Major Spoiler Alert: Last night HBO aired the finale episode of Aaron Sorkin’s The Newsroom. One moment that stuck out during the episode, and series for that matter, was when the cast took a moment from walking and talking long enough to sit and sing. After Charlie’s (Sam Waterston) memorial service, Will McAvoy (Jeff Daniels) and Jim Harper (John Gallagher, Jr, not the guy from The Office) performed a moving rendition of Tom T. Hall’s “How I Got to Memphis.” If you missed it than good news, some charitable souls (or bloodthirsty pirates) took some videos of the scene and put them online for you to watch.
You can check out a better quality and longer version of the song, here.
Recently, Newsroom executive producer/director Alan Poul spoke to TV Guide about the musical number:
“Like many series finales, there are several scenes that could be considered the climax. In particular, the musical number, ‘That's How I Got To Memphis,’ there's so much heavy stuff that goes on before that to make sure that it pays off in terms of what that scene is really about. [That scene puts] Will's impending fatherhood and [him finding] a way express his feelings about Charlie all in a context that's actually on the surface joyful.”
Poul went on to talk about all the hard work that went into that delicate scene, adding:
“Calibrating everything leading up to that scene was something that took a lot of effort. Because we didn't want it to get to that point and say, ‘Oh my God, we did so much, and now we're pausing for a musical number.’ It had to play thematically as something that was actually paying off specific story lines for Will.”
What did you think about the series finale. Let us know your thoughts on the episode in the comments section at the bottom of the page.
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