Fine, I’ll admit it: With the addition of Jon Hamm and Nicole Beharie this season, The Morning Show has finally transformed from a clunky, heavy-handed newsroom drama into a soapy guilty pleasure. After all, at a time when we could just turn on a real-life news network to despair about the state of the world, why else would we subject ourselves to reliving and reexamining so much of our recent history through one of the most meta shows on television?
Following last week’s flashback-filled interlude, in which we learned that Bradley’s big, bad secret was that she deleted a video of her own brother, Hal, storming the Capitol and leveraged her remaining footage to become the network’s new evening news anchor, this week’s episode whisks us back to the present, when things seem to be going surprisingly well in the potential deal between UBA and tech billionaire Paul Marks. Too well, if you ask Alex. During a meeting with the entire news division, Paul attempts to assuage the fears of the remaining employees by promising that the company’s data will remain secure and that he plans to expand the division rather than gut it.
Much to Cory’s dismay, Alex wants to do her due diligence (for once!) and brings up that Hyperion’s existing contracts with governments and law enforcement could create a conflict of interest in UBA’s coverage. Alex goes as far as to declare to Cory that she wants to interview Paul on Alex Unfiltered, to which the disgruntled CEO, already scared of having the multi-billion dollar deal slip through his fingers again, tells her to “cease and desist” because “we vetted him” already. To the surprise of absolutely no one, Alex goes over Cory’s head and asks Paul directly about doing an on-the-record interview, insisting that overcoming his aversion to the press would be a welcome sign to both UBA shareholders and the general public alike. But Alex is taken aback when Paul, who has obviously taken a special liking to her, immediately says yes and gives her only two days to prepare for an exclusive chat at his home in the Hamptons.
Hamm and Jennifer Aniston clearly want to give this highly-anticipated, on-camera conversation between their characters the utmost gravitas, given that it is somewhat of a turning point in their relationship. But while Hamm seems to naturally fall back into the role of a charming, snappy, and somewhat sympathetic businessman (who doesn’t love Mad Men?), Aniston’s insistence on delivering every line like she’s acting on a primetime soap makes it feel like we’re occasionally watching two different shows. Don’t get me wrong: I love Aniston and primetime soaps, but there is something about this extended scene that captures the uncomfortable middle ground that TMS occupies at present and how much greater the series could be if the creative team could harness its star-studded ensemble to settle on a more cohesive tone.
At the start of their sit-down interview, Paul explains that his desire to acquire UBA stems from an antipathy for fake news and a belief that a media conglomerate has “tremendous profit potential.” When Paul declares that he thinks “the news can be fixed” and that he is qualified for the job because “it’s a pretty low bar these days,” Alex tries to imply that Paul doesn’t have a lot of respect for the people who work in news and she questions why UBA would want to work with someone who doesn’t respect them. Paul smartly flips it back on Alex and calls her out for ditching the Hyperion One launch. This prompts a rattled Alex to pull out the biggest weapon in her arsenal: the Stanford student who, while working as part of Paul’s incubator program for young tech innovators, wrote a key code that evolved into the data analytics system that Hyperion sells to governments around the world.
Alex doesn’t pull any punches: She asks if Paul is rich because he stole someone else’s idea; questions the ethics of making a college student sign an NDA, which is ultimately a zero-sum game; and argues that he took a progressive idea and turned it into a predictive policing tool. Alex even mentions that the student suffered from debilitation depression and survived a suicide attempt. After pausing for a moment, Paul admits that, after his wife left him during the development of Hyperion One, he was forced to reevaluate his tunnel-vision approach to his work, his business practices, and the way he treats others. At the very least, he says, he owes that student a conversation.
Following the interview, Paul says he likes that Alex took him to task, considering that most people in her position would have taken a less direct approach. Before long, Alex and Paul are unable to keep their hands off each other, and they finally hook up for the first time. It looks like Alex is going to be in bed both personally and professionally with a debonair billionaire…and honestly, more power to her! The question is, how will this inevitably blow up UBA?
In the other storyline, Bradley invites Hal, his wife Cheryl, and their new baby Taylor to stay in her swanky New York apartment. Their family reunion quickly takes a turn for the worse, however, when Hal informs Bradley at the SUMMIT One Vanderbilt that he is planning to send Cheryl and Taylor home in two days and then turn himself in for what happened at the Capitol. But what Hal fails (or refuses) to fully consider is that there is no scenario in which he wouldn’t be implicating his sister in his arrest. If Hal goes through with his plan, Bradley would be charged with destroying evidence and making a false statement to the FBI.
In an attempt to drive this point home, Bradley invites Hal and his family to visit the UBA offices and watch her pretape a segment for the evening news. Bradley interviews Ryder Flynt, an inmate awaiting trial for assaulting a police officer on Jan. 6, and sends a clear message to Hal, who looks like the guilt is going to eat him alive, to not go to the authorities. Ryder confesses that he no longer thinks the election was stolen and has lost his job and his family since the insurrection. “I don’t think we pay enough attention to the collateral damage of all of this,” Bradley says. For a show that burns through a lot of plot in any given episode, it’s almost a relief when TMS gives these characters the opportunity to reflect on the consequences of their actions before making them. In the end, Hal backs down after having a conversation with Laura, of all people. Laura thought that Bradley was distracted by Hal’s disapproval of her dating another woman when, in reality, Bradley was really struggling to find a way to keep her life from falling apart.
For some reason, with the threat of jail time and criminal prosecution looming over her and her brother, Bradley also decides now is the right time to give things another shot with Laura. Although we now have more context about how Bradley and Laura’s relationship went up in flames during the first year of the pandemic, it’s still really frustrating to watch these two characters run in circles around each other. Are we really supposed to believe that Laura doesn’t have any interest in or from other women in New York City? Given that Bradley refuses to tell her about what happened at the Capitol, it feels like only a matter of time until Laura figures it out for herself.
In the final minutes of the episode, we get confirmation of what we knew all along: Stella, who was freaking out about Alex’s interview with Paul, was the Stanford student. As soon as the shareholders approve the deal, Paul says he will be sending Stella an offer to replace Cory as CEO, arguing that the company needs new blood at the top. We saw how Cory climbed his way to the top of UBA, but it’s going to be even more fun to see how he will try to stay there when he basically orchestrated his own downfall by advocating for this sale.
Stray observations
- The first season of TMS was largely built around Alex and Bradley’s dynamic, but the last two have seen them branch off and interact more with the supporting characters than with each other. While it may seem like a natural evolution for TMS, I think that if you’re going to market a show around the star (and staying) power of Aniston and Reese Witherspoon, they should be getting more than a couple of short scenes together every other episode. It almost feels like these one-on-one scenes between the leads were tacked on after the bulk of the season had been developed because the executive producers, which include Aniston and Witherspoon, realized that people still want to see them onscreen together.
- I think I have a new favorite Cory line in every episode. Here’s a good contender for this one: “Hal doesn’t show up unless things are about to get fucked six ways to Sunday.” Unfortunately, nothing ever good happens when Hal shows up!
- The way the camera pans from Alex to Paul and back to Alex when they talk about what was once “industry standard” is so darkly comedic that I wasn’t sure if I should have laughed or not.
- Isabella essentially tells Chip that she wants him to propose because he’s in love with her and not because he’s trying to get over Alex. I’m so glad that Isabella had the courage to say the quiet part out loud, because why on god’s green earth is Chip still holding out hope that Alex will want to be with him? It’s time to take a long, hard look in the mirror, Chip. But then again, this is a man who willingly put himself at risk of contracting COVID to chronicle Alex’s recovery from the virus at the start of the pandemic.