The Morning Show Review: A Private Person (Season 2 Episode 6)
The Morning Show Season 2 Episode 6, “A Private Person,” is the first episode of the show in which star Jennifer Aniston does not appear onscreen. It’s also, strangely enough, the best episode of the series’ second season to date.
That’s not because Alex Levy isn’t around, though, at the moment, it certainly doesn’t hurt.
Alex’s downward spiral — her upset about the forthcoming tell-all book that will reveal her Mitch hookup, her meltdown that saw her flee from the high profile debate moderator job — is big drama, to be sure, but can also feel stifling, so it’s oddly nice to have a chance to let other stories grab the spotlight.
Though “A Private Person” is the first big Bradley episode of the season (which is kind of strange given that Season 2 is now more than halfway over) and Reese Witherspoon certainly does not disappoint.
Truth be told, Bradley has always been my favorite The Morning Show character and this episode fully reminded me of why. It doesn’t hurt that the show finally digs back into the uncomfortable dichotomy at the heart of who she is — she’s a person who is both ashamed of and angry at her family, and who wants to escape the trappings of poverty and abuse that generally defines life where she’s from.
That her conservative roots — her family, her hometown — have also forced her to quash some portion of her real identity is completely understandable and rightly played as the tragedy it is. Bradley’s reaction to the news that she’s been outed by a gossip site while she’s on-air doing her job is both heartbreaking and painfully realistic, as is her attempt to get through several segments without falling apart.
The Morning Show — Photo Courtesy of Apple TV+
Though there’s a moment where it looks as though Cory will come clean about his decision to out Bradley in order to bury the damaging story about Hannah, but he doesn’t and you can basically watch any hopes he ever had for a relationship with her wither and die in front of him.
Not that he deserves one anyway — to be clear, what Cory did was the vilest sort of betrayal. No one should be forced to disclose any aspect of their sexuality before they’re ready to do so, and certainly not on live national television with no warning.
That he specifically maneuvered Laura Peterson onto the show for maximum impact is just the icing on the cake of horrors. I may have not always liked Cory as a person, but I did always believe that his feelings for/concern about/connection to Bradley was one of the few genuine things about him. Watching him so purposefully plot to destroy her…well, it hurts.
That said, “A Private Person” is the first time this season that the Bradley/Laura relationship actually feels genuine to me.
Yes, Laura is a bit (a lot?) overbearing when it comes to the optics of who’s had a worse experience being LGBT in the world of major corporate media, but it’s also clear that she genuinely cares about Bradley and wants to help her navigate this awful situation the best she can. (Plus, the two are genuinely charming together as temporary co-hosts!)
And Bradley’s admission that she thinks she actually wants something real — and lasting — with Laura is certainly something that I didn’t expect. But I strangely don’t hate it? It feels as though, at some point when I wasn’t looking, this became a real relationship and I’m honestly curious to see where it goes from here.
Stray Thoughts and Observations:
- The idea that UBA is trying to launch its own branded streaming service is so unintentionally hilarious to me. Possibly because in the real world, we’re well past market saturation on this, but just…whew.
- I don’t know how I feel about the fact that The Morning Show apparently feels so comfortable relegating its exploration of racism and sexism in the workplace to its few BIPOC characters onscreen.
- That said, Eric standing up for Bradley — and his quiet fury that she was outed without her consent — was an episode highlight.
- On the flip side, I’m so so tired of whatever they’re trying to do with Yanko here and very unclear about how he somehow became The Morning Show’s bizarre mouthpiece for that I think the show thinks are conservative views?
- A Mitch-less episode! Huzzah!
- But we all know Alex has basically run off to Italy to confront Mitch for the fifth time, right? I mean, where else could she have gone?
- Still not a fan of the not at all subtle clips about the growing number of COVID-19 deaths in China and Italy. We get it, the warning signs were there and everyone ignored them. How is this helpful when thousands a day are still dying from coronavirus in the U.S.?
What did you think of this episode of The Morning Show? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
Critic Rating:
User Rating:
New episodes of The Morning Show stream Fridays on AppleTV+.
Follow us on Twitter and on 
Instagram!
Want more from Tell-Tale TV? Subscribe to our newsletter here!
The Morning Show: Greta Lee on How Stella’s Shaking Up the System in Season 2 [Interview]
Lacy Baugher
Lacy is a pop culture enthusiast and television critic who loves period dramas, epic fantasy, space adventures, and the female characters everyone says you're supposed to hate. Ninth Doctor enthusiast, Aziraphale girlie, and cat lady, she's a member of the Television Critics Association and Rotten Tomatoes-approved. Find her at LacyMB on all platforms.
2 comments
Excellent review! Thank you for it.
Hmm. I get that the backlash to conservative amerika’s anti-gayathon deems that outing is up there with rape, way past murder as a depiction of absolute evil, but I got the impression that Cory, not necessarily an adherent of that notion in all circumstances, weighed the long term pain which would be caused by the late PA being libeled beyond repair and Bradley being outed in the gutter press and he decided to pick what he believed to be the lesser evil.
He is obviously disgusted with himself over the trauma this has caused Bradley and may even be having second thoughts about his call. You get that with trick complicated decisions.
Laura’s POV is probably the most real, that Brandon had to confront her bisexuality and although getting outed is a horrible experience it can become a good thing for her if she uses the destruction of the deceits in her personal life as an inspiration to grow. The fact that the outing was in a sleazy blog means that unless Bradley publicly reacts to it, the corporate media will not either.
That means the people who Bradley works and interacts with inside or outside her job will accept she likes to screw who she likes to screw so it becomes a non-issue.
We know that the mob out there aka the morning show audience will do what people do, that is believe what they want to. Those who like Bradley will either deny the story or accept it with a “so what!”, those who dislike her will still dislike her. I.E. a great big non event in the long term but par for the course for a soap when you consider it.
We’re too used to cheap soaps, to the point where we can be lulled into thinking if a show spends enough on production, it cannot be a soap.
Comments are closed.