I didn’t find it poignant, exactly, but I was relieved that there was a good hair-and-hair-color-related reason behind the new 'do.
This is my question too - is Gary Cooper dead or not? I don’t remember seeing him, except in flashbacks. He definitely wasn’t in the production meeting, as they specifically call out the fact that there’s only one black staff member there.
He’s alive. He wasn’t in the production meeting because him and Maggie had already left for Africa.
Lazy, lazy damn episode. Hated the “coincidence” thing beyond all measure - that was beyond stupid. I kept yelling at the screen: “Do your job! Report! Research! Jesus!” It’s not that hard - they had all the details they needed. Maybe it was supposed to be cute and self-aware, but it just struck me as off-putting and dumb.
Loved the OWS girl getting grilled - much deserved. Was OK with Will apologizing. Africa thing seemed forced - like I should be connecting with this, but I just couldn’t.
Yeah. The Genoa thing is probably the biggest part of the season’s arc as well as the biggest story but it’s also the one that has the least effort put in. All the other stories has boots on the ground. New Hampshire, Wall Street, Uganda. Genoa? Entirely over phone lines. Christ, it’s the biggest war crime in US history and there is absolutely zero effort being put into it and it relies on serendipity for it to come into fruition? I don’t know if it’s lazy, but it sure is frustrating writing.
Will doing Will is what this show exists on. His delivery of Sorkin’s lines pretty much is the only selling point of this show. That and fantasizing about Olivia Munn.
Just watched this. After Maggie gets on the bus there is a shot of her re-reading the book with a flashlight to the very alive Daniel. Seconds later it is established that Daniel was killed instantly when the bullet hit his spine outside the bus and we see him face down dead apparently still on the bus. What’s up with that?
In her head reading to Daniel is what should have happened, what she wants to believe happened. The little boy getting killed, though, is what did happen.
That’s what I suspected, but there weren’t any other instances of “what shoulda’ and what really happened” in the flashback, not that there were other circumstances where a divergence would be important. I’m getting a final episode of MASH memory flitting around my brain about this. Am I on to something?
I was under the impression that a bullet when through the side of the bus and hit him, after we saw her reading the book to him.
It seemed possible. She could have loaded him onto the bus and started reading while Gary ran back out for the camera that he dropped. They would have been aiming at him, missed and hit the kid.
Also, she said she was reading the book to him, they cut to that and then someone said ‘was he killed instantly’ or something like that. In my mind that was to spare the details and assume the audience is smart enough to put together that he was shot and that’ll save them 30 seconds of screen time, makeup, props, a lot of time shooting with the kid on the bus, fake blood, cleaning it up between takes etc…
One last thing…it’s established that she was ‘holding the boy’ when he was shot. So it didn’t happen while he was still inside and I’d argue that of a kid is riding piggy back (which is what he was doing on the way out to the bus), then you’re not ‘holding him’. This show doesn’t screw around with details. She was, however, holding him on the bus. He was on her lap, possible (if memory serves) with a blanket wrapped around him and sort of cuddled in her arms.
Didn’t she say that he was hit by a bullet that should have hit her? I thought it was pretty obvious that he was shot while riding piggy-back, thus taking the bullet for her.
“It wasn’t a chicken, it was her BABY!”
Weird. I consider carrying someone piggyback as holding them since I hook my arms under their legs. Pretty sure they actually said it outright last week that the kid was shot while riding piggyback, and then Gary confirmed it again tonight: “He wasn’t on my back when he was shot.” (As explanation why now, 6 months later, Gary has recovered but Maggie still struggles.)
That last bit threw me, btw. So Maggie still had long, blonde hair 6 months after the kid was killed? She cuts her hair over 6 months later? That rang false.
I wondered about the hair too, but we know she’s been drinking heavily and sleeping around out of fear. She’s still processing her trauma. That’s why he asked how long it took to get over it. She’s pretty traumatized still. And hasn’t reached bottom yet.
Does anyone want to talk about (imo) the best episode of the season so far?
This would have been it if they had actually shown the pictures of Sloan.
I agree this one was much better. I liked the stuff about Will’s father, and Sloan’s scandal.
I didn’t like how the show borrowed the story about NBC editing the Zimmerman 911 audio and then sort of excused the bad edit (in the show) by having it done under a time-crunch by a drunk/hungover/PTSD Maggie.
Art imitates life. You can find pics of Olivia Munn naked online. 
I didn’t really understand what Don’s dilemma was, nor Sloan’s resolution of it.
I don’t agree. I thought the in-show cause of the bad edit was entirely plausible; that someone under a time crunch edited the clip in a way that changed the meaning.
My understanding is that he jokingly made a potentially slanderous comment about someone, and it got picked up by a news source and run as factual. He kept calling the guy the comment was about, and apologizing profusely, but Sloan pointed out that the person he should be calling is the editor of the news source (in an effort to get the item taken down).
Which, really, I don’t see how Don wouldn’t have realized all on his own, but I’m ok with suspending that particular disbelief.