The Most Searched for Words and Phrases After This Week's 'The Morning Show'

By Dustin Rowles | Film | October 26, 2023 |

By Dustin Rowles | Film | October 26, 2023 |

Here’s the short and skinny on this week’s episode of The Morning Show: Everyone discovers that Alex is sleeping with Paul Marks. This revelation makes it next-to-impossible for Alex to book a good guest to discuss SCOTUS’s decision to overturn Roe, so Chip is forced to resort to a blogger played by Shannon Woodward, who properly grills Alex about how trustworthy she can be if she’s sleeping with the billionaire future owner of UBA. She has a point. Alex tries to shake off the question, but she’s humiliated, and producer Chip doesn’t step in and save her, so she fires him. It’s a shit move on Alex’s behalf, but probably best for both of them.

Elsewhere, Stella feels the guilt of abandoning her college roommate, Kate (Natalie Morales), after Marks fired Kate from Hyperion. Stella tries to surface whatever bombshell revelation Kate has on Marks. She recruits Bradley to the cause. After a covert meeting with Bradley in a parking garage (how Watergate), Kate agrees to reveal her secret (but not until next week’s episode).

Upon learning that Bradley spent a day with Cory and his mom, she digs into the email exchanges from the UBA hack to see if there is something romantic between the two. She discovers, instead, that Bradley covered up her brother Hal’s involvement in the January 6th attack. Laura is torn between her love for Bradley and her journalistic integrity.

Mia learns that her missing boyfriend, Andre, is back when she sees him on the news promoting his photographs on a competing network. She’s furious. By the end of the episode, however, she and Andre are close to being back together.

Elsewhere, while early indications were that Chris (Nicole Beharie) would have a decent storyline this season, she’s been relegated to a subplot about taking heat on social media for publicly objecting to the Supreme Court’s decision on Roe. She and Yanko briefly get into a spat about it to remind us that Néstor Carbonell is still on the show.

At the end of the episode, a frustrated Paul Marks discusses with a frustrated Alex the possibility of selling off all of UBA’s spare parts, starting as a news network from scratch, and handing the reins to Alex. Taking control of the news network owned by the man she’s sleeping with will not quiet complaints about her journalistic ethics.

That’s the recap. Let’s cover the most searched-for words and phrases from this week’s episode because I find this exercise fun and illuminating.

— How Tall is Billy Crudup? — That’s the top search this week. Last week, users wanted to know how tall Jon Hamm is. He’s 6’1. Crudup is 5’9. Why are online users obsessed with height? Related: It’s hard to tell how tall a person is on television, but I usually know whether an actor is tall or short. Jake Johnson, for instance, looks like he’s probably a short person, and I’ve seen him in real life. The Internet lists him as 5’10. That’s very generous. Is 5’9 generous for Crudup? Let’s get a sense of scale with the 6’1 Bradley Cooper. What do you think?

— Anna Osceola — That’s Jon Hamm’s new wife. I am not sure why she was a top search because — as far as I can tell — she was not in the episode. People just wanted to know more about his wife. Nosy.

— How did Hannah die? At the end of the episode, the UBA staff had a moment to remember Hannah, who was played by Gugu Mbatha-Raw. The Morning Show did her dirty in the first season by killing her off. She had been raped by Mitch Kessler (Steve Carell’s character) and (needlessly) died of a drug overdose in the first season finale.

— Biz Coletti Dancing in the Dark — Lots of searches for Biz Colletti’s elegiac, minor chord cover of Bruce Springsteen’s “Dancing in the Dark,” which is the song that played over the scene in which everyone remembers Hannah. Colletti is a relatively unknown singer. Good song.

— Shannon Woodward — Woodward plays the blogger who grilled Alex. I love her. Many may remember her from Raising Hope, while some may recall her more recently from Westworld.

— Who does The Morning Show theme song? Film composer Carter Burwell who is probably best known for composing the music for all but one of the Coen Brothers’ films. I do not care for the theme song. It’s too long.

— How many episodes are there in season 3? Good question. There are 10. This week’s was the 8th.

— Is Shari Belafonte on The Morning Show? Yes, yes, she is. The daughter of Harry Belafonte has a fairly small recurring role as Julia.

— Is The Morning Show based on a true story? Is this a real question? Seriously. No! However, the storylines do borrow frequently from real-world events.

— Audra The Morning Show — Yes, she’s played by Mindy Kaling. She was supposed to have a bigger role in the series, but she only popped up a couple of times as Laura’s co-anchor to stir shit. This week, she prompted Laura to look through the emails in the UBA hack. She’s messy. I wish she were more involved.