The Morning Show made headlines not only for its starry cast but also the storyline that centred around the #MeToo movement, which started in America a few years back. The show’s creator Jay Carson draws inspirations from the real life experiences shared by women during the #MeToo movement and shows the audience the politics & destruction that follows.Â
Alex Levy (Jennifer Aniston) and Mitch Kessler (Steve Carell), celebrated co-hosts of 15 years, are impacted by sexual misconduct allegations against Mitch. While Mitch is in severe denial of the same and blames the victim for defamation, Alex is left stranded and completely disappointed in her ‘work husband’ and confidante. The first couple of episodes show the devastation left behind and how people react to this news and how it impacts the news agency Mitch works for.
At this point the network head Cory Ellison (Billy Crudup) brings in Bradley Jackson (Reese Witherspoon) for an interview about her covering the protests as a small time anchor at another news agency. Seeing a fiery woman who wants to report real news as well as realising that in Bradley lies the perfect foil to counter Alex’s growing stardom, Cory offers her a job as a replacement to Mitch. She turns out to be the saving grace that the network desperately needed, irrespective of Alex not liking her. Alex and Bradley have an incredibly strained relationship initially, but go on to become strong co-hosts in the season finale and we see them navigating many personal & professional crises.
Meanwhile, we see Mitch desperately struggling to get an interview where he can refute the allegations even though they are true. Amidst the power struggle, we see more and more women at the news agency agreeing that Mitch was in general very sexually inappropriate at the workplace and forced too many of them into doing things that they did not want to. The crowning moment for Season 1 was when women started realising that they have a voice and that taking harassment and sexism at the workplace should not be the ‘norm’ anymore.Â
Season 1 ends with exposing the conscious sexism at the highest levels within the organisation and how the victims were forced into silence whenever they tried to complain to the Human Resources department. Alex and Bradley together expose Fred (Tom Irwin) on air and call out the toxic culture at their own workplace when the feed is abruptly cut off, giving a strong end to the first season of this acclaimed show.
Now that you’re all caught up, check out Season 2 of ‘The Morning Show’ on Apple TV, with weekly episode releases every Friday.Â
