The Morning Show Reveals Chris' Heartbreaking, Decade-Old Secret — Read Recap

Something Chris Hunter never wanted anyone to know — as well as a heartache of which very few people were aware — are both thrust into the spotlight in this week's 'The Morning Show.' And, to add insult to injury, the outing takes place on Bro Hartman's podcast, of all places.

The reveal cuts so deeply, in part, because Chris has spent the first half of Season 4 riding high. She's the face of UBN's upcoming Olympic coverage! Her books are sold in Target! She decides which packages she does and doesn't want to do! Maybe that's why she operates, for most of the hour, as though she truly thinks no one will figure out what she'd been hiding all these years. Seems like it, given her loud and repeated denials right up to the moment of (literal) truth.

Elsewhere, Cory figures out why Bradley's suddenly so into him, and... it doesn't go well. Read on for the highlights of "Amari."

While they're on a date at a beautiful Manhattan rooftop lounge, Bradley makes a big deal about asking Cory to look at photos on his phone... and then uses the time he's getting her a drink to poke around in his email, looking for anything related to Wolf River. She finds something: Photos of the lawyer who killed himself, meeting with a woman Bradley doesn't recognize. Bradley snaps a few surreptitious shots with her own phone, then makes excuses about why she can't stay longer.

Days later, Bradley stops by Alex's apartment to talk about why she doesn't think she's going to sign the contract extension that UBN just offered her. Pretty soon, she's blurting out that she slept with Cory because he seemed "safe." Alex is taken aback. "Like, an open elevator shaft kind of safe?" she quips. She pushes Bradley to directly ask Cory what his involvement in Wolf River was, but the best Bradley can do is call him and set up a date for the following evening. "I'll do it in person," she says, as if she's not just procrastinating what's going to be a really ugly conversation. "He deserves that much."

But when she arrives at his apartment, he already knows what she's up to: When searching his email for a lasagna recipe, he saw her sneaky search in the history list. "I know about Wolf River," she says, given that the jig is assuredly up. He's angry, repeatedly asserting that he has no idea about why the story got killed: He did it because Fred said to, and the whole mess with Mitch distracted him from asking any further questions.

Cory is legitimately surprised when Bradley tells him that Kenneth Stockton, the lawyer, died by suicide. "I told Earl to make it go away," he admits, but maintains he didn't mean anything like THAT. Bradley tries to tell Cory that she does have some feelings for him, but he wants nothing to do with her. "I spent a whole lot of time getting over you," he says coldly. "This time is gonna be a whole lot easier."

When Bradley returns to her place, she's surprised to find yet another surprise: Her federal handler is waiting for her inside the apartment. "We need to talk," he says.

When a social media user starts posting about how Chris doped during her Olympic career, Ben tells her to brush it off. But she can't, and when news outlets start picking up the story, it really gets under the former Olympian's skin. Her husband/manager, Marcus, eventually figures out that the poster is Tunde Johnson, a former teammate of Chris'. Despite his pleas for her to let him and their lawyers do the job, Chris leaves Tunde a scathing voicemail... that Tunde immediately posts online.

When UBN takes her off the air for a while, Chris feels silenced — until she runs into Mia, who is mightily irked that Alex blocked her from getting a great job at another network. "I'm guessing no one has your back in the building," the producer says. "I know what you deserve. I can help you get it."

So she sets Chris up with an interview on Bro's podcast. Tunde is there, too; she is REALLY not a fan of Chris, whom she thinks has forgotten where she comes from and the people she came up with. "You're gonna shut this down, you're gonna go home clean," Mia says to Chris as she enters the studio, unaware of how very wrong the next half hour will prove her.

Chris apologizes to Tunde about the email but maintains that everything that's being said about her taking performance-enhancing drugs is a lie. THEN Tunde says she can prove her claims. "Chris pissed off a lot of people over the years and they gave receipts," she says, producing a copy of a prescription for anabolic steroids she says a concierge doctor wrote for Chris while she was training for the Olympics. "Anything you want to say?" Bro asks, flippantly. "I did what I had to do," Chris says quietly, admitting to the use of banned substances.

She clarifies as she explains. She didn't dope during the London games but when she got pregnant a few years later, she lost all of her sponsors. And then her pregnancy went south; she had a problem with her placenta and eventually went into labor at 5-and-a-half months. "We didn't get to take my son home," she says, starting to cry. "When I got back on that track, I was so slow. I had to do something." She details how the drugs made her sick at first but how she felt like she deserved it, and how much she grieves her little boy. "His name is Amari. Amari Marcus," she says, fully sobbing. Even Tunde is crying, and Bro is uncharacteristically quiet as the show goes to commercial.

In her dressing room afterward, Chris kneels on the floor in front of Marcus, who cries as she wipes his face with her palms. I'm guessing he didn't know about the steroids, either.

When Alex runs into Mia later, they have it out about Alex's interference in Mia's professional prospects. "Chris isn't sure that UBN is the right fit for her anymore," Mia, who is Chris' agent now or something?, informs her. "She's exploring her options, and so am I. And I think we make a great team."

Now it's your turn. What did you think of the episode? Sound off in the comments!