If last’s week episode focused on the aftermath of the season 1, the episode 2 shows us the beginning of all the stories which are going to rock our characters. We learn more about why Maggie went to Uganda & why it turned wrong for her, discover Neal’s implication in covering Occupy Wall Street and the most important: the Genoa operation.
Recap of “The Genoa Tip.”
The episode opens with Jim still on The Romney Campaign tour and still facing some bus problems because of the American Taliban comments. Surprisingly for him, one of his fellow journalists on the bus – a cute blond girl named Hallie – gets out and persuades the Romney press coordinator to accept Jim. Sounds like an ally but soon Jim discovers he shouldn’t be too grateful as she explains her request by a simple “I just want to get going”. Later, after he asks for her help with his camera she reminds him “they’re competitors”.
Things are getting worse for him not only professionally but also personally. Indeed, in NYC Maggie is trying to have the youtube video taken off the site. After she found her asleep in ACN office, Sloan decides to help her to track down the person who uploaded it. The woman, who happens to be a huge fan of Sex and the City and a blogger, objects to remove the video as it’s a link for a blog and also her most popular post. Sloan makes a deal; she’ll tweet the link for this woman’s blog so she could get more followers and in exchange the video will be taken off.
A couple of weeks later, Maggie discovers that it is still online by her roommate Lisa – Jim’s girlfriend – who puts an end to their friendship making them just two girls sharing an apartment. Still on the road, Jim received the link for the video in a mail sent by Lisa which is quite enough to explain him the situation. In consequence of all this, he avoids Maggie’s calls. Too bad for him as she just decided to go to Uganda for what was supposed to be a simple fact-finding mission. Soon, she learns of a deadly uprising in the region but decides to keep the danger secret from Mackenzie and gets ready for this mission.
Meanwhile, Don tries to persuade Will to help him advocate for Troy Davis who is going to be executed. He has some info that there was some lobbying against Troy Davis, but this information can’t be proved. It will be professionally unethical for him to run the story as there is no fact and will be seen as entirely biased on his own belief. In the end, Don watches, heartbroken, the news announcing Troy Davis was executed.
Neal still tries to defend the Occupy Wall Street news in the conference room but just receives some laughs from his colleagues (one of them thinking the Anonymous Mask is : Salvador Dali’s). But on September 19, 2011, Neal joins them during its lunch break and got arrested for no reason – indeed he declares the police he was a journalist covering the news which supposedly prevents him from being arrested. Will goes to the NYC police station to release him but for sure, this event changes definitely the News team’s point of view on the movement.
On his side, Will is quite affected with not covering the 9/11 anniversary being replaced by Sloan. He lies to the team by telling them it was his decision rather than Charlie’s – but in fact everybody knew the truth. And to explain why this is affecting him so much, we discover what happened to him on Sept.11, 2001 through ACN’s archives. Indeed two technicians watch a video from ACN’s telecast that night. At that time, Will was just a legal correspondent but ended presenting the show when the reporters were not there. He presented the show for hours struggling with his own feelings and not knowing what to do or to say. And even if, he is not presenting the 9/11 anniversary show, a little detail on the show tells us that he may be the one who wrote Sloan’s speech.
But the most important of the episode of course is the Genoa story. It’s actually not the biggest part of it but little by little, this catastrophe is revealed to the audience. The Genoa operation was actually an extraction made by the US army during which they used sarin gas killing several civilians. Jerry – Jim’s replacement – spends the whole episode trying to get in touch with one military veteran who worked on this operation. At the end, he finally reaches him and put Mac on the phone. She cautioned him that he is giving classified information to the press. A remark to which the veteran answers he is well aware of what he is doing.
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