The Morning Show Review: It’s Like the Flu (Season 2 Episode 2)

Though The Morning Show comes complete with all the trappings of a Serious Prestige Drama — the starry A-list cast, the clear production values, lush costumes, and shiny sets — Season 2 Episode 2, “It’s Like the Flu,” proves that this show really works best when it recognizes that, at its heart, it’s a soap opera. 

Sure, it’s a soap opera doing its best to wrestle with big, timely themes like feminism, redemption, and the nasty ins and outs of the media business, but nevertheless. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing, either — too many television critics view words like “soapy” as an insult, but to do this kind of drama well is a lot harder than it looks on the surface. 

“It’s Like the Flu” primarily revolves around the machinations involved in getting Alex back to The Morning Show, which honestly takes a lot longer than they necessarily need to — I mean, we all know where this is going.

And though the supremely awkward group dinner party where Daniel refuses to accept Alex’s apology for tanking his chances to make anchor at another network last season is fantastic fun to watch, it still feels like we’re taking an awfully long time to get into the meat of this season’s story. 

The above statement also applies to the extremely obvious and disturbingly insidious creep of COVID-19. The Morning Show’s apparently decided that what audiences really want is to relieve the onset of a pandemic we’re all still in the middle of and to do it by nostalgically framing the hamfisted way the media covered the virus in the first place. 

(There’s even bonus Trump stuff, to boot. Why? Did I need to know Yannko’s thoughts on the first impeachment? No, no I did not.)

I mean, on paper, I think I get what they’re trying to do here — interrogate the media and other institutional failures that were rampant at the start of this disaster, but it just feels super tone-deaf and weird. Perhaps once disaster strikes — and remember New York was essentially the epicenter of the worst of the early outbreaks — we’ll get to see some more meaningful drama. 

But right now, it feels like a sly nod that actually lands like a punch. Of course, someone should be covering this! We all know how bad it’s going to be! What are you guys even doing debating the merits of covering illness? And sending Daniel to Wuhan? Is that seriously a plot that’s happening? 

We have to assume, I think, that this season was conceptualized and produced in the heyday of vaccine excitement when we all thought Pfizer and Moderna were going to get us out of this. Then, no one would ever have expected that our case numbers would have rocketed to be as high as they were at the start of all this and that we’d be looking back at the start of the pandemic during one of its deadliest stretches. 

Yet, it’s super easy to forget all the problematic aspects of this episode during moments like Alex and Bradley’s hallway face-off that are so rich and combative and fun, from Bradley’s insistence that she gave Alex the story that made her a feminist hero in the first place, to Alex’s insistence that Bradley should start fighting for herself more. 

Aniston and Witherspoon really are great together, and though the fact that The Morning Show doesn’t seem to know how to frame their relationship as anything other than adversarial in the end, both women infuse their scenes with so many layers that it gives everything more nuance than it probably deserves. 

This is what we’re tuning in for folks. Not an awkward retrospective about the early days of the coronavirus pandemic or supposedly complex questions about whether redemption for dirtbag men is possible. Just give us two complicated women having a complex relationship with one another and the drama will manifest itself. 

And, finally, there’s the Mitch Kessler of it all. Look, I get that Steve Carrell is great and that playing a complete sleazebag is very against type for him and blah blah blah, it’s a very strong performance.

But I am struggling to understand why anyone involved with this show thought that viewers wanted Mitch to a.) still be on this show in any capacity or b.) have an entire subplot dedicated to…whatever his life is now. 

His awkward Italian gelato cafe run-in with two women — one publicly shaming him and the other defending his right to be a creep in public — is…well, it’s difficult to parse what precisely The Morning Show is trying to do here. By essentially mocking both women and their positions the show puts Mitch in a strange middle ground that acknowledges that he should be punished for his actions, but also suggests maybe he shouldn’t be punished that much.

Whichever way you choose to read that scene, it’s hard not to be furious at the show essentially making fun of both young feminists who want to use social media to force men to at least acknowledge the harm they’ve done and older women who find their younger compatriot’s feminism limiting and performative, it leaves very little room for nuance or the idea that women can and should be allowed to feel and express a vast array of feelings about men like Mitch. 

Men who, by the way, clearly still get to play an outsize role in a show that should have moved on from them already, so take that for what it’s worth. 

Stray Thoughts and Observations:

• Daniel is going to get COVID in China and it’s going to be very bad, I’m calling it now. 
• I already never want to see Mitch’s new Italian lady friend literally ever again. 
• Adjacent to the MItch thing: Why is Chip still in this story? Why are we being forced to see Fred again? I know that all these actors are great, but I wish The Morning Show would realize that some character arcs can just… end. 
• Sidebar: Alex’s new dog is adorable.

What did you think of this episode of The Morning Show? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

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New episodes of The Morning Show stream Fridays on AppleTV+.

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