The Morning Show season 2 trailer suggests the battle is just getting started

Reese Witherspoon and Jennifer Aniston are back to tackle the mess that is network morning shows in the second season of the Apple TV Plus series

By Alex McLevy  |  August 23, 2021 | 3:00pm
TV News The Morning Show
The Morning Show season 2 trailer suggests the battle is just getting started
Jennifer Aniston, Billy Crudup, and Reese Witherspoon in The Morning Show Image: Apple TV+

When we last checked in on the situation at The Morning Show, things were a bit of a mess—and not just in the fictional reality of the UBA network. Reese Witherspoon’s Bradley Jackson and Jennifer Aniston’s Alex Levy seized control of their show’s live broadcast in the wake of Hannah’s (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) suicide, publicly recounting the details of the toxic workplace culture that protected the men who had created such an environment—first and foremost among them being network president Fred Micklin (Tom Irwin). Chip (Mark Duplass) had been fired as showrunner, and revealed he was the one who leaked the story about Mitch (Steve Carell) way back in the first episode. It’s anyone’s guess how much of an internal shakeup followed such a collective fiasco.

Thankfully, the trailer for season two is here to suggest that the more things change, the more they get even more complicated. Cory Ellison (Billy Crudup, series MVP and Emmy Award winner for his role as the Machiavellian head of the UBA News division) is trying to recruit Alex to come back to the show—spoiler alert, he’s going to succeed, as we see mere seconds later—while Bradley scrambles to maintain her newfound position of authority. Mitch is clearly still plotting his comeback attempt, and supporting players like Nestor Carbonell’s weatherman Yanko Flores are there to spout portentous Newsroom-esque lines about racism and COVID. If nothing else, it suggests this season is doubling down on all the real-world influences on the series, even as it still indulges in the larger-than-life theatrics the show does so well (it even ends with a great Network-style shouted bit of dialogue from Crudup).

Anyone who watched the first season of this show is well aware of just how off the rails it careened over the course of those 10 episodes, with the death of Mbatha-Raw’s character only the most glaring example of a series that really struggled to place one narrative foot in front of the other in a coherent manner. But there’s so much that’s good about the series—and showrunner Kerry Ehrin has a history of righting the ship on shows that were a bit of a mess in their first season (looking at you, Bates Motel)—so here’s hoping season two fixes the problems and plunges ahead with all the dishy fun there is to be had in this world. And more Billy Crudup, please, of course; never enough Cory.

The Morning Show returns for season two on Friday, September 17 on Apple TV+.

 
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