It's Like the Flu

Maybe it's having lived through the last 19 months, but watching these narcissists bloviate incessantly isn't doing it for me so far this season. It's slick, well-produced, and well-acted. The writing is not so great, though. I'll keep watching in the hope it'll get better.

It's a small part of this otherwise okay episode, but dear U. S. A., why every time it's about something beyond your borders, the ignorance and carelessness just shine through? You could spend so much budget shooting scenes in Italy, and you couldn't make the easier parts bearable? First of all, the stereotype of an Italian woman who would even retaliate by singing about Mussolini? Is there anything else from that country besides Mussolini and gelato? Then her use of the word "scofflaw," which is not only a highly unusual word to be used even in the States, but it's also an informal North American term? Why in the world would an Italian ever use that word? There's absolutely no reason.

The script, albeit generally well-written, also suffers from a lack of flow. It feels like it's been overly workshopped.

Also there's no flight as long as 23 hours (let alone direct flight to Wuhan). The current longest flight is NYC-Singapore at 18 hours 40 mins.

Do better, The Morning Show. You've got the production budget that anyone could ever dream of. Be better than people showcased in Youtube videos who could never name anything beyond the borders of the country. Put in some, any, efforts in trying to learn how others think and behave. Don't just use a country as a nice backdrop and their countrymen's accents as quirky pops of colors when it's convenient.

One sentence going through my head this entire episode: who do she think she is? I don't understand why Bradley all of a sudden is acting childish and entitled. Maybe more time has gone by since S1 than I know? But she is acting like it is her, not Alex, that worked on the show for 15 years. Yes she had to carry the show bla bla bla, but does that give her the right to act like that, and especially towards her manager? I really hope Bradley is going back to being the person she was through season 1, because if not I will not like this season as much as I liked season 1. They did Bradley dirty on this one....

Now with the second episode, the big problem with The Morning Show shows. It's still entertaining and well-produced television, with a fabulous cast. But if you need two episodes to get all the pieces back on the chessboard, then you've done something wrong in story telling. In my opinion, the end of the first season has left a total mess that the first two episodes of the new season have destroyed the viewing pleasure. I hope it gets better!

"It's Like the Flu" primarily revolves around the machinations involved in getting Alex back to The Morning Show, which honestly takes a lot longer than they necessarily need to. The above statement also applies to the extremely obvious and disturbingly insidious creep of COVID-19. The Morning Show's apparently decided that what audiences really want is to relieve the onset of a pandemic we're all still in the middle of and to do it by nostalgically framing the hamfisted way the media covered the virus in the first place. Aniston and Witherspoon really are great together, and though the fact that The Morning Show doesn't seem to know how to frame their relationship as anything other than adversarial in the end, both women infuse their scenes with so many layers that it gives everything more nuance than it probably deserves. Mitch Kessler of it all. Look, I get that Steve Carrell is great and that playing a complete sleazebag is very against type for him and blah blah blah, it's a very strong performance. His awkward Italian gelato cafe run-in with two women - one publicly shaming him and the other defending his right to be a creep in public - is...well, it's difficult to parse what precisely The Morning Show is trying to do here. Whichever way you choose to read that scene, it's hard not to be furious at the show essentially making fun of both young feminists who want to use social media to force men to at least acknowledge the harm they've done and older women who find their younger compatriot's feminism limiting and performative, it leaves very little room for nuance or the idea that women can and should be allowed to feel and express a vast array of feelings about men like Mitch.