‘The Newsroom’ season 2, episode 4 preview: Maggie’s story in Africa

As you were told at the start of “The Newsroom” this season, Maggie is going to probably go through one of the worst sequence of events that just about any human can. First, she loses her relationship with Don over her confession to Jim last year, and then she also ends up losing her friendship to Jim courtesy of him skipping town and getting on board the Mitt Romney campaign bus.

Now, we will see the start of her journey to Africa next week, which appears to be in a word “violent”. Her ambitions of going over there and doing something to give herself a focus are great, but she also sticks out like a sore thumb there. This alone makes her a target, but so will escalating violence in the country. We know that she manages to survive, but does her fellow reporter Gary join her?

This episode marks the first time since the premiere that we have flashed forward back to the present day, where the ACN team is meeting with the litigators about the consequences of the Genoa scandal. We do not necessarily see the connection between this mishandled story and Maggie in Africa, but they must cross paths eventually to be relevant. The same goes for Neil’s attempts to finally be taken seriously with the Occupy Wall Street movement, which involves him trying to find someone within the group capable of actually giving an informed interview about what the group is fighting for. (We don’t get the sense that “The Newsroom” wants to just barf all over the 99%, but this is a pretty accurate portrayal of the chaos caused by some of these protesters.)

Also, Jim is going to continue to be the Robin Hood of news reporters on the road, even if that doesn’t get him very far. Sometimes, winning in the long-term means putting up with a lot of dung in the short-term, and that is a concept he seems incapable of grasping.

After last night’s excellent hour, we’re excited; if you want to read more scoop related to “The Newsroom,” our advice is to just head over to the link here.

Photo: HBO