There is not even one moment to waste on welcoming you back or table setting, we must immediately get into the absolutely bonkers amount of drama and betrayals that happened this week on The Morning Show!
As the the show starts with one of the more unhinged slash perfect scenes we have ever seen on this program, let’s kick things off with the most important couple, shall we? We open on Laura, trying to sleep after her long day of Doing Journalism™ and uncovering her girlfriend’s federal crime. Alas, her sleep is interrupted by all her memories of better times with Bradley in Montana, forcing her to get up and pace the staggeringly beautiful rooms of her brownstone.
Oh, the times when they were happy!
But Laura is nothing if not a dyke who is committed to her job, so she goes to work, still ruminating about the morass her girlfriend has found herself in. There was a part of me hoping she would talk to Audra about it, if only so I could watch Audra grapple with a moral dilemma, but who is that knock knocking at Laura’s door? Why the one and only Elizabeth Perkins, aka Elena, who…might run NDN? It’s unclear at this time. What is clear is that she, like Laura and like Bradley of old, is a journalist who is addicted to the truth. Her college roommate was one of Ken Starr’s top investigators (lol okay) and if you don’t think she reported the offhand comment her friend made one night over drinks, well, then you are a fool! “We shatter one moral code to uphold the other.” It cannot be said enough how much these two women in one room was a scene made just for me!! Elena offers to give the tip to someone else if Laura is too close to the story, but no, Laura will handle this. Integrity, baby!
They cannot have hired her for ONE scene, right??
Meanwhile, Bradley has been trying to find someone at Hyperion who will tell her the dirt on Paul. Natalie Morales has disappeared, and despite the war room she has set up in her apartment with Stella and Chip, making calls to anyone she can get a hold of…she’s got nothing. She is convinced enough to bring it up to Alex, who unbeknownst to her is planning to take uba apart with Paul, rebuilding the company into something better. AKA something Alex has more control over. Bradley tells Alex she thinks “the wrong guy” is buying this place, apparently forgetting that the one thing Alex hates more than doing her job is being told that she is making the wrong choice. It doesn’t exactly help that Bradley has nothing concrete to report about Paul, which gives Alex the ability to blather on about gossip and people talking shit. Bradley (correctly) points out that Alex might not be able to be objective about this, and that is the last straw for Madam Levy. “Wow. People really do suck,” Alex says as she flounces off into the night.
Laura makes a call to Hal, needing just a little more confirmation. I love that she doesn’t even try to sound enthusiastic when she proposes that the four of them get together in D.C for the Fourth of July. Isn’t it like…April at most? Who plans the Fourth of July that far in advance!? By the way — has Hal ever been to D.C? “Uhhhhh…not since high school,” he stammers. LIES! They hang up, and Laura texts Bradley that they need to talk ASAP. Bradley, who is in the middle of having a fruitless conversation with Stella and Cory about Paul’s shady ass, dips immediately. She does have enough time to go buy an assortment of what looks like Italian bakery cookies, which I respect. The cookies are soon forgotten, as she walks into Laura’s apartment and is greeted by this face:
This is so scary and yet SO arousing to me
I would likely fall down dead if I walked into my girlfriend’s home and was greeted like that??? Bradley is stronger than I am, or more oblivious, and assumes her boo is still sick, perhaps she needs a doctor? “I don’t care if you are contagious, I’m giving you a hug.” Girl! Read the room! The woman is standing and glaring; this is not illness based! Laura holds her off with a hand, then says “You should have fucked him.” Bradley is confused, what is this woman on about? Frankly, she’s scared! “Hal’s a terrorist, but I’m scaring you?” Laura shoots back, and LOL what a LINE!
Things, if you can believe it, do not get better from there! Laura is furious about the lie, of course but also furious that Bradley can’t see (or, let’s be honest, chooses not to see) Cory lied to the FBI for her because he is in love with her. It is hard to explain how good and terrifying Julianna Margulies is in this scene, radiating hurt, anger, disappointment. And thank god, it wakes Reese up a bit, allowing her to do some good trembling and desperate pleading. Bradley admits she has wanted to tell Laura about it for so long. She knows what she did was wrong, and Hal didn’t even mean to hurt that cop, but she didn’t want Hal’s life to be ruined! Laura didn’t know about the whole “assaulting a cop” part, and watching her put together that Bradley used the footage to get Evening News is frankly thrilling. “You fucking broke every rule — how do you sit in that chair every night? It is obscene.” Whew BITCH I would be 404 file not found, dead in a ditch, crumbling into dust. Laura isn’t going to report it, but she wants nothing to do with Bradley anymore. Bradley gathers her things, sobbing and begging for a way to make it right. “I thought we would get old together. I really did.” The way Laura’s voice breaks at the end of that sentence?? Acting is happening!
It’s giving “Mommy please love me!”
Bradley heads back to uba, only to find Paul Marks in her office. It seems he knows she’s been digging around Hyperion, and, by the by, he knows about her Hal cover up. Even worse, he knows that Laura knows about the Hal cover up, hinting he would be more than happy to get that information out there and discredit the woman who just tore Bradley a new one. Well, there is no way he got that info without relying on some rather…shady means, right? Either way, it’s pretty terrible news to hear seconds before you go on air, and Bradley marches to her desk like she marching towards her own execution. Then she resigns, live on air. With one more episode left of the season! Gag worthy TV writing here, for once!
Control Room Business
While the Bradley/Laura drama of it all, is to me, the most thrilling part of this week’s episode, there is still more going on at uba! Including by not limited to two iconic ru-veals of some characters we thought were gone forever! The first being Maggie Brener, AKA Marcia Gay Harden, AKA Alex Levy’s ex-girlfriend (in my mind.) She enters bob first, terrorizing Alex in her very own office. “Can I?” She coos, gesturing towards the seat she is already sitting in. That is, as they say, Mother. Maggie is writing a piece on the sale of uba for the Times, of course, but also she thinks Alex has made so remarkable changes, and that she is a better person now? Lol okay sure! She drops some harrowing thoughts about the state of media — bad, generally — and then dips. I love to see it!
A woman addicted to terrorizing Alex Levy!
Alex has decided to stick with the plan she and Paul came up with, dismantling uba and selling it for parts, then rebuilding. Cory sees the stock prices dipping, scrambling to figure out who is behind it. Enter: Holland Taylor! That’s right, you cannot keep Sybil down, and she, in turn, will not watch her family’s company be obliterated. The drama of Holland getting of the elevator and old lady power walking into Cory’s office is fully incredible.
The woman is ON a mission!
She lets Cory in on Paul’s plans, and he in turn runs to Alex, finally understanding the damage that this deal — and Alex and Paul — are going to do. He and Alex fight, about it, the two of them having the same conversation about power they’ve had for what feels like years now. THEN he gets the news that Bradley quit on air, and THEN Stella comes to him with a story from THE VAULT, claiming he’s been grooming Bradley, and that he outed her to get his revenge for not loving him. The image they have is from season one, when a blackout Bradley collapsed in his arms in the elevator of the hotel where they both were living. It doesn’t look great, but he did just like, make her grilled cheese and then send her to cover the LA wildfires. The outing thing though….well yeah, he did that. THEN his assistant Kyle comes up and tells him security is on the way to remove him from the building. Not a banner day for anyone at uba, was it?
Next week: FINALE! I hope you are all excited, cause the drama is not over yet!
Christina I literally wait with bated breath for your reviews! Ahhh can’t wait to read this episode was bonkerssss
Julianna Margulies KILLED it in that scene. Jesus. She blew Reese off the screen. The passion! The fire! She was incredible (and yes when Laura is angry, Laura is mindblowingly hot).
CELIA HODES HIVE RISE UPPPPPP!
This is the first episode for a while that I really enjoyed and Julianna and Reese – whew!
Does anyone else think that Alex has something up her sleeve where Paul’s concerned?
I love these recaps, thanks for bringing them to us every week!
I love that this recap had the same enthusiasm I did as I sat, mouth gaping, watching it all go down! I can’t wait for the finale next week. I literally squealed with joy at the end of the episode thinking about how everything had finally come together.
This show is far from perfect but what it is giving us in terms of Performances from Women of a Certain Age is awards-worthy!
Give Julianna Margulies aaaalll the awards because damn! did she knock it out of the park. Her delivery of “It is *obscene*” sent shivers down my spine and had me recoiling in my seat a little. Honestly, I’m glad they broke up and I hope they stay broken up. Laura deserves better. Bradley’s a hot mess and is so not in the headspace to be in a relationship; I’m not even sure if she knows how.