Will and Jim try dating this week, as even though Will was supposedly very good at dating just last episode, he is now bad at it and requires assistance from Dr. Dr. Sloan Sabbith (she has two Ph.D.s now!) to set him up with a woman at the ACN New Year's Eve party. Because who doesn't want to go to work on New Year's Eve? Jim loves it, because he gets to do actual work there until Don decides to set him up with Maggie's roommate, Lisa. Dr. Dr. Sloan fixes Will up with a woman who is a writer for a gossip magazine called TMI, and Will can't help but get on his News High Horse and tell her that she's worse than a heroin dealer because people like to read about The Real Housewives of New Jersey. Needless to say, she does not appreciate this, and a few days later, a slightly fictitious account of the night and Will's behavior appears in Page Six.
Dr. Dr. Sloan then sets Will up with a woman who loves guns and drugs, thus earning her a very special Willecture. And Date #3 talks about how much she loves The Real Housewives of New Jersey, so she also gets a Willecture. Willectures for all women! And then it all makes it into the gossip columns, with Date #2 getting the front page of TMI and Will looking like a gun-loving drug addict. That's when Charlie realizes that this is the work of Jane Fonda, who is using her other AWM outlets to take Will down so she'll look justified in firing him, just like she promised last episode. Charlie didn't tell Will about that meeting. Now they have to figure out what to do about it. Also, MacKenzie is very sad to find out that Will's non-compete clause is only in his contract because he had to put it there to have the ability to fire MacKenzie.
Jim's date with Lisa goes much better than any of Will's. Though he tells Maggie that they didn't really hit it off, he sleeps with Lisa and Maggie finds out, thanks to Don, who isn't stupid and therefore can see (as can Lisa, although I guess she didn't really care) that Maggie has feelings for Jim. The whole gang end up at work on a Saturday – Charlie, MacKenzie, Don, and Will to deal with the TMI story and everyone else to listen to Neal's lecture on the existence of Bigfoot, which he's been weirdly obsessed with all episode. Maggie takes this opportunity to yell at Jim for sleeping with her roommate and lying to her about it in front of everyone, so he makes her sit at the assignment desk for the rest of the day as punishment.
And that's when we realize why everyone had to be in the office in the first place: because this is the day Representative Gabrielle Giffords (and 18 other people) was shot, and now they can all cover it with much gusto, ignoring all of their now-insignificant-seeming problems to cover this breaking news in fantastic, truth-telling, civilized fashion. When the other outlets start reporting that Giffords is dead but there hasn't been any official confirmation, Will has to decide if he should join them and risk being wrong or hold off and risk being the last news outlet to report Giffords' death. Of course, we all know that she survived, and Will's decision to wait is the right one, even though Reese is screaming at him to join in and pronounce her dead. Reese is the Bad Guy. Charlie, Will, and his staff and even Don are the Good Guys, so they realize that Giffords is a person and shouldn't just be used for news ratings or as part of a race to report the news first. No, although apparently it's totally cool to use her for an HBO show's sleazy and hypocritical attempt to elicit an emotional response from the viewers, titular Coldplay songs and all.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!
It's party time in the newsroom, as Will dons a tuxedo and smokes in his office while the rest of the staff spend their New Year's Eve at work for reasons I do not understand and are not explained except for MacKenzie saying something about how Will is spending time with his "NewsNight family." Even if you did work with a bunch of people who couldn't come up with their own plans for New Year's Eve, why would you have the party in the office? How lame is that? No wonder Will doesn't want to be near them. Eternally not getting the hint, MacKenzie asks Will if he wouldn't mind giving her boyfriend a few minutes of his time so he can "share some facts" that could make for a good news story. Will agrees. MacKenzie lets Wade into the office and leaves them alone together. It turns out that Wade is an assistant US attorney focusing on financial crime. Will points out that Wade isn't doing a very good job at that. Wade says there's a reason for that.
Hey, remember when we liked Neal because he didn't talk very much, but when he did it wasn't annoying and he seemed like a semi-relatable human being? Well, now he wants everyone to know that Bigfoot is real. All the randoms we usually see in meeting room (sans the Rodney Dangerfield guy) roll their eyes and laugh at Neal. Meanwhile, they're all decked out in sequins and ties while Jim is wearing his usual work clothes and sitting at his desk, working. The randoms leave so that Maggie can come in, order Neal to stop talking, and then angrily ask Jim why he's working in the middle of a party.
Neal's new girlfriend (or not, as he says "girlfriend's a strong word" when asked because I'm sure attractive young women like this Kaylee are just lining up to date a blogger who thinks Bigfoot is real). "Get me drunk," Kaylee asks. "Done. Boom!" Neal says, quite pleased with himself. This leaves Maggie and Jim alone. Maggie offers to help Jim with his assignment but then Don arrives and Maggie has to go pretend she doesn't have feelings for her boss to the guy who used to be the boss she had feelings for.
Don claims that tonight he's going to be "Fun Don." "I love Fun Don!" Maggie says. And yet, she wants to be with Jim, whose version of Fun Jim is probably fantasizing about how he would have reported the Kennedy assassination. Maggie says she borrowed her dress from Roommate Lisa, which gives Don the idea to fix Roommate Lisa up with Jim. "Why would you unleash Lisa on Jim?" Maggie asks, not even being subtle in her desire not to share Jim with anyone else. You can bet Allison Pill does this with her usual over-acted aplomb.
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