Newsroom
Newsroom

Episode Report Card
Sara M: B- | 490 USERS: B
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Jim assures Maggie that all her work is done so she doesn't have to go back inside just yet. Good move, Jim: put Maggie's work off on the other, more qualified, people. He asks if she's seen a doctor about this. Maggie says she did, and got some Xanax. But she doesn't have any with her to take. "Someone like you should always have one in your pocket or in your purse," Jim says. No shit, Jim. Even Maggie must have figured that one out by now. Jim checks Maggie's pulse again, and lo and behold, she's doing much better! Way to cure a panic attack with two minutes of talking, Jim. The rest of us have been doing this thing all wrong. Maggie asks Jim about his Marine friends. "They were the best people I've ever met," he says. I bet they hated him, though. "You guys are a close second," Jim says. Sucks to be Jim's roommate or sister who put their jobs on the line for his story, who I guess are a distant third at best.

Maggie decides to talk about Don now, and how he'd love to do the kind of terrible show NewsNight has become, but there's too much pressure on him to get ratings and Elliot is no Will. "He's a great guy and you two should be friends," Maggie says of Don. Jim says in the past five months, he's watched Don and Maggie break-up and get back together four times. "I never knew what the word 'smug' meant until I met you," Maggie says. I'm sorry, but is that supposed to be charming, that she feels free to threaten and insult her boss like this? Because it's not appealing at all. Jim just makes fun of her for taking 26 years to figure out what "smug" means, then says that Don and Maggie "obviously have something" so they should stop breaking up all the time and "learn how to have a fight." With that, he heads back inside to do his job. Maggie grabs for her phone. "Are you still there?" she asks her roommate. She probably isn't, having killed herself two minutes into this scene. "Yeah. That was him," she says. I guess we're supposed to find it significant that Maggie has clearly talked about Jim to her roommate before, but Maggie seems like the kind of person who just follows her roommate around the apartment all weekend talking at her about whatever pops into her head, not noticing that it is her roommate that is stealing Xanax because it's her only escape from the nightmare that is life with Maggie.

"I think the best analogy I can use is Rocky 2," Brad says. Reese asks if there isn't perhaps another analogy, since he doubts his mother has seen that movie. And that's when we learn that Jane Fonda is, in fact, Reese's mother. Brad explains that Rocky was left-handed, but Burgess Meredith made him fight with his right hand until his left hand was needed to deliver the crushing blow. Or something. "What the fuck are you talking about?" Reese asks. For real, Reese. You are the audience. You are our voice. There's some squabbling over who gets to be Burgess Meredith (Will is Rocky) in this analogy, similar to the Don Quixote analogy wars we saw just two weeks ago. This leads to Sam Waterston trying to play Charlie trying to be Burgess Meredith while the camera gets way too close to his face. Everyone in the room just looks kind of embarrassed for Charlie. Reese asks if Charlie finds this situation funny. "Yeaaaahhhh," Charlie slurs; "WE'VE BEEN TALKING ABOUT ROCKY TWWOOOOO!" And this show just made me hate Sam Waterston. I didn't even think such a thing was possible. Thanks for that, Sorkin.

Newsroom

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