The character Jim does this ever so eloquently for us by asking the Romney campaign that he's following similarly trapping questions every opportunity. They evade. All of the reporters use the campaign's talking points as "news" at the end of each day on trail. This is a disgusting reality of modern day politicking, yes. And one scene of this would have sufficed. About six repeated scenes of this is merely annoying and redundant itself. Irony isn't effective if it's not funny or insightful. This is neither. It's a storyline that could go on for every stop of everyone's primary campaign everywhere. Where would that take us?
The episode is essentially ruined by this, only not in full. When the show drops out of its high moral crusade gear, it manages to return to its uniquely raw and engaging avenue of humor. It works well from Sloan Sabbith's deadpan to Maggie Jordan's fragility. The show has a certain realistic charm to it. As felt in the scene in which MacKenzie McHale uses a word to Will, stops, and admits to not knowing the "right word" while trying to smile it off in awkward jest. When the writers stop overwriting every bit of snappy jargon they can think of into a scene and simply let the characters breathe, the show embraces something outside of the formulaic box it too readily occupies. No one wants to hear Will correct his old pal and boss about 25 movie references in 35 seconds. At least I don't. The show needs to take a cue from Will's weekends and find a little room for an elixir.
Speaking of Will's weekends...the show once again ventures into a monotonous love script between Will and MacKenzie. The ever-so-close, oh-I-just-missed it romance is not an enthralling plot line, gang. I think all intelligent viewers, which this show aims at almost exclusively, lost interest in these sorts of ongoing plot lines after, oh maybe, Friends. I was 12 then, I think.
For once, can a show simply allow romance to tumble into a character's existence, as if it could happen by chance? And no, we do not need to know the other character of said romance for 40 episodes prior, I don't think. I feel that an audience is fully comfortable with a small bit of spontaneity as opposed to one of those circling penny pieces of shit that used to be in Big Box stores. What do you know those two pennies that were neck and neck for 80 episodes landed on top of each other? Yay. Cool trick.
Next episode, guess what? Maggie and Jim will have their little to-and-fro. How fascinating.
It probably seems like I don't like this show. And yeah, there are times I don't. Like 85% of this episode. But between its doggedness and message-heavy hands and formulaic time consumption, it does offer some truly well caught nets to be laid out upon a fabric that is real. That is recent. That is relevant. Its design allows for so much to be said. I just hope that it finds the right angles of approach. The right tone and right step to set up a grandstand with all the hard to catch together fixings falling one by one. It's just swinging in the wilderness at this juncture.
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Post-Script
Teasing the next conflict however, at show's end, is a direction that seems to have all of the wandering edges that make for a dynamic superimposition over news and the way we were readily able to perceive it such a short reality ago.
In another post script, Will's only moment's on-air during the show were highly effective. Message-driven, but nonetheless far from used up.
Oh and one more thing, this "romance" with the tabloid woman that is happening in this episode does not fall into the spontaneous category I am alluding to above. When you can see something through to the other side, it's not really there.
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