<\/p>\n
Spoilers below. <\/em><\/p>\n We\u2019ve been through a lot as viewers of The Morning Show<\/em>, and although I\u2019m not quite sure how the show will top going to space (oddly predicting Katy Perry\u2019s Blue Origin space journey earlier this year), or placing its characters at the Capitol on January 6, one thing is for certain: These writers always have something chaotic up their sleeves. I often poke fun at The Morning Show<\/em> for how audacious these storylines can be, but the truth is, I simply can\u2019t wait for the inevitable melodrama and just how far they\u2019re willing to go for entertaining television.<\/p>\n The new season opens with a foreboding meeting that once again positions the show directly in the center of our current topical frontier: Artificial intelligence and its impact on the media industry. In this case, we\u2019re watching an AI Alex Levy (Jennifer Aniston) deliver a newscast for the Paris 2024 Summer Olympics in dozens of languages. This staff town hall doesn\u2019t go well: Apparently half the crew of The Morning Show has been laid off, and those remaining are justifiably concerned that AI will take their jobs. Stella Bak (Greta Lee), the new CEO of UBN after Cory Ellison (Billy Crudup) was ousted last season, attempts to reassure them that won\u2019t be the case. The team\u2014and I, as a writer also in this industry where executives are definitely making decisions for the sake of profit\u2014remain unconvinced.<\/p>\n But that\u2019s enough on AI for now. The episode really gets going when Alex interviews Roya Nazeri (Ava Lalezarzadeh), an Iranian Olympian. In classic Morning Show<\/em> fashion, this takes a dramatic turn. Her father hands Alex a note during their introductory handshake that says: \u201cWe want to defect.\u201d Aniston has always been phenomenal in this role, bringing so much ethical strife and emotional maneuvering into the physicality of her performance. You can see<\/em> the wheels turning in her head as she devises a plan mid-interview. She brings up politics, an off-bounds topic for this Q&A, causing an argument between the producers and Roya\u2019s entourage that gives her an opportunity to shuffle Roya aside for a private conversation.<\/p>\n After confirming that Roya wants to defect to the United States with her father, Alex pulls the fire alarm and provides an escape route via the freight elevator and her driver parked out front. It is the exact kind of ridiculous, entertaining, and politically-charged nonsense I expect from this show, framed with such intense seriousness you can\u2019t quite believe what you\u2019re watching. The Olympian and her father make a very messy and public narrow escape in a car chase scene so crisply directed it reminds me why Mimi Leder is such a television powerhouse. This all happens in the first 15 minutes, by the way\u2013what a way to start the season. We are so back!<\/p>\n