Apple TV’s ‘The Morning Show’ Season 2 Recap: Get Ready for Season 3
Apple TV has created some great shows since its first release, with some of them being covered on our website. ‘The Morning Show’ isn’t the best series in the world (if the mixed reactions don’t show otherwise). Still, it does make for an entertaining TV experience – it’s flashy and sometimes over the top, but drama behind the famous news media almost always brings entertainment. The series first aired in 2019 with ten episodes, with the second season being in the same format, which aired in 2021.
‘The Morning Show’ stars notable actresses Jennifer Aniston and Reese Whitherspoon, with others including Steve Carell, Billy Crudup, Mark Duplass, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, and others. Season three of ‘The Morning Show’ is on the 13th of September, and in this article, we will recap the previous episode to remind ourselves what happened and what to expect in this Apple TV drama. If you’re interested, stay with us until the end.
What happened in season two of ‘The Morning Show’?
Media is everything around us, and in the last fifty years, we witnessed an evolution of television. This particular media became the biggest factor in our lives, with most of the information stemming from there, but as is in most cases, the U.S. was always special in that regard. News media evolved massively over the years, from basic news channels to whole talk shows that glued people to their TV screens.
The whole phenomenon in America was incredibly vast, and one interesting program definitely contributed to the media boom – the morning shows. Most people recognize ‘Good Morning America’ as the most popular morning show in the U.S. since it first aired in the 1970s, and it has stayed that way until today. Besides the usual news broadcasted to millions of Americans, the notable morning show had many scandals “behind the camera” that intrigued the public, and ‘The Morning Show’ depicts just that – what happens behind the cameras of one of the biggest morning shows in the U.S.?
‘The Morning Show’ series is inspired by Brian Stelter’s 2013 book ‘Top of the Morning: Inside the Cutthroat World of Morning TV.’ In the book, Shelter described his observation as a journalist for ‘The New York Times’, following major changes on popular morning shows like ‘Today’ show and the aforementioned ‘Good Morning America.’
The TV series follows a very popular morning program in the U.S., ‘The Morning Show’ (TMS), which a notable news anchor leads, Alex Levy (Aniston). She “shares the spotlight” with her colleague and anchor, Mitch Kessler (Carell), and the duo is the most popular news anchor duo in the country.
TMS is broadcast by UBA (United Broadcast Association), and the latter is considered the pioneer of U.S. television.
However, everything gets increasingly complicated when Mitch is caught in the sexual conduct in the workplace during the #MeToo movement that TMS and UBA skillfully avoided for months.
It’s revealed that Mitch was a problem for years and that someone leaked his ways to ‘The New York Times.’
This is where Bradley Jackson (Whitherspoon) arrives – she is a bold field correspondent who consistently gets the TV network in trouble. When Alex and Bradley are paired together as the news anchors on TMS, their rocky relationship might be the tipping point for the whole network.
Season one was intense and full of scandals – Mitch being exposed as the rapist, while the president of the TV network, UBA, and their boss is “outed” as the “sexual abuse apologist” after Alex and Bradley expose his actions to the world.
New leadership at UBA poses new obstacles for ‘The Morning Show’
The chaotic ending of season one saw Alex and Bradley exposing the president of UBA, Fred Micklen, to the public after he tried to cover up Mitch’s sexual abuse of their colleague, Hannah. It didn’t help that Hannah overdosed and died, which only added fuel to the fire.
Alex is in shock – first because she worked with Mitch for years and she worked with the sexual abuser. Alex leaves TMS, and three months after the huge reveal occurred, Bradley gets a new TV colleague on TMS, Eric Nomani, whom Bradley really likes.
However, even though they worked really well together, Bradley and Eric couldn’t appeal to the audiences, and the TV ratings dropped significantly. Cory Ellison, the former President of the News Division at UBA, is now the President of the TV network; he decides to reach out to fed-up Alex, who left the show and went into isolation – to propel herself as the feminist icon.
However, Alex returns to The Morning Show after Cory convinces her to do it and her self-reflection. Unfortunately for Cory, he gets the news that Hannah Shoenfeld’s parents are suing the network for wrongful death, and things get even more complicated.
The COVID-19 pandemic affects the whole world, including TMS
‘The Morning Show’ series’ first season is set in 2019, and when the season ended, the series entered 2020, a year when the whole world suffered from the global pandemic, COVID-19.
The world is slowly changing for the worse as more people get affected by the disease, but interestingly enough, Alex is the one who gets infected, making her life even worse.
After she left the network for the first time, Alex was on a downward spiral, especially with everything that happened with Mitch. When she returns as the news anchor, Alex and Bradley decide to be equals on their show and be better themselves.
However, COVID-19 is spreading across the globe, with some of the TMS members even being in Wuhan, China, during the massive outbreak. While the world is trying to learn how to fight a mysterious disease that kills people, TMS and the U.S. are still unfamiliar with it. Alex gets infected by the end of season two after she visits disgraced Mitch in Italy.
Her struggles with the disease and her own problems make Alex miserable even more.
Bradley deals with her alcohol-addicted brother
Bradley and Alex had their own storylines, which were seen quite clearly as the episodes passed. While Alex ran from her problems, Bradley dealt with her alcohol-addicted brother, Hal, who struggled with addiction for years.
Bradley has a complicated family history – her father was intoxicated when he killed a child in a car accident, and she turned him in. Since then, Bradley blamed herself for her brother’s alcohol addiction, but Hal immediately denied that ever happening – he was responsible for his addiction.
Things get complicated when Bradley’s mother, Sandy, takes Hal home to be with her, even though her daughter paid for his rehab for years. This doesn’t end well because Hal arrives in New York and embarrasses his sister at TMS studio, intoxicated, reasoning that he cannot live with their mother.
After this incident, Bradley takes Hal to a rehab center for the second time, where she gives him the ultimatum – either he fixes up, or she’ll never see him again.
Things get complicated when Hal disappears – she cannot post anything about her brother online because the public will find out about her family situation.
After the talk with Alex about messes and owning them up, because those are theirs, Bradley posts about her brother and discovers he is at the hospital. He wasn’t drunk, high, or anything like that, but some people beat him up.
Bradley promises her brother she will never leave him again.
Alex tries to find closure with Mitch, and she does it in the most controversial way
While Bradley struggled with her family situation, Alex spent her time in season two making bad decisions and running away from her problems. In season two, we discover that Alex and Mitch slept together a few times as work colleagues and married other people.
The whole secret will be revealed in Maggie Brenner’s book, which will revolve around the happenings behind the scenes of ‘The Morning Show’ and the whole UBA network. This prompts Alex to make a reckless decision.
Alex goes to Italy to visit her disgraced colleague, where she sees Mitch struggling with what happened. She’s trying to convince Mitch to deny their involvement with each other. However, by the end of their encounter, Alex and Mitch sleep together for the last time.
Mitch dies in the car accident that night, and Alex’s struggles get even bigger. The popular news anchor attends Mitch’s memorial, where she reveals she visited him in his last days and that he tried his best. However, she didn’t know that someone filmed the whole thing and later posted it on social media.
Alex is “canceled” after visiting the sex offender and proving she really didn’t change. After the shocking news, Alex faints in her apartment and ends up in the hospital. It is revealed that the COVID-19 virus infected her.
The end of the season sees Alex coming clean about her disease and struggles, sending a message to the people about self-reflection and safety.
Season two was arguably more chaotic than the first one, which most of the critics didn’t like, but if you like drama around media outlets and morning shows, ‘The Morning Show’ will be a good afternoon “time-waster.”
The first two episodes of season three of ‘The Morning Show’ will be released on Wednesday, 13 September, 2023.
What are your thoughts? Let us know in the comments below!
