“Election Night Part 2” ends the second season of The Newsroom..
I missed the recap of last week’s “Election Night Part 1,” but don’t worry you did not miss much. However, this season’s finale was definitely a whirlwind.
The episode opens up with Don, Mac, Charlie, Jim, and Maggie discussing which story to run: the Brody/Aiken story or the Petraeus story. The group decides to run the story that would most affect the outcome of the elections rather than a story that was more about gossip.
Taylor is a guest on the election coverage. During a break, Taylor asks Will if she could have his blessing to hire Jim after the resignations start coming in. Apparently, the senior staffers plan on resigning if Will, Mac, and Charlie leave the network. Will is obviously upset and calls for all senior staffers to get to the studio immediately. Once the senior staffers are all there, Will explains that he could not let them resign. He says that the whole reason him, Mac, and Charlie are resigning is to ensure that the rest of the team still has jobs at ACN. However, the staffers want to stand by the story and go down with the ship. How very ‘captain of the Titanic’ of them.
Meanwhile, the ACN election party is going on upstairs. Charlie tries to go convince Leona to let the trio resign, but Leona tells him that she no longer has the power to make that decision. She has decided to pass the torch to Reese in hopes that he will prove he can make the right choice.
While Charlie is walking back downstairs to tell Will and Mac the news, he runs (literally) into one of the servers. The server just so happens to be Lisa. She asks him not to tell Jim that she is there.
In last week’s episode, Jim accidentally calls Michigan instead of Mississippi. Jim (with the help of Maggie) decides to stand by the lie in hopes that the Michigan call will be right. Neal confronts Jim about a photo that he found on Twitter. The viewing party is not supposed to have any phones, but someone tweeted a picture of Charlie and Lisa colliding. Realizing that Lisa is upstairs, Jim (again, with the help of Maggie) decides to go talk to Lisa.
During another commercial break, Mac tells Will that he can call the House for the Republicans. This is the first big call of the night and Will decides to give the reins to Elliott. He tells him to take his seat and Mac falls in suit by telling Don to take over.
Mac and Will head to the hair and makeup room to watch Elliott (and Don) run the show. Mac starts apologizing to Will for the whole cheating on him thing and Will tries to brush it all off. To shut Mac up, he tells her that he never intended to propose and that he returned the ring. It works and Mac shuts up, but you can tell she is hurt by this news.
In “Election Night Part 1”, Rebecca tells Don that Jerry is suing him individually for giving him a bad recommendation (because that makes total sense). Now, Don decides that he is going to countersue Jerry.
Jim goes to apologize to Lisa. Lisa explains to Jim that breaking up was inevitable because Jim was too smart for her. He explains that this is just not the case and gives her a little pep talk. Before leaving, he asks Lisa to talk to Maggie. Apparently, Lisa doesn’t know what happened in Africa, but she does know that Maggie cut her own hair.
Mac wants Neal to fix a problem on her Wikipedia page, but he can only do so if there are so many people who can verify that it is true. Jim convinces Hallie to publish a story so that the change can happen and he asks if he ever makes her feel dumb. She assures him that their relationship is fine.
Sloan realizes that Don was the one who bought her “signed” book at the auction. She signs a new book and kisses Don in the control room. Finally!
The Michigan race is getting closer and Jim and Maggie stare at the results hoping that Jim’s call will pull through. They talk about Africa and Jim reassures her that she did not do anything wrong. It is a good moment for the two.
Will takes a break in his office when Charlie busts in claiming that they are not going to resign. He says that they have made too much progress and uses the example of running the Brody/Aiken story as evidence. Charlie says something along the lines of “one mistake doesn’t change everything,” and those words cause an epiphany for Will. He reaches into his desk drawer and pulls out the engagement ring intended for Mac. He rushes out of his office in search of Mac when he finds her in the studio.
Will goes on a rant about some story, but eventually confesses his love for Mac. He then pulls out the ring and asks her to marry him. Before she can answer, he says that he will love her for the rest of his life. Of course, she says yes. To say I teared up is an understatement.
While this is all going on, Reese and Leona arrive in the newsroom to announce Reese’s decision. Reese tells Charlie that he is going to stick by the story and not let the team resign. Charlie tells Reese that it doesn’t matter because they refuse to resign. Will and Mac run in the room and announce their engagement.
The episode ends in a montage of clips with the newsroom celebrating. Will sits down to finish the election coverage and Mac plays with her ring in the control room. The last scene ends with Maggie opening up a yellow alert on her computer.
Image: Twitter.