It's never easy to be the first, especially when a ton of eyeballs are on you. So when Season 1 of The Morning Show premiered in November 2019 (a whole ass lifetime ago), the Apple TV+ series — the brand new streaming platform's flagship offering — suffered a bit from both heightened expectations as well as a bit of confusion as to what the show was meant to be. (After all, given the number of one-time sitcom stars in the cast, it's easy to understand why so many people assumed that the show would be, you know, a comedy.)
But while critical reception at the beginning was a bit mixed, at a certain point the season began really cooking with gas, as the behind-the-scenes goings-on at a major network morning show proved to be dense with dramatic opportunities and some truly compelling characters. Plus, Season 1 ended with a bombshell, as Alex Levy (Jennifer Aniston) and Bradley Jackson (Reese Witherspoon) exposed the unsavory behavior of UBA president Fred Micklin (Tom Irwin) — two badass women risking everything to stop the patriarchy.
So by the end of Season 1, The Morning Show felt like a triumph thanks to its dedication to exploring the nuances of the post-#MeToo climate in Hollywood and beyond. But Season 2, the first episode of which is now streaming, lacks that same energy. The cause for this is that the show is once again working hard to feel actively engaged with the moment we're currently living in, or, at least, the moment right before the moment we're currently living in. Like many series have done, The Morning Show directly takes on the COVID-19 pandemic — the season premiere begins at the very beginning of 2020 and the season ends in March 2020, and its reality is our own. It feels odd to issue a trigger warning for what has been our daily lives for the last year and a half, but if you are looking for an escape from everything that's come to pass since you first heard the word "coronavirus," The Morning Show ain't it.
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Unfortunately, this narrative choice further complicates that original existential question of what, exactly, The Morning Show is meant to be about. A friend of mine who recently became a fan of the show noted that it reminded him of an Aaron Sorkin series but arguably better in terms of how it handled its subject matter, a comparison that very much works when discussing Season 1. But one quality of Sorkin's past series was the idea that the show must go on, emphasis on the "must" — for the characters on Sports Night and The Newsroom, their vocations are all-consuming. While no one is asking The Morning Show to be The Newsroom 2.0 (god, just typing that gave me hives), the way in which so many of these characters feel like they're floundering in their own lives, lacking in purpose, does a lot to compromise the show's inherent momentum.
It's hard to discuss the plot of Season 2 without venturing too far into the town of Spoilerville, but the question of who is hosting the titular program and what it's covering takes a bit of a backseat to make space for these characters coping with their own personal lives. What ultimately seems to drive most of them is their fear of secrets being exposed, especially relationships that may or may not be strictly appropriate, but keeping under wraps who may have had sex with whom struggles to stay compelling, given the storm building on the horizon.
In complete fairness to The Morning Show, never before in human history have creators tried to make television about a global pandemic while said global pandemic raged on; there's no rulebook for how to do this, and some of the season's best moments capture that chaotic uncertainty which just so happens to match with memories of those first three months of 2020. That said, the hindsight references packed into these episodes are like the Ronald Reagan joke from Back to the Future but not funny, especially as the season progresses. Much of the action takes place in New York City, and the sound of sirens in the distance seem to grow louder with each passing episode, a sobering flashback to the horrors to come for those characters.
Cast-wise, Aniston remains compelling even as Alex grows more and more unmoored, while Witherspoon brings a certain degree of snap to the proceedings but still struggles to feel fully believable in the role. (This is less her fault and more to do with the writing of Bradley, who has yet to come together as a fully realized character.) In terms of the supporting cast (while once again avoiding spoilers), Karen Pittman (who plays Morning Show producer Mia) gets an expanded role this season and ends up being one of the standouts, while Julianna Marguiles plays a key and intriguing role as a former Morning Show host who finds herself back in the mix in unexpected ways, and the fantastic Greta Lee does what she always does and make the best out of what she's given. Unfortunately, what she's given is a pretty thankless role as the new head of the news department, serving under new network president Cory Ellison (Billy Crudup). Crudup was easily one of the first season's highlights, and he's still good here, but his role this season ends up being a bit of a cautionary tale about believing too much of your own hype; the spontaneous energy of his performance at times rings like an imitation of what came before.
There are plenty of additional actors I could mention, because this show has become truly sprawling in a way that detracts from its more powerful moments; were it to get a Season 3, my hope would be that it finds a way to pare things down to a few core storylines. Because after watching Season 2, I struggle to be certain what this show is about. The answer, at this point, really isn't "a morning show."
The Morning Show premieres Friday, September 17 on Apple TV+. New episodes debut Fridays.