The two opening numbers Anthony Pirog played Sunday night at the Fridge were the same ones that begin his recent album, “Palo Colorado Dream”
— the title track and “The Great Northern.” They’re lyrical and
delicate, with enough sustain for a gamelan troupe or a U2 anthem. On
the album, things get wild after that. At this gig, they got wilder.
You didn’t have to be a fan of El Greco to enjoy the National
Gallery of Art’s musical homage to the Spanish Renaissance painter on
Sunday evening. (The gallery is celebrating the 400th anniversary
of the painter’s death.) In fact, the concert was more a foil to El
Greco’s thundering religious intensity than a reflection of it, with the
Baltimore Consort presenting a colorful, wide-ranging program of
Renaissance music that was long on charm and cheerfully short on
religious fervor.
Much of that charm came from the music itself,
a collection of secular romances, dances and popular songs known as
villancicos that would have been popular around the turn of the 17th
century, when El Greco lived in Spain. Drawn largely from court
songbooks of the time, the program wove tender love songs together with
virtuosic instrumental works and comic songs from such composers as Juan
del Encina, Alonso Mudarra and Diego Ortiz (and, of course, the
ubiquitous “anonymous”), with superb playing from the consort’s
virtuosi, particularly Ronn McFarlane on lute and Mindy Rosenfeld on
flute and recorder.
But it was Brazilian countertenor José Lemos who really stole the spotlight. Lemos was front and center for most of the evening, bringing a light touch, engaging wit and perfect control to everything he sang, from the flirtatious “Yo me soy la morenica” to Juan del Encina’s comical “Cucú, Cucú, Cucucú.” The gallery’s West Garden Court tends to swallow soft-voiced Renaissance instruments — viols and baroque guitars are no match for its swampy acoustics — but Lemos set his voice perfectly against the consort players, bringing deep feeling and a deft, improvisatory freshness to the music.
Brookes is a freelance writer.
But it was Brazilian countertenor José Lemos who really stole the spotlight. Lemos was front and center for most of the evening, bringing a light touch, engaging wit and perfect control to everything he sang, from the flirtatious “Yo me soy la morenica” to Juan del Encina’s comical “Cucú, Cucú, Cucucú.” The gallery’s West Garden Court tends to swallow soft-voiced Renaissance instruments — viols and baroque guitars are no match for its swampy acoustics — but Lemos set his voice perfectly against the consort players, bringing deep feeling and a deft, improvisatory freshness to the music.
After years of observation, I have concluded that string quartets are
trained differently in Europe than in the United States. Here, our
young prize-winning groups have clearly been drilled to a fare-thee-well
on matching and intonation, principally. Across the Atlantic, those
elements are certainly important, but such young European quartets as
the Quatuor Ébène, the Pavel Haas and the Belcea are more about
developing an individual profile and creating a particular sound
concept.
This contrast was supported on Sunday at the Phillips Collection, where the Calidore String Quartet, a fine group formed only four years ago at the Colburn Conservatory of Music in Los Angeles, made its D.C. debut. The level of micro-nuance the group achieves with timing and tempo is quite rare. The ebb and flow must be meticulously rehearsed but also sound natural and spontaneous. The quartet’s clarity in pianissimo passages also is extraordinary, and its intonation (the hardest thing of all in a medium that seems to amplify the tiniest flaw) is already world class.
But although these elements are necessary, they are not sufficient. It’s not enough to impress with unanimity, accuracy and cleanliness, however rare. Beauty of sound, and individual expression from each player, must anchor everything. In this regard, the Calidore is bottom heavy; its cellist, Estelle Choi, outplayed her three colleagues in every phrase. First violinist Jeffrey Myers was solid and fastidious to a fault, but the tone never bloomed and grabbed the ear, as it did with Choi. Myers needs to learn to caress the line more, to occasionally sound like a soloist than just a good team player. (The Guarneri Quartet made an entire career out of this concept.) The two inner voices (Ryan Meehan on violin and Jeremy Berry on viola) were excellent but, again, they more focused on blend than on individual expression.
The program featured two classical works (Haydn and Beethoven) bookending a local premiere of “Entr’acte” by Caroline Shaw, an immensely gifted violinist and singer who won a Pulitzer Prize in composition last year. Her piece is full of ideas — quirky, whimsical and thoughtful — and blends old and new in ear-catching ways. It makes you want to hear more from her, which we likely will, as Shaw is now in residency at Dumbarton Oaks. A most stimulating afternoon, from all concerned.
This contrast was supported on Sunday at the Phillips Collection, where the Calidore String Quartet, a fine group formed only four years ago at the Colburn Conservatory of Music in Los Angeles, made its D.C. debut. The level of micro-nuance the group achieves with timing and tempo is quite rare. The ebb and flow must be meticulously rehearsed but also sound natural and spontaneous. The quartet’s clarity in pianissimo passages also is extraordinary, and its intonation (the hardest thing of all in a medium that seems to amplify the tiniest flaw) is already world class.
But although these elements are necessary, they are not sufficient. It’s not enough to impress with unanimity, accuracy and cleanliness, however rare. Beauty of sound, and individual expression from each player, must anchor everything. In this regard, the Calidore is bottom heavy; its cellist, Estelle Choi, outplayed her three colleagues in every phrase. First violinist Jeffrey Myers was solid and fastidious to a fault, but the tone never bloomed and grabbed the ear, as it did with Choi. Myers needs to learn to caress the line more, to occasionally sound like a soloist than just a good team player. (The Guarneri Quartet made an entire career out of this concept.) The two inner voices (Ryan Meehan on violin and Jeremy Berry on viola) were excellent but, again, they more focused on blend than on individual expression.
The program featured two classical works (Haydn and Beethoven) bookending a local premiere of “Entr’acte” by Caroline Shaw, an immensely gifted violinist and singer who won a Pulitzer Prize in composition last year. Her piece is full of ideas — quirky, whimsical and thoughtful — and blends old and new in ear-catching ways. It makes you want to hear more from her, which we likely will, as Shaw is now in residency at Dumbarton Oaks. A most stimulating afternoon, from all concerned.
Encyclopedias, being time sensitive, are the most ephemeral of
imposing objects. Soon enough they become quaint, fussy, outdated,
wrong. For the right reader, though, there is pleasure in wrongness,
which is one of the theories behind Christopher Miller’s new book. The
encyclopedic “American Cornball”
arrives both outdated and in its ideal form: It’s a peculiar,
enlightening book, an investigation of trivia, a strange history of
American life from 1900 through 1966 (Miller’s self-imposed limit) and,
as all single-author reference books are, a document of obsession.
“American Cornball” discusses off-color postcards, gag gifts, animated cartoons, newspaper comic strips, old comedies, comic books, humor magazines and sitcoms. But it’s not a history of any of these things. Its inspiration is something even less durable: the jokes contained therein. How and when did we come to find anvils not only funny, but the truest test of the Earth’s gravitational pull? What is limburger cheese, that exemplar of stench? What is the difference — in fact, and in risibility — between a hobo and a bum?
This book, arranged alphabetically from “absentminded professors” to “zealots,” attempts to examine the hoary wheezes of another time, and it’s a delight. You might think that a comic investigation of “bindlesticks” (the balloon-shaped bundles hung on branches that runaway children and hobos take on the road) or “middle initials” sounds dreary, but when Miller, whose previous two books are the novels “Sudden Noises from Inanimate Objects” and “The Cardboard Universe” (either of which would be a fine title for this book, too) is a brilliant writer, with a fondness for his own jokes and aphorisms: “Of course, even the most blameless euphemism will acquire connotations if it’s used enough,” he writes on the entry concerning “bosoms and breasts.” “That’s why euphemisms need to be replaced periodically, like air filters.”
The entry on “suicide” is particularly fine, with Miller charting suicide humor’s rise and fall. In a 1930 comic strip, Mickey Mouse tried to do away with himself with gas, a gun and gravity, and Miller tells us that “the first decade of the twentieth century was a heyday for jokes about small children taking their lives.” If that doesn’t sound funny, well, there’s a reason there’s not an “It’s a Grim World After All” ride at Disney World (even if some of us would go on it). The book is a strange side doorway to your memories of the cartoon, black-and-white movie, comic-strip, gag-gift world — all those things you laughed at without knowing why, exactly.
Illustration a man rubbernecking from “American Cornball” by Christopher Miller. (Courtesy of Harper)
Indeed,
perhaps the biggest difference between the highbrow and the lowbrow is
not material, but the wishes of the highbrow to never be ephemeral, and
the lowbrow’s resignation to that state. The authors of those naughty
postcards with pictures of outhouses, portly gentlemen and ladies
floating in the sea, men ogling pretty girls and the resulting “hat
take” (Miller’s own term for a hat popping off a head in surprise) —
never imagined their postcards would last the year, never mind find a
place in this decades-later volume. Ephemera tells us the past was
always more interesting and off-color than history class would let us
think.
What people laughed at in the past is not always pleasant or harmless (or even, as Faulkner might tell us, past), and Miller is careful to not expunge the hatefulness of some humor. There are separate entries for “Black people,” “Irishmen” and “Scotsmen,” but he missteps, I think, with “morons.” In that entry, he conflates stupidity with developmental disabilities and insists that comic fools such as Gomer Pyle, Krazy Kat and Barney Fife are representations of the intellectually disabled — whom he unhelpfully calls the “retarded” — offered up for laughter. The entry ends up feeling too self-righteous and too self-conscious: deadly in humor and in writing about humor.
Still, this is a book that can, in a single entry, track the history of flatulence in popular culture; tell us that Swift was the probable author of “The Benefit of Farting Explain’d” under the name Don Fartinhando Puffindorst; name-check the French music fart virtuoso Le Petomane by saying that his act in its heyday “would outgross Sarah Bernhardt”; discuss the disappearance of fart humor for much of 20th-century mainstream culture; explain that “Blazing Saddles” ‘did for flatulence what “Deep Throat” did for fellatio’; and end by revealing (to my happy edification) that describing a Bronx cheer as a “raspberry” is Cockney rhyming slang (raspberry “tart” for “fart”).
That is a perfect model of the narrowness of Miller’s focus and the broadness and mobility of his interests and knowledge. Not from the sublime to the ridiculous, perhaps, but sublimely ridiculous, and surely appealing to all brows, no matter their altitude.
McCracken’s latest book is “Thunderstruck & Other Stories.”
“American Cornball” discusses off-color postcards, gag gifts, animated cartoons, newspaper comic strips, old comedies, comic books, humor magazines and sitcoms. But it’s not a history of any of these things. Its inspiration is something even less durable: the jokes contained therein. How and when did we come to find anvils not only funny, but the truest test of the Earth’s gravitational pull? What is limburger cheese, that exemplar of stench? What is the difference — in fact, and in risibility — between a hobo and a bum?
This book, arranged alphabetically from “absentminded professors” to “zealots,” attempts to examine the hoary wheezes of another time, and it’s a delight. You might think that a comic investigation of “bindlesticks” (the balloon-shaped bundles hung on branches that runaway children and hobos take on the road) or “middle initials” sounds dreary, but when Miller, whose previous two books are the novels “Sudden Noises from Inanimate Objects” and “The Cardboard Universe” (either of which would be a fine title for this book, too) is a brilliant writer, with a fondness for his own jokes and aphorisms: “Of course, even the most blameless euphemism will acquire connotations if it’s used enough,” he writes on the entry concerning “bosoms and breasts.” “That’s why euphemisms need to be replaced periodically, like air filters.”
The entry on “suicide” is particularly fine, with Miller charting suicide humor’s rise and fall. In a 1930 comic strip, Mickey Mouse tried to do away with himself with gas, a gun and gravity, and Miller tells us that “the first decade of the twentieth century was a heyday for jokes about small children taking their lives.” If that doesn’t sound funny, well, there’s a reason there’s not an “It’s a Grim World After All” ride at Disney World (even if some of us would go on it). The book is a strange side doorway to your memories of the cartoon, black-and-white movie, comic-strip, gag-gift world — all those things you laughed at without knowing why, exactly.
The material here is lowbrow (in no way an insult); its author is not. This is a book that compares a William Gass book to one by Mort Walker
(creator of the comic strips “Beetle Bailey” and “Hi & Lois”) and,
delightfully, finds the former wanting. (Walker’s splendid “The Lexicon of Comicana”
was clearly an enormous influence on Miller.) He uses Rube Goldberg to
plug Flann O’Brien. He observes that the act of defecation is
acknowledged more among the highbrows than the low, “especially if the
highbrow in question is Irish: like Swift, both Joyce and Beckett joked a
lot about poop.”
Illustration a man rubbernecking from “American Cornball” by Christopher Miller. (Courtesy of Harper)
The book isn’t perfect. The librarian
in me wished for a little less of the first-person Miller; the novelist
in me wanted a little more. I found it puzzling just how many times
Miller tells us in passing that he has never been married (at least
five). On the other hand, there is the narrative that is at the heart of
any single-author reference book, which is the story of a collector.
Miller’s collections include joke postcards, artificial vomit and fake
feces. It’s possible I am the only reader whose heart will sing at
Miller’s fondness for synthetic ejectamenta, but I would happily have
read more.
There
are plenty of examples of obscure and fascinating things here —
admirers of Foxy Grandpa can find him in these pages — but for
well-known sources, Miller leans on his own loves a bit too hard. Of the
great newspaper comic strips, he speaks mostly — and copiously — of the
undeniably brilliant “Li’l Abner.”
An Abbott and Costello aficionado — okay, me — might wonder why he
mentions them only glancingly, when there are several places they would
have been more germane than the Three Stooges, whom he trots out a
tiresome amount, even for people who don’t find the Three Stooges
tiresome.What people laughed at in the past is not always pleasant or harmless (or even, as Faulkner might tell us, past), and Miller is careful to not expunge the hatefulness of some humor. There are separate entries for “Black people,” “Irishmen” and “Scotsmen,” but he missteps, I think, with “morons.” In that entry, he conflates stupidity with developmental disabilities and insists that comic fools such as Gomer Pyle, Krazy Kat and Barney Fife are representations of the intellectually disabled — whom he unhelpfully calls the “retarded” — offered up for laughter. The entry ends up feeling too self-righteous and too self-conscious: deadly in humor and in writing about humor.
Still, this is a book that can, in a single entry, track the history of flatulence in popular culture; tell us that Swift was the probable author of “The Benefit of Farting Explain’d” under the name Don Fartinhando Puffindorst; name-check the French music fart virtuoso Le Petomane by saying that his act in its heyday “would outgross Sarah Bernhardt”; discuss the disappearance of fart humor for much of 20th-century mainstream culture; explain that “Blazing Saddles” ‘did for flatulence what “Deep Throat” did for fellatio’; and end by revealing (to my happy edification) that describing a Bronx cheer as a “raspberry” is Cockney rhyming slang (raspberry “tart” for “fart”).
That is a perfect model of the narrowness of Miller’s focus and the broadness and mobility of his interests and knowledge. Not from the sublime to the ridiculous, perhaps, but sublimely ridiculous, and surely appealing to all brows, no matter their altitude.
AMERICAN CORNBALL
A Laffopedic Guide to the Formerly Funny
The hour-long stop-motion animation special based loosely on the 2003 movie “Elf” and its Broadway spinoff, “Elf: Buddy’s Musical Christmas”
(NBC at 8 p.m.) tells the story of an elf heading to New York City to
meet his biological father. Features the voices of Jim Parsons, Mark
Hamill, Ed Asner, Fred Armisen, Jay Leno, Matt Lauer, Gilbert Gottfried
and Kate Micucci.
FINALE WATCH: The Top 2 junior chefs battle it out in a three-course dinner challenge to determine who goes home with the trophy and $100,000 prize on the Season 7 finale of “MasterChef Junior” (Fox at 8).
The city’s Internet shuts down right before Christmas, and it’s up to the “NCIS” (CBS at 8) team to figure out who’s responsible.
FINALE WATCH: Host Carson Daly reveals the winner live on the Season 7 finale of “The Voice” (NBC at 9). Ed Sheeran, Hozier, Bruno Mars and Jennifer Hudson perform.
The team investigates the murder of a retired Navy SEAL who was tracking people who impersonated military personnel on “NCIS: New Orleans” (CBS at 9).
SERIES PREMIERE: The docu-series “Sacred Journeys With Bruce Feiler” (MPT at 9) travels the globe to walk with host and author Bruce Feiler and contemporary sojourners on six journeys to sacred shrines, temples or other holy sites visited annually by hundreds of millions of pilgrims.
RETURNING SHOW: In honor of the reality show’s 30th season, “Real World: Skeletons” (MTV at 10) has a special twist for the group house residents: They’ll soon be joined by people from their pasts (estranged friends, exes, family members, etc.), a.k.a. “the skeletons” from their closets.
SERIES PREMIERE: Hosted by The Washington Post’s Geoff Edgers, the docu-series “Secrets of the Arsenal” (American Heroes Channel at 10) explores seldom-seen archives, storerooms and private collections of historical weapons, spy correspondence and other artifacts.
“Big Eyes” actor Christoph Waltz is on “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon” (NBC at 11:35), with music from rapper Nicki Minaj.
Actress Anna Kendrick comes to the “Late Show With David Letterman” (CBS at 11:35), with musical guest Charli XCX.
“Jimmy Kimmel Live” (ABC at 11:35) welcomes actress and comedian Tracey Ullman and musical guest Garth Brooks.
FINALE WATCH: The Top 2 junior chefs battle it out in a three-course dinner challenge to determine who goes home with the trophy and $100,000 prize on the Season 7 finale of “MasterChef Junior” (Fox at 8).
The city’s Internet shuts down right before Christmas, and it’s up to the “NCIS” (CBS at 8) team to figure out who’s responsible.
FINALE WATCH: Host Carson Daly reveals the winner live on the Season 7 finale of “The Voice” (NBC at 9). Ed Sheeran, Hozier, Bruno Mars and Jennifer Hudson perform.
SERIES PREMIERE: The docu-series “Sacred Journeys With Bruce Feiler” (MPT at 9) travels the globe to walk with host and author Bruce Feiler and contemporary sojourners on six journeys to sacred shrines, temples or other holy sites visited annually by hundreds of millions of pilgrims.
RETURNING SHOW: In honor of the reality show’s 30th season, “Real World: Skeletons” (MTV at 10) has a special twist for the group house residents: They’ll soon be joined by people from their pasts (estranged friends, exes, family members, etc.), a.k.a. “the skeletons” from their closets.
SERIES PREMIERE: Hosted by The Washington Post’s Geoff Edgers, the docu-series “Secrets of the Arsenal” (American Heroes Channel at 10) explores seldom-seen archives, storerooms and private collections of historical weapons, spy correspondence and other artifacts.
“Big Eyes” actor Christoph Waltz is on “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon” (NBC at 11:35), with music from rapper Nicki Minaj.
Actress Anna Kendrick comes to the “Late Show With David Letterman” (CBS at 11:35), with musical guest Charli XCX.
“Jimmy Kimmel Live” (ABC at 11:35) welcomes actress and comedian Tracey Ullman and musical guest Garth Brooks.
That’s the gist of “The Newsroom” series finale, which aired on HBO Sunday night after a tumultuous three seasons of existence. If you didn’t watch, or simply gave up after last week’s controversial ending
(which also saw the death of news director/bow tie lover Charlie
Skinner), here’s where everyone ended up in Aaron Sorkin’s fantasy
journalism world:
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.”
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.”
