The Morning Show Season 4 has been a rollercoaster of emotions, but if it excels at anything, it's those tightly knit, intimate character-driven episodes that allow individual performers to shine and steal the show. We're treated to such moments twice in Episode 8, aptly titled "The Parent Trap," in two parallel but inversely told stories of parents and their children, each with a similarly poignant conclusion. Jennifer Aniston and Billy Crudup are clear standouts, but Jeremy Irons is wonderful too, while Lindsay Duncan is understated yet memorable and quietly powerful. You might even forget about the rest of the episode, but let's not forget that Bradley could have been kidnapped in Belarus. Oops.
We might as well start with that, since "The Parent Trap" picks up right after the major scandal of the FBI raiding UBN and arresting Claire Conway. Alex is furious, not only because Bradley has brought the network into disrepute when she's on the cusp of securing a sit-down interview with President Joe Biden, but also because she has torched her only source in the Martel Chemical cover-up. Alex is ready to pull the plug, but Bradley's claims of having a whistleblower in Belarus ready to talk fall on deaf ears. The paperwork that Alex has to sign off on remains untouched for now.
Meanwhile, Alex has other things to focus on, chief among them being the Biden interview. This only makes it more frustrating for her when she receives a call in the middle of the night telling her that her father has been arrested for public intoxication, and a video of him urinating on a statue has gone viral. She picks him up and takes him home, but when she wakes up a couple of hours later for her big day, he's missing. He later turns up at UBN asking for airtime on Alex's show to share his side of the plagiarism allegations, and when she refuses, he finds the next best outlet - Bro's.
Naturally, some of the lingering animosity from Alex ghosting Bro after their one-night stand comes to the fore here. When Alex, having managed to secure the Biden interview, pulls Martin off the air and accuses Bro of lacking respect and decency in not clearing it with her first, Bro, still smarting about her conduct, basically outs their tryst in front of everyone. But that's not the only drama unfolding. There's also the standout sequence from The Morning Show Season 4, Episode 8, when Alex and Martin get back to her place and finally have their knock-down-drag-out, anything-goes argument.
Martin's public comments on Bro's show end up getting the Biden interview cancelled for hilariously "going against the ageist narrative." She blames him for ruining her big moment, he blames her for his academic disgrace, she blames him for allowing her to essentially raise herself outside of periodic quizzes that he claims were to "train her brain to think" and she claims were designed to humiliate her. I'm tempted to agree with Alex here, given Martin's incredibly patronizing justification that "in those days, you were not exceptionally incisive." And then the haymaker comes.
As Alex implores Martin to enumerate the sacrifices he has made for her, his response is poignant: his wife, a victim of post-partum depression, left him due to a child he never desired in the first place. This revelation sends a shockwave through Alex's being, revealing a lifetime of resentment he harbored towards her. She now understands the depth of his feelings and realizes that her mother's struggles were unknown to her. The realization is seismic, and she'll never be the same again.
Meanwhile, Cory's experience with his mother, Martha, adds another layer of heartache to the narrative. During her visit to the set of "The Parent Trap," she makes a chilling confession: she intends to end her life. Her mind is slipping, her surroundings are askew, and she fears losing the rationality to end things on her own terms. She has planned meticulously, and today is the day. Cory, wearing a wig from the set and believing she's being dramatic, races to her side. The conversation is as heartbreaking as the one between Alex and Martin, but for different reasons. Martha loves Cory and isn't afraid to tell him so; he loves her back but can't accept her decision to end it all. So, she takes the decision out of his hands, sends him to fetch the wig, and slips the tablet into her mouth when he's gone. As he regales her with the plot of his movie, she slips away, setting an alarm on her watch and leaving a note for Cory to leave before the coroner arrives. It's a deeply sad scene, but also an oddly warm one.
Cory doesn't take Martha's departure well. He finds solace in Celine, who isn't doing much better herself. Her family wants her to return to France and ditch Miles, as the scandal around Stella's departure is drawing too much attention and controversy. Her purpose at UBN was to cover up the Martel Chemical issue, which she did well enough but then stuck around to secure even more control. She spends the night with Cory, getting drunk and doing coke in Miles's otherwise-empty studio. Whatever works.
The Morning Show Season 4, Episode 8 ends with Alex contemplating Bradley's trip to Belarus and deciding to greenlight it after all. But when she calls her, she doesn't answer. When she turns up at her apartment, she isn't there. Chip is there instead, informing Alex that Bradley decided to go to Belarus anyway and that since she hasn't checked in for several hours, there's a good chance she has been detained in a country not known for its kindness towards journalists.
