Season 3 of HBO’s The Newsroom will spotlight one of the most intensely covered news stories since the September 11 terrorist attacks: the Boston Marathon bombings.

Boston‘s Eric Randall got the scoop on the plot details of the upcoming third and final season of HBO’s media-drama, which pits Jeff Daniels (Will McAvoy) and his ACN newshounds against virtually every other network in the business. Fans of the show are familiar with the message The Newsroom tries to deliver – that nightly cable news-networks, while responsible for delivering accurate, as-unbiased-as-possible information to viewers, often times face “corporate and commercial obstacles” which compromise journalistic ethics.

The previous seasons used major news stories – the Occupy Wall Street movement, for example – as overarching backstories, revisited and brought into focus in bits and pieces throughout the episodes. Naturally, the events of April 15, 2013, the ensuing shootout in Watertown and the manhunt for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev – and indeed, the media’s coverage of the Boston Marathon bombings – provided writer/creator Aaron Sorkin with more than enough material to go on.

The Newsroom, before it premiered, had many salivating over the prospect of anchor Will McAvoy (Daniels) single-handedly taking his colleagues to task on The News. But less-than-stellar reviews will force HBO to pull the plug after Season 3. However, as Randall writes, the Boston Marathon bombings “at least present interesting questions on journalistic ethics, the role of social media in major news, and a few big old what-not-to-dos.”

The Newsroom will return to HBO Sunday, November 9 at 9 p.m. EST.

Screenshot via HBO trailer