The Morning Show Season 2, Episode 7 review: Jennifer Aniston, Steve Carell’s Apple TV+ series is insipid and pointless

The series, also starring Reese Witherspoon and Billy Crudup, is a glorious but unsalvageable misfire.

Story: Titled La Amara Vita, Episode 7 of The Morning Show brings Jennifer Aniston’s Alex Levy and Steve Carell’s Mitch Kessler face-to-face for the first time since the latter jetted off to an Italian hamlet after being outed as a sexual harasser.

The first season of The Morning Show may have not been a masterpiece, but one of its USPs was its ability to consistently surprise or shock the viewers. These came in bouts throughout entire episodes, but the season stood out for its impeccably edited cliffhangers. Season 2 rarely has such impactful twists, but the best thing about Episode 7 is perhaps its cliffhanger ending.

The rest of the episode revolves around a heated exchange between Mitch and Alex. Alex was absent from Episode 6, after abruptly abandoning her presidential interview in Los Angeles in Episode 5. In the latest instalment, Alex is revealed to fly to Italy in order for a quick tête-à-tête with her former partner, best friend and the disgraced TMS host Mitch. Her motive is spelt out — she wants Mitch to attest to never having consensual sex with her. It is, evidently, a lie, but Alex claims being linked to Mitch in any capacity is damaging to her career. Mitch refuses to comply, since he’s apparently grown a conscience ever since being outed as a sexual offender.

Their argument lives up to the dramatic potential of The Morning Show. They argue in raised voices and berate each other enough to come across as hard-hitting. The problem is, neither Mitch nor Alex is layered enough to be remotely interesting. By now, we are aware both Alex and Mitch are privileged, self-serving, self-pitying narcissists. Thus, even when the makers try hard to inject intrigue into the narrative, the characters sound predictable. Mitch is not as guilty of violating other people as he is scared of his tarnished image. Likewise, Alex has no qualms about manipulating narratives as long as they benefit her public persona. Hence, their arguments sound inauthentic and contrived. Aniston and Carell try hard to elevate these purported protagonists above the middling writing, but they have little to work with.

Alex and Mitch are no different than a teenage couple deciding the fate of their relationship based on high-school games like FLAMES. They are confused about whether to continue their friendship or call it off. Except, whether they accommodate each other in their lives feels immaterial and a drag.

The other dynamic the episode deals with is Paola (played by Valeria Golino) and Mitch. The two finally have sex in this episode. The show, once again, proves there are absolutely no ramifications for one’s misdeeds. After all, an exile in an Italian mansion and a roaring affair with a documentary filmmaker sounds too comfortable of a resolution to a show that handled #MeToorather maturely in its first season. To say that season 2 is all over the place is perhaps an overkill, given every episode till now has been a mishmash of superficial subplots loosely tied to the main narrative. Yet, it is impossible to pinpoint what the overarching theme of the show is. It seems the characters are stuck in a hamster wheel, where episode after episode pass without any discernible development.

As mentioned earlier, the episode concludes with an astonishingly clever cliffhanger. But it is also evident that the cliffhanger is misleading, since not many shows are as brave as Game of Thrones. Any further discussion would entail providing spoilers, but if the cliffhanger is a ploy to keep the audience hooked, Episode 7 manages to successfully do so.

Verdict: The Morning Show is a glorious misfire that looks unsalvageable by now.

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