Network is a story of suicide. Anyone who’s seen the 1976 film by Sydney Lumet, or even the more recent hit theater adaptation, will, of course, remember the story’s inciting incident: veteran newscaster Howard Beale (Peter Finch) has been fired after a long slow ratings decline, and, in a fit of despair, declares on live TV that he’ll blow his brains out in front of the cameras the following week. What’s less obvious, though, is that Beale succeeds in committing suicide, though it takes him much longer than a mere few days. And, the full significance of this fact makes the story’s most stirring moments at the same time its darkest ones.