re: The Newsroom Season 3 (Series Finale Tonight, "What Kind of Day Has it Been?")

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Turn him to shite in one episode and kill him? Crap writing, IMO.

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I can certainly agree the episode was quite rushed on this storyline, I don't have a big problem with how it was handled. Charlie said it himself last episode, he was done fighting. He's been the delusional knight, fighting for "doing the news right" in a world that was never going to let him. He had gotten his arse kicked and was just trying to go with the flow of the new world. Of course it was killing him inside to do it. Sam Waterston did a great job in the episode showing just that. Trying to sell a new way of doing things he didn't believe in against the people he loved still fighting his good fight. His short fuse, going from rage to rage...mad deep down he had given up the fight.

Then he died, just as his old journalism has died.

The execution wasn't great and was too rushed to hit the emotional note his death should have. That I don't deny. More of his inner struggle would have been nice. All things considered though, I think it was handled well for the very short amount of time budgeted to it.

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It's been an extremely rushed season.

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I haven't really felt that way until last night. I mean, they've been burning through plot like a CW show but it hasn't felt too fast within the fast pace of everything about the show. Last night though had too many irons in the fire. We needed zero time with Jim and Maggie. No one cares what happens to them. Don's story with the Princeton chick did a pretty good job (though apparently some reviews have a very different perspective) on the campus rape issue, but there really wasn't time to do it and tell the story of the changes at ACN. Sloan's battle with the nerdy stalker guy was amusing and worked. Will and his dad in prison was also quite well done. Two episodes and they cover all these fronts better. It was way too much for one fifty minute block, especially with so much time wasted on fricking Jim and Maggie.