THE BIG PICTURE
- Season 3 of The Morning Show brings Alex and Bradley the buffer they needed to improve their relationship, as they are now operating under the same roof but with some distance between them.
- The shift in dynamics allows Alex to finally respect Bradley and acknowledge her talent for reporting, marking a major turning point in their relationship.
- Alex and Bradley find a common enemy in their network, UBA, and specifically Cory Ellison, as they join forces to fight for their worth and oppose the network's actions.
Here's the thing about the word "buffer": it makes the world go 'round. It's most often defined as "something that serves as a protective barrier," as well as "any of various devices or pieces of material for reducing shock or damage due to contact." If Season 3 of The Morning Show has taught us anything already, it's that a buffer was definitely necessary for reducing the shock and damage between co-anchors Alex Levy (Jennifer Aniston) and Bradley Jackson (Reese Witherspoon).
Having formerly been tied at the hip for five days a week at the crack of dawn each morning, Season 3 has finally given Alex and Bradley the buffer that they always needed. Bradley is finally allowed her shot at the evening news while Alex remains at The Morning Show for a few days each week, and while they might still be operating under the same roof at UBA, the improvement in their relationship is already palpable in the first two episodes of the new season—no slow burn necessary. After all, a little space goes a long way.
Alex and Bradley Are Finding Common Ground in 'The Morning Show' Season 3
Being forced together is quite different from choosing to be together, and for Alex and Bradley, it took a little space to make them both realize just how much they actually have in common. Prior to this season, it felt like the two couldn't have been more unalike: a seasoned veteran of the industry and a scrappy newbie are two very different types of people, and that tension paired with already being in the high-stress environment of live television only adds more fire to the flame. There was also the inherent competition between the two, with Alex not wanting Bradley to one-up her while Bradley wanted to make a name for herself in the process.
While co-anchoring at The Morning Show was a bit of a miracle in and of itself for Bradley, she always had her sights set on higher things, namely reporting on hard news at night—the stuff that she felt actually mattered in life, not the fluff that she had to report on in the morning with Alex. Because Alex was well aware of this, it created a major rift in their relationship from the get-go, as her entire career has been dedicated to the morning news, something that Bradley only considered a stepping stone in her career. That underlying tension could only last so long under the surface, and for much of the second season of The Morning Show, Alex and Bradley were basically at each other's throats. It might've been all smiles for the cameras, but once those spotlights were shut off at the end of each show, so was any semblance of a relationship between the two.
Bradley's pivot to the evening news in Season 3 has leveled the playing field a bit, as Alex is now able to see Bradley's talent for reporting from a distance as opposed to up close, making it clear that her rise to popularity among audiences wasn't just a fluke. Alex finally respects Bradley, which is pretty major, being that to Alex, Bradley used to represent a pawn in her plan to not get fired from The Morning Show back in Season 1. In the first episode of Season 3, Alex delivers an uncharacteristically heartfelt speech about Bradley for a journalism award, marking a major turning point in their relationship.
In that same vein, Bradley is now realizing just how much pressure being the face of a television show actually brings, as she had formerly just been Alex's partner-in-crime over on The Morning Show. Now that she has a headlining show of her own, she's realizing just how often the other shoe is about to drop at any given moment and how hard it must've been for Alex at The Morning Show. When a major data leak is threatening UBA in the second episode of Season 3, Bradley is experiencing exactly what Alex felt after word got out about her sexual relationship with Mitch Kessler (Steve Carell), as a private video from Bradley to her former girlfriend, Laura Peterson (Julianna Margulies), was leaked to her boss, Cory Ellison (Billy Crudup), as part of the data breach.
As for both Alex and Bradley's love lives, both of them are at a bit of a standstill, though both are definitely yearning for something more at the same time, as we saw with Alex's reaction to Charlie "Chip" Black (Mark Duplass) and Isabella's (Hannah Leder) relationship announcement. Bradley basically doesn't know what to do with Laura at this point, as every run-in with her since their relationship ended has been extremely tense with a ton of miscommunication clearly at play, though we don't know the source of it just yet.
Alex and Bradley Have Also Found a Common Enemy in 'The Morning Show' Season 3
Though they're now operating on different sides of the news, Alex and Bradley have both managed to find a common enemy between them: their network, UBA, and more specifically, Cory Ellison. After Alex realizes that she's now the one being used as a pawn in Cory's game to merge the network with Paul Marks (Jon Hamm), she and Bradley are ready to double down and fight for what they're both really worth at the network.
In many ways, this data leak is marking a bit of a fresh start for The Morning Show crew, as it's poking some major holes in people's relationships, private lives, and how the company operates as a whole. With Alex and Bradley at the helm of the forces opposing UBA's recent actions, the crew at large has something to hold onto, from both the morning and evening sides of the network, creating a united front for once in the company's complicated history.
Inside the corporate side of things, though, something much more sinister is brewing, and it'll be largely up to Alex and Bradley to control just how much of it they let affect their broadcasts. They might both feel like they're carrying all the power in the world, but the corporate aspect of UBA is definitely about to pull something wild, as UBA executive, Stella Bak (Greta Lee), has some massive skeletons in her closet.
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