The Newsroom Season 2 Finale: A First Kiss, an Engagement and Election Night Drama

Find out what happened on the finale of Aaron Sorkin's HBO drama Sept. 15

By Tierney Bricker Sep 16, 2013 3:00 AMTags
Newsroom, Emily Mortimer, Jeff Daniels, Thomas Sadoski, Olivia Munn, Dev Patel, John Gallagher, Jr.Melissa Moseley/HBO

Spoiler Alert: Do not continue reading unless you have already watchedThe Newsroom's season 2 finale or wish to know what happened. If you complain about spoilers in the comments, you are the opposite of Batman...

Work like there's no tomorrow...because you might not have a job.

That was the battle cry of News Night's team on The Newsroom's season 2 finale on Sunday night, as Will (Jeff Daniels), Charlie (Sam Waterson) and Mac's (Emily Mortimer) resignations were in limbo and the rest of the gang were just along for the ride in "Election Night Part 2." With their careers in limbo, the tension was thick in the ACN show's newsroom. (So it was basically a normal day.)

Oh, and this all just happened to go down on one of their biggest nights: The presidential election, no big deal! But of course, there were also major relationship shifts between Will and Mac, Sloane (Olivia Munn) and Don (Thomas Sadoski) and Maggie (Allison Pill) and Jim (Jon Gallagher Jr.) during the HBO drama's final season 2 outing...

An Unexpected Engagement: Things were not looking good for Will and Mac either professionally (we'll get to that in a minute) or personally after Will revealed that the engagement ring he had shown her previously had been a practical joke, aka he was never serious about marrying her. "I feel like I'm going to hit you,"  Mac says, adding that while she's brutally hurt him in the past, she's never done it intentionally, which is what Will was trying to do by telling her about the ring.

But he makes up for it by episode's end...with a real proposal. Yes, Will and Mac end season two engaged! And of course it happens with a whole lot of words including Will telling Mac, "I'm in love with you. I think you should say yes...I'm going to be in love with you for the rest of my life...You own me." Mac says, you guessed it, "Yes, I'm saying yes." Will's elated response? "Thank God." We won't lie, we were cheering right along with the rest of the newsroom after Will announced their engagement to the gang. Champagne and cigars for all!

Sealed With a Kiss: After months of tensions, Sloane and Don finally hooked up. Sloane is desperate to find the person who bought a book she "signed" (turns out someone forged it), and learns that Don bought it to make it look like there was a bidding war. So what does she do? Sloane signs a book for him, kisses him and then gets right back to her job. And this is why Sloane is our Newsroom favorite.

The Second Beginning of a Beautiful Friendship: Praise Aaron Sorkin, Jim and Maggie are finally Jim and Maggie again! After what she went through in Africa, Maggie clearly needed a friend, which she finally got in the form of Jim in the finale. Clearly concerned after his GF points out that it's "alarming" that Maggie cut her own hair, Jim gets Lisa (Kelen Coleman) and Maggie to speak to each other and gets Maggie to open up about what she's going through. It's a sweet, touching moment where Jim tells her she is tough and needs to appreciate that she's alive. And anyone else get chills when Maggie opened the yellow alert in the final scene, just like she commended Jim for doing earlier in the ep? Chills, we tell you!

The News Night Family: Will is thrown for a loop when he hears that senior staff members are looking for positions elsewhere as he, Mac and Charlie are trying to resign in order to save their jobs at News Night. So he calls a meeting, but is surprised by what he learns: The entire staff will resign if Leona (Jane Fonda) accepts Will, Charlie and Mac's resignation. It's the newsroom version of the "Name on the front is a hell of a lot more important than the one on the back" moment from Miracle, basically, and it's awesome. Too bad it's up to Reese (Chris Messina) to make the final decision, who seems to be leaning towards letting the trio go on their merry way. But Charlie decides hell no, they won't go. Turns out, he didn't have to put up any fight as Reese decided to "take the high road" and not accept their resignations, which Charlie had withdrawn anyway.

What did you think of The Newsroom's season finale? Are you hoping for a 3rd season? Sound off in the comments!

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