‘The Newsroom’ season 2 spoilers: The tragedy of Jerry Dantana

Over the past several weeks on “The Newsroom,” we’ve had a chance to learn quite a few things about a certain Jerry Dantana. He’s a guy obsessed with the Genoa story, and doing everything he can to get the folks surrounding him in the ACN world to believe him. Basically, he’s got a chip on his shoulder so large that he is starting to topple over, with anyone and everyone comparing him to Jim as though Jim was the second coming of some god.

But who is Jerry really: A nasty human being, or someone just trying to make it big in the world? With that, we turn to a surprise in comments from an executive producer not named Aaron Sorkin. Speaking to TV Guide, EP Alan Poul offers up the following assessment on this new addition to the ACN staff:

“Jerry’s not a black hat … He just happens to be ambitious. He’s driven by incredibly human motives, but [he’s] vulnerable to the kind of temptations and pressures that landing a big story like this would present to him in terms of furthering his own career. … It’s just too juicy to walk away from.”

Unfortunately for Jerry, we know already just where this hyper-sensitive amount of ambition leads to when it comes to him: A very depressing end, and one that could sink everyone around him. But this is still a human story where people make mistakes, and ambitious people fail. Sorkin may have felt this way himself after seeing some of the show’s early reviews, though we caution him to just throw those in the garbage and take it to the curb. We loved Sunday’s episode, and the direction that we’re heading into now with the knowledge of very bad things looming around every corner like a monster.

For some examples of some of these bad things, you can catch a glimpse in the promo for Sunday night’s new episode.

Photo: HBO