#and I have many feelings about tms rn pardon me

[bloodstained-ballgowns]

‘The Morning Show’ rewatch thoughts: Part 2

Oh, boy. Things really pick up in the second half of the season. Spoilers for eps 6-10. 

It really struck me, specifically during the wildfires episode, how certain Alex is that Bradley will jump at any chance too judge her and tear her down if she shows the slightest bit of vulnerability. Especially if we're considering whether that’s something she’s come to expect, AKA is that something Mitch would do? I wouldn’t be surprised if picking at each others’ flaws, like pressing on bruises, was a large part of how their relationship functioned. We see in the flashback episode that Mitch makes a comment about the clothes they pick for her on-air and how she should wear something sexier, and though they laugh together, it never seemed to me like they ever truly liked or trusted each other. Did she build up that defence system unconsciously? I can totally see Alex having to play into all these angles in order to fit in with the ‘Boy’s Club’. It's something a lot of women do to gain male validation as the result of internalised misogyny, so I’m inclined to believe that yes, Mitch is absolutely the type of person to hold her hair back as she throws up, and then make a disarming joke about it later, which she obviously expects Bradley to do (or something along those lines).

Following on from that, as much as I do believe Alex is Not A Good Person, that feeling of waking up and looking at yourself and realising just how much you’ve been programmed to hate other women, hate yourself, in order to succeed (or even survive) in a patriarchal society can be like being hit by a truck. I think most women can sympathise with that, and it's a really positive step for Alex in the last episode when she is the one to start condemning the network on air, and completely confronts and admits to how many people she hurt with her complicity. She realises that self-preservation has to come second to truth, and starts to redeem herself. I’m so proud. 

Charlie fucking Black. This guy... He has none of the redemption Alex does when it comes to self-preservation. The way he just assumes everyone has selfish intentions just because he does is so funny to me. He’s really like ‘yeah I'm only in this so I can get my job back but oh bradley don’t you only care about bringing down fred because it will write you into history? ha!’ and she's just like ‘??? nO?!? bro wtf’. And the way Bradley starts getting really overwhelmed like a pan about to boil over about how shit everything is and Chip honest to god thinks the right thing to do is try to forcibly hug her?? Huh?? Bastard. (I did appreciate it when he punched Mitch though, even if it was for his own manpain).

The weirdest revelation I had this time around was ‘wait…is Chip in love with Alex???’. I looked it up, and yeah, apparently they were trying to convey that the reason Chip will do anything for her, the reason he leaked the story and always fights in her corner, isn't actually due to a long friendship and loyalty to a fault (like I figured), but because he’s in love with her and still holding a torch after fifteen years. Maybe I’m just dumb but damn. They did that. Weird.

Hannah is the catalyst, the lynchpin, the Wake-Up Call for so many people and I love that they woke up but GODDAMMIT she shouldn’t have had to kill herself for them to do it. What happened to her is devastating, particularly because her part in the series isn’t properly clear until episode 8, so until then she’s just as insignificant to the audience as she was to Mitch. “When Mitch Kessler decides he's having sex with you you feel pretty fucking powerless”. “To see people lose their jobs and things fall apart because I didn’t have the strength to say no”. Those lines broke me. Through Hannah, Mitch is finally shown to be the monster he truly is. (Gugu Mbatha-Raw is one of my favourite actresses right now because this performance coupled with Loki? Lady has got some acting chops). 

Mia’s mistake in the first half of the season when they’re at the bar and she says she “feels sorry” for Mitch, is that she assumes that those women had the same experience with him as her. Mia and Mitch had a consensual affair, so in her mind it was just a bit of fucking around with an unethical power dynamic. But the man she cheated with raped Hannah. Of course, she doesn’t know that, but her assumption irritates me.

“You know this wasn’t you’re fault, right? You know that?” Bradley I love you but what the fuck girl. Hannah just had a whole monologue about how she blames herself and Mitch assaulting her ruined her life and your response is just ‘don’t blame yourself’ like pls in what world does that help.

“The world isn’t ready to hold women accountable for their complicity” Mitch you need to sit the fuck down, because when he says this, he doesn’t mean ‘accountable’ as in ‘the word isn’t ready to realise that living in a patriarchal society has meant that women who want to succeed have had to twist their oppression to their own advantage/ignore the oppression of others and initiate change in the system so that that doesn’t have to happen if women want to break the glass ceiling’, he means ‘the world needs to hold complicit women to the same level of responsibility and contempt as they hold me because even though they were equally suffering from the system and I was the one who assaulted these women, the bystander is as bad as the bully, right?’. Because he’s burning, Mitch wants Alex to burn with him.

Honestly it was a moment when Cory unlocks Bradley’s entire character with the line “you can’t keep yourself pure just by moving on every time someone disappoints you”. What an asshole I love him and I love how they understand each other. 

I love that when Yanko gets drunk he rants about obscure weather phenomena to anyone near him.

The entire last five minutes of episode 10 is some of the most suspenseful, hair-raising, explosive, satisfying TV I've ever seen. Cory cheerfully waving at Fred as he’s locked out and the blind goes down - I love one☝️man. Rena’s face when she realises where Fred’s going and then sprints to lock the doors is iconic.

‘The Morning Show’ rewatch thoughts: Part 1

season 2 trailer thoughts ⬇️

There better be a good reason for Bradley suddenly having blonde hair because I liked the brown, it fit her character. I guess it could be symbolic, as blonde hair (particularly in the entertainment-y famous-people-y scene) has been treated as an ideal, more feminine, more attractive, more pure, whereas brown hair has been commonly associated with being grounded, mousy, or mature, so it could show that Bradley’s moving further away from her old hometown-news-anchor charm and now integrating more into this world that she was so outside of in season 1. She’s definitely wearing fancier clothing (I want that blue coat). Is that a reach? Maybe.

I’m looking forward to this storyline about racism in the workplace with Daniel and Mia, I’m glad he’s getting something substantial to do. Alex promised him that promotion and then blew up the network her own way, and he turned down YDA after all that. He deserves a network that appreciates him.

Maggie’s exposé is going to cause a tsunami.

Who’s the new EP and what the fuck is Chip doing these days.

“This is a battle for the soul of the universe!” Cory in a leadership position at UBA, having toppled Fred, will be interesting. The chaotic king is vibrating at the head of the table but is he better off as vice-president, where he can slyly manipulate from below without all the power right in front of him? He’s begging Alex to come back so obviously things aren’t going exceptionally, but we already know that’s where he thrives, on the knife edge. I hope his relationship with Bradley doesn’t deteriorate too badly, their dynamic is so great. They should go for that carriage ride!

Ummm they’re covering COVID. If you must, I guess.

I see a Yanko but I don’t see a Claire and that doesn’t sit right with me.