HBO
When the sun rose this morning, it was over a different world. Yes, it’s finally happened: After 2.5 seasons (we don’t accept six episodes as a full run), our beloved Newsroom has finally blipped out. All we have now are our memories, and the comforting voice of Nat King Cole to give us solace:
“Light up your face with gladness
Hide every trace of sadness
Although a tear may be ever so near
That’s the time you must keep on trying
Smile, what’s the use of crying?
You’ll find that life is still worthwhile
If you just smile”
For the last time, we are Jordan Crucchiola and Jason Kehe. Good night.
Jason Kehe: Well. Should we breathe?
Jordan Crucchiola: Not for the next hour.
Kehe: Jordan, dearest, this is The End.
Crucchiola: It’s not right.
It’s not.
Last opening credits.
Dev Patel.
Sort of.
Kehe: Will he be in this episode?
Crucchiola: God. I’m going to just have to start the show right over again as soon as this ends.
Kehe: I have NO IDEA what will happen.
Neal … has to return?
Crucchiola: I suppose.
I don’t need him to.
Kehe: As a man? As a symbol?
Crucchiola: He’s been “in” every episode already.
Lingering.
Like an idealistic mist.
[At a funeral service.]
Kehe: We open in a church.
It’s Charlie’s (Sam Waterston) funeral.
Crucchiola: Our beloved Charlie.
Kehe: There’s a woman in glasses—who’s she?
Crucchiola: Everyone is singing hymnals but Sloan (Olivia Munn).
Of course.
Kehe: Leona (Jane Fonda) is wearing her sunnies indoors.
Because she’s stoned.
Crucchiola: I’m going to say glasses woman is Mrs. Skinner.
She’s front and center.
Yeah Leona wouldn’t go to this sober.
Kehe: Mac (Emily Mortimer) is outside on the phone.
Directing the news?
Kehe: She’s talking to a “Catherine”?
Do we know a Catherine?!
Crucchiola: She said “Yes, sir.”
Is she going back into the field in Afghanistan??
Kehe: Hm, I’m mishearing her.
Crucchiola: Anything is possible!
Kehe: Now she’s whispering with Will (Jeff Daniels).
About the good sex they had the night he left for prison.
Oh.
OH.
Crucchiola: BLOOD TEST!
THAT TESTS FOR PREGNANCY!
Kehe: The hymnals gloriously RISE!
[The newsroom, years ago.]
Kehe: … and now a flashback?
Crucchiola: We cut back three years.
Long-haired Maggie (Alison Pill).
Will is yelling for Ellen and Karen and anyone but Maggie.
We’re back to Major Dickhead Will.
Hahahaha Will to Maggie: “Is that what you’re wearing because you like it or because it’s all you can afford?”
Kehe: I miss smiley Maggie.
Her sorta empty, nervous smile.
Crucchiola: Oh, man. Majorly timid Maggie.
I miss her too.
Kehe: What’s the point of this sudden flashback, do we think?
Crucchiola: To end, we must go back to the beginning.
Kehe: Speaking of, Neal (Dev Patel) is back.
Crucchiola: I almost forgot how horrible Will was to everyone.
Like how he is berating Neal.
Kehe: Maybe Neal will stay in the past.
Crucchiola: Even though he barely knows who he is.
Neal: “I’m just trying to protect the integrity of the website.”
Kehe: Neal’s “just trying to protect the integrity of the website.”
Crucchiola: WE KNOW, NEAL.
Kehe: Yep.
Crucchiola: Will: “It doesn’t have integrity. It’s a website.”
Kehe: Charlie!
Crucchiola: Awwwwww CHARLIE!
Drinking!
Our Charlie!
Kehe: His gone-ness suddenly feels so real.
Crucchiola: … like the show.
Kehe: Charlie is/was The Newsroom.
Will catches Charlie listening to country.
Crucchiola: He asks since when does Charlie listen to country.
Of COURSE Charlie listens to country.
It’s THE storytellers medium!
Kehe: I … sometimes listen to country.
You know this.
Crucchiola: Charlie is the OLDEST soul.
Charlie: “Will. You did a 5 minute and 20 second block on the WEATHER tonight.”
Kehe: We’re learning he has a nephew who plays every instrument or something.
Grandson?
Crucchiola: Relation we don’t know at all.
[Inside a fancy bar.]
Kehe: Now they’re at drinks.
Crucchiola: Charlie just mentioned the Northwestern interview!
Kehe: Charlie is asking Will if he’s considered kids.
Crucchiola: We are on the doorstep of LANDMARK CHANGE at ACN!
Kehe: Annnnd the point of this flashback is feeling closer.
Crucchiola: Jason, we’re going back to the origin story.
And Charlie Skinner is surely to be the epicenter of it all.
Charlie is telling Will he’s doing BS “news” and that he should consider having kids.
So, he’s being a dad.
Kehe: I mean. Flashback to origins during the series finale? It’s not exactly … revolutionary.
Crucchiola: Sorkin is a revolutionary of tradition.
Will is all “ratings ratings ratings blah blah blah.”
And Charlie is all “What in the HELL are we doing?!”
Kehe: “What in the hell are we doing?”
Crucchiola: (actual Charlie quote)
Kehe: We keep quoting the same bits.
Crucchiola: We are in the soul of the show.
Kehe: And that soul is dying.
Tonight.
Crucchiola: These were the bad old days when Will’s posture constantly says “Like I give a shit.”
Kehe: Charlie: “Being a father lives up to the hype”?
Annnd cut back to present.
So that was the WHOLE POINT.
Of a very elaborate flashback. To establish Will’s potential fatherhood/Charlie’s masterminding.
[Back at church.]
Crucchiola: Right as we cut back to Will he’s stupid-grinning he’s so happy about being a new dad.
Kehe: He doesn’t even notice the congregation has been seated.
Crucchiola: He’s going to be a GREAT dad!
Kehe: Absolutely.
Now he’s confronting Mac.
Crucchiola: She’s seven weeks along.
Kehe: He asks for a moratorium on jokes for the next seven months.
Which is an impossible ask.
It’s Mac.
Crucchiola: Jason I feel like they are real and married.
Kehe: Oh I never had any doubt.
Will: “I’m going to be in charge of morale.”
Of course you are.
Crucchiola: Will puts himself in charge of pregnancy morale!
Awwwww!
Kehe: LEONA.
Crucchiola: Shades and all.
Kehe: She asks Mac to take a ride with her to the cemetery.
Crucchiola: Oh my God that parting shot.
They walked away from each other IN SYNC.
They are in each other’s DNA!
Kehe: Leona and Mac are riding with … PRUIT (BJ Novak)!
Crucchiola: Ugh.
Kehe: So many limos. I wonder which one contains Dan Rather.
Crucchiola: BJ Novak as Pruit is too effective.
I might never be able to not hate him again.
Kehe: I dunno…Leona could save the day.
Crucchiola: Like when I saw Troy.
I’ve never recovered from Orlando Bloom.
Kehe: Maggie and Jim (John Gallagher Jr.) are holding hands in the funeral limo.
Crucchiola: It doesn’t even look REAL!
Kehe: [I didn’t mind Orlando in Troy.]
Crucchiola: They’re like bickering twins!
Kehe: They don’t look real.
Which makes them SO REAL.
Crucchiola: Not IN A RELATIONSHIP.
Kehe: The snake eats its tail. It’s classic.
Ew.
Crucchiola: Jim put her up for a job in DC as a field producer!
Kehe: I don’t like that at all.
Crucchiola: She’s thrilled!
LEAVE, MAGGIE.
Kehe: Maggie has proven time and again she’s resourceful and independent.
Crucchiola: HE’S AN ANCHOR PULLING YOU DOWN!
Kehe: Yet she needs Jim for a job rec?
Crucchiola: … But I get that’s just me.
Kehe: We’re having separate conversations here.
[In the Leona/Mac/Pruit limo.]
Kehe: Leona to Pruitt: “You have a problem my friend.”
Crucchiola: Leona confronts him about his treating-women-worse-than-men problem.
Kehe: Mac: “I don’t know what I’m doing here.”
Pruit calls 77 cents per dollar a “specious statistic.”
Crucchiola: Pruit: “I’m supposed to volunteer money when I’m playing baseball and they’re playing tee-ball.”
Kehe: Which is Sorkin confronting the gender issue.
Crucchiola: Jesus.
Kehe: Is it possible Leona knows everything?
Crucchiola: His personalized soft drink experience company is called Qwench.
Between Becca (Marcia Gay Harden) and Leona, nothing is not known.
Now she’s confronting Pruit about hiring models to come to his bday party.
Kehe: He says they were hired to be “living art,” not for sex.
Crucchiola: SICK.
Kehe: Cut to another limo with Don, Sloan, and Will.
Crucchiola: They’re explaining how Charlie died.
Kehe: Which car would you rather be in?
Crucchiola: I can’t decide!
Kehe: Me neither.
Crucchiola: Leona and Mac vs. Don (Thomas Sadoksi) and Sloan?!
I CAN’T.
Kehe: I thiiiink I’d like to be in Leona’s presence.
Crucchiola: I can see that.
I have no counter argument.
Kehe: I feel like you belong with Don and Sloan.
That way we’d get both.
Crucchiola: I would be in that plural marriage, yes.
Kehe: But I don’t want to decide for you.
Like Jim did/does for Maggie.
Crucchiola: I know I do NOT want to be in that car.
Kehe: You are a strong independent woman who’s capable of choosing her own destiny.
Crucchiola: I am.
Me and Hallie (Grace Gummer).
We hang out.
[At a bowling alley.]
Kehe: Mac is…bowling?
It’s another flashback.
Crucchiola: Mac looks…less than glamorous.
Kehe: Maybe she’s never looked glamorous.
I can’t remember anymore.
(Speaking of, do we think Hallie will be back this episode?)
Crucchiola: I just want Hallie back for one frame to slap Jim in the face.
Because I can’t be there to do it myself.
Also that shirt she’s in is like an XXL.
She’s for sure been more glamorous than that.
Kehe: It says “ARMY.”
Crucchiola: The Army’s shirt.
Apparently.
Kehe: She “hooked” her bowl.
So it gutterballed.
Metaphor?
Crucchiola: Good call.
Her life IS gutterballing at the moment in this flashback.
Mac: “I may be down but I’m not out. I’m gonna qualify for the ladies professional bowling tour.”
Damn. She got stabbed when she was in Fallujah.
Kehe: I think we knew she was injured.
Kehe: Charlie is clearly going to pitch her the ACN exec producer job.
Mac actually speaks the words “HATERS GON HATE”?!
Crucchiola: She’s drinking at noon in sweats in a Lucky Strike.
Kehe: I hate when Sorkin does that. He doesn’t have an ear for webspeak.
Crucchiola: HATER!
Charlie wants Mac to take over News Night!
Kehe: As Sorkin would try to write: sorrynotsorry
Crucchiola: #
I love that this episode is watching Charlie weave together the fundamental relationships of the show.
It’s adorable.
[Still in flashback, cut to ACN newsroom.]
Kehe: Now it’s Sloan/Don.
Crucchiola: This is their first face-to-face!
Kehe: They’re already perfect for each other.
Crucchiola: She’s pissed that Will isn’t doing hard-hitting-enough stories on the sub-prime mortgages catastrophe.
So she’s giving it to Don.
So Don lines her out in return.
For not doing a good enough job on informing the public about what even happened.
The sexual tension is palpable already!
Kehe: So: the finale is reiterating every storyline the HATERS had problems with—in other words, FU to the haters, cause…haters gon hate?
Crucchiola: Which is EXACTLY what Taylor Swift would say!
Kehe: And Sorkin.
They’re kindred?!
Crucchiola: Taylor speaks more in the parlance of our times.
Kehe: What would THAT relationship look like??
Crucchiola: Hahahaha!
Kehe: Sorry—the series finale of The Newsroom is WAY more important.
(Is it?)
Crucchiola: I think we’re in denial.
Kehe: We are.
Crucchiola: “Like it’s every little girl’s dream to make a man better at his job” says Mac to Charlie.
Kehe: Help, I just missed Mac’s gendered dig.
Crucchiola: BOOM.
Kehe: There it is.
Crucchiola: Charlie is telling her she should take the job because she and Will make each other better.
Kehe: Mac is clearly tempted.
Crucchiola: It’s true!
It’s SO true!
Kehe: Charlie, like Leona, knows everything.
Crucchiola: The Architect and Oracle
Kehe: As we’ve always said: Oracle and Architect
Crucchiola: We’re synced up.
Kehe: I think we’re watching this on exactly the same wavelength.
Crucchiola: Charlie just said Mac’s approval is possibly the only thing Will is interested in.
And we know that’s correct.
Kehe: Which we know is true, yes.
Crucchiola: And he’s giving her bowling pointers as he leaves.
Kehe: “Keep your wrist straight.”
Well.
Man gives woman pointers.
He’s also giving Mac a job.
Sorkin: true to the end!
[Outside an auditorium.]
Crucchiola: Mac is at the Northwestern talk.
Intern Jenna (Riley Voelkel) is at the box office!
Kehe: This is the night of Will’s Northwestern BLOWUP.
Crucchiola: (Jenna, who’s future is LIMITLESS!)
Kehe: She and Mac met before the event!
Mac is asking Jenna if she’ll ask a question.
Jenna: “It’s a stupid question.”
Crucchiola: The American supremacy question!
Kehe: Her defense of the question is…really sweet.
Crucchiola: It really is a dumb question. Despite how Mac is encouraging her.
But yes, very sweet.
Kehe: It’s very Millenial.
Crucchiola: And Mac says she’ll show her how to be the first in line at a microphone!
She’s aiding and abetting.
Kehe: Wait, what IS the trick to being first to the microphone?!
IT CUT OUT TOO SOON.
Crucchiola: I’m worried we won’t find out.
[Back to present funeral timeline in a limo.]
Kehe: Pruit has a really ugly haircut or something?
Crucchiola: Leona to Pruit: “You have a PR problem because you have an actual problem.”
Kehe: It’s tamer and softer.
Maybe it’s supposed to symbolize something?
Crucchiola: Pruitt has more than one problem.
Kehe: Yes, his hair is another.
Crucchiola: Sloan and Don are back to exorcising their demons about Charlie to Will.
Will isn’t very sympathetic to them.
[At the cemetery.]
Kehe: Maggie and Sloan are talking!
Does this ever happen?
Crucchiola: Barely ever.
Kehe: Two women: talking!
Crucchiola: About a man.
Kehe: Annnd it’s about Jim.
Once again, Bechdel test: FAILED.
Crucchiola: Well in Maggie’s non-defense, when she’s with Jim she’s constantly made so insecure by him she can’t help but question her/his every move.
So that’s why they’re talking about him.
Because their relationship is unhealthy.
Kehe: So unhealthy it’s healthy.
Crucchiola: Oh that’s not a thing.
Kehe: No, you’re right, that makes no sense.
[Back in the past.]
Kehe: Charlie is clicking around Will’s speech.
Crucchiola: The Northwestern FREAKOUT speech.
Kehe: Who clicks like that?
Crucchiola: Yeah that was weird.
Kehe: Forward … backward.
Crucchiola: Back and forth and forward and back too far.
Kehe: He’s old.
And drunk.
What’s YouTube?!
[Outside at a bar.]
Crucchiola: Will is drinking in St. Barth’s.
Kehe: Leona calls Will.
Crucchiola: He’s cowering a little.
Kehe: … from the bar?
He doesn’t have a cellphone?
Crucchiola: Leona has that power.
Kehe: Who calls the restaurant these days?
Crucchiola: I mean he’s drinking the pain away from potentially murdering his job.
I bet he left his phone in the room.
You would leave your phone behind.
Kehe: He’s distraught, fine.
Crucchiola: And Will doesn’t think websites have integrity.
Kehe: TRUE.
Kehe: Mac calls Charlie.
SHE ACCEPTS.
“I’m in.”
Crucchiola: Oh YEAH she does.
Kehe: SURPRISE
[Back at ACN.]
Crucchiola: Sloan is back to harass Don about the toxic mortgage crisis.
I love her singular, obsessive focus.
Kehe: “Sloan is back to harass Don” could begin any of their interactions.
And he loves it/her.
Crucchiola: She’s like an intensely well-trained attack robot dog.
Kehe: So … Don was apparently reluctant to leave News Night?
Weren’t we made to believe it was his choice?
Crucchiola: Yeah remember he kind of hated Mac when she got there.
Sloan is now asking a member of the cleaning staff is she should ask out the guy she likes!
Kehe: Sloan is seeking relationship advice from the cleaning staff.
Crucchiola: Who is clearly Latina and not bilingual.
Kehe: Noo, Sloan sees Don with Maggie!
Crucchiola: I forgot about Don and Maggie a little.
[Jim in an empty apartment.]
Kehe: Jordan, this scene is for you.
Crucchiola: Douchey Jim teaching himself guitar in an empty room?
Kehe: Jim sadly playing guitar in his furniture-less apartment, yes.
Crucchiola: Don’t read me your poetry, Jim.
Kehe: Mac pays a visit.
Apparently he was in a long distance relationship with an Audrey.
Crucchiola: Jim is in an empty room because his GF just broke up with him and took everything.
Good girl.
Kehe: I thought he’d never found love pre-Maggie.
Crucchiola: Ex Audrey called him a “lost boy.”
Good thing Mac is offering him such a big boy job.
She wants him as her news director.
Kehe: Mac has a copy of Don Quixote.
Crucchiola: That Charlie sent her!
Our revolutionary!
[Cut to the wake.]
Kehe: Back in the PRESENT.
Crucchiola: Will is telling his staff not to ever let him smoke again.
And says Tess (Margaret Judson), Kendra (Adina Porter), et al. can smack him if he ever smokes again.
Kehe: Neal’s plane landed.
He’s … coming back.
Crucchiola: He IS back!
I mostly don’t care.
But I’m glad the rest of the staff is so happy he’s back.
Kehe: Will is basically telling everyone Mac’s pregnant
The girls are giddy. Really?!
Crucchiola: I mean, they would be.
Kehe: Sloan is standing in for us as Maggie and Jim argue
Crucchiola: Maggie is confronting Jim about him putting her up for a job that’s apart from him.
Kehe: They’re both so weasley.
Crucchiola: Sloan was moderating because she says everyone is tired of them missing such “easy shots.”
Kehe: And now—no no no—Maggie says they’ve slept together for the past three nights. I’m a rare Maggie-Jim supporter, but this has gone too far.
Crucchiola: Thank you Sloan for acknowledging that Maggie and Jim are the WORST communicators.
Kehe: Is that the right visual for a funeral?!
Crucchiola: I can’t think of them having sex.
It is NOT.
Kehe: Leona is getting through to Pruit.
Working her magic.
Crucchiola: She is magic.
Kehe: Leona: “You’re not fighting with your news director you’re not doing your job.”
Pruit looks … thoughtful!
YEAH RIGHT. This man killed Charlie Skinner.
Crucchiola: Leona: “The truth is, you don’t want the ACN you think you do.”
Kehe: There’s no way this asshole is about to change.
But whatever he needs to.
Crucchiola: Aaron Sorkin: “America, you don’t want the garbage 24-hour news cycle infotainment you think you do.”
Kehe: Yeah, and America is like: You’re RIGHT!
(not)
Crucchiola: Hahahaha!
If Pruit can change so can we!
Kehe: That is probably true.
[Back at ACN.]
Crucchiola: Bree (Jon Bass) and his douche friends in digital are being lame.
And HERE. COMES. NEAL.
Kehe: He shut down Bree’s/ACN’s website FROM HIS PHONE!
Neal is suddenly … self-actualized?
Crucchiola: Neal has a smug superiority like he’s the risen Jesus.
WHOA!
Kehe: Neal to Bree: “You embarrass me”
Wow.
It’s like he’s almost speaking in voiceover.
Crucchiola: He is!
Kehe: Again: “You embarrass me”
Crucchiola: I can’t even encapsulate Neal’s self-righteous face in a pulled quote.
Kehe: No he’s transcended.
Crucchiola: He’s shutting down the website for a week!
He has.
Kehe: To REBUILD.
Crucchiola: He’s Doctor Manhattan.
He is everywhere and everything.
[Back at the wake.]
Kehe: Now Will’s in some random small boy’s bedroom.
I hope they have a girl.
Crucchiola: Me too.
Will needs a mini Mac.
Kehe: Aww.
Crucchiola: And she would have one of those unplaceable international accents.
Kehe: Like Christiane Amanpour.
Kehe: This is the first time we’re meeting Mrs. Skinner/”Nancy” (Joanna Gleason)
I like her already.
Crucchiola: Me too.
She has such knowing eyes.
Kehe: SUCH.
Crucchiola: Don is apologizing to her.
Telling him Charlie was praying Don would fight him on the campus rape story!
Kehe: Like Mac, this woman was her man’s neck.
Crucchiola: Mrs. Skinner says: “He loved you, Don. And he was so proud of you.”
She just gifted Don Charlie’s bow tie! That is suddenly the sweetest gesture ever!
Kehe: Now Mac is actually TALKING to a small boy.
Stop it.
Crucchiola: You mean Will.
Kehe: Will*
Meh.
Parts of the same now.
Crucchiola: He sort of didn’t comfort him in an effective way.
Little boy says “my grandpa died” and he says “Sorry kid but I’ve got my own problems. My best friend died.”
Remember that no joke rule, Will. It’s good for funerals too.
Kehe: Now Will’s in a garage with presumably Charlie’s multi-instrumental grandson.
He’s on the standup bass, Will’s on the guitar.
Jim looks on.
Crucchiola: Will starts playing “That’s How I Got To Memphis” from Charlie’s office.
Which is YEARS ago at this point.
Kehe: It’s a garage jam sesh.
Crucchiola: But he remembered.
Kehe: Will doesn’t forget. Now Jim is singing.
Crucchiola: This is so saccharine. But I don’t even mind.
Kehe: Jim was on Broadway.
Crucchiola: Really? Jim?
Kehe: So I’m surprised it’s been three seasons.
Oh yeah.
Crucchiola: So he has a nice voice? That at least makes me like the actor again.
Kehe: Mr. Spring Awakening!
Crucchiola: Ohhhhhhh!!!! Wow!
Kehe: Which is why I loved him from the beginning!
Crucchiola: The entire B-level cast of The Newsroom is now watching this jam sesh.
Kehe: Weird—it was like a mini concert and now it’s over. Did that even really happen?
Crucchiola: Will is offering to be a support figure for Charlie’s grandson. That’s nice.
Kehe: We have to be convinced that a 50-year-old grump will make a good father.
I’m convinced.
Crucchiola: His heart has grown three sizes over the past three seasons.
Kehe: It has.
Crucchiola: Pruit just whispered something to Will.
Kehe: Now Will’s giving the speech he was clearly meant to give.
He jokes Sloan killed Charlie.
Crucchiola: LOL
Kehe: And says Charlie was crazy.
Crucchiola: Oh, WILL!
Kehe: “His religion was decency, and he spent a lifetime fighting its enemies.”
That’s nice.
Crucchiola: Like Don Quixote.
Kehe: Annnnnnnd…
Crucchiola: Will just announced Mac is Charlie’s successor!
MAC’S ON TOP.
Kehe: Which she wasn’t even made aware of.
And it was announced by a guy.
Crucchiola: Yeah that was weird.
Kehe: But WHATEVS. Mac deserved it of course.
Crucchiola: Elliot (David Harbour) has been mentioned so many times in this episode.
I miss him.
Kehe: She is Charlie’s true successor.
Crucchiola: She is.
Kehe: Yeah, where’d Elliot go? Couldn’t come back for the finale?
Crucchiola: I’m sure he picked her knowing she would eventually succeed him.
Charlie just pulled up Jim to be the exec producer of News Night.
Kehe: Yes.
You mean Mac? [Note: Yes, Mac.]
Crucchiola: And he’s telling Maggie to drop her other interview because she’s going to be his new senior producer.
“I want to be a field producer. In DC. It will put me in line for the White House.” Says Maggie to Jim TWICE.
WORK IT GIRL.
Kehe: They’re pretty cute—ADMIT IT.
Crucchiola: Like I said. Fighting siblings.
Kehe: They relate in a fundamentally codependent way.
Crucchiola: I appreciate that Jim is telling Maggie immediately he will fly to see her every weekend.
Kehe: Jim says he loves Maggie. Then walks out.
Maggie looks shocked.
Crucchiola: That’s the clear initiative he has NOT been displaying.
When like obviously he loves her and they love each other because they wouldn’t be doing this at all if that wasn’t the case.
Kehe: Right.
Crucchiola: And now this touching moment between Sloan and Don is making me emotional.
He’s giving her Charlie’s tie and she loves it!
Kehe: We’ll never see their wedding, which makes me emotional.
Crucchiola: It makes me angry.
I love the way Will looks at Mac. That head-down-eyes-up look he gives her.
Kehe: Will is saying it doesn’t matter how Mac got the job—which is Sorkin saying who cares I’m sexist I put women in charge!!!
Crucchiola: Hahahaha I think you’re onto something!
Kehe: “60 seconds.”
Crucchiola: Flashback Charlie to Will: “You know what kid? In the old days, about 10 minutes ago, we did the news well. You know how? We just decided to.”
Kehe: He lives on. His heart beats for the newsroom.
[In the newsroom, natch.]
Crucchiola: We are getting a final establishing shot of the whole newsroom.
Kehe: It’s…calm.
Comforting.
Content.
Crucchiola: It is calm.
Kehe: There’s no drama.
For once.
That won’t last.
Crucchiola: I’m feeling calm.
Kehe: Me too. Is it resignation?
Or acceptance?
Crucchiola: I honestly think acceptance now.
After a season of protest.
Kehe: Yes. I think we’re ready.
“Good show everybody.”
Yes Mac.
It was.
I’m…tearing.
Crucchiola: I can’t believe it.
I just can’t.
Kehe: It’s done.
Crucchiola: They couldn’t even give it a FULL SEASON?!? HBO is bleeding cash!
Kehe: Wow Jordan.
From acceptance and back to anger.
Crucchiola: And they couldn’t fund six more damn episodes!
The stages of grief are NOT linear!
Kehe: Fair.
Crucchiola: So Sorkin spent five episodes blasting the internet and digital media.
And then had Messiah Neal sweep in to say “We will rebuild” in the final moments.
Does he believe we can change?
Kehe: Who?
Crucchiola: America.
The news-hungry public.
We know he thinks we SHOULD change.
Kehe: Well the show’s over now. It’s up to us.
Crucchiola: So is he the martyr?
Kehe: Who?
That would fit his popular narrative.
Kehe: Charlie was the martyr.
Crucchiola: Sorkin.
Kehe: Same thing.
Crucchiola: Neal is the risen Jesus.
Kehe: Sorkin sacrificed himself.
Crucchiola: He did.
And has sworn off TV.
Kehe: Wow. So Charlie killed himself for our sins, and rose again as Neal.
YOU’RE RIGHT.
Crucchiola: I mean that’s it.
With Mac as his messenger.
Kehe: The news is our religion.
Crucchiola: Mac is an apostle.
Kehe: Leona is Mother Mary?
Crucchiola: And we already dealt with Judas, aka JERRY DANTANA (Hamish Linklater), last season.
Will is the completion of the Holy Trinity.
Kehe: I agree with all this, but I also think we’re overreaching—we’re so distraught we’re looking for ANSWERS, and of course answers can be found in the comfort of religious archetypes.
Crucchiola: Becca and Leona are… God, I’m going to say.
I totally agree.
Except about Becca and Leona being omniscient. That’s just true.
As opposed to us overreaching.
Kehe: Which we’ve been saying.
Jordan, we’ve said so much.
Crucchiola: And now, we’ve said all there is to say.
Because the lights are out on The Newsroom.
Kehe: As Will would say: “Good evening.”
Crucchiola: “Good evening.”
And there it is.
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