hairdos and don'ts

That Is One Terrible Wig, The Newsroom

Hey, The Newsroom is back! The season premiere happened! We got to enjoy Aaron Sorkin’s favorite scene to write: a deposition. The most significant part of the new season, though, is Maggie’s haircut. Maggie’s horrendous, disastrous haircut.

Photo: HBO

Maggie was already the weakest character on the show. She’s profoundly bad at her job and demonstrates zero capacity for improvement, and we’re somehow supposed to believe that she picked human slimehole Don over Nice Guy Jim. (I prefer Don, honestly. But Maggie would not.) She’s flaky! She’s incompetent! She has meltdowns all the time! But this haircut is a step too far.

Rebecca (Newsroom newbie Marcia Gay Harden) claims Maggie looks like “the girl with the dragon tattoo,†which is completely false. Maggie looks like the Fuzzy Buzzies. Or perhaps this is part of The Newsroom’s ongoing, timely fascination with Sex and the City — an homage to Miranda’s regrettable season two hair, maybe?

Photo: HBO

Will tells Rebecca that Maggie’s haircut is the result of a trauma. “If what happened to her happened to you, you would kill yourself for the rest of your life,†Will spits. Without spoiling anything, I have seen the episode where Maggie gets this hairdo. And the trauma she endures marginally explains but does not excuse this additional tragedy, because truly nothing could. Save yourself, Alison Pill. You deserve better.

That Is One Terrible Wig, The Newsroom