Good Morning, Good Afternoon and Good Evening, everyone. This is "Marco Watches it, Marco Means it," and I am Marco Amato. Our top story today is about AppleTV and its first foray into the entertainment streaming landscape, The Morning Show. It is obvious why Apple selected this particular show to lead its new streaming service into the already inflated world of scripted television. Led by Jennifer Aniston, Reese Witherspoon, and a questionably casted Steve Carrell, the series covers the fallout on a popular morning news program after its lead anchor has been ousted due to allegations of sexual misconduct with multiple women. It is considered the first television show of the modern era to tackle the MeToo Movement exclusively. How well it does that is still up in the air for many viewers. Let's take a closer look at this ongoing story of corporate corruption and shameless ambition.
Developing Story:
It is no secret that critics did not well receive The Morning Show during early preview screenings of the first three episodes. Many found it to be a vapid and superficial vanity project, topical but unsustainably built upon a foundation of artificial substance and misguided intentions. As the series progressed, it seemed to gain its narrative footing and fell back into the good graces of a majority of critics. The finale, in particular, has been lauded for its unfiltered advocation for systematic change within our corrupt systems. The show has even garnered significant recognition in the current award season bracket. Did the show actually get better, or did we just come to contextualize it differently than we had initially anticipated once we had the whole picture? This reviewer has decided to examine multiple areas of this project, both the good, not so good, and the always popular "good but should be considered bad."
Top Story:
Much like the contentious discussions around the topic of sexual harassment and misconduct currently being had on a national level, The Morning Show has important things to say and valid points to make but sometimes fails to bring a necessary subtlety to these sensitive issues. It suffers from an innate desire to sensationalize an adolescent-like need for affirmation. "Aren't we brave for telling this story?" It is a question the members of the writer's room must have presented to themselves privately or publicly at least once during the development of this serial drama. When it comes to its two leading starlets, Alex's story takes clear dominance over Bradley, but this is a result of the writing as opposed to the individual performances of the actresses themselves. Bradley does not come off as a fully realized person in the first two episodes, and it takes time for Witherspoon to get adjusted into her skin, not to mention that brunette wig. Once she and the writers have a clearer understanding of how Bradley functions and what she can bring of value to the story, she begins to carry her own dramatic weight truly. Alex, on the other hand, is compelling and relatable upon first meeting. We don't necessarily like her, but unlike Bradley's forced journalistic piousness, the writers and Aniston don't seem concerned with whether or not we do, in fact, like Alex at all. All we owe Alex is that we shut the fuck up and listen to her; whether or not you like what she says is entirely up to you, and she knows it. Aniston's past experience as a comedic actress do her well when the material goes off the rails; she has the foresight to rein her performance back in. Steve Carrell's inherent likability almost immediately pollutes a viewer's ability to be subjective in their judgments of his character even after his heinous crimes become abundantly clear. Carrell uses his performance often to highlight the absurdities of those who brutalize abd their common defenses. It is him that we see last before the final episode cuts to end credits, sitting alone at a dining table. We should feel satisfied by his isolation, and yet it still seems the show wants us to retain some iota of sympathy for this morally depraved man.
Billy Crudup's Corey Ellison is a television executive who often behaves like the viewing audience he is creating content for. When drama flairs up, Corey is delighted and takes sincere pleasure in either inserting himself into it, or standing comfortably on the sidelines to watch it unfold. You're practically waiting for him to take out a bucket of popcorn and start munching down on it at any given moment. Corey is symbolically representative of the streaming audience enjoying the action as it unfolds from a comfortable, dissociative distance. He is a content creator fulfilling his own need for entertaining content to consume. This is just one of the many ways the show often appears self-indulgent as if it exists exclusively to be either praised or critiqued, just so long as you are watching. In that sense, it finds meta-kinship with current broadcast journalism.
In Other News:
The show has a race issue, but it is one that can be potentially fixed if given appropriate attention in its sophomore season. In the narrative of the freshmen year season, however, women of color are mostly made to suffer as white women act as their saviors, at times even tormentors. This would feel more reflective of factual racial disparities that occur in the corporate world, except we don't get to see these women get much reclamation. Alex's coded apology to Mia in the final minutes of the finale felt half-hearted and tossed in for good measure, rather than being a critical story beat that would rectify their severelydamaged professional relationship. While Mia gets her big speech moment in episode seven, it doesn't do much to shift the biased mindset of a majority of her co-workers. No, this prestige goes instead to Alex and Bradley in the finale, two women culpable (in very different ways mind you) in the degradation of once strong and powerful black women. Mia is brushed off as the "loud and angry" black girl while Alex is poised and passionate in her on-camera evisceration of misogyny. Much like in reality, Alex, as an affluent white woman, has access to a much larger platform than Mia, though both wish to make very similar messages about workplace behavior. Hannah played phenomenally by the still under-appreciated Gugu Mbatha-Raw has similar difficulties in appearing adequately represented in a show that is clearly more invested in the story of powerful white people than in the destructive nature those people's actions have towards people of color. Hannah is first presented as one of the most tactful members of TMS, and as the show progresses we begin to notice her discomfort with how events are transpiring. Still, these subtle visual hints aren't expanded upon until a late in the season flashback episode unveils her terrible encounter with Mitch inside a Vegas hotel room. This scene is shot with a reasonable degree of sensitivity as it focuses exclusively on Hannah's increasingly evident discomfort and not Mitch's carnal sexual gratification. Hannah's demise at her own hands is troublesome to me as a viewer, however. She will no longer be the author of her narrative. Instead, this job goes to people like Bradley, who hardly knew her. While the "sacrifice" might be narratively justified to raise the stakes of consequence for characters like Fred and Mitch, it is a loss the finale treats as a momentary setback. I'm sure justice for Hannah will come next season, but the problem is that it will come too late. While that may speak true to similarly tragic real-life incidents, perhaps the show should focus less on replicating societal mistakes and more so on how we can do better. How can we save people like Hannah, so that their sacrifices never have to occur in the first place? Why does someone have to die so that Alex finally has the motivation to break away from the boy's club and fight back? Adina Porter, another black actress of notable talent, is set on the back burner as Alex's agent, and we can only hope that she has more to do in season 2. The show needs to bring its characters of color, especially the women front and center next season and allow them to gain control of their own narrative and not allow it to be hijacked and re-contextualized by "well-intentioned" women like Alex and Bradley.
B-Roll:
Hit or Glitch:
The Morning Show's season finale aired on the exact same day that the new film Bombshell (2019) was released to theaters nationwide. Bombshell, of course, details the story of how Roger Ailes, the head of Fox News, was taken down by the likes of women such as Gretchen Carlson, Megyn Kelly, and many many more, represented by an amalgamation character portrayed by Margot Robbie. Both the series and the film deal with women triumphing over abusive men in a system that actively works to silence them. Despite the stacked talent, in front of and behind the camera, Bombshell ultimately fails at accurately portraying women as anything other than strongly opinionated victims. It eschews critiquing the problematic track records of Carlson and Kelley and how they contributed to the very system that was now preventing them from justice. It is as if director Jay Roach thought that if he portrayed these women as anything other than brave and justified in the entirety of their actions, audiences would fail to sympathize and relate to their plight. No civilized human being would rationalize that Megyn Kelly deserved to be assailed because she believes Santa is white. The Morning Show has less trepidation regarding its female characters than Roach's film, though perhaps that is because the television show's female characters are entirely fictional. In contrast, Bombshell was dealing with real-life figures that are very much still alive. It is never made clear just how much Alex knew of Mitch's behavior. Still, it became abundantly clear that she knew enough to amass a substantial amount of guilt, which directly contributes to her decision in the final minutes of the finale to go public. Marcia Gay Harden's journalist character shows apparent ambivalence over Fred's immoral actions, and she's just interested in what the best (most salacious) story for her to tell her readers is. The Morning Show is unafraid to portray women as occasionally callous and self-serving just as their male counterparts are. This alone allows it to surpass Bombshell despite their similar thematic undertakings, as well as Bombshell having the upper hand of being based on fact instead of fiction. Again the creators of TMS aren't worried about you liking these women. They merely want you to understand the circumstances around which these women made these profoundly personal choices. In Bombshell, we only see the "bravery" aspect to the female protagonists with small glimpses of selfish motivations and problematic viewpoints; not enough to validly portray the complex women that populate its narrative. There is complicity in silence just as there is in action. The Morning Show accepts this regardless of gender for the most part, while Bombshell acts willfully ignorant of it when it comes to its most central female figures.
