ACN’s new owner, the evil Pruitt, isn’t going to destroy the network.
B.J. Novak played the evil Lucas Pruitt, who wanted ACN’s Web site to get traffic by publishing articles like “The 9 Most Overrated Movies of All Time.” Naturally, that was met with horror by the ACN staff, who battled Pruitt’s crazy “new age” ideas at every turn. But former ACN owner Leona Lansing took Pruitt aside during Charlie Skinner’s funeral (where half of the finale took place) and reminded him about a recent, very unflattering article detailing how Pruitt had a history of paying his female employees less than their male counterparts. And there was another story floating around online about how Pruitt hired strippers for his 35th birthday party.
Eventually, this all led to Pruitt hiring none other than Mackenzie McHale to take over for Charlie as news director and president of ACN. Was Mac mad that it probably happened because Pruitt needed to improve his reputation and promote a woman to a high-profile position? Sure, but it doesn’t really matter: Now, she’s in a position to control the network. Or at least be a worthy nemesis with Pruitt since he’ll disagree with her constantly. Don’t you wish there was a fourth season to watch even more arguments play out?
Speaking of Mac, she’s pregnant.
That’s right — Will McAvoy and Mac, newlyweds, will welcome a baby in about seven months. Will discovered the news and lost his mind, unsure if Mac was even allowed to be standing up or outside given that she’s pregnant. Eventually, he chilled out (a little) and even managed to get over a few of his father issues in the process. At least, we think that was why he had a jam session in the garage with Charlie’s grandkids at the wake.
Will’s going to be okay.
We flash back to when the series started, with Will as the bland “News Night” anchor on a solidly-rated newscast who cared way too much about being likable. Then he publicly melted down at Northwestern after a student stood up during a panel and asked him why America is the greatest country in the world. Now, Will doesn’t care what anyone thinks and only wants to report news that he decides matters.
Throughout the finale, we were taken through flashbacks of everything that led up to Will’s meltdown moment, starting in 2010. Clearly, he had lost his way as a news anchor at some point, doing fluff pieces about the weather and never asking any tough followup questions for his guests. Then, during one of his old broadcasts, he interviewed Kiefer Sutherland about the series finale of “24.” That was the last straw for Charlie. He tracked down Mac, who incidentally was living out her days of unemployment (let go by CNN after serving as a foreign news correspondent in Afghanistan) by day drinking at a bowling alley. Anyway, Charlie begged her to become the new executive producer of “News Night.” Yes, even though she and Will had some bad relationship history, they made a dynamic duo when she was his producer in the past.
So that’s how Mac wound up at ACN, thanks to Charlie’s impassioned speech about how at one point, people didn’t treat journalism as a career but as a calling. And she dragged Jim Harper along with her so they could produce a show about things that actually mattered without caring about the ratings. Fast forward a couple years, and Will’s broadcast is firmly in last place — and he’s fine with it, because he’s reporting on what he deems is important. (And that does not include Kiefer Sutherland!)
Another important piece of flashback information: Turns out that when Mac went to Will’s Northwestern panel all those years ago, she bumped into the “sorority girl” ahead of time and knew that she was going to ask Will the fateful question about America. So that’s why Mac had those signs ready to go in the audience: One that said “It’s not” and another one that said “But it can be.” Of course, that motivated Will to go on his famous rant. It wasn’t a hallucination after all! And his new “hard-news only” persona is all because of Mac.
Jim and Maggie are also going to be okay.
“News Night’s” second-most dysfunctional couple realized that New York City and Washington, D.C., are only four hours away from each other. So even though Jim was promoted to executive producer of “News Night” and Maggie has an interview to be a field producer in D.C., they can still make it work.
Don and Sloan? The jury’s out.
In a classic Sorkin moment, Sloan and Don had a near-miss three years ago: They got into a fight when Will stole one of Sloan’s guests and then only asked him softball questions. After their argument, sparks flew — but when Sloan went to go ask him out, she saw him kissing Maggie. Oh, if only they knew what the future held.
No one is really responsible for killing Charlie.
Even though multiple “News Night” staffers blamed themselves for making Charlie so angry that he had a heart attack, Will assured everybody that no one was at fault. Charlie died doing what he loved: Trying to make people care about news that mattered. In another Classic Sorkin line, Will said, “His religion was decency, and he spent a lifetime fighting his enemies.”
No comments: