About midway through the final episode of The Newsroom, an announcement is made to those gathered for Charlie Skinner’s funeral: Heroic, long abroad co-worker Neal Sampat’s plane has landed, and he is finally returning home. The crowd claps happily. They will never see Neal again.
That’s not entirely true. Neal turns up later in the episode, but the only people he speaks to are the nerds manning the web team who are busy crafting a list of overrated films, their intent primarily to upset the Internet. Neal dresses them down accordingly and tells them to shut down the website he worked so hard to build so he can systematically begin to rebuild its integrity. He settles in immediately to work, and despite being in the office when the rest of the crew trickles in to begin that evening’s shows, he exchanges not a single word with them.
This is a man who spent months of his life hiding from the American government in a South American country without extradition. His crime? Refusing to name a source who helped to break the news that the government had a hand in and subsequently covered up an inciting incident overseas that resulted in several dozen innocent people being killed. Neal is moral and true, refusing to sacrifice his journalistic integrity and being resolute in the idea that, no matter the consequences it may rain down on himself, the American people deserve to know the truth about their government. In return for his sacrifice and his iron will, he is rewarded with a round of applause he never hears and his old job. He gets no hug, no pat on the back. He returns to the cybershadows where he languished for two prior seasons.
Why focus on Neal when so much else happens in this finale? Because Neal is a special case. Toward the end of the episode, Will McAvoy speaks to a group gathered to mourn the passing of his mentor and erstwhile father figure. After previously avoiding the prospect of eulogizing Charlie whenever the opportunity arose, Will finally relents and speaks of the man who meant so much to him in a variety of loving terms. Chief among those terms is the idea that Charlie’s religion was decency, followed shortly thereafter by the exaltation “You were a man, Charlie. You were a great big man.”
The religion of decency is as close to a moral code you’ll find in the world of Aaron Sorkin. His protagonists are all slaves to that higher calling, though it’s not necessarily always exhibited in themselves. It is, however, certainly to be demanded of the society around them. One man’s decency, of course, is another man’s abomination, but that doesn’t matter in the Sorkinverse. It’s clear throughout all of the writer’s shows that his characters live and die by the absolute code that he has created for them. Say what you will about him and said code, but Aaron Sorkin is a just god, who will not allow his children of faith and commitment to go unrewarded.
Let us examine the good works of the characters of The Newsroom and how their actions were honored.
It is right and just to begin with those who have gone before, so take Charlie Skinner, ACN patriarch and confrontational drunkard. As the episode plays out, we are privy to flashbacks that reveal the extent of Charlie’s scheming to bring about the low-rated but morally superior News Night that we’ve come to know and love over the years. He wooed Mac to work and started a domino effect that resulted in the pairing off of no less than three of the happy couples cuddled up at his funeral. He also, we learn, had an inexplicable conversation with Will urging him to procreate at a point in time where Will was obviously depressed, underperforming at work, and not dating anyone. For his lifelong commitment to journalistic decency and drunken humanity Charlie dies, sure, but he is also revealed to be the linchpin in the creation of News Night and the love that brought the networks family together. And isn’t that the true reward?
Will, fresh off the heels of a conversation he had with Charlie three years ago, finds out Mac is pregnant in the middle of Charlie’s funeral. Despite his own pathological daddy issues, Will sees this turn of events as a net positive and spends the rest of the episode trying to completely remake his lifestyle so he can live forever. Because he never yielded the moral high ground to anyone, he is justly rewarded, heading into the post-Sorkin afterlife with a happy marriage, an impending child, and a wife who is now president of the network.
That’s right. For her years toiling in the trenches and being Will’s girl Friday, Mackenzie, despite uttering the line “Like it’s every little girl’s dream to make a man better at his job,” is rewarded with the role of president of ACN, thanks to Lucas Pruitt’s PR problems. See, Pruitt did not live by Sorkin’s moral code and had to be punished accordingly. Now, he’ll have to work with a woman for the rest of his days.