That's right, the Internet's least favorite show and your NPR-loving parents' guilty pleasure is back for another season of angering Jezebel and Rush Limbaugh at the same time.
How did Aaron Sorkin achieve this impressive feat of grating the left and raising the ire of the far right simultaneously with The Newsroom? This is a complicated question. Sorkin's high-minded earnestness that was so charming in The West Wing often veers hard into sentimentality in his HBO series. The fun, flawed women clearly molded in the image of Allison Janney's immortal C.J. Craig fall victim to some misogyny that seems to have crept into Sorkin's writing with age. Sorkin's normally sharp, well-researched work is a bit dulled on The Newsroom: When he writes about the Internet, his words feel like the audio version of your dad trying to work his new iPhone. A writer known for his meticulous chronicles of baseball, social media, and the White House falls short here in a space that should feel pretty close to home.
That isn't to say you shouldn't give The Newsroom a shot. The skilled monologuing and sweeping cinematic gestures are enough to lure you in, and in sequences like Alison Pill's Sex and the City tour bus rant and Sam Waterston's tender dialogue with a flawed NSA whistle blower, you remember why Sorkin became an industry giant. Ultimately, even if you find the mixture of earnestness and cockiness that Sorkin brings to The Newsroom off-putting, you can't help but respect his clear, singular vision.
We digress. We're not here to analyze—we're here to catch you up the only way people like to be told anything on the Internet: in GIFs (We can already hear Jeff Daniels' Will McAvoy asking next season in another luddite rant this season, "What's the deal with those GIFs?"). That's right. We've condensed all of the show's monologues, walk-and-talks, and distant stares into a series of GIFs, so you can be ready for all of those season 2 Newsroom premiere parties we're sure aren't happening anywhere except for at the Sorkin residence. This is everything you need To know To watch season 2 of The Newsroom.
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