The Morning Show's Cory Is An Agent Of Chaos In Episode 2 (And, Well, Always) — Whose Life Is He About To Blow Up?
"He is risen," Cory Ellison gleefully proclaims at the end of this week's The Morning Show. It's not lost on him (or us) that he's talking about himself in messianic terms; dude's never had a problem with self-esteem. This time, however I'll allow it, because he's actually on the cusp of pulling off the miraculous: a return to power at the network that ousted him last season.
The fact that he does it via blackmail thanks to an incredibly lucky instance of right time/right place? Well what did you expect? That he'd win his way back via HARD WORK and ACTUAL MERIT? If so, what show have you been watching all this time?
Read on for the highlights of Episode 2,"The Revolution Will Be Televised."
WELCOME BACK, BRADLEY | On Bradley's first day at UBN, she co-hosts The Morning Show with Yanko and Chris but is kinda distracted the whole time, wondering if her mystery informant is someone in the building. Her lack of focus comes to a head during the broadcast, when the three anchors discuss Bradley's brother, Hal. "Fair to say he got caught up on the wrong side of things on Jan. 6 at the Capitol?" Yanko says. Uh, more than fair. We learn that Hal is now serving prison time for his role in the insurrection, but that part is immediately superseded by the way Bradley bombs her way through talking about her involvement in the day. "I was there, too," she blurts, stammering and "ummmm"ing way too much; Chris eventually jumps in to save her while Mia dies 300 deaths in the control room.
But Bradley's not super bothered, because her informant has messaged her and arranged a meeting in Central Park. So Bradley has dinner with Chip to ask him to work with her; he declines, gently informing her that the person on the other end of the encrypted message is probably just some Reddit-fiend with a true-crime obsession. But when he's had a while to think about it, he changes his mind and meets her at the designated spot: He's remembered a meeting he attended years ago with UBA bigshots where they instructed the then-head of news to spike a story about an Environmental Protection Agency report.
So now Chip is on board... but the informant doesn't show, leaving Bradley without a firm plan to proceed.
WHO'S FAKING ALEX? | Alex is called into a meeting with Stella, Celine and someone from the network's legal team, which is never a good time. They think she colluded with Roya, the Iranian fencer, and they have the video to prove it: Security-camera footage from the room Alex pulled Roya into when chaos broke out clearly shows Alex saying "My car is waiting downstairs, just like we planned. Believe me, your father is doing the right thing." Alex is gobsmacked — as we know, she didn't say that — and she maintains her innocence: "Someone has f—ked with that tape!" The higher-ups are disbelieving, but Alex points out that the network has a fancy new AI that can replicate her voice in a zillion languages. Surely it could handle something like this?
That night, Cory comes to Alex's for dinner; she spills about the deep fake, even though she's not supposed to tell anyone. He instantly believes her (or, at least, looks like he believes her in order to gain an in-UBN ally). "You're being gaslit," he says, to her great relief. He says that he knows Celine from back in the day in Los Angeles, and we learn that Celine and Miles married despite her family's insistence that it was a bad match. Then Cory helps Alex strategize. 1) She doesn't know who has it out for her... because there are so many people who might, thanks to the staff cuts she had to implement. 2) She's got to get to the most influential member of the UBN board — who happens to be Cybil's daughter, who hates her — and kiss the ring a little in case Celine brings the matter of Alex Levy's employment to a vote.
The next day, Alex begs Mia to put her on TMS to talk about the deep fake, but Mia won't, because that would be directly disobeying Stella and Celine's order for Alex to keep quiet. So Alex marches downstairs to see Brody, who has no editorial oversight for his podcast and can therefore do whatever he wants, and announces that she'll be a guest. After some bantering in which Alex has to eat crow and Bro mightily enjoys watching her do it, he offers to share an upcoming episode of his show with her. She agrees.
CORY GETS LUCKY | Never one to leave when he knows he's not wanted, Cory gets Stella to agree to meet him at a bar so he can pitch her. "I need some finishing funds" for the movie, he says, noting that the workplace misconduct investigation has really made it tough for him to woo investors. His offer for what she'd get in return is, admittedly, weak though bombastic: "The kind of event movie that drives subscriber numbers and parks eyeballs in front of the last fledgling embers of a formerly great media empire." She downs her martini and plays with a lighter as she deflects his suspicion that everything at the network is not as "copacetic" as she claims, then she goes to leave. "It hurts, doesn't it, that the whole world keeps spinning without you?" she asks in parting. "You're played-out, Cory. Everybody knows it but you."
After, Stella goes directly to Miles' studio for sex and a strategy session. He offers to talk to Cory for her, because they "go way back."
AN INCONVENIENT YOUTH | During Alex's trip downtown to talk with Cybil's daughter, she's encumbered by the student reporter she agreed to talk to regarding Martin's impending promotion. The young reporter winds up riding in Alex's car and asking highly mundane questions about Martin, but Alex is so distracted that she answers them a little too truthfully — at one point, she mentions that about a dozen publishers rejected her father's manuscript before one finally printed it — but they're interrupted when a protest near Madison Square park stops the car cold. Alex and the reporter get out and find themselves in the center of a demonstration headed by Extinction Revolt, a group protesting a nearby climate summit. (Side note: In the Flatiron? Is the event being held at Eataly, or the Lego store? Thank you for your patience with this highly Manhattan-centric joke.) Alex gets splashed with black paint and teargassed, but she also enlists the young reporter to record her interviewing one of the organizers. And when his claims about a lobbyist infiltrating the summit bear out, Alex winds up breaking a story that makes news that evening.
Of course, because of the tear-gassing, she winds up missing Bro's show. But given how she helped the greater good, he forgives — and even salutes — her during his broadcast.
Chris also gets sidelined by the protest traffic, and chooses to put on her running shoes and sprint to her daughter's recital when taking a car there proves impossible. But she doesn't bring her wallet, so she doesn't have the ID necessary to get into the school, frustrating her greatly. When she returns to the studio, Mia reads her the riot act about choosing family over work when money and people's schedules are on the line, and Chris warns her never to talk about how she chooses to parent ever again.
THE PIECES FALL INTO PLACE | While Alex talks about her scoop on TMS the next morning, Bradley is shocked to recognize the Extinction Revolt logo in the footage: It's the same one she saw someone wearing in the video that her informant sent her. Right after they're off the air, Chip calls Bradley to say that he's figured out who the mystery whistleblower is: It's Claire Conway, former TMS staffer/Yanko's secret girlfriend, who is rich and has an ax to grind with the network. (Remember how she sued after Hannah's death?) The clues make sense, down to her using British spellings in her encrypted messages. He remembers that she was at the meeting where the EPA story was spiked, though she was such a low-level employee at the time, he'd forgotten she was there. (Nice.) They theorize that she's involved with the climate-defense group, and that maybe she was arrested and couldn't make the meeting she set up.
Meanwhile, Celine swings by Alex's to let her know that an investigation found that someone did, indeed, mess with the audio on the footage of her and Roya. The network thinks maybe the Iranians are responsible, as retribution for helping the fencer defect. "It's being handled," Celine reassures a highly relieved Alex... anyone else feel like that's a handy, vague and possibly not-true explanation on Celine's part?
The episode's Most Perceptive Player, however, goes to Cory. While at Miles' loft, he glances at a side table and sees the lighter Stella was playing with, then wastes no time giving Stella a call. "I know you're f—king Miles, as in the husband of the president of the board of the company for which you serve as CEO," he says, nearly peeing himself with delight as she crumples in horror on the other end of the line. He adds that he checked things out with the building's super and knows that she's been there a lot. "My price has gone up," he says. "I want an overall deal at UBN."
Stella can barely breathe. "Jesus Christ," she gasps. "He is risen," Cory says with a self-satisfied smile.
Now it's your turn. What did you think of the episode? Sound off in the comments!