Will McAvoy may be a Republican but Sorkin is definitely using his and the others characters’ voice to express his point of view…especially when dealing with real political events. In this episode, he focuses on his thoughts about tabloid and the republican party’s point of view about gays, healthcare, job and aborting.
This week’s episode starts with McAvoy presenting the Republican debate of September 22, 2011. Just before he shows pieces of speech from the Republican candidate: Bachman, Cain, Santorum, Romney all of them telling how much they’re supporting and respecting the military and the soldiers. The usual speech politicians have especially during a presidential campaign. Then during the debate, an American Soldier asked a question via youtube about gays in military. Indeed this soldier fired after he declared he was gay – at this time the “Don’t ask don’t tell” policy hadn’t been repealed yet. His question was followed by the booing of several republican members in the room and none of the candidates answer to this. Sorkin through Will’s speech criticizes the candidates and the Republican in general “, “How many different kinds of disgusting do you have to be to boo a man who volunteered to fight and die for you?”
When he is not using Will, Sorkin takes Jim as his “spokesperson”. Indeed, on the road of the Romney campaign Jim can’t stop interrupting the press meetings. He points out that Romney criticizes Obama and what the democrats had done while in the Office but never explained his plan. For example, what’s his plan to reduce debt without any changes promised? What about the unemployment? Romney declares he will lower the rate from 9.1 to 5.9. Jim answers that Moody’s released a report declaring 12 million new jobs will be created in the next four years whoever the president is. The rest of the bus is tired by Jim especially Hallie “you’re driving us crazy.” But still Jim doesn’t give up and continue to ask questions about Romney’s program. “One more question, what do you expect us to report tonight?” The answer: the new opinion poll showing the Romney campaign is in the lead!
While on the bus, Jim tells Hallie he read her blogs and found her article good, trying to understand why she’s been so nasty. “We live here, you’re visiting,” she tells explaining him she used to work at the Denver Post but was replaced by someone with more experience. So she started her own blog to ask the questions she wanted. Now it’s her third campaign and it sounds like she never had the answers she wanted especially about Women’s right to choose. Later, Jim shows her something on his laptop. Back on the bus, he interrupts again the meeting. “April 9, 2002, Mitt Romney completes a questionnaire provided by the National Abortion Rights Action League…in this questionnaire he said ‘I respect and will protect a woman’s right to choose. The choice is a deeply personal one.” He wants Hallie to ask her question. She remains silent for a while before standing up “This past June, 102 days ago, your candidate said ‘I support the reversal of Roe v. Wade” which means, he is now supporting the idea of making abortion illegal. She is interrupted by the two press people leading Jim to create a sort of rebellion. He points out they don’t need to stay on the bus and can get off and do their job: reporting. “We can force them to answer our questions.” Sounds a great idea but at the end, only Hallie and one of the annoying guy in the bus follow him outside of the bus.
Meanwhile in New York, Will and Mackenzie are trying to deal with the consequences of his message on her voicemail. “I’m not just saying this because I’m high…” but Mackenzie never had the rest of it and wants to know what he was going to say….of course he refuses. Will has another problem to deal with:
Charlie tells him Nina Howard knew he didn’t have the flu for the 9/11 coverage. If she 
runs the story, it’ll be embarrassing for both Will and Charlie. Will decides to tell her the truth with her, against Charlie’s will. He meets her in the executive dining room which he had closed off. Surprisingly she accepts to keep the story for her. “So it worked?” he’s surprised. Actually she is doing that because she heard the voicemail he left for Mackenzie: “Hey Mac, it’s me. Look, I’m not just saying this because I’m high, I’ve never stopped loving you, you were spectacular tonight….” Will thanks her for destroying the message.
Meanwhile Sloan thinks she is the one who leaks the infos about the 9/11 coverage because she dated Nina’s agent and as she was a bit drunk she told him a few things including about things about the coverage. At the end it appears it was Reese Lansing. Indeed, Nina Howard said she knew – before Will told her the truth – he was put away from the show by Charlie. The problem is, Will kept repeating it was his idea. The only people knowing it wasn’t were him, Charlie and Lansing.
Later, Mackenzie calls Nina to thank her for not running the story and also asks her if she remembered what Will said on this message. Howard lies by telling her Will’s message was just about how great she was during the show. Shortly after she hung off, we discover she is at Will’s apartment for what seems to be a date.
But it is not the only thing Mackenzie should be afraid of. Jerry is still high on the Genoa story. They both meet the famous Eric Sweeney, the soldier who is so eagerly ready to give them information. He also gives them the names of some other people involved in this operation but none of them answer. Mackenzie doesn’t believe in this story because it seems so big and so unreal. Nevertheless Maggie and Neal suggest they should check twitter. Maybe someone tweeted at the time of the operation like during the attack of Bin Laden’s house in Pakistan. Jerry thinks it’s a stupid idea but Maggie and Neal want to try. Hours spent and they found nothing. Finally – and because it’s a good cliffhanger – some tweets appear and all of them report an operation, some gas and some American helicopters flying above the area. Was the Genoa story finally real?
We’ll know that on the next episode.
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