"I went to a place to eat. It said 'breakfast at any time.' So I ordered french toast during the Renaissance". --Steven Wright ... If you are a devotee of time travel, check out this song...

Monday, August 27, 2012

The Newsroom Season 1 Finale: The Lost Voice Mail

An O'Henryesque thread which has wound its way through many a narrative is the letter that never arrived.  Whether through mis-delivery or act of nature or plane crash, a letter professing true love never reaches its intended recipient.  In an age prior to email, such a gap could wreak emotional havoc for both parties, or at very least quietly change their lives for the worst forever.

Will left a message on Mac's voice mail on the night that bin-Laden came to justice.  Will had been high when he went on the air to announce the bin-Laden news - Bill had been at a party when the news broke - and he mentions that he was high in his voice mail for Mac, but that was not the most important part of his message.  He tells Mac that he "never stopped" ... presumably never stopped loving her.

We don't actually hear this, and the TMZ reporter stops and then erases the recording before we can hear its conclusion, but assuming he was declaring his continuing love for Mac, and she never heard it, and Will may not even clearly recall saying it, that's Shakespearean tragic indeed.   Of course, all is not completely lost - the TMZ reporter presumably listened to the whole message, Will also discovers in last night's episode  that it was indeed Mac in the audience at the beginning of the season (he was not imagining her there),  and Will can tell Mac he loves her any time he wants.  But given their star-crossed relationship, that's not likely to happen again any time too soon.

Star-crossed love also rules the day for Maggie and Jim.  They finally kiss, but Jim, the idiot, walks away when Maggie wants more.  So of course Maggie is still with Don, Jim's with Lisa, and just to make it in an even more complex five-sided triangle we have Sloan loving Don.   They, along with Will and Mac, can bring clarity to the reporting of world and national news more easily than to their own lives.

Good material for next season - when, just think of it, we'll have commentary on yesterday, today, and tomorrow's news the way it should be - which is to say, even better than Lawrence O'Donnell on MSNBC, which is damn good indeed.

See also The Newsroom and McLuhan ... The Newsroom and The Hour




"As a genre-bending blend of police procedural and science fiction, The Silk Code delivers on its promises." -- Gerald Jonas, The New York Times Book Review

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