Note: Do not read on if you have not yet seen Season 2, Episode 4 of HBO's "The Newsroom," titled "Unintended Consequences."
Notes on "Unintended Consequences":
- "Let me start with a really tough question," the lawyer tells Maggie. Was I the only one who was thinking it would be, "WHAT'S WITH THE HAIR?"
- Seriously, though, we find out what's with the hair. Though I, and others, had predicted that Maggie would be personally attacked in Africa, like Lara Logan, the show went a different way. Instead, the little boy she formed a bond with was killed when they were running from some bad guys.
- It's great to see Africans put to use as a way to explain why white people who come into their lives for two seconds are all messed up. So now we know.
- Is this the end of the multi-episode arc in which we get to know what Aaron Sorkin thinks about Occupy Wall Street two years after it happened? He must have been satisfied after writing the scene in which Will tears apart the OWS protester; after all, what's better than crafting your own takedown of a movement in which you get to write both sides of the argument? Was Sorkin just frustrated that he didn't have a show on when OWS was happening?
- It is fitfully amusing to see everyone who then tries to get the protester to be nice to them is foiled by their own awfulness; mostly, though, it just made me think that they were sort of awful.
- Though I did like the earthy location filming at Shake Shack.
- Of course, by the end, Shelly is admitting how terrible she did and inquiring about Will's personal life, because ... something? I've stopped trying to figure Will's special powers out.
Lines that were spoken tonight:
"I'm Dutch." "Well then, fuck you!" (I liked that line.)
"Don Lemon said it." "Don Lemon's black!" (Don't ask.)
"I'm the rebound, and I went to Vassar." (Yep.)
- That last bit of poetry came from Meryl Streep Jr., part of the most unneeded storyline of the night. She undermines herself in grand fashion, first rightfully telling Jim that his grand gesture of a Romney interview was actually not the thing to do, and then reconsidering because isn't he soulful, with those soulful eyes and that idealism? So she kisses him and says, "I'm the rebound, and I went to Vassar." Good to know! Let's move on, please.
- In Genoa news, we now know that Jerry is going to sue everyone. Coming up, I imagine: scenes of the whole story collapsing, followed by Jerry suing everyone. Until next week ...
"The Newsroom" airs Sundays at 10 p.m. ET on HBO.
