The Morning Show is back for a 2nd season but does the show hold steam post #metoo era?
If you’re not yet acquainted with The Morning Show on Apple TV+ yet, get to know it.
The first season which was released in November 2019 and which many of us watched during the coronavirus lockdown last year, transported us to another time. In many ways it was a simpler time, at the very least pre-COVID-19 justified paranoia set in and civil unrest reached a volatile pitch.
While the freshman run of the show felt a bit 2017, the handling of the #metoo themed subject was anything but. Its depiction showed a maturity and awareness that could only be experienced once the dust had settled a bit and social media noise died down. From the ashes of so much pain and complexity (back then that’s the way things were), comes really thoughtful media and that’s how The Morning Show framed the sexual harassment scandal that dominated the show in the first season.
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I don’t think I will ever look at Steve Carrell (Michael, from The Office) who here plays fallen anchor/co host Mitch Kessler (who may or may not be based on real-life Today show’s former cohost Matt Lauer), the primary perpetrator of the sexual harassment on the show, the same again. But only Carrell could play Mitch with a level of depth that makes you appreciate how Alex Levy (played by Jennifer Aniston), Mitch’s long-time co-anchor and on-screen partner, could be complicit in the culture of the sexual workplace impropriety that Mitch and others in leadership positions at UBA, the network, allowed for.
Carrell just has a way of endearing others to him with the flash of a smile and an “aw shucks-ness” about him that it doesn’t feel wrong - even though you know he’s committed crimes. He doesn’t go into caricature mode. Martin Short, however does digress down that path a bit.
If the first season of The Morning Show teaches us anything, it’s the value of being an upstander and also just how difficult that is, and how generally only someone from outside a company’s culture can disrupt enough to blow things to smithereens to actually enact real change. Enter Bradley, played by Reese Witherspoon. She’s a maverick. She’s also inexperienced but principled enough to flash a mirror in the face of the UBA team just long enough for them to be disgusted with their actions, or in some cases, their inaction.
This is where the show gets most interesting. For Bradley, it’s very binary (black/white). The studio is responsible for this gross negligence and permissive atmosphere that Mitch and his cronies have perpetrated. The news needs to reflect that story but for Alex, her perspective is nuanced and yes, muddled by years of friendships, professional gain at the expense of others with an inconvenient narrative, and a mental toughness curated from years of “just going along to get along.”
Without disclosing too much, the 10 episodes in Season 1, are magnificent, even as the sexual abuse stories of of predators like Harvey Weinstein and Jeffrey Epstein feel more and more removed from everyday stories, the culture of industries that allowed for the power dynamic to exist in the first place still exists. That’s going to take a long time to go away.
Where this show goes a little nefarious and off track (not to mention House of Cards feeling) is the extent to which UBA management will go to keep the main whistleblower/victim silent, but that you’ll have to watch to form your own opinion.
So with that buildup…Is Season 2 worth the watch?
Yes, yes and yes. Why?
1) Bradley and Alex are fired up. As of Episode 2, they are forging a path to deliver news with integrity at its core, even if their friendship is no longer there. Billy Crudup as Cory Ellison is doing his best to keep the network together and glue back the pieces of the shattered ceiling without stepping all over the shards. So far, he’s been unremarkable at that task but this role was made for him and he’s a joy to watch.
2) Mitch is back. Undecided how this will land but personally a redemption-esque arc or at the very least a way for Mitch to really look deeply at his behavior feels on point for this show. He’s exiled himself to Italy which to the point below, might mean his own comeuppance at the hand of the pandemic, but time will tell.
3) Covid-19 takes center stage: This season takes place from Jan 2020-March 2020 so think back all the way from the first rumblings of the Wuhan flu (jokes that were made), the perception that it can never happen here, to the startling death tolls in Italy and thru Europe to the U.S., and lockdown that ushered in the Spring of 2020.
And if nothing else, look at this cast. It’s just silly ridiculous how much talent in one production.
