Warning: Spoiler Alert
Gary Cooper comes strolling into work singing a song from the musical “Anything Goes”. Oblivious to what has happened since our last episode. He turns the corner expecting to see a quiet newsroom. Instead he finds more FBI agents than employees.
Gary is met almost immediately by the lead agent. The exchange obscenities. The agent trying flex his authority and Gary flexing his grasp of legality. Eventually, Will jumps in to toe the line between we’re cooperating and don’t say anything.
The power struggle continues. The agents demanding that everyone do exactly as they say, while the staff tries to casually make their lives easier by suggesting the proceedings don’t have to go down this way. Will suggest that they are just doing their jobs. Then Charlie Skinner steps up and does his job. By calling the LA control room and informing them that ACN will be going live in 3 minutes.
Don and Jim head into the control room. Don claims that Charlie just called Domino’s and they need to make it look like they are about to go live even though they are not. Maggie jumps into the control room to get the ball rolling and question how they have never picked up on how to actually run a news broadcast. Meanwhile, Gary comes out strapped to a camera and Charlie asks the lead agent for his first name so they can put it in the banner.
With the fake special report about to not go live in the next 10 seconds, agent Molly tells them to stand down. And for a moment, ACN-1, FBI-0.
Rebecca (the lawyer) with every one of legal consequence on the phone negotiated a relative ‘cease fire’. The FBI and any agencies of authority will stand down until Friday. At such a time as all of the pertinent people will meet at Main Justice to tell the authorities everything they know minus the name of the source in the hopes that the Justice department can connect the dots without the name of the source.
Rebecca (to Charlie): That stunt with the cameras? That was not cool.
Charlie: Neither am I.
Maggie attempts to hand off her EPA report to Jim. Jim is difficult, but in a comedic way. The end of the world as we know according to the EPA in a report that is an inch thick is not exactly riveting television. Jim reluctantly agrees to try to move it up the pecking order. So this feels more like a Jim Harper segment and less like a Maggie Jordan segment. His words.
Meanwhile, Charlie’s assistant informs him that Leona and Reese Lansing are on their way down. Which is odd in that Charlie always goes to them. Leona does not have 4 billion to throw at the twins. And they have exhausted any conventional means to get it. The only way to get it is to ‘spin off ACN’. AWN is the parent company that owns ACN. If they sell ACN they could get enough in the sale to fight off the twins. There is a tech analyst who left Goldman Sachs to start-up his own company. He has the requisite money, but he also has ideas.
The last thing the iconic desk man of a successful news network wants to hear is that new ownership has ‘ideas’. Ideas mean change. Ideas mean lack of control. Considering that the alternative to this guy buying ACN and maybe making some changes is that the twins will dissolve all of AWN including ACN. A lesser of two evils situation. But now we are faced with Will and other being forced to attend the Correspondence Dinner. Normally a hard ticket to get. The problem here is that last year Will ripped the Correspondence Dinner and promised that ACN would never return.
Don has the new HR rep in his office. The scene is about Gary Cooper and the amount of romantic escapades with subordinate employees. The end of the scene is more critical. The HR rep is probing Don over his alleged relationship with Sloan Sabbath. Denying everything Don appears calm. The rep leaves headed for Sloan’s office. Don taking his time, wipes his mouth with a napkin, calmly stands up, then frantically races to Sloan’s office just to say, “we’re not dating”. Which Sloan replies with her monotone, “okay”.
Mack and Molly met in secret in a women’s sauna. This allows Molly to give Mack just enough information to help her make the right decision concerning her people. After work with the seized hard drives, the FBI is compelled to believe that they can tie Neal to an attempt at more documents. Molly strongly suggests that Mack do whatever she must to get Neal to come in. Mack then meets with Don and Jim. She asks them to get Neal a message to come in however they can.
Maggie’s EPA story and interview for Will. As Maggie predicted it was a story about the end of the world. More specifically, a child has already been born that will die at some point in its life due to the planet failing. This was literally a laugh out loud situation. As I’m watching this and hearing this dire end of the world narrative, the reactions around the room make it very funny. Almost as if the people not in the interview look around every few seconds and say, “did he really just say that?”
Will, Mack, Charlie and Rebecca sit in a conference room at Main Justice. The Assistant District Attorney for National Security enters the room. He is brash and forceful. He takes shots at everyone at the table to display the idea that he is in control. Anything short of giving up the source will not be good enough. Then he claims that Will is the one who orchestrated all of this. That is the point where Will has a moment that only Will can deliver. Transcribing it would be great, but it would lose its gravitas. Suffice it to say that Will said only what he needed to a that the ADA for National Security bungled this whole situation and now Will can’t help him anymore.
The entire staff is in the White House for the Correspondence Dinner. Up to and including the new HR rep who really believes he will catch Don and Sloan as an item. Charlie wants to meet with the staff before meeting their new ‘option’. Except he just walked through the door. Lucas Pruitt (played by B.J. Novak of the Office and Mindy Project fame) may put a halt to that idea. He is abrasive to say the least. He wants to turn ACN into a large family of networks that get their news from crowd sourcing. He’s a quirky rich guy who thinks he’s buying a new toy.
Outside a woman walks up and sits down next to Mack. She is the source. Not only that, but she also is applying her own pressure for Mack to run the story within the next 96 hours or she will post the story herself.
The staff has gathered in a room where Will McAvoy is graciously taking his picture with whomever happens to be at the party who wants to. It’s Will gladly radiating his own fame. Mack walks in like she’s seen a ghost. Charlie picks up on it. The kid at the front of the line finally gets Will’s attention by flashing a folded piece of paper. Will empties the room of ‘fans’. The kid has a subpoena for Will to appear before a grand jury.
Will (looks to Mack and Charlie): You think it’s possible I’m not as big a TV star as I thought?
