I developed a routine while watching the new season of The Morning Show. It went: Head smack. Eye roll. Head smack. Eye roll.
In its first two seasons, the series, which follows Jennifer Aniston’s Alex Levy and Reese Witherspoon’s Bradley Jackson as anchors at the fictional television network UBA, leaned with zeal into a soapy sort of camp. Episodes tied the drama of Alex and Bradley’s glitzy battle for cable news supremacy to an obsession with real-life news events, which were reliably conveyed in a style that was part MSNBC and part The West Wing, wavering between crusading liberal sincerity and Drumpf memes. The plots could be a little on the nose—a Season 2 episode about the arrival of COVID-19 is titled “It’s Like the Flu”; by the end of the season, Alex was heroically shaping America’s understanding of the disease by livestreaming her own serious infection at home—but it was mostly balanced out by the oft-catty goings-on at UBA.
While cringe was merely part of the recipe in The Morning Show’s earliest seasons, halfway through Season 3, it’s now the series’ defining attribute. This week’s installment, “Love Island,” served as a full-episode flashback to the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic in the U.S. (yes, again), delivered with maximum self-seriousness. There are lamentations about a family member who visits Costco without a mask and how going to a restaurant—even outside—is unsafe, plus gripes about shifting mask guidance and supply chain issues. One character breaks up with her boyfriend after learning he’s gone out drinking without a mask; in a rage, she slams their bedroom door, dons a mask, frantically packs a bag, and flees their apartment for good. There are side plots about January 6 and the George Floyd protests: “Do you think this country will ever change?” someone asks, tearfully.
Earlier episodes have shared the distinct feeling of being trapped in an after-school special. To wit: We have so far been treated to plots about revenge porn, equity in the workplace, abortion access, and a racism scandal that is dubbed “Jemimagate.” Episodes play out like bingo for cable news junkies: “safe space,” “wokeness,” “cucked,” toxic masculinity, “problematic” behavior, global warming (“Look forward to the future!”), Ukraine. “I will not be canceled over this!” quoth the UBA board president. It’s not just the continuous invocation of real news, though that’s enough to get a groan out of anyone who has so much as touched a newspaper in the past three years. It’s that every time it comes up, we get a sermon on why the bad things are bad and the good ones are good.
“Things in Texas suck,” producer Charlie Black—played by Mark Duplass, who often lucks into the role of playing devil’s advocate when things get a little too earnest—says in a conversation about abortion restrictions. “Lots of things. But maybe we just, like, I don’t know, look forward to the barbecue.”
Aniston’s Alex fires back: “Mm, yeah, it’s delicious. Brisket roasted over the ashes of women’s autonomy.”
Duplass is, blessedly, not the only one who gets to dodge would-be smarm: He’s joined by Billy Crudup’s cynical CEO, Cory Ellison, who is consistently a welcome relief. “This hack—it proves UBA is a beacon of democracy,” he says, giddy in the aftermath of a devastating cyberattack. “We’ll be all over the headlines. An award-winning network, a beloved network targeted by the shadowy enemies of free speech.”
The Ringer’s Streaming Guide
There’s a lot of TV out there. We want to help: Every week, we’ll tell you the best and most urgent shows to stream so you can stay on top of the ever-expanding heap of Peak TV.
Nearly everyone else, however, has no interest in pumping the brakes. In a discussion about the merits of paying the hackers’ ransom, UBA board president Cybil Reynolds (Holland Taylor) valiantly declares, “We already know that Putin sanctions cyberattacks against Western news outlets—so we may be contributing to Russia’s war against Ukraine!” The board declines to pay, of course.
The Morning Show is simply not a place for shades of gray. This season’s fourth episode, “The Green Light,” featured an extended sequence in which UBA’s head of news, Stella Bak (Greta Lee), wines and dines two boorish ad executives to convince them to make a major ad commitment with UBA. How do we know they’re boorish? “I’m feeling better already!” one purrs as the server—who, like Stella, is a young woman—approaches their table. By the end of the meal, they’ve made the server lick a spilled drink off their table in exchange for the ad buy as Stella uncomfortably looks on. Check your privilege! the show all but screams. Boar on the floor this is not.
Recent episodes have had me thinking less about The West Wing and more about another Aaron Sorkin creation: The Newsroom. A scene from the latter show, which has been off the air for nearly a decade, has become a recurring favorite on social media—and not because of its enduring dramatic salience. In the clip, several members of the titular newsroom find themselves stuck on a plane and unable to dive into coverage of the just-beginning-to-break news of Osama bin Laden’s 2011 killing. Passengers around them start to get wind that Barack Obama is about to make an address to the country, which our resident reporters know is to announce the bin Laden news. So they decide to take things into their own hands, but not by simply, you know, telling the people behind them what’s up:
It’s horrible! It’s treacly, preachy, and, I can attest, a reliable producer of extreme secondhand embarrassment on each and every viewing. It is cringe in its purest distilled form.
Does The Morning Show have a scene that can compete with this one? Not yet, but, without spoiling plots still to come in the back half of the season, let’s just say you’d do well to prepare for impassioned monologues—many impassioned monologues. One fleeting scene, which, I cannot assure you enough, has no context before or after it, sees Aniston locked in stony reverie as she stares into an open refrigerator. Asked what’s wrong, she takes a long beat and then replies with the utmost gravity, “Just thinking about the wildfires in California.”
Laying it on thick has its charms, particularly in a show focused on the frothy inner workings of a morning show. But at a certain point, the cake will collapse under all that icing.
