The Morning Show Season 3 Episode 4 Review: The Green Light

 The Morning Show Season 3 Episode 4, “The Green Light,” isn’t as tensely dramatic as last week’s installment, choosing to chronicle the messy drama of UBA’s annual network Upfronts event rather than wrestling with the long-tail impact of racism in legacy media.

But it feels more on brand for what this show is — and probably should be — as Cory scrambles to pick up the pieces after the collapse of his deal with billionaire Paul Marks.

Thankfully, Cory Ellison is exactly the kind of chaos gremlin who thrives in do-or-die situations, though in this instance, it means sending a pair of women (Stella and Alex) to do his dirty work and somehow keep the company from financial ruin. But, it’s the women in the TMS world that have always held UBA (and this show!) together….so why would this be any different?

It doesn’t make a tremendous amount of sense that Cory would trust Stella — who repeatedly mentions this is her first Upfronts — to bring in the one advertising deal that would determine whether or not the company could secure a loan to continue existing.

However, when has Cory ever made normal business decisions? (The Morning Show hints that Stella is supposed to be this incredible closer  or dealmaker or something, but we’ve seen precious little evidence of that, so….who knows?)

Her lunch wining and dining a pair of deeply scuzzy ad guys is so deeply uncomfortable and offputting — from the rampant misogyny to the casual bullying, and the gross bet that forces Stella to let a waitress be humiliated in the name of getting the ad buy she’s do desperate to land. (The fact that the poor woman gets a $20,000 tip doesn’t make it all any easier to watch.)

One of the things The Morning Show has always been best at is showing us that every character in its universe, no matter how much we like them or how ostensibly “good” they might be, is always, always capable of doing some truly awful things in the name of getting ahead.

I wanted to believe Stella — with her girl power attitude — would be better than this, but maybe the lesson of this show is that no one is really above anything. At least not in this world.

The Morning Show hasn’t been terribly subtle about the fact that it essentially cast Jon Hamm to play a love interest for Jennifer Aniston. Still, unfortunately, Paul Marks as a character has felt like an unnecessary Elon Musk riff whose only personality trait is that he’s rich. And yet….his impromptu trip to Coney Island with Alex is undoubtedly charming as hell. The pair have some killer chemistry, even if Alex’s plan to basically stalk him and convince him to invest in UBA is…more than a bit bizarre.

And Paul’s questions for her on this topic are fair ones: Why is Alex so determined to save UBA, a place that has caused her no shortage of public humiliation and heartbreak — and where she more than turned a blind eye to some terrible things — when she could really go work anywhere else?

She says it’s because she wants to finish what she started in making systemic change at the company, but given the speed with which UBA does anything, she’ll be there until she’s dead. Maybe she knows that and maybe she doesn’t, but it certainly seems like Paul does.

To be fair, Season 3 Alex feels remarkably more mature and human than the woman we saw last season, whether that’s because being forced to suffer through an early COVID-19 infection on live TV changes a person or simply because the show realized she’s more interesting when she’s written as a three-dimensional person rather than a symbol of whatever “issue” they’re trying to force her to represent is unclear. But I’ll definitely take it.

At any rate, watching Paul and Alex play boardwalk games and climb aboard rickety theme park attractions together is surprisingly entertaining. (Not to mention the fact that it’s also the first time that Paul has felt like an actual character — what the hell, wilderness reform camp?? — too.) 

Is it a bit convenient that Alex gets called a bunch of nasty names by a disgruntled funnel cake seller just in time for Paul to not only defend her honor but witness her being both vulnerable and refusing to make the scene that Alex from earlier seasons would have absolutely gone for? Of course! Does it work? Totally! (I ship it, is what I’m saying. A lot.)

It’s clear that getting the chance to see a more human side of Alex does something for Paul, as it’s enough to get him to accompany her to Cory’s Hamptons party, and presumably put the prospect of his buying UBA back on the table.

Go Alex? I guess? (Seeing Cory suddenly so proud of her is disturbing enough that it doesn’t entirely feel like a victory, though, does it?)

Stray Thoughts and Observations:

• Mia’s romance with a photojournalist in Ukraine is such a relic of The Morning Show’s worst tendencies — a story with tinges of aggressive timeliness that the show acts as though we should be deeply invested in even though it’s given us zero reason to do so. I’m not even sure I could tell you that guy’s name. Are they dating? Did they hook up? Who cares?
• Laura and Bradley sure seem like they’re thawing toward one another. I’m very curious about what their time together in Montana was like. (We also learn the key piece of info that apparently that private video of Bradley wasn’t released as part of the UBA hack, something it seems likely she has Cory to thank for.)
• I truly could have gone the rest of this show’s run without ever seeing Fred Micklen again. Here’s hoping Paul Marks’s change of heart regarding UBA means we won’t have to suffer through watching Fred gleefully try to destroy the one place that ever made him face consequences for something. 

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 Wednesdays on Apple TV+.

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