Oh, Cory Ellison, you don’t know what’s about to hit you. Although he may be loath to admit it, our favorite unhinged network CEO was dealt a devastating blow on multiple fronts in this week’s episode of The Morning Show: Not only did Cory discover that Stella was in the running to replace him as top dog after the impending sale to Paul Marks, but his plans to smooth things over with his elderly single mother quickly went up in flames. Cory has long traded in inscrutability, but this may be one of the first times that we’ve been able to see what’s underneath the glossy veneer of a man who has reveled in the never-ending chase for power and influence to overcompensate for his aversion to intimacy.
After essentially telling UBA’s financial team that he wants them to close the deal with Marks ASAP, Cory is pulled aside by Leonard, the new head of the board, who tells him to shut down the political strategist who has been calling their connections at the Department of Justice every day about the sale in question. When Bradley shows up in his office unexpectedly to reassure him that Hal won’t be turning himself into the authorities and that he just wants to be a good dad to his young daughter, Cory asks Bradley to drive with him to Connecticut to talk down the person who has the power to blow up the entire deal—an intriguing offer that Bradley can’t refuse, even though she was supposed to be back by 5 p.m. to anchor the evening news. Cory insists that Bradley will make this woman stay on her best behavior, but he lies by omission: They’re actually meeting his mother, Martha Ellison (Lindsay Duncan). Cory once mentioned that he took care of his mother after his father left them, but this is the first time that we’ve been able to meet the woman who raised Cory...and a lot of his, let’s say, idiosyncrasies start to make a little more sense when you get a sense of where he came from. (What exactly was Cory’s play here? Why did this feel more like a “meet-your-boyfriend’s-mother” kind of day when Cory and Bradley still haven’t had a genuine conversation with each other in two years about their feelings?)
Martha is a quiet but formidable force to be reckoned with and one of the more enigmatic additions to this ensemble. The former press secretary of Rep. Geraldine Anne Ferraro, Martha has grown increasingly cynical in her old age, marveling at how far women have come (she says “it was a proud moment for women everywhere” when Bradley revealed on live TV that she had an abortion) and lamenting about how far they have to go and how they seem to become invisible as they grow older. When Martha brings up the fact that her son hasn’t visited her since her friend died in the early months of the pandemic, Cory, who had only been planning to stay for a few minutes but now has his tail caught between his legs, says that he and Bradley can stay for dinner. While Cory boils a lobster alive, Martha asks not-so-subtly about Bradley’s personal life; Bradley reveals to Martha (and to Cory) that she and Laura are planning to give their relationship another shot. While Cory insists that he and Bradley are just colleagues (whatever you say, Cory), Martha admits that part of her hoped Cory was bringing Bradley to meet her because they were a couple. But by the time we get to the end of the dinner, it’s not difficult to imagine why Cory has never let his mother meet any of the women he’s dated.
During their meal, Martha reveals that she is having lunch with someone at the DOJ who can grease the wheels of the deal between UBA and Marks. After all, she says, the optics of “big tech swallowing up a legacy media company” aren’t great. But Cory reiterates that he doesn’t need her help, which rubs her the wrong way. “It’s amazing what happens when women get older,” she tells her son angrily while washing some plates. “You carry this wisdom, but no one cares, and we’ve survived the death cult of capitalism, but really, you just want us to get out of the way, don’t you? You want us to be silent, quiet as the grave.” That’s quite a leap, Martha. But what’s even more bizarre is the way Cory attempts to rectify the situation: He sits down at his mother’s piano, and before long, a tearful Bradley is watching Cory and Martha perform a rendition of “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” that is supposed to show how close they are.
But instead, in an act of emotional violence that seems to come out of nowhere, Martha tells Bradley that she “should stay away” from Cory because everything he does is part of an act, and her son is alone because he should be alone. “You only came to see me because you wanted something, and you won’t be back until you need something again,” Martha tells Cory, who is the same age as his old man was when he abandoned their family. “You really are just like your father. There’s something very wrong with you.” (Yikes, now I just feel really awful for Cory, but it’s no wonder that this man is uncomfortable with forming close relationships in adulthood.) In the car ride back to New York City, Bradley attempts to reassure Cory that he’s not a bad person, but Cory says they are “two people who use each other, Bradley. That’s it.”
And because this show can’t resist throwing in a recent news event in every episode, Bradley and Cory discover from a leaked draft opinion published in Politico that the Supreme Court will be overturning Roe v. Wade. For the women of TMS, many of whom were at a Valentino event to support the Fashion Institute of Technology’s scholarship program that evening, this judgment is personal. Alex declares that she’s heading home to begin preparing her coverage of the decision. Mia says she is clearing tomorrow’s TMS schedule and looking for a new lineup of people to interview. Chris, who has developed a sizable social-media following since her blistering interview with Cybil, calls out some privileged women in the bathroom who think the ruling won’t affect them. Chris then proceeds to write “Abort the Court” on the mirror in red lipstick and take a selfie while holding up her middle finger. Yanko, as you may recall, warned Chris about the dark side of social media, and for better or for worse, the new anchor may find herself being the news rather than reporting on the news in next week’s episode.
The news of abortion rights being overturned in America makes everything else feel inconsequential, but there are some important personal and professional developments for a few characters. After hooking up at the end of last week’s episode, Alex and Marks—both divorced, workaholic control freaks who are also, let’s admit it, still very hot—begin falling for each other against their best judgment. Alex and Marks agree to be only cordial and friendly at the Valentino event, only to discover that The Vault, the tabloid that outed Bradley last season, has an incriminating picture of them kissing in Alex’s apartment. Marks presents Alex with two options: release a statement that they’re adults in a happy relationship, or pay the outlet to pretend that it never happened. Alex chooses the latter, and Marks goes as far as to try and buy The Vault to kill the photo, but Amanda, Paul’s “fixer” of sorts, says the photo will be published and reminds him that he shouldn’t be mixing business with pleasure. That advice, however, goes right out the window when Paul arrives in Alex’s office and declares that he wants more than a weekend getaway with her...and then Chip, whose own relationship blew up because his ex thought he wasn’t over Alex, sees Alex and Paul kissing from afar. These are the kinds of juicy plot twists we’ve been waiting to see all season!
Meanwhile, earlier in the hour, Amanda drops by the UBA offices to give Stella her contract to replace Cory, but Stella thinks she’s being low-balled as the chief executive for a Fortune 500 company. After a meeting with her own team, Stella realizes that it would become “untenable” for her to stay at UBA if the deal falls apart and/or if Cory finds out about said deal, and she is forced to grapple with her position as an Asian American woman in the C-suite. This inner conflict becomes even more pronounced when Kate, Stella’s college roommate and best friend at Stanford, arrives at UBA and shares that she was fired from her position at Hyperion over a “philosophical disagreement” she had with Marks. Kate accuses Stella of covering for Marks when she should really be investigating his business practices, and Kate claims that Stella will always choose the billionaire over everyone’s best interests. Stella, in the end, decides to come clean to Cory about her deal with Marks. And to her surprise, Cory encourages her to sign the agreement because he thinks there is still a way that he can outsmart Marks and come out on top. Oh, Cory, you’ve got a big storm comin’.
Stray observations
- Cory is still one of the few people on this show whose words I can never predict whenever they appear on the screen, but somehow, I’m never too surprised by the verbosity of his monologues. Oh, he’s now comparing closing a multibillion-dollar deal to being a ravenous primordial man in the Savannah bludgeoning an antelope to death? Of course he is!
- Why did Cory need to listen to “Kokomo” by the Beach Boys in the car before seeing his mother? Your guess is as good as mine!
- I’m really enjoying the tighter focus on the women of color this season, and I like seeing the interactions between Mia and Stella in particular. They’re really great sounding boards for one another, and Mia makes a particularly fine point when she says white men don’t give up their jobs at the top willingly, so Stella would be challenging the status quo if she takes the job.
- That being said, we still don’t know how André, Mia’s ruggedly handsome war photographer/ex-lover, is doing in Ukraine. Did he make it out of the hospital before UBA ran those photos? And how is Mia not freaking out right now?!
- Cory yelling at Leonard to “get the board in line right behind me!”—or run the risk of facing the same fate as Cybil—was so incredibly satisfying. Let Cory have some fun for once!