The Prestige TV Podcast - Prestige TV Pod: 'The Morning Show' S2E1 Recap

Episode Date: September 20, 2021

Bill Simmons and Amanda Dobbins discuss the newest season of 'The Morning Show' on Apple TV+ and how this season might be even more perplexing than the last. Hosts: Bill Simmons and Amanda Dobbins Producer: Steven Ahlman Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Exclusion supplies to homedipo.com slash price match for details. Welcome to the rebranded, relaunch. Prestige TV podcast. I'm Bill Simmons. We're going to have a few different people on this podcast, and we're going to do a lot of different shows. Amanda, this is such a good grind right now with all kinds of shows. We got Succession coming back.

We have billions in the morning show, like heading their home stretch. We have shows that we don't know if they're going to be good or not, like the shrink next door, Mayor of Kingstown. Insecure is coming back. It's just a ton. Yellowstone. So what we decided to do, because we felt this during when White Lotus was happening for six episodes. And other than The Watch, which is an excellent podcast with Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald,

we had no other place for people to talk about shows, what they liked, what they didn't like, things like that. And we thought there was no better show to relaunch this feed than the most polarizing show of our lifetimes, the morning show, a show that you love, that you hate, that you're disgusted by, that you're delighted. by it's the gamut of emotions and season two episode one was no different how do we always find ourselves here bill you and i specifically because we've done this with defending jacob we've done this with the other reiswether spoon tv show whose title i can't even remember little fires yes thank you on hulu which honestly like the last six episodes i only watched because you asked me to and then here we are with season two of the morning show which you and i love and also are constantly disappointed by?

I think that's fair. It's incredibly lavish. It's star-studded. It's almost incoherent. And over and over again, I disagree with all the choices they make. And yet I keep coming back for more. There's no show really quite like it. I think I actually read some of the reviews.

Now, granted, TV criticism is just in a weird place in general right now, but I read some of the reviews. and people were like, this is a little better. Like it was kind of complimentary, but at the same time acknowledging that it's just completely incoherent. And I think that's where we are at the morning show. It's a little better.

It's completely incoherent. So I think those TV critics also had the benefit of seeing several episodes. And you and I have only seen episode one of season. Well, I've only seen episode one of season two. I don't know if you're watching ahead, which I would say was uniquely disappointing within the world of the morning show.

because it was sort of like a throat clearing episode, right? They had to reset everything that happened in season one because once again, somehow, the morning show, a show about a news program has found itself totally caught off guard by the news of the world. And so they started filming, I believe, in February of 2020. And then obviously, COVID-19 happened. They shut down production and had to redo the entire show. And so this first episode is them being like, oh, oops, we're supposed to be the greatest journalist in the world. And also, we don't know what to do about COVID. And the show's kind of, the first episode is kind of a mess as a result. Yeah, they basically looked at it and said, I mean, we spent a lot of money on that New Year's Eve parade. And that New Year's Eve House in Maine, we had like 150 extras. And that was really expensive. We can't lose that footage either. Let's just make it work. I have so many notes about both of those scenes. But can we start with the how much?

money they spent on the New Year's Eve crowd scene where Reese Witherspoon and Hassan Minaj are hosting like a New Year's Eve special. And they're supposed to be like, first of all, they're supposed to be in Times Square except they're obviously filming in Los Angeles. And then there's supposed to be a huge crowd. But Apple has got to figure out its fake crowd situation between this and Ted Lassow. Like, guys, you are spending so much money on TV. Just throw in an extra, I don't know, 10 million to make them not. look like a video game. It's crazy. Yeah, that's fair. But at the same time, they spend so much money on this show, almost like because they're Apple and they're just

getting into television, they think kind of that's what they do. But the equivalent of like, if I asked you, tape this podcast, and you're like, cool, what time, 830? And I was like, 8.30. But there's a catch. I've rented us a private jet. And we're just going to fly to Vegas for no reason at all. Just because we have this money in our budget, we're going to spend it. That's kind of, that's how episode one of season two felt like. You know, Jennifer Anderson's character, who I'm just going to call Jen. I'm not even called, they should have just called the characters Jen and Reese. I don't know why they have other names.

I agree with this. And also, they're just Jen and Reese to me. Yeah, they're just Jen and Reese anyway. They're basically playing themselves. But she's in Maine. She's become, I guess, like a feminist icon. Is that, is that what, or a, what would you describe? She's some sort of icon now because of her big speech at the end of the first.

season and now she's writing a book. Yes. And so I would say that somehow retroactively, she's become like a leader in the Me Too movement, even though season one ends with her having a meltdown on air and admitting her complicity in covering up a lot of the issues at the morning show because season one of the- Yeah, we're not going to talk about that. But don't worry about it. Don't worry about that. And so they have a really lovely shot as we're getting to the beautiful main house, I have to say. They do spend a lot on Intuitive. years. And so you see her on the cover of Entertainment Weekly and you see her on the cover of us weekly and you see her time cover like she's one of the most influential people of the year.

It's like a classy black and white shot. I will say, I like the attention to detail. Other shows that spend less money, you wouldn't get the name brand magazines. But here, you get all the name brand magazines. And she's also been studying, I think, like Lindsay Adairios, the war photographer is like memoir. And so she's writing her memoir about her memoir. And her experience and I guess her journey, if you will, to become like a me-to figurehead. Her experience just hosting a morning show every day that somehow snowballed into whatever. And then decides in this book, I'm just not going to really mention that guy Mitch, who's the only reason I was on the cover of Time magazine.

I think they called in their Apple News subscription favors with some of those magazines. They just kind of went out the way. Time Magazine, that's part of Apple News. We'll throw them in. We believe in print still. they are all in the hard puppy. So she's in Maine and there's just, I don't know what they spent on the, on her main house, but then the big one is the New Year's Eve party, which is probably the nicest house in the

Northeast. And it's like basically the eyes wide shut party. There's hundreds of people. I don't know. I don't know. How are there this many people in that part of Maine? Why are they all dressed up? Maine is so spread out.

Like, what is happening? And listen, I, I've actually never been to Maine. would love to go if anybody has a house like this with room for me. But it's not my impression that even the like really rich people in Maine are doing full uppery side eyes wide shut. Here's a tarot reader and like our eight competing book clubs New Year's Eve parties with cocktail dresses. That's not the vibe that I have always gotten from Maine. Well, and then here's the other piece. So basically this whole New Year's Eve thing seems like it's built around three things. One is my friend Jimmy Kimmel, his wife, is the one who greets Jennifer Aniston. And she's like, oh,

blah, blah, blah. There's a psychic. She doesn't interact with anyone else in the party, even though we have 200 people there. And then the next scene is like a psychic scene, which is like kind of the hackiest premise you could have for a drama is like the psychics who doesn't really know you, but is actually going to make you rethink anything. And then it leads to her outside the house getting the voicemail from our guy, Billy Crudip. Not just a voicemail, but a voicemail featuring, I had to Google this. I'd never heard of this poem. Apparently, it's a John Milton poem that's not Paradise Lost, that he leaves via voicemail,

which again, number one, who's listening to their voicemails in 2019, 2020, 2021? I have 20 voicemails right now that I haven't listened to. I'm with you. I will literally never listen to your voicemail. But then he's quoting a poem from roughly 400 years ago, and she listens to it in the snow alone and is like, yes, what I need to do. do is go back to the network that kind of screwed me over. Yeah, this sounds great.

You've made me reconsider everything. Also, Billy Crudip's character, Corey, but we'll just call him Billy, gets fired in the beginning of the show and yet is still, I guess, Reese Willerspoon saves his job, but that's, that doesn't make sense either because she's the star of this show that has declining ratings. Why does she have any sway at all at the network? And the show definitely does not explain any of it to us. at all. He just has his job back. It's like there's a scene missing. He has like a great fake network

speech in the first four minutes to Holland Taylor, no less, who is apparently the great Hallin Taylor is, yeah, but she was not in season one. And now she's like the head of the entire network fires him. She's the hottest actress in Hollywood right now. She was in the chair. She's in this. So she gets a great two minutes, completely disappears. And then Billy Crudeb just, I don't even, it's not just that he gets his job back, but he also gets, disgrace Fred Micklin's job, right? Like he's running the whole network now. Well, and then the other one is the other Duplas brother.

Oh, my God. I have now, I don't know who you have in the Duplas brother, the lottery. I like the other one now who's in the chair. I think I like him more. I was about to say, and I'll be honest, I turned on the chair, saw there was a Duplass. I was like, I don't know whether I want to do this. Stayed through it. He won me over.

So Jay, yes, number one. That's Jay. Jay is the one from the chair? Yes. I've never liked either of them, but I actually liked him in the chair. I thought he was good. The other one, Mark, I guess doesn't get fired, even though he has like a massive sexual harassment cover-up scandal. Like in every scenario that this has happened in real life, any sort of Me Too, anything, where there's been cover-ups and people looking the other way, those people lose their jobs.

This guy's back on the show. Wait, no, I thought he was fired and he's on like some sad, like local network show. Like local news. That's what I thought. I could be wrong because, again, they don't explain it. I might believe you. I don't know. So he's on a local news show now because that wasn't really established, was it?

I think there's something about they're listening to that voicemail from the news tip that's like some, you know, a late local news story and the guy. I apologize. This show is so incoherent. I didn't know what network he was working at. Number one, they don't explain it. Number two, it's very obvious that he's going to be really. hired. And that's why we're even being showed his dumb local news

incident, which this man should not still be on the show. Like, we don't need him. I don't understand why he was on season one. It was very confusing. Well, you know why he was on? I think they just loaded up the cast with actors that they liked and whether you had

like a good role or not, it was like a win because it was like, look at all these actors we've hired and he had the worst part by far. Right. I think he was also a bit of a casualty. Don't forget that season one, was supposed to be based on the Brian Seltre book and be about the Today Show. And then Matt Lauer was fired because of Me Too.

And so they had to redo season one as well. It's not like the show has ever been prepared for anything that it's covering it anyway. The entire show is just being like, oh crap, this major news event happened. We hired all these people. We have like four scripts that we don't really want to throw away, but we got to figure out how to like puzzle them back.

And so I think he's just like on the show. show because they hired him however many years ago. Well, they have three, I guess four major actors, if you count our guy, Billy. Steve Carell, not in the first episode of season two. We don't know what happened to him. They don't even give us like the one scene with him. I don't know. Does he get paid by the episode?

Like, Steve, you're not getting paid for episode one. We're not even putting one scene in. I would have liked to have known where he was. He was kind of a key factor in season one. They're just like, yeah, we're not even telling you what happened to him. And then Reese. Reese. Listen.

Reese, girl, we love you. Can we start on a positive note? At least she's blonde again. At least she's blonde again. I feel really reassured that as soon as they jump to New Year's Eve, I guess, 2019, she's blonde. I felt calmer. I am not a blonde.

It's not like a personal preference thing. It's just that's what Reese should be. By the way, that was my wife's take after we watched this dreadful first episode that I kind of enjoyed. And she's like, At least Reese got her hair back. Like, that was, like, her way of compliment in the show. Maybe they should put that on the poster.

It's like, if I can't count on anything else, at least, like, Reese looks, like, fairly normal. And I can think about other times when I've enjoyed Reese's performance and she's, like, matched the dynamic of the show, et cetera, because I say this with a lot of love. I'm, like, the world's number one Reese Witherspoon fan. I really believe in her. I feel like I'm in the top 50. Yeah.

And this has been a major foundation of our relationship. And I just, this is tough going. This might be one of her worst performances I've ever seen. If you had to do the pie share, bad performance, poorly written character. Yes. What would you? I think the character and the fact that she was so dreadfully miscast because this character should be like 28 years old or 30 years old.

And she's, you know, way closer to my age. I don't know what her exact age is, but she's in her mid 40s. And she's just not the young whippersnapper, up and comer, you can't do it. She's too close to Jennifer Aniston's age. So they've been trying to navigate how they handle that. But then also, like, I don't know. Is she successful? Like, have we seen her succeed on this show in a real way?

She had the abortion episode. What was that? Like somewhere middle of the first season where she became like a lightning rod, but then other people got behind her. But other than that, we haven't even really seen her succeed on the show as a star. You're right that a lot of it is. the character problem. This is the worst developed character on

TV right now. But I think it's probably one third them not knowing what the character is. One third, as you said, Reese being miscasts because Reese Witherspoon's not a mess. Reese Witherspoon is like the type, she's type A and her best characters are people who are very on it

and calculating and are like pushing up against the friction of other people not being on their game. And she's just supposed to be floating in the one here and that doesn't make any sense. And then I do think her big little lies character. That's her. But the irony of the show is she she should be playing the Anniston character. Exactly. And they have two Aniston's really. And so I think the final third is that she doesn't know what to do with that. And the performance isn't,

she's uncomfortable. It's not totally her fault, but it's not great. And then she has, we have this Hassan Minaj subplot. Hey, let's do a shot. And it's just super awkward. I don't know why he's on the show. He has this look on his face like my agent told me this would be a good idea. But now Now I have some regrets as I look at our fake CGI New Year's Eve crowd. I thought this is going to be a bigger show. And then all of a sudden, he's doing the evening news. And it's like, so this morning show is failing. The ratings are declining.

And they're like, who do we get to host the evening news? We'll get the new guy on the show whose ratings have been cut in half. That's our guy. Yes, because everyone who tunes into the morning news or the evening news, I'm sorry, aka my mother, is really just looking for the next big thing on the internet. You know, that's what you want to get your update about the weather across the country from. Right. It would have been more realistic of Nestor Carboneau, whatever his name is.

The weatherman became our evening news guy over the new guy at the failing morning show. But yeah, Reese, I mean, look, she's the big winner. Her company sold for a ton of money. And I think the show is a big reason why, because they get like 15 million an episode to produce the show. At the same time, she's kind of a loser because this is the worst role of her career. other than the Little Fires Everywhere, which it was actually a worse role. That was. You're right.

When she's producing her own shows, she's basically one for three with giving herself the character. She almost needs, like, somebody to help. And she's married to an agent. Where's that guy? You can't help her? It's a really great question. Maybe she thinks that this is what being like a leader and a producer is, is like taking

the bad role, the, like the, I'll just figure it out and you guys take all the spoils. I'm not really sure. Also, maybe if as season two goes along, Jennifer Aniston does come back to the show, then maybe we get kind of mean, you know, ambitious Reese, which is the Reese we really want. Big little lies, Reese. Exactly. I want holding a glass of Chardonnay and just kind of read in the room, Reese. Jennifer Aniston. Yes.

Did she always overact like this or does she feel like this in this show? that's what the part and the show and the opportunity called for is her just dialing up. We have on the rewatchables. We have our Vincent Hanna Award for Best Overactor. Right. Is this intentional overacting or she's just getting older and kind of losing her chops? Because she just goes for it in every scene now. Well, I don't really think she's used to this kind of acting.

I think she is one of our great comedians. She is genuinely very funny. And so she can play up the funny side of losing. I mean, think of all of the going for it moments and friends, which is still her, you know, most iconic performance. Or just go with it, the iconic Sando movie. She's really good of that. But so I think she just has that range of being like, oh, now I got to now I got to really take

it to 11. And unfortunately, it's not being played for laughs. It's being played for, you know, drama in the main woods while she's chopping wood, which actually is a little bit funny. That's the thing is that maybe things like Jennifer Aniston chopper. by herself in the middle of Maine is supposed to be funny, but the show won't let it be. I find it funny. No man in this character's life.

It's really confusing. Nobody, not one person, no old flame, nothing. She has a child who she very much loves in the first season. And I mean, don't you think that kid just wants to spend some nice time in a house in Maine over the Christmas holidays? I don't know. I'm just asking. Well, as somebody who's going through this now, I'm not sure mothers and daughters really want to hang out with each other for more than three minutes.

Yeah, that's true. Then it's isolated. I do remember that. But it's a really nice house. That's the one positive thing I'd like to say. Great house. Great countryware from Jennifer Aniston. The older I get, the more I'm like, oh, I would like some of these wardrobe choices that she's making. The styling's, it's pretty good. if we had been producers on this show and Apple was like, all right, we need your notes for episode one. I think my first note would have been, where's Corel? This guy was the black cloud shadow over all of season one. Every sort of anything that came out of anything, his fingerprints or there was a dotted line to him in some way.

And now we don't know where he is. I would kind of like the one scene. just tell me where he is. And then that's when they say, look, we're paying Steve two million per episode. We figure we'll cut them out. We're saving two million. We'll put that toward the New Year's Eve party. I agree with you. I take it one step further. What happens between the first four minutes of this episode, which are right after the end of season one? And the rest of the episode, which is almost nine months later. Could you just let me know? I'd love to find out. Maybe like a card, like a Star Wars card with a scroll?

And obviously I was confused because I thought the Neplas brother was still working for the show. It was just a lot. It was a lot going on. I mean, they do a thing where the kind of cold open, which is immediately after season one, it's like five minutes. Billy Crudup gives his speech about like the end of the world or something, like a fight for the souls of. Yeah. And then they just cut to like two minutes. of empty streets in New York COVID footage?

What was that? So I think that's them trying to be like, yes, we know that COVID is coming. Like, don't worry about it, guys. But there's no context. There's no narration. There's no card that you just like drive around the empty streets of New York for two minutes.

And then they cut to a card that says three months earlier. From what? I'm embarrassed to admit. I watched this show twice. One time I half watched it the other time really watched it. I didn't realize that was a COVID montage. Look, they didn't tell me. I just didn't know if they were just showing shots of an empty New York.

It didn't occur to me that they were doing that to move the timeline forward. It would have been nice to know that. Maybe I'm wrong. I think that other shows have done that. Okay. Well, other shows have done that. And also the other ways in which they try to like signal like COVID is coming, like, someone sneezing really obviously, like right behind Billy Crude Up in the last two minutes,

which I didn't even know that that was one of the telltale symptoms, but whatever. It's, they really, really seem so confused by what to do about the actual news. Let's talk about some positives. One, our guy, Billy crushed it. Loved it. It's, look, whether the show is good or not, is it really up to the person? Um, but nobody can deny that this was the show Billy, Crudip deserved, has earned.

He's going for it in every scene. He's dialed it up to levels that, frankly, I wasn't prepared for him. And I'm super happy with every piece of him in this show. It seems like the only area of the show where the show itself knows what it has. And so they give him like a ridiculous tagline in every scene now. And he's just constantly going for it. And I enjoy it. The other thing I love about this show is I don't, I can't tell if, if they know,

but they had that scene with the producers and one of them was pregnant and they're talking about, tell me the stuff from 2019, I made you that clip. And they go through and they go through and they're like, the Women's World Cup team won. And she's like, God, 2019 was terrible. And it was just like, this thing wouldn't even look good if you read this in a script, this whole scene where they're listing all the terrible things that have happened. And it's like, what, how did nobody stop this? What, what's happening?

But that's why we like the show. Yeah. There are a lot of moments that are like bad Twitter interactions, just copy and pasted into the show. It's like, if you read that on Twitter, you feel like, just hang it up, log off. You're not keeping up with what's going on here. It was pretty rough. Yeah. So the big loss, I think, for this season before we go is we lost juju, who's character, I guess, overdose.

We don't know if that was a suicide or like, obviously she was pretty messed up. And now we find out at the end of the episode one, there was a wrongful death shoot, death suit. But she was the best character in season one. She was the only storyline that actually worked. She was the centerpiece of the only really great episode the show had last season

when they did the flashback to 2017, which I thought was a great episode. And the reason that I gave this show a chance for the second season, and now they've lost her. Yes. And it doesn't seem like they have replaced her. Instead, there's more Reese, more Jennifer Anderson, more Duplas brother, Crudeup dialing it up even more. And I think they really missed that character.

Yes. She was one of the only people, as Hannah Shone felt, the booker who kind of gets caught up in all of the imaginations of. Yes. Of Steve Correll and Jennifer Aniston and Crudup and the network boss. And the lead of the network. Yes, exactly. She was the only people who could kind of handle. the drama version on melodrama of some of the speeches that they write for these characters

and actually like make it emotional. And I think a lot about the not quite standoff, but when Reese's character is interviewing her and trying to get her to participate in the story or corroborate the story in season one, she just she has five minutes kind of by herself where they ask her to say some very intense stuff that almost no one else on the show could sell. But she really could sell it and it is very moving. and they're missing that, like, kind of actually, like, relatable or authentic heart in the middle of the show.

Now it's just a bunch of people kind of scream at each other. Yeah, and she brings a lot of, like, the complications of the era of the last five years into it, right? Yes. Where they decide to cover up the incident with Steve Carell by giving her a promotion. And then she has to decide, do I take this and swallow it or do I actually do something about it? It was just, I thought it was really well handled. And that is really the only thing that vindicated the show. I don't know if they don't have that plot and they don't have the actress and they didn't

pull it off the way they did. I don't think there's a season two because the show was kind of a train wreck other than that. I mean, I still, we've had 11 Bradley Jackson episodes. And if we just structured out what her story arc was. So does she have sexual tension with Billy? So Billy Crudup, that's a thing that we're going to be exploring in season two? Like, what is happening? Well, it was kind of there in season one.

And my concern is now that they're also trying to seat it with Jennifer Aniston as well when he's like reading her the poem. Also, he's their boss, which is like your whole show is about this B2 era. And now you have sexual attention with the boss and both of his talent. I mean, respectfully, some of it might just be the crude up's unstoppable, you know? He might be. The chemistry is there. And also at this point, like this show is.

can use any chemistry. It can get even nonsensical and inappropriate office chemistry because it does otherwise feel like all of the characters are just kind of in their own bubbles, not really speaking to each other. But Billy Crudup can speak to all of them. But it's very confusing. I agree with you.

He might have even had sexual chemistry with Holland Taylor. I don't know. They left them in the conference room long enough. They might have... I would watch that show. Well, I don't know if we're going to be doing episode two. My guess is we'll do episodes. two next week.

Okay. And then maybe we do a midseason awards here on the prestige TV pot. Okay. I don't think we do every episode, do you? I mean, I will be watching every episode. Well, let's play it by here. Maybe we will. Maybe we'll be doing more.

I do love talking about this weird, bizarre, incomprehensible show. Coming on Wednesday, you know the biggest Ted Lassau fan is? You? No, not me. Not me. It's a perfectly fine show. I was glad I saw it. I don't know how it won the Emmy, but I love it.

I really enjoyed it. Same. Van Lathen. Really? Is the all-time Ted Lassow Defender. So he's going to be on on Wednesday, breaking down the first nine episodes.

Not only loves the show, gets mad when other people shit on it. I think it's a really nice show. I like it. I'm glad it exists. I really enjoyed it. I just think comedy's in the place that's in now where kind of people don't know what a comedy is.

So it's just this pleasant, happy show that was really well-written and well-acted. And I think people appreciated it. I did. Yes, I agree. I don't feel the need to argue about it, but I'm excited to hear Van defend it. Well, that's coming on the Prestige TV pod on Wednesday. You can hear him in on the Big Picture Pod with Sean Fantasy. You can hear me on the rewatchables as well as the pod that's named after me. The prestige TV pod. Spread the word to your friends. This was produced. Steve, you want to pop on for a second? Yeah, sure. Steve, did you watch the show? Yes. I've been told that it's more or less the

newsroom of today. Yes, but honestly. Just as befuddling, maybe just as angry. It makes us appreciate Aaron Torkin even more. Right. Sure. Very fair. Steve Alman produced this podcast and we'll be back on Wednesday with another one. Thanks, Amanda. Thanks for listening. Thanks, Bill.