The Morning Show Review: Lonely At The Top (Season 1 Episode 8)
We travel back to fall 2017 on The Morning Show Season 1 Episode 8, “Lonely At The Top.”
Once again I want to be clear that while gun control is an important issue to discuss and The Las Vegas shooting of 2017 was an undeniable tragedy, the event was on The Morning Show because they report news. This review will not comment further on gun control or the Las Vegas shooting.
That said, the last 25 minutes of “Lonely At The Top” are basically the only ones worth watching.
I say “basically” and this rating is good because Steve Carell is a good actor and we do learn two important facts about The Morning Show culture in the first half of the episode.
We see the seeds for replacing Alex being planted. That’s not exactly new information. If anything, it actually makes Alex’s reaction to Mitch telling her executives are trying to replace her on the first episode of the series harder to believe.
She’s taken off of the baseball playoffs she’s always covered and told she doesn’t test well. As if that’s not a big enough hint, Chip doesn’t blink when Mitch asks him to move Mia off his producing team. They obviously value him more.
I digress because the most important information we gain from this flashback episode is that Mitch Kessler is a horrifyingly dangerous predator as opposed to just a dangerous one.
He knows just what he can get away with and with whom. So, he can harass, abuse, assault, or rape them, sometimes without them realizing what’s happening.
Alison is too equal to Mitch for him to be able to lure her into his hotel room, for example. But he can get away with implying to her that he wants to hook up with her, comment on her dress, and have a laugh with Alex about picturing Alison naked as she’s leaving the room.
In 2017, Mia and Mitch’s affair was freshly over. But she was probably harder prey for him, so his attacks came from within a relationship we have yet to know the true dynamics of.
The Morning Show can’t get away with telling a cheap #MeToo story by killing off a character and then retconning his horrible behavior through accusers we only hear about and never see like some other shows.
This is a whole story about the kind of behavior the movement is trying to expose. We need to see Mitch sometimes. But the roughly 35 minutes of his birthday events from his perspective are completely unnecessary.
Within those 35 minutes are scantily-clad dancers entertaining him, a conversation with his wife about wanting to do better so he doesn’t lose his family, and a heart-to-heart with his movie star friend Dick Lundy ( guest star Martin Short) about needing more meaning in his life.
None of those scenes are necessary when there is an option to structure this episode as, at the very least, half from Mitch’s perspective and half from Hannah’s.
A centric episode of sorts from mostly Hannah’s perspective would’ve been amazing television.
Instead, we only get about 10 minutes of that, from the point after Mitch lures Hannah into his hotel room with the promise of a funny movie after a depressing workday to the point where she leaves Fred’s office as senior booker of the show after trying to report Mitch raping her.
The four-minute scene of the actual assault and rape is very difficult to watch for different reasons than similar scenes on TV. It’s always hard to watch. But even though Hannah isn’t physically resisting or screaming she’s obviously not consenting all of the way through the attack.
Her eyes are dead.
Establishing that the sex between Mitch and Hannah was actually rape is important for The Morning Show to do.
Previously, Mitch has led Bradley to believe that the person he has to back him up will do so willingly, almost implying that their sex was consensual because he helped her get the senior booking position.
It is rape. And Fred offering Hannah the promotion is proof that he was aware of Mitch’s behavior.
Hannah obviously took the promotion offered by Fred. But there is no way she “owes” Mitch anything because of that. She doesn’t have to owe or like Fred either. But the only way for Mitch to get anything out of Hannah is manipulation.
Gugu Mbatha-Raw does wonderful work on the episode, proving Hannah has been under-used even if there was a reason for that.
Cory’s absence is noticed, but not quite as much as Bradley.
The Morning Show is usually good at balancing stories, but this episode makes it clear that they might be underusing their female talent. It’s ironic but sad.
What did you think of this episode of The Morning Show? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
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The Morning Show airs Fridays on Apple TV+.
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Esme Mazzeo
Esme Mazzeo is a lifestyle and entertainment journalist from Long Island. When she's not writing for work, she's writing for fun, or searching for something to satisfy her sweet tooth. She thinks rainy days are the best kind of days. Certified night owl.
5 comments
I think, while the party segment was long, that perhaps the writers were trying to show how complicit EVERYONE in that office was in supporting and enabling Mitch’s behavior. The camera carefully covers the faces of the smiling faces of everyone, male and female, as the scantily clad dancers bump-and-grind and Dick Lundy sings his original song about what a ladies’ man Mitch is, etc. And the whole idea of how 50 is the beginning of his entitled age, and how Alex, his junior, is now obsolete and on the way out. Everyone showed up, seemed at total peace with the misogyny, and the only one that seemed to have a modicum of concern on her face was his wife.
Very true, thanks for pointing this out. All of our attention goes different places, you know? I remember the pan of the faces but I was more concerned with the fact that it all just felt so long and unnecessary. This show is such a tough one to review, there are so many angles!
I thought this was an amazing episode. The show has done a lot to still make Mitch somewhat likeable. Kind of showing the human side of a flawed person who has done some bad mistakes. But we see his charm and the way some people still like and support him and then here in the beginning of the episode, we get to see how he does not seem to realize his inappropriate comments and actions – and we see how people react to him in such situations and let him get away with it. I thought – OK, so this is his perspective on what happened and the show wants us viewers to connect with him and see all sides of what happened and how. And then I felt almost complicit for trying to weigh how bad his moments of mysogyny were and wondering if I would have called him on it, when we see him take advantage of a young woman in a most uncomfortable scene. I think this was important and brilliantly done. This scene has removed any doubt about his actions and how much of a predator he is after his ‘this is the second wave of #metoo – I have done mistakes, but I am not that bad, I don’t deserve this’ defense. We see him as a human, a well liked friend, we see his mistakes but still have sympathy, and then we see what he has actually done and how terrible and reprehensible it is and how easily we almost left off the hook a little bit.
Having just finished the series it’s interesting to see others perspectives. The show makes everything grey which is usually the most realistic depiction. Although Mitch takes advantage of Hannah I certainly would not call it rape. It’s an abuse of power, diplaying how horribly out of touch he is with .reality…but sadly he is clueless he’s even doing anything wrong. In the end he says his feelings were hurt because she went to Fred. Again, horribly out of touch with reality but in my opinion not rape.
This was non-consensual sex, which most people define as rape. It wasn’t a physically violent rape, but it was certainly psychologically or emotionally violent just to watch it. A painful cringe.
I do think the episode’s deep dive into the backstory and perspectives helped build both the characters and their complicity while also building the history and weight of the main plot. We didn’t need Bradley o Cory because they’re Acts 2 and 3 of this story, a story we dropped into the middle of.
As noted there is a lot of grey area as in real life — this is why in court you must hear both sides of the story so you can apply the rules of law, which may also be grey. Hopefully when you mix all the black, white and grey you get to an answer closer to black or white, which is hopefully the truth. This episode revealed a lot of the truth behind the grey, and it wasn’t pretty for anyone except Cory and Bradley because they weren’t part of it.
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