doesn't want Jesse suffering because he's "like family" to him, and Jack agrees to off Jesse if Walt will come back and cook for them, and bring Todd up to speed. Walt reluctantly agrees, since they won't accept money, and says he'll come back for one cook after they get the job done.
Walt's idea for flushing Jesse out of hiding is to show up at Andrea's house, telling her that Jesse's using again and he's worried about him. This prompts her to call Jesse and leave him a message, of course letting him know that Walt is there with them, so that presumably Jesse will dash over, where he'll be intercepted and killed by Jack, who's waiting outside staking the place out. Brock is of course at the house in this scene and is noticeably quiet and weirded out by Walt's presence, but I can't remember if this has any significance. Somebody help me out, did Walt threaten Brock before or something? There's an obvious tension in this scene that I'm not sure I knew the meaning of, other than that we know Walt poisoned him, but I don't think Brock knows that (but it seems like he knows something).
We then see that Hank, not Jesse has gotten the message from Andrea, and he brushes it off completely, knowing it's a trap and doesn't even mention it to Jesse. He's had no luck tracking the van that Walt used to transport the money, because it didn't have GPS, but he decides to bluff about it to Walt, who wouldn't have known that.
Back at the car wash, Skyler is showing Jr. how to work the register when Saul comes in, hilariously beaten up and paying for his ticket, meeting Jr. for the first time (who's a fan of his billboards), and bantering with them in his usual snarky way as Skyler nervously ushers him out. Walt meets up with Saul at the hoses, where Saul informs him Huell's disappeared and without his bodyguard he's now wearing a bulletproof vest as protection, thinking Jesse's gone on a killing spree. Walt denies this, but is at a loss to explain Huell's vanishing act, and when he gets back inside the car wash he receives a text from Jesse that appears to be a barrel of money.
This sends Walt racing to the desert with Jesse on the phone threatening to burn his money in a heartpounding sequence that has Walt yelling at him and in the process inadvertently confessing to every nefarious deed he's ever done for him, defending his actions as always being for Jesse's benefit, but Jesse was just too stupid to realize it. We of course, realize as he's saying all this that it's being recorded, but Walt has lost all capacity for rational thought at the possibility of losing his money. When Walt gets to the spot (which is called To'hajiilee, the name of the episode) it takes him a few minutes to realize Jesse tricked him and when he does he panics and hides behind a rock, realizing that Jesse has probably followed him as well. It's a testament to what a good actor Cranston is again, that he makes us see that the thought of the money being threatened was so massive that he lost all his judgment and good sense, never even realizing there's no way Jesse could have pulled off such a complicated trap without outside help. But of course he does now, and he calls Jack and the crew to come out and save him, thinking Jesse's going to have backup when he finds him, but as Jesse pulls up with Hank and Gomez, and Walt finally discovers who he's been working with, he tells Jack to call it off, and hangs up the phone in despair, leaning back against the rock as a tear rolls down his face, seemingly defeated.
Walt has given up and it's an incredible moment when he comes out from behind the rock and surrenders to Hank, who cuffs him and reads him his rights as Walt stares down Jesse the entire time, who appears just as amazed as we are that Walt has actually been caught. Walt calls Jesse a coward and Jesse responds by spitting at him as they try to fight each other, with Gomez and Hank pulling them apart. Hank puts Walt in the car and calls Marie to let her know he's gotten him, and this scene I could have done without, because there is WAY too much "I love you" and tearful goodbye exchanges going on between them for me not to have gotten the hint (actually the sledgehammer) that something bad was about to occur- sorry, but that meaningful good bye moment is in way too many movies, shows, etc. and it always means somebody's about to die.
So that's when Jack and his crew show up of course (saw that coming) in defiance of Walt's order, and as Walt freaks out in the car yelling for them to stop, and Hank and Gomez haul out their guns in a standoff, the mass shootout happens and it goes on for about two minutes until the episode cuts out in the middle of it, leaving us on that horrifying note with no previews of what goes down next week and how this turns out.
Pointless Prediction #5- Whew. Well, I guess my prediction this week has got to involve the result of that shooting, and my guess is that both Hank and Gomez are dead (they were severely outnumbered), as we know Walt doesn't die and I have no idea about Jesse. He was in the other car, so he could theoretically be protected from the bullets, and hey, maybe he'll be forced to work with Walt again, as Walt is obviously going to go to war with these criminals over the likely killing of Hank. But Jesse could very well be dead (my guess is the show wouldn't want to kill him off that way without a big final goodbye scene, as they seemingly gave Hank this week). But my official prediction is that Walt lives and is basically imprisoned by the crooks as they force him to cook for them until he escapes to confront them with the machine guns he's hauling around in the present day.
Just three more episodes, guys! I can't believe it. And I guess this is the end of the previews as well, as tonight's consisted of a voicemail from Skyler over slow motion images of scenes from this week's episode, so yeah...we're not getting anything from this point on, people. Just gotta wait it out.
According to the AP, the announcement will be made on Monday. Kind of an odd choice, if you ask me, just because in their recent history they've been going for big, classic, universally known artists like Springsteen, The Who, Prince, Madonna.. even Beyonce has been around a while now. I'm sure there's going to be a lot of people this year going, "who?" But, I like him, so we'll see how he does I guess. I'd say it's their first unpredictable pick in a while at least.
Really good speech from Kevin Spacey fully endorsing the Netflix model of television and showing he knows exactly what people want from TV and movies now:
There's no doubt that this is where the future of TV is headed. The 100% + ratings surge for Breaking Bad this season alone tells you how many people have caught up with it just over the past year, and probably through Netflix, where all 5 seasons are streaming. People want ongoing stories, and they want to be able to watch it whenever they want and however many they want at a time. This can allow shows to build up an audience through word of mouth. I know for a fact AMC would never have canceled Breaking Bad if you could have told them the ratings were going to explode in the final season thanks to people having a chance to catch up with it (although having an end point is another way for a show like this to hang onto its creative quality).
So we start off tonight right where we left off, with Walt speeding up to his house to see Jesse's car in the driveway with the door hanging open. Walt creeps in the back way with his gun out and wanders through every room in the house, calling out for Jesse to show himself, only to realize Jesse isn't there. All the gasoline is poured, but the place is empty.
When we come back from the opening credits, Walt gets Huell to take Jesse's car and cleaners to fumigate the house, but he also calls Jesse and leaves him a voicemail, thanking him for changing his mind and telling him they can fix things between them if they just talk, using his fatherly voice again in what he thinks is a calming manner, and this is our first hint in this episode that Walt might really care for Jesse after all. I was amazed that he thinks all he has to do is "talk" to him and Jesse will come around again after finding out about the ricin, but I guess it speaks to the enormous amount of power Walt thinks he wields over him.
When Skyler comes home, Walt has fashioned this amazingly convoluted story about a malfunctioning gas pump that spilled gasoline all over him, the car, and then the house as he threw his clothes off. No one believes him of course- Jr. thinks he fainted again and Skyler sees that something else is going on but stays quiet for the sake of the kids, as Walt suggests they go stay in a hotel for a couple of days. While they're holed up in what must be the fanciest hotel in Albuquerque, Walt meets Saul and his guy in the car, where Saul tells him they've looked everywhere and can't find Jesse. Walt just thinks, again, that all he has to do is explain to him why he had to poison Brock and everything will be ok, but Saul isn't buying it and suggest Walt look at Jesse as an "Old Yeller" type of situation, where the once loyal dog had to be put down because he went rabid (hence, the title of the episode). Just like with Hank, Walt flat out refuses, telling Saul to keep his metaphors to himself.
Back in their floor size hotel room, Skyler demands to know what really happened and why he's talking to Saul, so Walt pretty openly confesses about Jesse, not telling her what he did, but admitting that he did "something" that he had to do that made Jesse angry. He again emphasizes that he knows how to handle the kid, but Skyler think he ought to kill him, which shocks Walt. Skyler thinks they should just face facts and seeing how they've come this far, what's one more? This faux "shock" on Walt's part over the idea of killing Jesse seems strange in this episode- it's similar to his reaction over the thought of killing Hank, as though Walt has somehow drawn these lines in his own mind over how far he'll go, which is of course, ridiculous, given that he's poisoned a child, let a woman die in front of him, run over some drug dealers, and had 10 people killed in the span of a few minutes, among countless other murderous deeds in this series. But he seems to be hanging on to the idea that there is some imaginary line he won't cross.
Now we get a flashback to Jesse pouring the gasoline in a rage. We see that he's high and got just seconds away from doing it before Hank barges in and stops him at gunpoint, having been following him from Saul's office himself. Jesse cries out that Walt poisoned Brock and can't keep getting away with everything, to which Hank agrees and gets him to come with him in his car. We see Hank and Jesse drive off mere moments before Walt pulled up to the house.
Then we get Marie with Dave the shrink, complaining about not knowing a person's true nature and wondering about getting untraceable poisons, in a scene that I'm not sure I know the point of (I have never found Marie even vaguely interesting on her own), unless it has something to do with Dave himself, who kept pressing for details on the Walt situation only to be spurned by Marie. That whole thing was kind of odd- is Dave going to turn out to be a random key player in an upcoming episode? When Marie gets home she sees that Hank as brought Jesse back as a houseguest, which she agrees to as long as it's bad for Walt, and then Hank listens to Jesse's voicemail on his phone, and hears the message Walt left for him earlier.
There's a brief moment of Walt sitting poolside at the hotel, where Walter Jr. joins him to hug him and cry about his returning cancer- and they've really been pushing the stress on poor Jr. over the last couple weeks about this, which makes me wonder if Walt's cancer somehow might not really be back and if he's faking this in order to make Skyler stay with him or something. There just seems to be more to that, given that we know Walt isn't dead in the future, and aside from the beard he doesn't actually look to be in that bad of physical shape, either. Jesse then wakes up at Hank's house, where Marie offers him coffee and they appear to have brought Steve Gomez in on the story, as he's there when Hank has Jesse tell him everything from the beginning as he records him.
Hank and Gomez commiserate on the balcony after hearing all the details, and though they believe him they both agree that there's no real evidence, just hearsay. But Walt calls again and leaves Jesse another message, wanting him to meet him the plaza in Albuquerque so they can talk. Hank and Gomez want Jesse to go wearing a wire, but Jesse freaks, saying Walt is smarter and luckier than them and whatever they want to happen the exact opposite will, and beside, Walt will kill him. Hank disagrees, saying that Walt's actions have shown over and over again that Jesse is the one thing he cares about, but Jesse doesn't buy it. When he leaves the room, Gomez confesses he's not so sure either, but Hank doesn't care, saying if Walt kills him at least he'll get it on tape. Well, there goes the audience's rooting interest in you, Hank, if there ever was any. Poor Jesse just can't get anybody on his side.
The meet is set, and with Walt waiting on a bench in the crowded plaza, Hank pretty much shoves Jesse out of the car, wire attached. Jesse is nervous and slowly walks over to Walt, but stops when he sees a suspicious looking bald guy standing near him in the corner. Jesse then turns around and runs to a pay phone, calling Walt and telling him he decided not to burn his house down because he's going to get him another way, and he's going after where he "really lives." Hanks picks Jesse up and yells at him over ditching the plan, but Jesse insists he's thought of a better way to nail Walt. But it turns out the bald guy was just some random dude with no connection to Walt at all, and the last scene is Walt getting in his car and calling none other than Todd, telling him he's got another job for his uncle.
Well, I really have no idea where this is going, but I'm starting to think this future with Walt and the machine guns might have something to do with Todd and his crew after everything goes horribly wrong. This episode tonight seemed to let us in on the fact that Walt really does (or did) care about Jesse, or at least he thinks he does, even if he showed it in extremely uncouth ways in the past, but of course Jesse doesn't learn that. Now I'm wondering if there will end up being some sort of crazy, unexpected reconciliation between them at some point after all, despite all the terrible things he's done to him. Since Jesse has been nothing but jerked around the whole series, going from being the object of one person's manipulation to another, it would seem especially cruel to not let him have some form of solace in the end, but I have no idea how that's going to come about.
Pointless Prediction #4: I'm going to ahead and predict that Walt's lying about his cancer being back. I'm suspicious now and I'm going to say he's faking it in order to get Skyler on his side again.
This is pretty funny:
I didn't get a chance to live-blog last night, because the show wasn't actually shown live in my area (grr- hate when that happens), but still, let's skim over the highlights and lowlights anyway, shall we?
Well- I don't even know what more there is to say about the monstrosity that was Miley Cyrus last night, unless it's simply to echo the hilariously apt reaction of the Smiths (see below), which I'm sure many people were. It seems to be the only thing anybody was talking about the next day though, which is probably enough to make Miley happy (under the old "any publicity is good publicity" mantra). But I've got to say, not since Britney Spears' infamous 2007 VMA nosedive has anybody made more of an embarrassing and unsexy fool of themselves in public- and Miley Cyrus has less of an excuse, as Britney was in the middle of her famed nervous breakdown at the time. The only word left I can think of to utter is simply, ICK. Poor Robin Thicke was the innocent bystander in that trainwreck (his weird Beetlejuice outfit notwithstanding).
As for the rest of the performances, Lady Gaga was good (although almost immediately overshadowed of course) and Justin Timberlake's nearly 20 minute performance was probably the highlight, if you're a fan of his. I've never been that crazy about him, but he is a good performer, although his very brief reunion with NSYNC reminded me of Beyonce's Super Bowl show where she was nice enough to condescend to sing with Kelly Rowland and Michelle Williams from Destiny's Child for about 2 minutes before sending them away again in a flash- hee. Clearly the leaders have moved on. And shouldn't Jessica Biel have been in the audience or at least gotten a mention from him in one of his speeches? I forget they're married half the time. No one else stood out much, in my opinion.
I'm sorry, but this is what Daft Punk stood up Stephen Colbert for? After the big fuss they made about ditching his show at the last minute because of their contract with the VMA's they didn't even perform on the show!? They show up to give Taylor Swift an award and that's it. I would expect more retaliation from him when he gets back next week for this glaring insult If I were them.
Ok, Li'l Kim looks completely different- she has to have had surgery since the last time she's been seen in public, that''s just not her old face. And as for Rihanna, she looked all night like she'd been forced to attend the show at gunpoint, pretty much glaring or looking bored at every performance except JT's.
For all that Katy Perry's finale was hyped all night, that lame boxing stunt show was decidedly underwhelming- but I will say that it's the best performance I've seen her give on one of these things, which should tell you something about the extremely low bar she's set. In fact, I think the bar in her case has finally moved up about two inches from the floor (but no more than that, because she's still lip-synching which I can't stand).
Well, that about wraps up any thoughts I had on the VMA's this year- a pretty lame show overall, only a slight improvement on last year's, but I never tune in expecting much from this thing anyway, which is smart because if you do that, then you're never disappointed! See you at the next major awards show, everybody!
Now that's more like it! This was an outstanding episode, reminiscent of the best of The West Wing, filled with tension, suspense, great acting and plotted so tightly that we are completely wrapped up in believing how News Night botched this Operation Genoa story. If there's anyone who wonders why I will always keep watching Aaron Sorkin shows, it's because I know there is the potential for television like this.
We start off with lawyer lady MGH interviewing Don now about the failed story, and this is where we find out that MGH is working on behalf of Jerry Dantana, who is suing ACN for "wrongful termination," after he had been fired for doctoring that video last week of the general refusing to confirm the military using sarin on civilians. Don is outraged by the audacity of Jerry to sue them and wants to know how MGH can have any doubt about the ethics of what he did, but she explains that Jerry's claim is of an "institutional failure" on the part of ACN, for which he should not have been the only person fired. Don disagrees and thinks the doctored tapes are reason enough for the Red Team not to have been able to catch the holes in the story, but as we go on to see, nearly every witness News Night secured falls apart one by one.
We then flash back to the final Red Team meeting, where Jim remains unconvinced, even though by this time, Charlie and Mac are ready to go with it. Jerry continues to forcefully defend his evidence, and he's played extremely well, as I said last week but it deserves another mention, by a perfectly upright, righteous Hamish Linklater. He points out that Jim mainly doesn't trust the story because he's the producer on it, and Jim agrees, as we find out from his own questioning in the present day that the first hint of the story Jerry provided came from a source in the army that Jim would not have trusted, had he not been off covering the Romney campaign at the time. Don and Sloan have various other concerns about not airing the story, namely safety issues involving riots and the upcoming election, but final say rests with Will, who after hearing the whole thing for the first time, confirms that he'd heard a similar story from another source, who later turns out to be the same one who'd told it to Charlie. This of course, is not caught at the time, and after Will says he trusts Mac and Charlie, the greenlight is given and News Night finally airs their report on Operation Genoa.
After it's aired, we see that there was long time waiting for a response from the Department of Defense, and MGH tells us this was because they had brought in lawyers and the attorney general before finally sending out to ACN their strongest possible denial, even threatening charges under the Espionage Act. Before this, Stomtonavich calls in to protest the editing of his interview, but it's not taken very seriously from Mac, Charlie or Will, who assume it's the standard "taken out of context" complaint from disgruntled interviewees, not having figured out yet that the raw footage had been fudged. There's some pretty heavy foreshadowing over the way Mac eventually figures this out (we knew it was going to have something to do with the basketball game playing on the TV behind the general), as Will explains to her about the time clocks in certain sports, which gives her the idea to get him one for when he's on the air.
The ratings come in and are higher than expected, but the elation doesn't last long, as the notice from the DOD arrives and brings everyone back down to Earth, but they decide to stand by the story for the time being. Then, one by one, the witnesses start falling apart, the first one being Sweeney, the soldier who was embedded in the unit that was conducting the mission. After some cute flirting between Don and Sloan in the control room over who'd better survive in prison should they be indicted (and they seriously need to get together soon, I'm hoping the plan is NOT to drag this out ala Josh and Donna on The West Wing), Sweeney says in an on-air interview with Elliot Hirsch, who anchors the show before Will's, that he and two others suffered traumatic brain injuries, a fact no one on the staff had been aware of. Don panics and pulls him off the air, and the staff reconvenes in the conference room to go over who knew what yet again.
This is where Maggie confesses to not having been in the room with Jerry for the Stomtonavich interview, and doubt begins to creep up on Mac and Will, but not yet Charlie for the moment. Mac tells Will she's having doubts now about her interview with the final witness who came to light last week, Valenzuela, a buddy of Sweeney's, whom she now feels she might have led in the questioning. As she goes over her transcript with him, she realizes he doesn't produce any original facts he didn't obtain from her or Sweeney, and may just want to stand by his friend.
While all this is going on, the attack on the Benghazi consulate is beginning to happen as Neal and the lower level staff are on it, and this is the only thing in the episode that bugged a tiny bit. It turns out that News Night "discovers" that the protests in Libya were not over the infamous muslim movie sent out by the pastor Terry Jones, and were probably a coordinated terrorist attack, but News Night decides not to run that theory because they don't want to take risks with accuracy in the face of the flailing Genoa report. That's awfully convenient and another one of those hindsight issues people accuse the show of taking with "real" news stories, but it was a pretty minor part of this episode, so it doesn't hurt it much.
Charlie decides to meet with his source again, and this time we find out that his source has flat out lied to his face and was seeking revenge against Charlie for the death of his son, a one time ACN intern who was fired for writing political opinions about the news on the internet, after he'd been warned not to. The kid was an addict who then relapsed and died soon after, something for which the source blames Charlie. So he fed him false information in retaliation, and Charlie is stunned, as is the audience. This revelation could have been foreshadowed in a previous episode instead of being allowed to seemingly come out of nowhere, but the surprise is shocking enough that it works in the way that it's intended.
Finally, Mac sees the new time clock for Will and realizes that Jerry's tape might have been off, so sure enough, when she sits down with the footage and plays it back she sees the clock on the basketball game jump around between the numbers 19, 2, then 14- and she's stunned and shaking when she confronts Jerry in the elevator over what he's done. Jerry is adamant and defensive, yet knows he's finished, and then Mac tearfully tells Will and the others they have to retract the entire story.
In present day (which is now the day before the election) Will says to MGH that this was an institutional failure and that after the election he, Mac and Charlie will be resigning from ACN. Then, as the three of them convene to tell Leona Lansing, Jane Fonda charges into the room and pretty much dominates the final scene with a wonderful speech filled with Sorkinese witticisms, mocking each of them, expressing outrage over Jerry's duplicity, and refusing to accept their resignations, instead daring them to earn the public trust back. She's backed up by MGH in a surprise (but not really) reveal that she's not a bad guy after all- and that caps off a very tightly written, acted and dramatic episode, by far the best of the series.
In fact, it may say a lot that The Newsroom's best episode was almost entirely devoted to their fictional news story, and even though I thought that was going to be the contradiction that would hurt the show this season, it came together in a far more compelling way than anything they've done that takes place in the "real world." Should the show have been set in a fictional universe all along, or at least a parallel one, taking inspiration from Law & Order's "ripped from the headlines" style of doing things? It's too late for that I suppose, but this was definitely a step in the right direction and I think it's something that should probably be taken note of going forward. No new episode next week, but part one of the finale is set to air on Sept 8, so I'll see you then folks!
Tonight's very eventful episode is appropriately titled in every way, and we get more of Jesse for the first time in a while, but we start out with a thread that will presumably be picked up in future episodes, because tonight it's only in the cold open and then nothing for the rest of the hour.
Todd calls Walt outside a diner and leaves him a rambling message, letting him know about the "change in management" at the meth lab. He's his usual polite, differential self, and then he, his uncle and a guy in his uncle's crew have breakfast in the diner while Todd relays the story of the train heist in a boastful manner. The men are sufficiently impressed and in the bathroom we see one of them wiping the blood off his shoe as they complain vaguely about the "nanny state," before taking off in car toward New Mexico. The fresh blood lets us know this is all taking place right after the shootout in the last episode, and Todd expresses his confidence in cooking again.
Meanwhile, back at the station, Hank faces Jesse and tells him that he knows Walt is Heisenberg and that if he talks he can make any charges on him disappear. Jesse refuses to spill, but Hank plays up his apparent unhappiness, surmising that Walt hasn't treated him well and has used him for his own benefit, just like he's used his family. This truth seems to get to Jesse a little, but he still refuses to say anything to Hank in particular, and then Saul bursts in to shut down the interview and scold Jesse for throwing his money around recklessly. I have to wonder though... Hank seemed to correctly guess a LOT in this scene about Walt and Jesse's relationship, but I'm not getting how it is that he knows so definitively that Jesse and Heisenberg are partners in the first place. Maybe I'm forgetting some things, but I don't think Jesse had been linked to any of the major events in the past few seasons- I think the writers may have had Hank leap pretty far to some of these conclusions about the depth of their connection. Did he even suspect Jesse for the last couple of seasons of being involved in anything?
Back at the White's house, Walt prevents Walter Jr. from going over to his aunt Marie's house at her request by confessing to him that the cancer's back. It works perfectly, as Jr. insists on staying home with his dad, and then Walt decides to, with Skyler's help, tape a "confession" of sorts, as we'll see in a bit. Walt and Skyler then meet Hank and Marie for one horribly awkward and tension-filled dinner at a Mexican restaurant, where Walt tells them to leave the kids alone, while Marie snipes at them in anger and disbelief over Skyler's attitude. Walt pleads with them not to destroy the family and Skyler claims that the entire ordeal is behind them anyway, but then Marie interjects that Walt should just kill himself to get all this over with. Hank protests at the idea, saying he doesn't deserve to get off that easy. Walt feigns concern over Jr.'s well-being and hands them the confession he's recorded before he and Skyler leave the table.
When Hank and Marie play the tape at their house, it turns out to be a video of Walt "confessing" to being the forced victim of Hank, whom he pins the whole drug empire on, along with every tragic event that he himself is to blame for. Hank realizes it's a threat, and also finds out from the tape that Walt is the one who payed for his medical bills, which Marie admits is true, placing Hank in an even worse position. I'm not sure how plausible Walt's plan is here- as much as Hank doesn't have any evidence of Walt's crimes, there's also zero evidence of this alternate story either, so it just seems to be a threat of your word against mine. But maybe he assumes that will be enough.
Walt meets Jesse and Saul out in the desert, and Jesse tells him that Hank doesn't seem to have any evidence and hasn't even told the DEA yet, and this all seems to prompt Walt to once again reassure Jesse in a fatherly way that he doesn't like to see him hurting like this and maybe he ought to, for his own good, get out of town and start a brand new life with a new identity, using one of Saul's contacts to help him. Jesse doesn't fall for it this time and screams at Walt to drop the "concerned dad" act and just tell him to get out or he'll kill him like he did Mike, breaking down in the process as he tells Walt to just admit he doesn't care about him. Walt doesn't say anything, but pulls Jesse into a hug, as Jesse falls into his arms, sobbing. It's a powerful and effective scene, but it all goes to hell in the final part of the episode, leading to a crisis and a cliffhanger ending.
Jesse is all prepared to vanish, and Saul is setting him up with his contact and piles of cash, even suggesting Florida as a destination, but Jesse is nervous and shaking, and lights up in his office again as Saul reprimands him and sends him out with Huell and a Hello Kitty phone to the pick-up stop. As Jesse stands at the spot, waiting nervously, he searches his pockets for his dope, but all he finds are his cigarettes and realizes Huell has lifted it- and then it finally, suddenly dawns on him that this same cigarette pack was lifted off him before and that's how the infamous ricin was planted there. Jesse bolts from the spot and storms back into Saul's office, punching him and holding everyone at gunpoint, demanding to know if Walt had it lifted and if he did in fact, poison Brock after all. Saul admits it, but protests his own ignorance of the plan, and Jesse takes off again, while Sauls calls to warn Walt. We then see Walt dash to the car wash to fish out the gun he'd hidden underneath the soda machine, but the last scene of the episode is Jesse kicking in the White's front door and pouring gasoline all over the house in a blind rage.
It's quite a downer to end the episode on, but I think that unless Walt does kill Jesse in the next ep (which is certainly possible) he's almost certain to run back to the DEA to turn Walt in, as there would seem to be no way that relationship is salvageable at all at this point. I always wondered if Jesse would find out about Brock and/or Jane, as it seemed to me that was only necessary if they planned to have an irreparable split between the two, something I was never sure was intended in the end. Now though, the previews (which are finally back at the end of the episode- yay!) confirm that Jesse says "Mr. White is the devil," at some point in the next ep, so yeah- I think we can safely say a permanent good-bye to that partnership.
Pointless Prediction #3: hmmm, it's hard to say this week- but given all that's happened, I'm going to go out on a big limb and predict that Walt DOES kill Jesse before the season's over. May seem too extreme, but I wouldn't put anything past him now and with Jesse in this uncontrollable fury, it seems like his only option for self-preservation, which we know is Walt's number one priority.
The Movie Seasons
Use this site for movie and television recommendations throughout the year- we have picks for the changing seasons, holidays, and moods, along with new releases and recaps of the best shows on TV
