“I think she likes the mess. A lot of people do,” Stella Bak (Greta Lee) says to an advertising executive about how his wife and other viewers feel about The Morning Show’s scandal-plagued fictitious network UBA. It also sums up why the Apple TV+ drama is so damn watchable.
Pandemonium reigns in the cutthroat television business, with the survival of legacy media company UBA taking center stage in the third season. Billy Crudup’s dialed-up-to-11 manic energy as CEO Cory Ellison is the not-so-secret (or subtle) weapon of the Apple TV+ drama, but giving him someone to work with rather than rail against—or try to contain—was a highlight of the often erratic sophomore outing. (Let’s not forget this season opened as the ball dropped at Times Square, ushering in 2020.)
Enter Lee as Stella, a former digital media company president and the first woman to hold the position of President of UBA News. In this high-pressure environment, she digs her (designer sneaker) heels in further in Season 3, and the no-matter-what-it-takes fight to keep the studio lights on offers an opportunity to dig further into a character we don’t know much about. With her fresh off the success of a career-making turn in Past Lives, The Morning Show has figured out that Lee is the series’ real secret weapon.
Crisis management with a lot of vamping is required in an uncertain landscape—particularly in an industry as reliably fraught as the news. Lee does so with a mix of self-assuredness, wide-eyed bewilderment as the shit keeps hitting the fan, and vulnerability that leads to a scene-stealing juggling act. There is a pendulum swing of who spirals the most when the sky threatens to fall in. A turducken of obstacles thrown at the show’s impressive ensemble means it can be hard to stand out. However, Lee offers a layered performance with material that taps into her comedic sensibilities, all while being thrown emotionally challenging curveballs that she knocks out of the park.
Even when the storylines threaten to launch into the stratosphere—quite literally—Stella and Lee anchor the mania. That isn’t to say she doesn’t get to partake in the soapy shenanigans sandbox that have made The Morning Show appointment TV in the streaming age.
Stella’s Dilemma
In this week’s new episode, old-world media meets new when Stella experiences the annual TV upfronts (where a network presents its forthcoming programming slate to secure advertiser dollars) for the first time. Taking the “this meeting could have been an email position,” Stella relatably wonders why this process can’t be done over Zoom. Instead, she has to wine and dine two bros in suits to score $300 million in ad sales, saving 22,000 employees from losing their jobs.
Ah, nothing quite like the smell of emotional blackmail wafting off Cory’s reminder of this do-or-die scenario to reset a moral compass. As she discusses this “necessary evil” in Cory’s dressing room, Stella’s demeanor has a certain itchy quality—like she is allergic to this part of the biz. And if you are ever in doubt that Stella is an outsider, the high-end hoodie, suit, and sneakers are your visual clues.
Getting into confident swagger mode, she convincingly announces, “Trust me, I got this.” She might have this, but what follows is an unfortunate lesson in dealing with power-hunger douchebags who think humiliating a waitress qualifies as “a joke.” Every person has a line, and Stella crosses one to keep Jon Hamm’s tech billionaire, Paul Marks, at bay. To complicate things, the man she describes as “ruthless” is someone she has a secret history with. Now there’s the melodramatic stakes The Morning Show does best, and Lee embraces the contradictions of Stella’s actions.
Lunch and copious dirty martinis start friendly enough, even if ad executives Zack and Drew are disappointed it isn’t Carbone (maybe they are avid DeuxMoi readers). Stella is accustomed to pretending everything is peachy, and after a certain point, she asks the waitress to serve her water in a martini glass to avoid getting too wasted to make a deal.
These guys clock this familiar ruse and use her body size against her, saying for “someone so petite,” she holds her liquor well. It all turns a little frat house when her drink spills on the table, and Zack offers $150,000 per primetime spot if the waitress licks up the water. The itchy feeling Stella had earlier is how my body responds to this scene, and she tells the guys to leave the server out of this before countering with “200K best and final.” Zack will only agree if the unorthodox part of the deal is included and ups the stakes with a $20,000 tip (that Stella will cover).
Stella isn’t a hero here; she slowly nods in agreement to the deal and then watches the waitress bend down with a look that tries to stay unemotional. A tiny flicker of a forced smile lets them know she is “one of the guys” before an undercurrent of self-loathing takes over. It would be easy to overplay these reactions, and lord knows The Morning Show doesn’t always strive for subtly, yet Lee manages to convey two different things with her eyes and mouth.
When it cuts to Stella alone in the car on her way to Cory’s Hamptons party, her leadership mask of control has dropped. A mixture of rage, disgust, and sorrow, without tipping into hysterics, suggests that while she is complicit, she is not hardened to this ugly side of this industry. For all its faults, The Morning Show does not let its female characters girlboss their way through life with no consequences.
Though Cory hasn’t got this memo, he gleefully announces her arrival: “There she is! UBA’s assassin in athleisurewear!” Sure, he notices that she has been through the wringer as Stella’s still visibly reddened eyes are the souvenir of personal compromise, but he doesn’t press further.
Stella Takes Control
In the previous episode, Mia (Karen Pittman) told Stella, “I’m a pawn; you’re in the game.” While this might be true, Stella still gets fucked after eating shit for Cory, and their dynamic continues to contract and expand in a manner that offers some surprising and even grounding moments. Whereas she is aligned with Cory, this moment is a huge fork in the road. Her close bond with Mia and newbie TMS anchor Chris Hunter (Nicole Beharie) reveals how the three women of color are forming an alliance, whether over drinks—Lee is a much better drunk actor than Stella—or offering support at the office. And yet, Stella holds more power than these two co-workers, and what she will do as the UBA financial crisis continues is uncertain.
Change is coming, one way or another, which is an overarching theme this season. When Stella tells Bradley Jackson (Reese Witherspoon) she can’t do a story on abortion on the evening news, Bradley is understandably aghast. She throws Stella’s so-called “disruptor” status back at her as a younger woman from tech and notes that after three years at UBA they are both- pandering to the “status quo.” Again, she keeps a cool head as Bradley loses hers: “Honestly, what the fuck, Stella? It’s like death by a thousand cuts.” Someone has been listening to Taylor Swift.
But Stella is thinking long-term and needs both sides of the political spectrum to place their trust in their news anchor—especially if the next election is contested. There are times to spin and be honest, and Lee deftly portrays both sides of this coin when showcasing Stella’s prowess. Amid deliciously goofy plots, there is space for nuance, and The Morning Show really does do it all.
The third season and Stella benefit from new showrunner Charlotte Stoudt ditching some of the tired age humor previously directed at millennial Stella, such as Cybil Reynolds (Holland Taylor) making a dated reference to Frick and Frack (sorry, I had to look them up, too) and Alex Levy (Jennifer Aniston) threatening to steal her skin. Okay, so that last one isn’t an Ed Gein-related twist—a fourth-season serial killer plot could work—but instead, Alex offers an awkward and problematic observation upon meeting Stella (“Oh, my God. You’re a baby. That’s a compliment. I would kill for that skin.”). A flicker of familiar irritation crosses Stella’s face at a remark she has undoubtedly heard numerous times from white women like Alex.
“As a young-ish, Asian American woman, I’m used to having to navigate certain kinds of… let’s call them institutions that are mostly white, and oftentimes being the token,” Lee told Town & Country about drawing on personal experience for this role in Season 2. Seeing this character grow into this corporate leadership role while dealing with over-inflated egos is an exercise in restraint.
Handling the talent means hiding disdain or annoyance while reminding them who is actually in charge. Alex no longer mistakes Stella’s youthful looks for someone she can walk over and can only get out a pitiful “Just fuck off, Stella” retort when she is reprimanded for skipping the rocket launch. “Thanks for being a team player,” says Lee in a sing-song tone, effectively shutting down a conversation and injecting wry humor.
Lee’s TV Comedy Roots
Over the last decade, Lee played a roster of memorable characters on groundbreaking comedies like Girls, Broad City, Inside Amy Schumer, and High Maintenance, making her someone to look out for. Lee’s impressive turn as party host Maxine on Russian Doll showcased her comedic timing and ability to repeatedly coo “Sweet birthday baby!'' without this phrase becoming dull.
Lee headlined the beautiful and critically acclaimed Past Lives as Korean Canadian playwright Nora Moon this summer. Celine Song’s directorial debut is an exercise in restraint next to the bombastic nature of The Morning Show, but in both, Lee showcases her repertoire of reactions. It sounds silly as all acting is reacting, yet there is an art and skill to doing so without giving away too much or too little. It is in the pauses that Past Lives speaks volumes. Lee also flexes her comic timing muscle in the contemplative Past Lives, as she does in The Morning Show.
One such funny delivery is when Stella reveals after the cyberattack that the only skeleton in her email closet is that she dated basketball player Blake Griffin the previous year—Kendall Jenner is one of his IRL exes. “Wouldn’t have guessed he was your type,” Cory responds to this revelation. “He wasn’t,” she replies, and her face confirms how bonkers this exchange is. The easy, breezy mood shifts when she is alone, and a scroll through her camera roll reveals a photo of a 20-something Stella with Paul, finally revealing why she is so against the billionaire buying UBA.
Stella’s actions to secure the ad dollars in Episode 4 show her desperation to stop the seemingly charming tech titan and the lengths she is willing to go to. And no matter how enjoyably messy things get on The Morning Show, Lee’s standout performance is worth the watching investment alone.
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