Wow, wow, wow, what a ride, friends. We kicked off season three of The Morning Show by launching Bradley Jackson into space, and here we are at the finale watching Brad turn herself over to the Feds for multiple felonies. We are having a time. We are thriving. Of course, Bradley doesn’t just waltz on over to the FBI building immediately after her on-air resignation; several things transpire around her and through the halls of UBA before she gets to that point, and most of it is some good old-fashioned backstabbing of both the corporate and personal kind. The Morning Show never feels more alive than when everyone is backstabbing one another. Backstabbing, backstabbing, launching people into space, backstabbing, singing “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough†with someone’s mentally unstable mother, backstabbing. There. That’s how you do insane TV right there.
The need for all this backstabbing comes as part of the fallout from Paul Marks’s multipronged plan to get Bradley and her investigation into Hyperion out of the way, kick Cory to the curb, and continue his march toward taking ownership of UBA before stripping it for parts to make some sweet, sweet cash to fund his failing rocket program. Alex’s first hint that her boyfriend may be diabolical is probably when he walks in and is like, Hell yeah, I leaked that story about Cory grooming Bradley and outing her out of retaliation, and I’d do it again. Alex knows Cory is a lot of things, but he’s not a sexual predator. So when Paul tells her about Bradley resigning over the January 6 footage and goes on about how he promised he would help her any way he could and how the resignation was her own idea and she seemed relieved once she decided to do it, Alex is a little suspicious. But still, she needs more evidence if she’s going to toss all that hot sex out the door, you know? Paul Marks looked like he knew what he was doing, and a woman has needs.
After getting nowhere with Bradley over text, Alex goes to her place to check on her friend and get some clarification on the situation. She finds a paranoid and pretty manic Bradley at the door. Bradley demands Alex leave her bag and phone out in the hall before coming inside. She is not okay. Part of it is because she has finally confronted her baggage around this entire thing; she still carries the guilt of turning her dad in for his hit-and-run when she was a kid, which surely factored into why she couldn’t bring herself to turn in her brother. But it’s also because she has realized the only way Paul could’ve known that Laura knew about what Bradley did was if Paul were spying on her: “I think he’s been surveilling me ever since I started investigating him. He has eyes on me.†If it weren’t so serious, I would laugh and laugh at how insane Bradley looks right now. Just kidding, I’m still laughing. That girl is wild-eyed. Alex is still skeptical that Paul could take it far, but she has to admit there’s really no other way he could know those things. When Bradley tells Alex about how Paul threatened her and Laura’s livelihood, Alex believes her friend. But before she tries to figure out a way to “stop the sale,†as Bradley begs her to, she wants a little more proof. Something irrefutable.
Alex decides to use Paul’s spying against him, and boy oh boy, does this dummy fall for it. Alex sends a text to Bradley about her laying low and going home to the very specific town of Hanover for a while. There’s no way Paul could know this piece of information on his own. When Alex gets home shortly after sending Bradley the text, she tells Paul about how off Bradley is and how she wishes she could do something to help her. Paul pretends to have a shred of empathy and suggests that hiding out back in Hanover may be the best for Bradley until it blows over. I mean, I refuse to believe Paul Marks isn’t spying on people all over the place, and he just drops “Hanover†casually into conversation within the first five minutes? Be cool about the information you’re stealing, dude. This is like Surveilling 101 here. Paul deserves to get caught and deserves to have his entire life’s work destroyed. He is an idiot.
So now Alex knows her boyfriend is a monster, which is exactly what everyone has been telling her for weeks. Funny how that works out. Now she must stop him. She heads over to Laura Peterson’s place to run a plan by her, and you know it’s something big because she does one of those “I’m gonna need something stronger to drink†things that happens only on television. Like, why would Alex accept an offer of a cup of tea in the first place? She just learned she’s been sleeping with a real piece of shit.
Let’s hope whatever they come up with is good because Cory’s plan to stop Paul fails before it really gets underway. Cory is obviously dismayed about the false grooming accusations and quite remorseful about the very true revenge-outing ones. He tries to apologize to Bradley, who is much more upset over the January 6 felonies Paul is hanging over her head. Once Cory hears that, he knows it’s do-or-die. He’ll cooperate with the investigation into his conduct, but he isn’t resigning. He begs Leonard to help him stop the villainous Paul and save legacy media for generations to come, but Leonard is like Nah, I’m good. Which, like, fair point.
Cory must turn to the only person left: Cybil. It’s a real low-energy team-up, but those two can honestly get a lot done. As Cybil tries to turn shareholders against Paul, Cory goes to Reid, the guy who was going to give UBA a big loan until Cory realized Fred was working with them. And once he offers Reid equity and the tidbit of info that Fred is two-timing him with Paul, Reid’s in. He’ll provide the money needed to save UBA if Cory can get shareholders to vote against UBA taking Paul’s offer.
Things are looking good. Chip — yes, Chip — goes on TMS and gives a rousing rant, alerting UBA employees that they might lose their jobs if the deal with Paul goes through. He goes off on Paul, calling him both a motherfucker who is destroying an 80-year-old company that was built upon a legacy of combating fascism and saying what everyone has been thinking: His rocketship looks like a penis. This rant moves many of the shareholders to vote against Paul’s offer. Who wants to vote for penis ships, am I right? So with more votes turning over and a backup plan in play, things are going Cory’s way — until they decidedly are not. Paul blackmails Cory’s henchman, Earl, and learns about Reid’s loan. He surprises Cory at what is to be a celebratory meeting with Reid and informs the flailing president of UBA that Reid is now Team Paul and his backup plan is not happening. Cory seems genuinely shocked that he was bested — it’s all over now. Cory goes home (his office) and cries to his mom’s voice-mail. It’s a real low, and honestly, no one wants to see it.
And yet! Not all hope is lost. Alex Levy is here to save Cory’s ass one more time. It’s Deal Day but not the fun kind of deal like, say, a good BOGO; it’s the Evil Billionaire Is Going to Swoop in and Ruin Everything kind of deal. Way less fun! Paul is feeling good, and Leonard is downright giddy. What is Leonard’s life? Then, with 15 minutes to go before Paul is officially the new owner of UBA, Alex arrives, seemingly to support her man, but instead, looking as if she’s about to barf, she stands at the head of the table and informs everyone that she actually has an alternative to Hyperion’s offer. This is 100 percent the kind of show that is so bonkers it could absolutely get away with having someone scratch a record in the background, yet they don’t do it! What a missed opportunity.
That’s right, baby: Alex Levy has another offer, and it either meets or outmatches the Hyperion deal so they have to consider it. With Laura’s help, she has spoken to the top brass at NBN, and they want to do a merger: “Two entities coming together, greater than the sum of the parts.†It would be a “chance to start over.†It would be “a true partnership,†she says, looking directly at Paul. That boy is in trouble!!
When Paul pulls Alex aside to ask what the hell is going on, she takes him on a little field trip and they run directly into Stella and Kate. That’s right! Stella hopped into her little virtual gaming world and tracked down her pal Kate — truly bless this show for just diving into this quick virtual-world scene without ever setting it up and then never mentioning it again. This show has no rules. Now everything is out on the table: Kate has informed them all that the failure of the Hyperion One transmission wasn’t UBA’s fault. Rather, Paul had Kate cut the transmission to cover up the malfunction of the navigation system, which Paul tried to bury by hacking UBA. On top of everything, he has been sending fake reports to NASA. Kate has proof, and she doesn’t care about NDAs anymore. Paul is cooked!!
His professional life is about to be in shambles, but his personal life isn’t doing so hot either. Rocketship debacle and toxic workplace aside, Alex is most livid about Paul silencing Bradley to save himself. He silenced a journalist, and Alex is also a journalist and she is exhausted. Oh wait, no, that last thing is Bradley from season one, but the other stuff about silencing journalists is true and very bad! Paul knows there is no way out of this, and he pulls out of the deal. Actually, he tells Alex to tell Leonard that he’s pulling out of the deal, which is honestly so like Paul.
Two weeks after all the deal drama, people are moving forward. The UBA and NBN merger has a lot of people on edge — who will be keeping their job, will things really change, etc.? Time will tell!
The investigation into Cory’s conduct is underway, but he’ll probably be fine, mostly thanks to Bradley’s testimony that he never did anything untoward. But she also admits that one night he did say he loved her and she left for Montana because she was too scared to be loved by someone who sees her for who she truly is. No one in the room is like, Wow, TMI much? But you know they were all thinking it.
Cory and Bradley bump into each other in the hallway and share an emotional moment in which Cory apologizes for what he did to her and Laura, and they share a good-bye that is loaded with tension and tears. I don’t know if I’m completely onboard with this pairing, but my dumb little heart was breaking for these two. When Cory tries to stop himself from crying by doing that little Oh, I’m just going to check the picture frame thing? I was tearing up! Poor guy. I hope his mom has a pot of lobsters boiling for him at home.
When Paul comes to Alex’s to pick up his stuff, they share an emotional good-bye as well. Again, Paul is basically the Devil, but when he tells Alex that he wishes they “had taken that helicopter anywhere else,†man, it’s a little gut punch. I don’t like these two, but I do generally want people to be happy. Or at least Alex. Alex should be happy. Let’s hope next season she dates someone who isn’t an actual horror show.
The biggest question for next season, though, is when we will see the Alex-and-Bradley duo together again. At the end of the finale, Alex walks with her pal to meet her brother before the Jackson siblings head inside the FBI building to turn themselves in. Alex tries to tell Bradley she’ll be okay, but Bradley is scared. Still, this is the right thing to do — the only thing to do, really — and they both know it. So what will season four look like? Will we watch the big, most likely disastrous merger take place from the get-go, or will we fast-forward a few years so the nitty-gritty details of two networks becoming one have all been sorted and Bradley has served her time? Who’s to say? But fingers crossed, it remains as batshit as ever. May season four contain the energy of Alex Levy telling Bradley Jackson she has no regrets about what transpired in the past year, not even one, because that truly might be the wildest thing to happen on this show.