‘The Newsroom’ Season 2 Finale "Election Night, Part 2"

I am so pissed right now. There are really no words for how mad I am at Aaron Sorkin. How could he do this to us? What I witnessed with “Election Night, Part 2“was not that of a season finale, but was instead a series finale. I realize that there has been no official word one way or another, but I’ve watched enough television to know when a writer is tying up loose ends if they decide not to return. And let’s face it that felt like a finale.

I understand that Sorkin is a busy guy and the show hasn’t garnered the rave reviews some of his other shows have, but screw that I love the show and want to see another season. I am so mad about this that frankly I had a hard time enjoying the season finale. I didn’t know if I was tearing up over the action on-screen or off.

Either way the facts are no matter if it ends up being the last episode of the series it was the last episode of the season and it managed to do something I never thought it could.
It made me side with Mac. I know, I couldn’t believe it either. For the past 2 seasons I have listened to her harp on and on about how her cheating on Will wasn’t blah, blah, blah, blah. And not one time was I ever on her side. Until tonight. Yes, Will is an asshole that much I am certain of (really who isn’t), but I never thought of him as vindictive. Boy was I wrong.

To tell a girl, who obviously is still in love with you, that you bought an engagement ring as a practical joke is just screwed up.

You would think Will having an epiphany, realizing he still loves Mac, and asking her to marry him would have changed my mind. You would think that and you would be wrong. Is it possible a marriage proposal could be more out-of-place? What’s ironic is that I believed up to that moment that he did love her he just couldn’t forgive her. Of course if there is no third season then the Mac & Will saga was wrapped up in a nice little bow. Oh goodie.

Luckily for me that was pretty much the only part of the finale I didn’t like. The rest was pretty good on a scale of Studio 60 to The West Wing. If this was the series finale it will by no means go down as one of my favorites. In fact it is entirely possible that in 6 months I will have forgotten all about the show, having moved on to bigger and better shows. Who knows, I guess we will find out in 6 months.
In the meantime I can rest easy knowing that although my original ship did not find their way to each other they did at least come to a place in their relationship where a friendship could be seen on the horizon. I’d like to think that the purpose of Jim in Maggie’s life was never to be her boyfriend, but instead was meant to be the bridge between the young, naïve Maggie we met in Season 1 and the mature, strong Maggie we left in Season 2.  Plus it was great seeing Maggie and Lisa take the steps towards fixing their relationship.

Aside from Jim’s interaction with Maggie in the finale I never found myself latching on to his storyline this season. It wasn’t until the last few episodes that I even felt he was a part of the News Night gang. Poor Neal was also stuck in “I have no storyline of my own” land and had spent the better part of the finale fixing a Wikipedia page and tracking down the buyer of Sloan’s book. Dev Patel, you deserved better my friend.

Any and every one who bemoaned the pairing of Don and Sloan to you I say “HA!” Yeah, that’s right I’m a proud Don and Sloan shipper. Love them, love them, and love them.  Okay sure it was obvious that Don was the one who bought the book and yes, I never really believed all the so-called obstacles in their way, but whatever, I don’t care. I love them together. So much so that when Sloan figured it out and kissed him I cheered. The finale could have ended there and I would have been a happy, happy girl.
But it didn’t and that was cool with me too because it meant I got to see Charlie and Reese go at each other again. Even though I saw Reese’s change of heart coming a mile away it was still nice to end the season/series finale on the note that they were all in it together come hell or high water. I admit that in the beginning I wasn’t a big fan of Reese’s but that has really changed this season and now he’s one of my favorite characters. It would have been great to see him more often in the third season. Oh well there’s always The Mindy Project.

So that’s it Season 2 of The Newsroom has come to a close. Hopefully we will return next year with new episodes and if by chance this was the last we see of the gang from News Night it was fun while it lasted. To borrow from Edward R. Murrow “Good night, and good luck.”