Aaron Sorkin's journalistic dramedy "The Newsroom" only has two high-drama episodes left in its second season. The last two episodes will focus on the frenzy from election night, 2012 in an intense two-parter.
The seventh episode of HBO's "The Newsroom," titled "Red Team III" aired Sunday night, revealing the full story behind the Genoa report and the Rebecca Halliday (Marcia Gay Harden) interviews.
It was revealed that the veteran who gave the team facts about Operation Genoa had a traumatic brain injury while on duty, which he lied about to the "New Night" team. The injury often causes memory loss, meaning his account of the Genoa facts may not have been accurate. Don (Thomas Sadoski) told Elliot (David Harbour) to pull the interview.
Mackenzie (Emily Mortimer) also realizes that Valenzuela is not a solid source-- he never stated one original fact in his interview.
As the Genoa story is airing, General Stomtonovich calls the team to tell them that he never said that U.S. soldiers used sarin gas on civilians. Yet, the team insists that it was caught on film. Mackenzie and the team were able to reveal that Jerry (Hamish Linklater) altered the video footage.
More truth is revealed when Charlie (Sam Waterston) meets with the man who brought him the helicopter manifest. The man shows him pictures of his son, David, who was hired at ACN as an intern on his 90th day of sobriety from a heroin addiction, but was fired, causing him to go on a downward spiral that ultimately killed him. The father is furious that Charlie didn't stop his son's dismissal and therefore fabricated the fake manifest that lead to the Operation Genoa story. When Charlie said that his son deserved to be fired, the source slapped him, and revealed the fake manifest by holding it over a lightbulb. The manifest revealed an angry message, aimed at Charlie.
The episode ends with Charlie and Will offering their resignation, but Leona (Jane Fonda) does not accept it, and tells Charlie that he has to win the trust of their viewers back.
The promo for next week's episode, "Election Night, Part 1" reveals that Charlie wants the election night coverage to be perfect to win back the trust of viewers. Meanwhile, Sloan (Olivia Munn) is angry that her book was sold with a phony signature and Mackenzie gives Neal (Dev Patel) the task of fixing a faulty Wikipedia page.
Jim (John Gallagher Jr.) also makes an election night call too soon and weighs the option of retracting it, knowing that Charlie wants a flawless election night.
Watch a promo for the next episode below, via Hypable:
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