The Newsroom Season 2, Episode 7 “Red Team III” Review

"Go Bruins."

In a show that’s often frustrating, “Red Team III” was perhaps the most frustrating episode of The Newsroom yet. This episode had all the makings of a classic. For many moments in “Red Team III” I thought it was going to exceed last year’s “I’ll try to Fix You” and “The Greater Fool.” However, the final scene of the episode eliminated all of the suspense building throughout  both the episode, and really all of the season, and kept “Red Team III” from being a truly stellar hour of television.

 The narrative framing device of “Red Team III” involves several members of the News Night team, along with Don and Sloane, being interviewed by News Night’s lawyer Rebecca regarding the Operation Genoa story. The first twenty minutes of the episode are particularly gripping, with Don, Jim, Neal, and Sloane telling Rebecca about the final stage of the Genoa vetting process, known as the Red Team III meeting. The four of them tell Rebecca that during the meeting, Jerry Dantana and Mackenzie run Will through every piece of evidence they have regarding the Genoa story. Will, who was intentionally kept in the dark about this story, remains silent and expressionless, throughout most of the meeting. Reminiscent of Sorkin’s work in The Social Network, Rebecca’s interviews have been an effective story-telling device all season long. Don is particularly snarky when talking with Rebecca and his sarcastic tone plays especially well with Rebecca’s dry wit during the opening scene. After the evidence is presented, Will surpisingly tells everyone he has heard about this story from another source, but can’t reveal who the source was. However, even with Will’s source, Jim, Don, and Neal still have their doubts regarding the validity of the Genoa story.  In a great exchange, Jerry suggests to  Jim that the reason he doesn’t believe the story is that he “fetishizes” our armed forces. Jim responds, claiming he gives our troops “the benefit of the doubt” citing that they willingly signed up for a war neither Jerry nor him wanted to “dirty our hands with.” However Jerry quickly retorts, claiming he too gave them the benefit of the doubt until he saw the Guantanamo pictures. Jerry then brings up everything the US has done up until this point during the War on Terror (suspended due process, water boarding, torture, rendition) and asks Jim why he thinks using sarin gas on civilians would be where we’d drawn the line. Jerry then suggests that the real reason Jim doesn’t like this story is because it’s Jerry’s and not his. Although it’s a very controversial topic and I tend to agree with Jim’s line of thinking regarding it, I thought Jerry made some compelling arguments regarding our military. Their argument drew allusion to another Sorkin screenplay, “A Few Good Men”, and made for electrifying television. Afterward, Jim and Don continue to bring up the serious implications this story might have, and then the camera pans around the meeting room and goes to Will who says “I trust Charlie and Mac.” The Red Team III scene was Sorkin at his best. No one writes dialogue where several characters debate a serious issue better than him. The score adds a great level of magnitude to the scene and having Will remain silent during most of it only adds to the level of tension.

 

However, the episode itself was unable to live up to the potential hinted at during theRed Team III scene. We watch as News Night broadcasts the Genoa story and then watch as the News Night staff tells Rebecca about how one by one the validity of all their sources begins to unravel. Elliot finds out Sweeney suffered a traumatic brain injury in action; Mac realizes she asked Valenzuela leading questions during the pre-interview, etc. There was a heartbreaking scene where we find out Charlie’s source just wanted to hurt News Night’s credibility as payback for firing his son a few years back, who since being fired died of a drug overdose. Additionally, there were some other funny moments such as where Will explains shot clocks to Mac (she’s a big UCLA Bruins football fan now) and where Jerry calls Jim “G.I. Jim.” However, I just wish the episode ended one scene earlier. We get a great scene where Mac finds out that Jerry edited the raw footage of General Stomtonovich, thanks to her new knowledge of shot clocks, and an even better one where she confronts Jerry on the elevator about it. That all leads to the somber moment where Will’s meeting with staff regarding Benghazi is interrupted when Mac informs everyone they have to retract their Genoa story. If the episode had ended then, we would have been left with an excellent cliffhanger about the ultimate fallout of for Will and the rest of News Night regarding the Genoa story. However, the episode ends instead with Leona meeting with Will, Mac, and Charlie at Will’s apartment, letting them know that she won’t accept their plans to resign. She then inspiringly tells them they’ll just have to figure out a way to win the public’s trust back. I don’t know, but something about Leona’s response just seemed anticlimactic. It tied up the Genoa story too quickly and too neatly. Yes News Night still has to win the public’s trust back, but I expected more conflict from Leona who works best as an antagonistic to the News Night team.

Nevertheless, this was still a very good episode of The Newsroom. Emily Mortimer (Mackenzie) and Sam Waterson (Charlie) give some of their best performances here. Additionally, Hamish Linklater (Jerry) is particulary fantastic here and I’ll miss him as a villain on the show.  However, "Red Team III" had all the makings of a great episode.