Contributor: Edmund B.
Written by Aaron Sorkin
Directed by Lesli Linka Glatter and Alan Poul
After Part One of “The Blackout” aired, I suggested to our editor that I hold off on my review until both halves had aired. So many plot points had been set up and left hanging when it ended on the titular event, I didn’t see how I could comment on them until after they’d been resolved. After Part Two, I was confronted with two disconnected episodes that might as well have gone out with their sub-titles, “Tragedy Porn” and “Mock Debate.” The blackout just serves as the dividing line between them, a brief respite where dreams can bloom before the harsh light of reality snaps back on.
In “Tragedy Porn,” “News Night” has met its match in the tag team of Casey Anthony and Nancy Grace. The pillorying of “Tot Mom,” and their decision not to cover it, has cost them half of their audience. With rating hawk Reese circling, they have to descend into the muck of trial coverage. Aside from protecting Will’s job from Leona, they need the numbers to land a Republican primary debate, where they plan to unleash a new format that will revolutionize Presidential campaigning. (Just in case you forgot, this show is “aspirational”, not reality-based.) So begin the many compromises that permeate these episodes.
One occurs during Will’s auditioning of magazine reporter Brian Brenner, whom it is soon apparent, is MacKenzie’s infamous ex. One of Jeff Daniel’s strengths is his ability, much like Jon Hamm on “Mad Men,” to make his character’s despicable acts remain palatable. Exploiting Brenner’s fading career to extract concessions “no real journalist would agree to,” while pretending he is giving Mac a side-by-side comparison manages to be both Machiavellian and delusional. At least he’s self-aware enough to crash Dr. Habib’s appointment for a little guidance. More interesting is the “Camelot” reference and the need to document what they’re doing before it comes crashing down. It joins Don Quixote/Man of La Mancha, adding the scepter of infidelity and betrayal, as harbingers for the season finale.
Having spent so much time in the rarefied air of News Night 2.0, the staff gets a visit from “master of the Dark Arts” Don to train them in how to get down and dirty. (When Mac uttered that title, my heart leapt at the possibility they’d talked Alan Rickman into a cameo as a now-unemployed News of the World hack to school them. It would also have been a nice foreshadow for Charlie’s meeting.) Don’s detailed dissection of Nancy Grace’s manipulations is as fascinating as it is horrifying. In a show intended to expose the deficiencies of TV journalism, this is the clearest statement yet. It’s easy to understand why “In your face, Nancy Grace” flooded Twitter shortly after MacKensie uttered it.
In the face of the Casey Anthony whirlwind, Sloan’s increasingly desperate pleas to cover the debt ceiling are also instructive. I do recall the issue got some press at the time, so her protestations more properly reflect the coverage at ACN. However, it also didn’t reach the appropriate fever pitch until the deadline loomed months later. I also don’t recall anyone putting it as succinctly (that it’s to cover the money already borrowed, not borrow more) as Sloan does, so kudos to Sorkin and Olivia Munn for that.
Jim’s announcement that Congressman Weiner’s twitter account has been hacked is one case of using the recent past to full advantage. We know they’re going to have to descend further into the abyss, and it’s becoming a very real question whether the debate is worth the price. Not to mention the attention-getting Twit-terer is brings into the studio, so I won’t. Except to say she inspires Maggie’s exhortation for God to intervene, and Sorkin does with the blackout.
I, unfortunately, got my dates mixed up and thought this was going to be one of the sustained Northeast blackouts of a few years previous. As a result, I was really pumped to see MacKensie’s guerilla street theater broadcast (especially since it cut Twitter Girl out of the show,) and really letdown when the lights came back. Mac rallying the troops and marching them out of the muck was such a high point, the rest of the episode could only go downhill.
The mock debate itself was an interesting exercise. While many have longed for such a no-holds-barred exchange, the audience knows it didn’t happen, so their attempt is futile from the start. This is the flip side of the show’s 20/20 hindsight. While it can provide examples of how things should have been done, it can’t create the alternate reality as “West Wing” could. And while a visit from “West Wing” alum Adam Arkin is always welcome, he felt like a moderate Republican straw man, just there to bolster Will’s position. If both men had resembled his colleague, it would have been a more realistic advance team. Having one of them pull up Bachmann’s powder-puff question (sorry, it doesn’t even rise to the level of a softball) would have been a slyer ending, showing that even the hard-core recognize the problem.
Charlie’s anonymous phone tip about the bin Laden raid leads him to the New York Public Library. He displays some hilariously inept spycraft, gravitating towards the strait-laced white man with a carnation (international sign for spy contact) instead of Solomon Hancock, the portly black man hissing at him from the other side of the room.
Having a high-ranking NSA techie gift wrap evidence that the Lansings resemble the Murdochs not just in nepotism, but also in phone hacking malfeasance surprised me. I’d expected a change of heart by Nina Howard to provide their big break. Once Solomon started spouting off about surveillance programs akin to Batman’s in “The Dark Knight,” I also expected a whiff of tin-foil hat conspiracy loon to permeate the proceedings. Giving Charlie his Congressional testimony precludes that. While Jim’s background check draws a few red flags, they’re of a nature consistent with an agency attempt to discredit an inconvenient whistleblower. They’re also enough to make broadcasting his story very problematic, so that avenue of revelation may be closed anyway.
The bad habit of main characters having all-too-convenient connections reaches its zenith, or, I should say, apogee, with Maggie’s admission that Lisa went to high school with Casey Anthony. It’s particularly egregious here, since it brings the love rhombus back into the story, after its welcome absence from the previous episode.
First, we get the excruciating scene where Jim and Maggie try to convince Lisa to appear. (I suspect the vapid stick-figure customer was Sorkin’s little dig at the Tonys, which largely ignored “A Few Good Men.”) Their mutual ineptitude, combined with her reluctant acceptance, reinforces all the points from her breakup speech. She continued to be the mature one in the dressing room, with her pointed reference to not wanting to be second choice.
All of which made the ending infuriating. Having Maggie convince Lisa to give Jim a second chance made no sense, even given her increased vulnerability after the abortion outburst on-air. Instead it serves as a plot point to shove him out the door and extend the tension yet again. I longed for Jim, buoyed by “gather ye rosebuds,” to insist on speaking his mind and drive this situation in a more complicated, mature direction. “Gordan, you’re wearing my shirt” was a brilliant catalyst to love story complications on “Sports Night.” Sadly, “Jim signed for the flowers” will not be joining it.
It’s a sign of how dense these episodes that I haven’t even mentioned Will’s pants issue (which led to a bit of slapstick that’s not worth mentioning.) In the end, they were two sides of a coin. A shiny side, where everyone pulls together in a common cause, confident that their compromises are worth it. Then it flips over, leaving you momentarily in the dark about the outcome, before revealing its marred side. Here, your efforts have crashed and burned, and you’re not quite sure of the next step. An odd feeling to have going into a season finale, but perhaps appropriate for a show that hasn’t quite found the right balance for all of its elements.
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Tragedy Porn
Writing: 2/2
Acting: 2/2
Directing: 2/2
Style: 3/4
Total Score: 9/10
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Mock Debate
Writing: 1/2
Acting: 2/2
Directing: 2/2
Style: 2/4
Total Score: 7/10