The Morning Show Season 4 Episode 2 Review: The Revolution Will Be Televised

The Morning Show Season 4 Episode 2, “The Revolution Will Be Televised,” is packed with enough subplots to power a full season of almost any other series. But while you kind of can’t help but admire the chutzpah of it all, it’s also evident that this show isn’t in any way equipped to keep this many narrative plates spinning. 

Rampant chaos has sort of always been The Morning Show’s brand, but this hour is next level, involving everything from deep fakes and climate protests to blackmail. This is the season’s second episode. Buckle up, I guess. 

Just when you think things can’t possibly get worse for Alex Levy — who let’s not forget is already under investigation for helping an Iranian Olympic athlete and her nuclear scientist father to defect and may have cost her network the most lucrative contract of its existence in the process — oh no, here’s a lower place. 

Because now she’s the victim of a (very obvious) deep fake scam, aimed to make it look as though she colluded with Roya and her father ahead of time, coordinating their escape from Iran and possibly launching an international incident on purpose. (Not to mention, surely breaking some laws.) 

But despite having just reiterated in the season premiere that UBN itself possesses the technology to make it look as though Alex is speaking like forty different languages at any given moment, Stella and Celine immediately seem to assume their biggest star is guilty as hell. 

And though they may be paying lip service to her protestations of innocence, it’s evident immediately that they’re itching to fire her as quickly as possible. (Which, I suppose, is really an unspoken lesson about how loyal most employers tend to be to even their very best workers.) 

If you, too, wondered whether The Morning Show was really the appropriate sort of venue to tackle the dangers of deep fakes and AI technology in the world of media and information, well, that’s probably more than fair.  It’s almost certainly not. 

In fact, beyond opening Alex’s eyes to some truly disturbing online content created using the technology, the show makes almost no mention of the technology or its dangers in the context of modern news or media. Instead, it’s revealed that the Iranian government hacked the security feed in an attempt to frame Alex for…relatively unclear ends. Revenge, maybe?

Look, at some point, we probably all have to realize that there is no limit when it comes to the insane plot twists this show will attempt. But the Iranian government setting Alex up for…reasons (!) is an entirely new level of bonkers. It’s only episode 2! 

Speaking of things that are crazy, Bradley’s officially back on the Morning Show desk. Her re-entry is a rather brutal one, and she stumbles badly when trying to address the January 6th of it all. (Look, if Yanko, much as I adore him, is coming to your rescue live on air, you have big problems.)

There should be a story here about media rehabilitation of public figures and how that does or does not work in our modern era, but The Morning Show’s not interested in that and neither is Bradley, honestly. Instead, she’s determined to track down her anonymous informant and find out what kind of climate story UBA suppressed that may or may not have gotten people killed.

This is admirable, of course, but it’s not entirely clear whether it will make for particularly compelling television, especially when Bradley turns to Chip for help with her investigation. After some hemming and hawing, he reluctantly agrees to help after he miraculously remembers a mysterious board meeting where a story about an EPA report was spiked. But we all know it’s because The Morning Show can never ever let any character that’s ever appeared on its canvas before go, apparently. 

Given that fact, we probably shouldn’t be so surprised that the mystery of Bradley’s secret source also circles back around to someone we know.  

Alex manages to break some legitimate news after getting stuck in traffic, teargassed, and covered in paint at a climate protest — she’s a real journalist, remember — and her subsequent appearance on TMS the next day helps Bradley put some pieces together. She’s seen Extinction Revolt’s logo before; it’s the same one someone in the video her informant was wearing sent her. [Cue ominous music]

But, lest you think The Morning Show is going to allow this storyline about activism, climate change, and lobbyists infiltrating a supposed environmental summit to sell drilling contracts, there’s one last twist. Chip figures out — thanks to the magic of British spelling — that their mystery source is most likely Claire Conway, former TMS assistant and Yanko’s ex/secret girlfriend. 

The Morning Show helpfully provides some visual flashbacks for the presumably 80% of viewers who have forgotten this character existed, including a shot of Hannah, Claire’s bestie and a former TMS employee, who overdosed in the wake of all the Mitch Kessler allegations back in Season 1. She’s clearly got a reason to want to get back at the network.

Bradley notes the connection with the Extinction Event logo, but it’s hard to care about whether or not Claire has decided to reinvent herself as a climate activist because this news is going to one hundred percent devastate Yanko when he finds out.

The best part of “The Revolution Will Be Televised” is the fact that Cory’s back in NYC. We all knew this was coming, of course, because Billy Crudup is the only person who understands what kind of show he’s on. But Cory is also chaos personified and injects a welcome shot of, well…mess into an episode that feels like it takes itself a bit too seriously. 

That he ultimately manages to worm himself back into a position of power at the network is also something we all expected. That he does so by gleefully blackmailing Stella over her affair with her boss’s husband is exactly the kind of storyline I want from this show, not to mention the sort of things it’s best at. 

“He is risen,” Cory intones at the end of the hour, and it’s such an absolutely perfect moment it’s hard not to wish that the rest of the episode could have even attempted to get on its level of camp.  Here’s hoping he immediately starts shaking things up in every corner of The Morning Show’s canvas. 

Stray Thoughts and Observations

• Alex is absolutely going to hook up with UBN’s new horrible podcast bro, and I’m already dreading it. Please can we just put her back with Paul Marks?
• So, this reporter, Justice Briggs, is not going to write a puff piece about Alex’s father, is she? (And, honestly, wouldn’t Alex be media savvy enough not to say some of the things she tells her?
• It’s very weird how siloed and separated some of these plotlines feel despite all of them taking place in the same building.
• Nicole Beharie is such a talented actress. I wish this show had any idea what to do with Chris in any capacity. 

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New episodes of The Morning Show premiere Wednesdays on Apple TV+

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