The Morning Show is messy and it’s fun. We know that. But it also seems to think it’s feminist—which…the more we watch the Apple TV+ series, the more we question.
On the one hand, Season 4 of the show, about an imaginary news team that may or may not be based on real news teams, is especially stacked with powerful women, most of whom are bosses in some capacity, including new final boss Celine (Marion Cotillard). However, the whole season, like the ones that came before it, centers on women f-ing over women again and again.
There are professional and personal betrayals galore. The series launched and, in its early seasons, sold itself as a feminist “girl power” story. But is it now regressing into a “the girls are fighting” narrative?
(Warning: Spoilers ahead.)
The Season 4 premiere commented again and again about the femininomenon that has taken over the company: Stella and Alex are in new, bossier roles at the imaginary, newly rebranded network, and Celine is “the new Cory,” AKA the head of the network. The episode failed the Bechdel Test immediately when the women of the newsroom commented that, while the previous CEO was a man, they almost preferred him because at least he was hot.
While Jennifer Aniston’s Alex initially thwarts the advances of the manosphere podcaster Brodie (Boyd Hollbrook), the lady doth protest too much methinks, and we know from the trailer that these two kiss or nearly kiss in Alex’s apartment. The burgeoning romance between Cory (Billy Crudup) and Bradley (Reese Witherspoon), which was this week’s episode big cliffhanger, is cringe-inducing for many reasons. But the women and their men aren’t the feminist conundrum of the season—it’s the girl v. girl fighting.
Starting at the top: Celine, new on the scene, is as ruthless as she is chic. She will do anything to stay in control. This includes feuding on a professional level with her newly appointed CEO, Stella (Greta Lee). The power struggles abound, but they’re mostly respectful, until blackmail enters the picture.
Here we have our male villain, because I’ve decided he is a villain, Cory, grinning like a sneaky fox, trying to get into the hen house to eat all the chickens and set up shop again. Cory finds out Stella is sleeping with Celine’s (very, very hot) husband and uses that information to blackmail Stella. Then Celine convinces Stella to pass over Mia (Karen Pittman) for head of news (more on that in a min).
At the end of Episode 2, we have the cringiest dialogue that ever existed. Cory is triumphant and Stella hisses, “Jesus Christ!” like a swear, to which Cory says, “He is risen.” After I was done gagging, I remarked on how patriarchal that victory is. Cory back on top. Ew.
Meanwhile, Celine is on a rampage. When Alex helps an Iranian Olympic athlete and her father defect in the opening episode, security footage shows Alex saying things she claims not to have said (and we as the audience can corroborate because we saw it in the premiere). Celine and Stella don’t believe her. What ever happened to “believe women?” Alex claims it’s a deep fake and goes on a mission to prove it. I don’t trust Celine, but maybe that’s because I have internalized misogyny.
Mia. I love Mia—she is my moral center in this quagmire. However, she and Chris (Nicole Beharie) get into it because Mia prioritizes her job over everything else, which Chris, who isn’t showing up the way Mia wants her to because of her family, doesn’t appreciate. This important and relevant conversation about career vs. family is then brushed over for “main cast” plot, which means we never get to get into it besides at the surface—the fight.
Speaking of not showing up, Alex, who was supposed to champion Mia in her bid for head of news, can’t show up to the interview. And Bradley is just bad at her job. The women are letting Mia down left and right.
When Mia confronts Stella in Episode 3 after getting passed over for a man for head of news, she has the balls—no—ovaries to tell Stella how she feels, says their friendship is over, and quits. Good for her. Stella lashes out and tells Mia she wasn’t the best one for the job, a complete reversal of everything she’s been saying about Mia for years. Stella is a hot mess of hatred and sex.
Finally, our stars, Alex and Bradley, have about one minute together before they’re fighting and Bradley storms out. So, there went that.
I drew a flow chart of all the backstabbing, controlling, and arguing and it was a circle. The Morning Show, both the show we watch at home and the fictional news program, is a snake eating its own tail. It will be hoisted by its own petard, which the characters hint out throughout the season thus far, explicitly when Alex says to Bradley, “You can’t clean a house if you’re about to blow it up.”
Okay here’s the problem with all this. We do have all of these women being big girl bosses, doing their big girl bossing around, but the fact that they’re having such a hard time simply getting along let alone getting their jobs done seems to send the message that girls can’t do it as well as boys—which I have to believe was not the thesis the showrunners had in mind.
And then when they give Cory the in, he just grins and walks around as if it’s going to be easy to take over, which, turns out, it is, once he turns the women against each other and/or sleeps with them (Bradley—why).
The reason the women of The Morning Show can’t be successful leaders is not actually because of the patriarchy keeping them down, it’s because of all of the infighting and the power grabs within their own demographic.
It’s uncool to sleep with someone else’s husband, even if she’s mean (and he’s hot). It’s not nice to screw your “friend” over for a promotion because of your own personal mess. It’s childish to storm out of fights with your friends and colleagues instead of talking it out. And if you don’t believe a woman who says AI is twisting “the truth,” then what’s the point of “the news” or “truth” anyway?
Yes, the women leading the cast and the character-centered plotlines mean that, more often than usual, the show does pass the Bechdel Test, but it comes at the cost of the overall message. I don’t believe the showrunners are making an anti-feminist show on purpose—I think they’re misguided in what we, the audience, are getting out of the drama and the character choices. The show makes important points about the free press, free speech, and AI that have never been more timely, but the audience is distracted watching old-school cat fights.
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