The Newsroom Season 3 Episode 5 Review: Oh Shenandoah
Christine Orlando
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In a world where issues can be reduced to a #hashtag and real news coverage is judged by ratings, can journalists survive?
That's one of the questions asked on The Newsroom Season 3 Episode 5 which turned out to be one of my favorites of the series.
I agreed with Don, #uracn looked like urine at a quick glance. For $7,000 I would have expected better.
Things were bleak at ACN. Will's weekend in jail on a contempt of court charge turned into 52 days and given him time with some interesting cell mates, especially the guy in for two years on a domestic battery charge. He seemed to think he could intimidate Will because he's quiet and reading a book. Will was quick to prove otherwise in this The Newsroom quote…
I'm not your wife. Raise your hands above your hips and I'll knock you the fuck into next week.
Will
Back at ACN, no one was happy. When Mac heard Lilly Hart had shot herself on the steps of the Department of Justice (and will we get a back story to that?) she ran to see Rebecca to confirm Lilly was the source, desperate to get her new husband sprung from jail.
No such luck. Will was steadfast. Dead or alive it was still wrong to give up a source. You've got to admire a man with principles. Not many people would be willing to spend almost two months in jail in defense of an ideal.
Don was given an assignment from hell. Either put a young woman who claimed she was raped up against the man she's accusing on live TV or lose his job. His pre-interview with the woman was devastatingly raw and honest. She was looking for justice she was probably never going to find and most certainly won't be found on TV.
It is a huge, dangerous, scary as shit mistake to convene your own trial in front of a television audience.
Don
And as much as I believed she was raped, Don was right. At some point her website is going to accuse someone who is innocent and once it's on the internet, it will never go away. It's a dangerous precipice. Is it worth ruining an innocent life to make the guilty pay? Our justice system says no. The internet has a different set of rules and Don was extremely honest about what she would face...
If you face off with the guy you accused on TV it is going to be a lawless food fight with irreversible, irretrievable consequences. Teams will be formed. You will be slut shamed and you won't get the justice you're looking for.
Don
She was determined to go ahead, convinced she was going to win this fight. What worried me the most was what would happened when it didn't go the way she hoped. Thankfully for her, it sounds like it will never get that far, although I doubt she'll ever be thankful.
Maggie and Jim went on their airport adventure to try and get close to Snowden and ended up getting close to one another once again. When Jim acted as though she should know how he felt about her, I loved how Maggie ran down the many reasons why she would doubt it…like the fact he never once called her after she broke up with Don and then started a relationship with Hallie.
But Sloan was the star of the show when she went after the creator of the stalker app. It's horrendous that just because someone makes a living entertaining the public, they and their family have to be hunted down in their daily lives.
My concern isn't for the celebrities even though as sure as we're sitting here someone is going to get hurt. My concern is for the rest of us who you're turning into a wild pack of prideless punks.
Sloan
There were hints to what the end of this episode would be throughout the hour and it still came as a shock. As Charlie was ordered upstairs after having his staff basically mutiny, I thought he looked like he was about to have a stroke.
My prediction was close. Too close.
Will stopped arguing with his combative father in his head and finally got out of jail only to have Mac tell him his mentor and best friend died of a heart attack. What should have been a wonderfully romantic moment between these newlyweds turned horribly tragic and nothing will ever be the same.
How will the staff of ACN react to Charlie's death? Will ACN continue in a form we recognize now that Charlie's gone and Pruitt is left at the helm? With only one more episode left, how will The Newsroom end?
C. Orlando was a TV Fanatic Staff Writer. Follow her on Twitter.
