‘The Newsroom’ season 2, episode 6 review: Will McAvoy vs. an innocent light fixture

While the event in the title of this “Newsroom” review may be relatively innocuous in the grand scheme of Sunday night’s episode, Will McAvoy’s feeling over a certain morning-show segment, a suggestion brought on by his gossip-reporter girlfriend, may end up being the one thing that sticks with us the longest. That was easily the most amazing moment on this show since Will’s “America is not the greatest country in the world anymore” speech in the pilot, and it also summed up exactly how many people feel about morning television.

As for the rest of the episode, it was both fascinating but also disjointed, and not nearly as exciting as last week’s stellar outing “News Night with Will McAvoy.” There wasn’t the electricity of everything happening in real time over the course of the hour, and we instead saw Jim get stalled in his personal life, Maggie be treated like a child, and Don start to slowly show some feelings for Sloan (hooray).

But the main event here was the Operation Genoa story, and the discovery that Jerry Dantana can no longer be seen as the somewhat-sympathetic newsman that was following a story he genuinely believe in. Instead, he’s a crooked journalist who manipulated the facts in order to get ahead, and tried to trick just about anyone and everyone that got in his way. His editing of an interview clip changed drastically whether or not the segment could be used as evidence, and helped to lead to the final nail in the coffin regarding how a Special Report got on the air that may potentially doom “News Night” and most of Will’s crew forever.

So how did all of this turn out to be false information? That is going to be a truly interesting story to watch next week, since there were at least some pieces in place. But even with this episode being a step down tonight, “The Newsroom” is still on a winning streak. This season is far superior to the first outing, and Aaron Sorkin is proving here that you don’t need quantity in terms of episode count to produce quality TV.

If you check back tomorrow at the link here, we’re going to have a full preview for next week’s episode. For now, just be sure to share your thoughts on this hour below.

Photo: HBO