Graphic by Laura Hinojosa ‘23
By Jahnavi Pradeep ’23
Opinion Editor
Content Warning: this article discusses sexual assault.
Apple TV’s second season of “The Morning Show” settles into a backdrop likely familiar to much of its audience in 2021: the COVID-19 pandemic. The first episode, titled “My Least Favorite Year,” opens with quick panning shots of New York City that ring with an eerie silence of empty streets and missing crowds, contrasting the city’s usual bustle. Against this setting, the show reintroduces us to characters from its first season, namely Bradley Jackson (Reese Witherspoon), Alex Levy (Jennifer Aniston) and Mitch Kessler (Steve Carell), amongst a host of others. The season appears to promise to deliver something meaningful for both these characters and the show’s audiences, only to fall far from expectations.
In both seasons, “The Morning Show” is topical, discussing matters of grave importance over the past few years, namely sexual misconduct in the workplace and the #MeToo movement. While the show brims with the potential to create meaningful content, the second season resorts to sensationalizing storylines and belittling the gravity of the issues it attempts to cover.
Set in New York City, in the fictional UBA network’s morning news program, season one follows the Morning Show after co-anchor Mitch Kessler is fired for sexually assaulting coworkers, and the subsequent politics that ensue at the network when Bradley replaces him alongside Alex. The season comes close to exposing the truth of how sexual predators are protected and victims of assault silenced by office politics — in a charged and sensational finale, anchors Bradley and Alex take to national television to expose the network’s toxic culture. This ending creates the expectation that the second season will pick up on this note and further emphasize the power of the #MeToo movement. However, season two shifts its focus to the characters’ personal lives and identities, and, as Sarah Lyall of The New York Times charted, a “changing understanding of power, race and privilege in and out of work” in the context of the pandemic.
In this new season, Bradley struggles with understanding her sexuality, Alex awkwardly grapples with her own past mistakes and Mitch contends with cancel culture and rebuilding himself. Other characters, such as Mia, the show’s producer, Yako, the weatherman and Stella, the president of the media company, sift through issues surrounding power and race.
The first issue is that season two attempts to cover too much, unable to give any one idea due attention. Important topics become mere wall hangings for characters’ squabbles and tangents. For example, these are still the same characters from season one, who were, and still are, in the middle of the aftermath of sexual misconduct at UBA. Mixing a host of new topics and identity crises preoccupies the characters and obscures the place of the #MeToo movement in the show.
In season one, the Morning Show co-hosts veer toward becoming upholders of truth but forget this intention in the second season, lost in petty arguments with one another about promotions and limelight. Alex, who calls for change in the workplace for women at the end of the first season, is painted as a one-dimensional character cracking under her personal life and irritated with her job. For instance, she is provided the chance to moderate a presidential debate for the network during the season’s fifth episode, “Ghosts.” However, Alex flees the debate, distraught over a book exposing her consensual relationship with sexual predator Mitch Kessler. Portraying Alex in this light removes the ability to use her as a harbinger of change. Her characterization prioritizes melodrama and emotions over doing justice to real, timely issues that the show frames its narrative against. This dangerously erases the importance and need for structural change to deal with sexual misconduct and predators like Mitch. Instead of following that path, in a slew of misplaced priorities, in episode seven, “La Amara Vita,” Alex travels across the globe to meet Mitch where she confesses how she misses him, and they slow dance and play trivia in what reads like a tender reunion. Season one’s call for change becomes a classic case of ingenuity and performance.
The most significant dismissal of sexual misconduct occurs by bringing Mitch back for a second season. Subject to cancel culture, Mitch hides out in Italy, using the time to reflect on his misdoings and finding ways to justify himself as a changed person. In a mock interview with Paula Lambruschini in episode five, “Ghosts,” Mitch confesses how he “fucked up,” accepting how his actions caused the death of Hannah Shoenfield in season one. However, Mitch proceeds to justify his actions, saying, “I was a scared little animal just trying to claw my way back,” he says, almost as if quietly begging for sympathy from the audience. Mitch’s confession should not sanction his previous actions and grant him a redemptive storyline. We watch as he proceeds to fall in love with Paula, and they consummate their love on screen in “La Amara Vita.” It feels highly inappropriate to include a sex scene with Mitch, and this maneuver ignores how it might feel for survivors of sexual assault to witness.
The show’s focus cannot orient itself toward Mitch and his tryst with cancel culture when it has a larger duty of doing right by victims, which is lacking. Women Mitch has been involved with, such as Mia and Hannah, never get complete backstories, but he does, which sits oddly.
In an interview with Variety, showrunner Kerry Ehrin discussed Mitch’s character. “The whole show, to me, is about the complications and messiness of being human and people having both altruistic impulses and also self-preservation impulses,” Ehrin said. However, there is something horrifyingly unsettling about bringing this sexual predator back in a humanizing light. In focusing so heavily on portraying him as someone capable of change, the show erases the experiences of victims of sexual assault.
Creators of “The Morning Show” seem to pride themselves on how they’ve constantly reoriented the show to include current issues. Season one was rewritten as the #MeToo movement exploded nationally and globally. Season two was rescripted to factor in the global pandemic that broke during the season’s shooting. They are doing right in considering vital backdrops and contexts in which to situate their show. However, the show’s climate cannot simply mirror and sensationalize the world we live in — to meaningfully add to the conversation, it must use its potential to educate its audiences to implement structural change. Sexual misconduct and the #MeToo movements are grave topics that the creators chose to discuss, and they cannot do injustice to them by sensationalizing the lives of characters and forgetting the real life implications of the matter. Streaming on a well-established platform and starring some of Hollywood’s most famous names, “The Morning Show” has the resources to do better — to move beyond scratching the surface of pressing issues and instead focus on engaging the audience with complex and real themes.