The Morning Show Season 4 Episode 3 Review: ‘Tipping Point’

The Morning Show Season 4 Episode 3 ‘Tipping Point’ is an hour that showcases the very best of this series and what it could be while also stubbornly, foolishly continuing to include plot points that are the complete opposite. It’s almost impressive how something as misguided as Bradley and Cory hooking up after she assures him she didn’t give the Feds anything on him as part of her “get out of federal prison free” deal can come from the same minds as the story of a Black woman getting passed over for a job she was promised by an alleged friend — and for which nobody is more qualified — only to lose it as part of all the dirty dealings at the network. But only almost.

Because, really, it’s frustrating and part of an overall trend of this series really not knowing what it wants to be. Or is it that someone feels the need to bury the very real, very honest, look at how journalism is under attack from the people with too much money — and far too few morals — who keep buying up all the major outlets underneath…completely unserious mess? To be clear, not everything needs to have meaning; not every relationship has to be moral, and good, and part of any kind of messaging either. But some lines, once drawn, can’t be crossed without extremely well-developed reasons. And no, The Morning Show hasn’t earned a second chance for Bradley or for Cory, much less for the two of them as any kind of viable onscreen romance.

Horribly enough, for all my hatred of that storyline in the series’ third season, the return on Jon Hamm’s Paul Marks in The Morning Show Season 4 Episode 3 is actually incredibly effective. It sets both Hamm and Jennifer Aniston up for incredible, vulnerable performances, both of which are a very distant second to what Karen Pittman gives us from start to finish. That’s not to knock anything at all about what Hamm and Aniston do here — it’s just that the emotion Pittman brings to Mia’s experience here is just beyond.

MORE: We were a little unimpressed after watching The Morning Show Season 4 Episode 1…and that’s an understatement.

Mia dares to dream, lives the nightmare

There are far too many places where The Morning Show Season 4 Episode 3 gives Karen Pittman a chance to shine for me to be able to adequately discuss them all. Similarly, there are far too many places where the day of Mia Jordan’s final interview to head the network’s news division stands in for real-world issues and experiences. In some sense, this idea of behind the scenes network politics holding a woman back from something she’s earned isn’t even new to this series. But for all the men who never took Alex Levy seriously, for all the outright misogyny, and even for all the times she might’ve missed out more as collateral damage than anything else, what takes place with Mia is worse.

Another woman — another woman who recently made a snarky quip about it being “open season on minorities,” I believe the line was — promised her this, only to save her own skin and protect her deal with the devil (Cory, obviously) at Mia’s expense. A third woman — a white woman who’s clawed her way to the top, broken that proverbial glass ceiling — promised her she’d stand up for her and then, while in the middle of her own scramble to save not just herself but the whole network, let her down. All of this, after she’d also had to manage Bradley’s complete lack of professionalism or focus in the middle of preparing for her last interview.

Systems already stack the deck so high against the Mia Jordans of this world, and then, everyone who promises solidarity after they help us get what we want sells them out. Maybe not exactly as we see here…but, somehow or another, close enough. So, probably, the most gut-wrenching part of The Morning Show Season 4 Episode 3 has got to be the scene where Stella tells Mia…basically she’ll still get what she’s already earned. Just, it has to be later, after Celine’s choice fails. Pittman brings all that exhaustion, disappointment, and a sense of betrayal to the scene in the most heartbreakingly beautiful way. The feeling — the long held and bottled up pain — just escalates, and escalates, and escalates. And the one part that stands out most is the one place where all that emotion isn’t under such delicate control anymore. Because this says says it all:

“I didn’t ask you for this job. I didn’t even dream of it. Until you dangled it in front of me like a f—ing carrot. And ever since then, you’ve been telling me, ‘just be patient. Your time is coming.'”

There’s more truth in those few sentences than a TV review can fully describe. However, I just want to highlight the way Pittman’s voice simply breaks on one word — dream. That’s it. Mia didn’t dare to dream because the system is what it is. Because she maybe didn’t even necessarily want to be head of anything so much as to just make sure people had access to the truth. (Which she so passionately defended earlier in yet another one of this episode’s best scenes.) But once she did dream, once it was within her grasp because she’d earned it, the very person who offered her that dream…snatched it away. And so it goes.

That The Morning Show Season 4 Episode 3 gives Pittman these moments and shows us a fictionalized version of what plays out all over, day after day, is proof that someone at this series wants to get viewers thinking, to get us to see this. But, at the same time, that the image of Mia saying goodbye to that darkened bullpen has to be shared with the absurdity of Bradley/Cory at a time when Bradley is anything but a sympathetic character (and Cory has nearly never been). This makes it difficult not to wonder if, perhaps, any ability this particular piece of art has to shine a light on society as whole is purely by mistake.

MORE: Last season, Mia experienced different kind of heartbreak.

“You use people”

Given my previous opinions on Alex — especially Season 3 Alex — and all things billionaire, the Paul/Alex reunion in The Morning Show Season 4 Episode 3 should really, really irritate me. Somehow, it doesn’t. Certainly, the performances Hamm and Aniston deliver here are a huge part of what makes this work. I think the way it happens, with Alex already having to make nice with someone who wants to control her reporting, is the other key. Instantly, when Paul comes out of nowhere, Alex can’t keep her carefully-placed professional mask on anymore. It’s like she’s been doused with ice water. Almost as if her heart stops when this man shows up, and that reaction is so unbearably human.

So, it’s painfully easy to empathize with her here. Even if she’s not usually the person best suited to be this series’ hero, in this situation, that’s exactly what she is. And, whether or not this relationship was just a stream of terribleness from the start (it was), these are two people who really, truly had feelings for one another underneath that. Add in all the dirty deals, Zeke trying to force Alex to run a story on the protesters without fully vetting it if she didn’t want to lose his funding and the scathing commentary on the death of the news in this country that tells — especially when coupled with Celine’s priorities during Mia’s interview — and we’re again in another place where The Morning Show does the d**ned thing.

The voiceover at the end of the episode, where Ava both does her job of “greenwash[ing] up” and doubles as a narrator for everything else going wrong with our institutions, is brilliant. Not to mention, making Paul’s new girlfriend the narrator, when she’s also the woman Alex just happened to have a moment of connection with in the washroom after running into the man in question, is another one of those things that just works. Why? Because it’s both too much of a coincidence to be believable and as real as it gets because of how unbelievable it is.

MORE: Alex also had a very difficult time in The Morning Show Season 4 Episode 2, when nobody believed her about the edited security footage.

More on The Morning Show Season 4 Episode 3

Imagine being that stressed out, working yourself up into such a sweat while trying to figure out what you’ll say during the biggest interview of your career, and still having to babysit Bradley Jackson. I’d lose it.
“I look forward to sobbing to the soundtrack in my car.” Most relatable Bradley Jackson has been in a very, very long time.
“Is it too early in the morning for cocaine?” File under: Things I shouldn’t laugh at but did.
“Please. Nobody knows this place like you do. Not even close.” And yet, and yet, and yet.
It was actually right here, especially with that tiny grateful smile from Mia, that I knew something was going to go wrong. I’ve seen ER. I remember how they did Kerry Weaver dirty when she first interviewed for the Chief job she was already doing as “acting” Chief. In the end, it was that. But, somehow, like, 100 times worse.
“…blowing the whistle on Mitch Kessler. Like you.” “Not fast enough.” Go off.
I will say, for as much as I still am very, very uncertain where this whole thing is going with Bradley, it was great having Bel Powley back. She does a stunning job in this hour in her own right. Whatever’s going on, Claire is sufficiently scared. And she carries that tension in everything she does. Yet, I can’t even begin to figure out if it’s paranoia or legit. That’s a good thing.
“Well, he didn’t deny it was true.” There it is.
“If reporting the news is going to make him throw a fit, then maybe he shouldn’t be advertising on a news network.” LOUDER. This, right here. If only The Morning Show would just stick to sticking it to corporate interests like this and stop trying to soften the blow…
“I’m a reporter. I was just doing my job.” This is how you refuse to bend the knee. Shame a lot of real-world outlets have failed, repeatedly.
This cast is disgustingly stacked with talent. Nothing new there. But Drag Race France All Stars guest judge Marion Cotillard more than fits in among even the best of the best. Celine’s little back and forth with Cory is a wonderfully entertaining meeting of the (evil, evil) minds. But the way Cotillard plays the earlier scene, when Stella pitches her “huge pain in the a**, but massive potential upside” and Celine just instantly picks up on something being off there then exploits that weakness, is beyond fascinating. “SHREWD” — that’s what I wrote down when I saw this.
Kudos to the way Greta Lee reacts in the moment, too. Stella can’t quite maintain that poker face with Celine. And then, the extreme self-disgust when she starts to leave.
“Are we bad people?” Unfortunately, yes. Lately, at least.
“I don’t know. That’s why I reached out to you. You’re the journalist.” Meh. She hasn’t deserved that title since 2021.
Might or might not have cracked up over Claire interrupting Chip to be like, ok but food. Because, I mean…yeah. Plus, the reactions were golden.
“It’s like a red carpet where everyone wants you to die.” “So, a regular red carpet?” I just think that Jennifer Aniston speaking through Alex Levy…
“…it’s nice to see that his plugs have finally settled in.”
The physicality when she busts through those doors.
The internet would ding me for listing all the F bombs, but I did love those *checks notes* seven (?) rapid-fire ones in a row. Same goes for how Aniston delivered them.
“I’m doing great. I am. I’m doing great. I just don’t understand why we need oil, when we can just power the world with billionaire [BDE].” (Narrator: She was not, in fact, “great.”)
“So, what are you doing here, slumming it with these puffer jacket, jerk-off f—heads, huh?” Just write more lines like this, and I’ll stop caring if nothing makes sense. (I kid. Mostly.)
“Well, let’s just say I learned early to put my personal feelings aside to get things done.” If I speak about the phrase “harm reduction” …
“You would sell out your protege?” “For 30 pieces of silver, inflation adjusted, I’d think about it.” Shoutout to Cory Ellison for knowing he’s the villain and owning it. This is more interesting than, say, someone who we’re told is the hero when she’s constantly…not.
“I don’t care what you’ve got going on. You have done nothing but let me down since you got back. Alex was right, and it pains me to say it, but she was. I think maybe you should’ve stayed in West Virginia. So, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve gotta work on this now.” Ate and left no crumbs.
Very much hope nobody expects me to care about Bradley looking all hurt and offended after that. Because, uh, that’s a no from me.
It’s giving “old, divorced couple.”
The elevator shot: I can feel Mia’s nerves through the screen.
Sometimes, the writing is so perfectly spot on. See also: “I’m interested in breaking the kind of stories that drive national conversation. That’s the core mission of the news. And I think if we do that right, the audience will follow.”
“We are in an unprecedented era. Journalists used to have to watch their backs in war zones. Now, they’re attacked at school board meetings, on campuses, in their own homes. A rape takes place at a Colorado police chief’s home, and someone steals every copy of the newspaper that dared to report it. A county administrator in Las Vegas doesn’t like the kind of press coverage he’s getting, so he just goes to the journalist’s house and stabs him. Seven times. A BBC anchor quits her job, goes into hiding after her stalker is plotting to kill her. These are the top three most shared stories on our website. The truth is incendiary, and it’s under attack. That’s the headline. Is that sexy enough for you?”
Just…Pittman’s delivery in that above chunk of dialogue adds so much to what are already powerful, important words, too.
Stella’s proud, little smile makes the betrayal hurt a zillion times worse, for what it’s worth.
“Why did you have to find somebody first?” My heart broke.
“…and there’s no one, no one, more qualified than Mia Jordan.” Again, I say: And yet.
“I had convinced myself that you hated me.” “I didn’t…I don’t.” “Well, everybody else does. Alex, Mia. I’m not exactly employee of the month.” Now, whose fault is that? Hm?
“I am so sorry…that it was so very, very hard for you. Stella. It must be difficult to, um, get to make all the choices and have to feel bad about them afterwards without it touching your actual fu***ng life. Whatever Celine is offering you…I hope it’s worth it.” GET HER.
“You’re not my friend. Or my boss. Because I quit.” The quiet delivery on “you’re not my friend,” though.
I wish I could care about Stella’s breakdown? It probably says something about me that I don’t? Then again, lashing out and telling Mia she’s actually not good enough was vile. So.
Super editing at the end, there, even if I’m not a fan of including the Bradley/Cory stuff in the mix.
“…there are choices to be made. Costs to be paid. And those choices, those costs, will test us. So much more than we want them to. We tell ourselves we’re in control — we can manage all of this. But we know, deep down, how much is at stake. And it’s everything, all that we love and care about.” Yes, this is about climate and all — it’s Ava’s greenwashing moment, after all — but whew, does it apply to a lot more.
Two words: Harm. Reduction.
Do I believe Paul actually gets nothing out of convincing Zeke to be reasonable? Not really. But do I hope for an actual win, for once? Yes.
So many good things in this episode, and they make that the last image. Sure. Fine. Whatever.