The Morning Show
Knowing Violation
Season 4
Episode 10
Editor’s Rating
It’s going to take a team effort to thwart Celine’s corporate maneuvering and save Bradley Jackson from an Eastern European gulag.
Photo: Apple TV+
It only took four seasons, but Apple finally got The Morning Show to reveal the true heroes in our midst: an iPhone and a handy set of AirPods. I hope, with all my heart, that this is Apple’s new marketing strategy for AirPods: so easy to pair with your iPhone that you, too, can publicly take down an evil heiress to a French fortune with the push of a button. I think it could really move some product! Okay, Celine Dumont’s fall from grace is a little more complicated than moving a call from headphones to speakerphone, but honestly, not by much. It is, nonetheless, incredibly satisfying to watch.
Bradley Jackson has been detained in Belarus for 28 days. She’s being tortured with sleep deprivation by way of horrific lighting and heavy-metal music. Yet still she refuses to give up the name of the whistleblower she was meeting with, even if it may exonerate her from those charges of conspiracy. I mean, she gave up Claire at the first hint of jail time, but now she’s sticking to her guns. She’s a journalist, goddamnit. She’s not giving up her source. (This time.)
The Free Bradley Jackson contingent — Alex and Chip, mostly — is dealing with a real mixed bag. The State Department doesn’t seem to find any urgency in Bradley’s situation, and even a month in, it has yet to determine if her arrest was illegal or not. They are of no help. And worse still, the general public is losing interest in Bradley’s story. But not all is lost. Thanks to the internal reports Bradley sent over from her Martel Chemical source, Chip and Alex can see that the numbers analyzing Wolf River’s water contamination are completely different from the ones in the EPA report on file. Their problem is that they don’t have evidence to prove that someone at the EPA changed those numbers. They do, however, know someone who has had their hands on a Wolf River EPA report before: Cory.
The problem in dealing with Cory at the moment, aside from the usual problems in dealing with Cory, is that this man is going through it. He’s bereft. He’s furious. And he’s all the other emotions you feel while grieving both over your mother’s suicide and over the woman you’re pretending not to be in love with, even though you are hopelessly in love with her, being locked up in an Eastern European gulag. Suffice it to say, when Chip comes looking for help in proving the Wolf River cover-up to get more fervor behind freeing Bradley, Cory wants none of it. Chip is taken aback: This isn’t the time to be petty about a breakup, Bradley’s life is at stake, and for what it’s worth, he tells Cory, Bradley was pretty heartbroken about what went down between the two of them. Still, Cory feels betrayed by both Bradley and his mother, and he simply does not give a shit about anyone at this moment in time.
Or does he? After the chat with Chip, we watch Cory recall some surprisingly sincere and vulnerable pillow talk he and Bradley once shared and stare into bodies of water, really contemplating life, love, and what to do with secret EPA reports his dead mom slipped into a keepsake box. He can’t help but sit down and compare the report his mom left him with Chip’s. Lo and behold, the alarming numbers in the original report have been changed to much more favorable ones in the “official” report. Bradley is right about the cover-up, and Cory has the evidence to prove it all and perhaps make enough noise that there’s no choice but to do everything possible to get Bradley out of prison. But what will Cory decide to do with that evidence? At the present moment, it seems like he’s going to use it to cut a secret deal with Celine, who he knows is somehow involved in keeping Bradley in Belarus in order to keep her quiet. If she and her family work their evil, monied magic and free Bradley, he’ll give her the EPA report to do with whatever she pleases.
While Cory is deciding whether or not to be a decent human, there are some interesting developments elsewhere. Mia is tasked with looking into some strange log-ins and edits regarding Alex’s AI software, and it doesn’t take her long to discover that resident supervillain Celine Dumont hired unsuspecting TMS producer Bart to mess with the footage of Alex talking to the Iranian fencer. It was Celine who created the deepfake of Alex in hopes of using it to get her fired. (That plan, obviously, backfired.)
When Alex learns the truth, she stomps into the office, chews out Celine for peddling bullshit about sisterhood, and then demands that she resign. Alex is kidding herself if she thought this would actually work. Instead, Celine reveals that she knows all about Alex attempting a trade with a sanctioned Russian oligarch and if Alex doesn’t resign in the next 24 hours, she will leak that information, putting all of UBN at risk with the FCC and effectively imploding her career.
Even Paul Marks doesn’t see another way out. They can’t risk the Feds learning about their almost-trade deal with Ivanov at the opera. Alex goes to her last resort and asks Cory for help bringing down Celine, but when she watches Celine saunter into Cory’s apartment, she realizes the two of them are sleeping together and that last resort goes out the window. Her “I mean … why wouldn’t you?” as she walks out the door is absolutely cutting.
Alex Levy resigns from UBN. She even gets a last-minute good-bye segment on TMS. But lest you think this is how season four of The Morning Show ends, with Alex ousted from her beloved network and Bradley wasting away on the floor of a prison in Belarus, there is one card left to play, and surprisingly, the idea comes from Martin Levy.
Martin pops by to see his daughter after her big UBN goodbye and I guess that huge argument they had a few weeks ago was quite healing because all he wants to do is help his daughter. Wild, if true. He tells her he knows “the hallmarks of a forced confession,” and wants the full story. Boy, does he get it! He has a thought: Alex should sue Celine and UBN for wrongful termination. It’ll catch Celine off guard, and she and UBN would have to provide so much information in depositions that something useful to take Celine down and perhaps prove this Wolf River story is bound to come out. It’s risky because Celine will surely use her family’s power to rain hellfire down on Alex once she hits go on this plan, but it’s her only real option at this point.
Meanwhile, Cory is catching some hellfire of his own thanks to a different member of Celine’s family: her husband Miles. Since the Stella debacle, Miles has apparently been off in the woods, contemplating things like his toxic but sexy marriage and why he isn’t ass deep in some pasta with his girlfriend right now. He has decided to return to Celine, but before he lays eyes on his wife, he discovers some remnants of the intimate coke party she and Cory had and immediately realizes she’s been having an affair. He visits his old pal Cory to both tell him to leave his wife alone and to blow up his entire sense of self by revealing that it was Cory’s mother who got the EPA to cover up the findings at Wolf River in exchange for Celine’s help in getting Cory the Head of News job. Martha was, apparently, appalled with the way her son was spiraling in Los Angeles and wanted him in New York. She wanted him to thrive. She sold her soul to do it.
Cory is unraveling. Is this the real reason his mother hatched her escape plan? And even in the end, she couldn’t confess her transgressions, instead leaving him the paper trail. It’s around this time that Cory learns about Alex’s imminent press conference to out Celine and announce the lawsuit. He beelines to Alex’s place to tell her this is an awful idea. Celine will ruin her life. Alex doesn’t care. She is standing in the truth, and maybe that truth will be enough to bring Bradley home.
Now, The Morning Show tries to stretch out the tension and make us believe that Cory isn’t going to stand up and do the right thing, but what we learn later is that in that conversation, Cory confesses that it was his mother who helped Celine cover up Wolf River and he has the proof. “Maybe she gave it to you so you would do what she couldn’t,” Alex tells him. And thus, a plan is born.
Alex and her father make the big announcement, and Alex does not mince words about Celine Dumont. As Martin predicted, Celine is blindsided. She is enraged. And even more so once she sees that even TMS is reporting this as breaking news (thanks to a well-orchestrated nudge from Mia) after she ordered Ben to ignore it. This is when Cory places his well-timed call to fan the flames. Can you believe this? Alex would do anything to save Bradley! It’s her pressure point! It’s all about getting Bradley home! He pushes and pushes Celine, telling her he’s at the press conference and he’s going to try and stop Alex however he can. She starts screaming on the other end about how she will make sure Bradley Jackson never returns from Belarus. She sounds like she really means it, guys. And that’s when she realizes that Cory’s put her on speakerphone and handed it over to Alex to hold up to the mic. Her threats are all over the news. Celine has no move to play but to jump on her family’s private jet, return to France, and accept whatever punishment her father has in store.
Celine’s comeuppance is fun to watch, but so was Marion Cotillard on the banana pants program that is The Morning Show. I hope Celine is simply down and not out. May she and her perfect suits return to wreak havoc on UBN in the future.
With Celine out of the picture and Bradley Jackson’s story of detainment back in the forefront of the news, it’s not hard for Alex to push for her friend’s release. It’s even easier once Paul, definitely still in love with Alex, offers up his own place for Alex to take to Minsk to retrieve Bradley. It’s a teary reunion there on the tarmac as Alex starts to tell Bradley how the Wolf River story is out there now and she “changed everything.” We have no idea what’s next for UBN or any of its players (it certainly looks like Mia is gunning for the CEO desk), but one thing is for sure: Bradley Jackson is free. And not just, like, floating in space, saying, “Oh, I feel so free,” but actually free. Good for her.
• When a frustrated Paul comments that Bradley Jackson is “stuck in a fucking gulag in Eastern Europe and she’s still a human wrecking ball,” he really is endearing himself to me. Forever talking shit on Bradley Jackson, even when her life hangs in the balance? I simply cannot hate this man.
• Uh, are Mia and Ben going to fuck in Paris? I … love this.
• “What do you think is worse: Pretending to love someone so you can fuck them over or killing yourself in front of them?” Yeah, it’s safe to say 2024 wasn’t Cory Ellison’s year, but new year, new you, Cory!
• I don’t know how Jennifer Aniston and Jon Hamm made the “I’ve been enough of a pain” and “Well, I’m developing a tolerance” exchange so swoony, but holy hell, they really did.
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