Last Sunday's episode of "The Newsroom" saw the "News Night" staff frenetically reporting the coverage of the 2012 presidential election. The next episode will be called "Election Night, Part 2," the second half of the chaotic two-part season finale. The first half of the frenzied two-parter was hilarious at some parts, and troubling at others.
The episode, titled "Election Night, Part 1," had the staff dealing with the fallout from the Genoa debacle while being in the throes of election night. The episode begins with Rebecca (Marcia Gay Harden) telling Will (Jeff Daniels) and Charlie (Sam Waterston) that Leona (Jane Fonda) will not accept their, nor Mackenzie's (Emily Mortimer) resignations, and that she will sue them if they try to leave.
As Charlie becomes increasingly distressed, Will is unperturbed, saying, "I've appointed myself in charge of morale" for the six-hour election night coverage. Will then prepares to fearlessly anchor the night's coverage.
Yet, before coverage begins, Mac comes into the office, looking downright frazzled and exhausted. Mac begs Will to vent at her for everything, including yelling at her for cheating on him.
Mackenzie later becomes angry that it says on her Wikipedia page that she went to Oxford, when she actually attended Cambridge. Mac tasks Neal (Dev Patel) with fixing the faulty page.
Up at the party, upon more prodding from Charlie, Reese (Chris Messina) says that he does want to fire him, Mac and Will, but that his mother, Leona, will not allow it.
Meanwhile, during the election night coverage, Jim (John Gallagher Jr.) mixed up Michigan and Mississippi's results, leading him to mistakenly have the network call the race for the candidate who will win it, but has not won yet. Given that Charlie wants the election night coverage to be flawless (and because he said that he will fire anyone who screws up,) Jim tries to quickly fix his error, unbeknownst to the rest of the staff.
As the episode nears its end, Maggie (Alison Pill) and Don (Tom Sadoski) get a lead for a potentially huge story. They go to Charlie to tell him about it. Before they could say anything, Charlie says, "As long as it's not a potentially libelous story about misconduct in the armed forces, I'm listening." Their faces fall as they proceed to tell him that the story is about just that-- Gen. David Petraeus' alleged affair with his biographer and a Florida socialite. To put it lightly, Charlie is not happy about this.
At the end, Mac, once again, begs Will to fire her. This time, he actually does it, and says she can leave after the election night coverage.
In the second half of the season finale, the election night coverage will come to a head. The HBO synopsis for the next episode is as follows: "Will and Charlie await a decision from Reese; Sloan learns the identity of the winning bidder for her book; Neal seeks Hallie's help in giving Mac a parting gift; Jim tries to make peace with Lisa; Will has a revelation."
Will Leona finally accept Will and Charlie's resignations? Will Mac actually leave ACN? (Fans certainly hope not.) What could Will's revelation be?
Be sure to tune into "The Newsroom" on Sunday at 10 p.m. on HBO to find out.
Meanwhile, watch the promo for "Election Night, Part 2," courtesy of Hypable.