The Newsroom Review: Dirty Laundry

The Newsroom's second installment of the season had "The Genoa Tip" gaining traction, Occupy Wall Street catching fire, and Maggie Jordan barreling head long into a downward spiral.

What's posted on YouTube stays on YouTube, at least for the five days it takes for them to process a removal request. But as a journalist shouldn't Maggie know that once something is posted on the internet it never truly disappears?

Speaking of which, can we stop with Maggie's YouTube video? It was annoying enough the first five times we had to hear it. 

Poor Mags couldn't handle sleeping in her own bed once Don had left so she ended up hiding out on Sloan's office floor. Yeah, that was kind of pathetic. 

Sloan was a supportive friend, but at the same time you could see the wheels turning in her head as she processed the fact that Don was now officially single. 

And did Aaron Sorkin really have to throw in Maggie's explanation about four rings meaning someone missed your call and two rings means they saw your name and hit ignore? I suddenly feel guilty about all those phone calls I've blown off. 

But Maggie couldn't leave well enough alone in fear of best friend Lisa being next to see that video. So she and Sloan hunted down the woman who posted it at a laundromat in Queens and I was at a loss to figure out who was the craziest of the three. 

Soon the video went viral and Lisa's seen it anyway. I've never been a huge fan of Lisa's. She's basically been background fodder for the Don/Maggie/Jim triangle but I loved her in this episode. The way she pulled Maggie in for a hug before eviscerating her the way only an betrayed best friend can was priceless.

Maggie: Can we back up because one of us is going to say something we can't walk back.
Lisa: I think that's going to be me. What do you think? | permalink

Don's walked out, Jim's blown her off (and will probably hook up with bus mate Hallie), and her best friend has disowned her after calling her out about Jim in this The Newsroom quote of the week:

You didn't want him to pick you. You wanted him to pick you over me. | permalink

Now Maggie's off to Africa to do a story where people are getting hacked to death with machetes. She's an emotional wreck and I'm bracing myself for the worst because we know it goes badly and she ends up with orange hair.

Despite all of the above, this wasn't the Maggie Jordan show. Will McAvoy was still front and center…or not since he got knocked off of the 9/11 anniversary coverage. He was still licking his wounds over the backlash from his TeaParty/American Taliban comments and couldn't keep himself from perusing the Will McAvoy hate sites. That's never good.

Don and Will's conversations concerning Death Row inmate Troy Davis' case were some of my favorites. Don's evidence that Davis was actually innocent and received poor legal counsel was compelling but I appreciated Will's point…

I can only report what I know. I'm not allowed to get involved with advocacy and neither are you. | permalink

Davis was already given due process. He was tried and convicted and given access to appeals. Was he truly innocent? Did the witnesses lie on the stand or were they pressured to change their stories after the fact. We'll never truly know.

And even though Don pushed his point too far when he threatened to post a lobbyist home address online, I appreciated his passion to save a man he believed innocent. 

But all of this played into Will's self doubt. Was he backing off this story because he believed in the process of law or was he gun shy of coming out in favor of a convicted cop killer? Did he shy away from the drone strike on an American with ties to al-Qaeda because he was concerned about more backlash?

By the time Neal got arrested at an Occupy Wall Street protest, Will was already pretty worked up. At least his tirade on the state of the world wrapped in lawyer legalese got Neal's arrest voided. 

The only scene worth mentioning between Will and MacKenzie was when she poured a drink in his lap and his only response was to bark back, "use your words." 

By the way his commentary on Willie Nelson's version of "You Were Always On My Mind" was spot on.

Now that Jerry's given Mac a retired Marine Gunnery Sgt. claiming Sarin gas was used to kill civilians in a black op, the Genoa story is gaining momentum. How it ends with ACN in the legal hot seat will keep me tuning back in for the rest of The Newsroom Season 2.

C. Orlando was a TV Fanatic Staff Writer. Follow her on Twitter.