The Morning Show: Meaningful Melodrama

When The Morning Show first premiered, I read countless reviews where critics were bingeing through it, not entirely sure why they were enjoying themselves so much when it was so bad, but unable to resist. So that's the spirit in which I started watching this show. And up until Episode 8 I agreed with that assessment. But after watching the final three episodes, I have to say, I have been genuinely praising and recommending this show to my friends. It snuck up on me out of nowhere.

The series focuses on a morning news show (like the Today Show) that was co-hosted by Alex Levy (Jennifer Aniston) and Mitch Kessler (Steve Carell) for fifteen years. But now, Mitch has been fired after accusations of sexual harassment (like the Today Show's Matt Lauer). Enter Bradley Jackson (Resse Witherspoon), an unknown local news journalist who via a viral video and complicated machinations suddenly finds herself in Manhattan and thrust into this viper's nest of network corporate drama and underhanded dealings. She is an idealistic crusader who butts heads with the world-weary Alex, who is simply trying to survive the storm of having her co-host and dear friend depart in such horrifying circumstances. And one must mention Billy Crudup as the new network executive trying to shake up the News Division; he is having the time of his life playing a complete oddball whose motivations are a constant mystery. As more details emerge about the culture of abuse at the network, you're never sure exactly how much everyone knew, who hid what details, and how to feel about it all. Until Episode 8.

Till Episode 8, the show was watchable but weird. Mitch Kessler is awful, but the show didn't seem to think he was THAT awful. He ranted and raved a lot about how everything he had done was perfectly consensual and he should not be compared to true predators like Harvey Weinstein. It made for uncomfortable viewing because you kept wondering if this show was trying to give this man a pass or try to say that some forms of harassment are more tolerable than others. It was all a bit icky and perplexing. All the promotional material for this show was also focused on the trinity of Aniston, Witherspoon, and Carell, and I didn't much care for either of those three characters. They were a bit one-note, forced to repeat the same dialogue and act in predictable ways most of the time. Aniston was probably doing the most interesting work, playing with her America's sweetheart image and subverting it in fun fashion - the character of Alex Levy comes off as somewhat passive and resigned to her fate right up until the moment she decides to unsheath her claws and all hell breaks loose. But the stakes are never quite that high when you're dealing with the trials and tribulations of the rich and famous.

But in Episode 8, the show, which had hitherto only been set in the aftermath of the Mitch Kessler harassment scandal, flashed back to a year ago when he still worked at The Morning Show and none of the ugly revelations had come to light. This episode gave you the chance to see what it's like when a workplace fosters a casually dismissive attitude towards sexual harassment. Nothing he did was extraordinary - slightly inappropriate remarks, the occasional leer, stuff that people let slide. It was a master class in how you tolerate this behavior when it's minor, staying silent, and thinking, "oh that's just how that guy is, it's fine." Until things escalated with a certain member of the staff. And watching that encounter, in all its horrific, triggering detail, is everything you need to know about why the #MeToo movement matters and what it is like for the women who have suffered in silence for so long. It was a powerful television moment for me, so I won't spoil any further details about who was involved and what happened. But I want the actress involved to win an Emmy, I would happily give the writer of that episode numerous accolades, and I don't ever want to watch it again because it made me feel so enraged, helpless, and sad.

The final two episodes deal with the aftermath of that incident. And they deal with them in The Morning Show's typically soapy and melodramatic way. But it is still powerful and rage-inducing stuff, and completely salvaged this show for me. It captured how women stay silent on so many minor transgressions until they are suddenly being subjected to something horrific but can't say anything because they have been conditioned for so long to shut up and take it. It was a surprisingly nuanced and brilliant storyline from a show that didn't seem like it was capable of much nuance up until that point. I have no idea what will happen in the second season; I suspect it will go back to being a bit hokey and ridiculous. But their attempt to reveal how the "gray areas" of sexual harassment aren't really that gray after all, is true service journalism. It's compelling TV, and while it took eight episodes to get there, it was worth it.