TV
The Morning Show and the Beautiful Subjectivity of Great Storytelling
There’s a specific kind of breathlessness that comes from encountering art so precisely crafted, so unflinchingly honest, that I find myself simultaneously understanding everything and completely unable to imagine how it came to exist. Even if I break down individual aspects of the work as a whole, the sum of the parts join together so perfectly that its creation seems like magic. Think of Canaletto’s A Regatta on the Grand Canal: you can analyse the perspective, the play of light on water, the precise rendering of architecture, the careful placement of gondolas, every figure’s motivation… but standing before the painting, none of that analysis explains how these elements coalesce into something that makes Venice feel more exciting than memory.
Episode 4 of The Morning Show‘s second season (“Kill the Fatted Calf”) delivered exactly this sensation. Fifty-seven minutes of television that left me sitting in stunned silence, groping for a method to enunciate my feelings.
We accept readily that taste is personal, that your favourite colour differs from mine, that you might love jazz (you weirdo) while I like psychedelic rock. But we’re more reluctant to extend that same subjectivity to assessments of quality itself. We want to believe there’s some measurable standard, some Platonic ideal of “good art” floating in the ether.
Mr Keating, who famously played the role of ‘Robin Williams’ in Dead Poets Society, has his students rip out the introduction of their poetry textbooks because they contain a rigid, analytical approach to poetry that he disapproves of.
“If the poem’s score for perfection is plotted on the horizontal of a graph and its importance is plotted on the vertical, then calculating the total area of the poem yields the measure of its greatness.”
Nonsense indeed.
“I mean, how can you describe poetry like American Bandstand? I like Byron, I give him a 42, but I can’t dance to it.”
The best art, the art that matters most, is the art that makes you feel something you couldn’t have felt any other way, that shows you something you simultaneously recognize and yet could never have articulated yourself.
And for me, this episode achieved that alchemy through three narrative threads that each could have been the centrepiece of a lesser show.
The Irredeemable Made Human: Mitch Kessler’s Impossible Journey
Mitch Kessler remains one of the most challenging characters on television: an outed predator whose actions and consequences are never glossed over. Yet in this episode, we watch him attempt something deeply uncomfortable: not redemption, but reckoning.
He isn’t forgiven. He isn’t even particularly sympathetic. But he is complex.
The show positions us at the edge of a moral cliff and asks us to consider impossible questions: Can someone become a victim of their own wrongdoing? Should we allow space for that kind of internal collapse?
The narrative refuses to tidy this up for us.
Yanko’s Apology and the Debate No One Wants to Have Neatly Wrapped
Then there’s Yanko, pressured to apologise for using the term “spirit animal.” He doesn’t believe he’s done anything wrong, and the show refuses to present a single, spoon-fed moral answer.
Instead, we’re offered a live-wire debate about cultural (in)sensitivity, intent, obligation, and the messy, sometimes infuriating landscape of generational disconnect.
No character is crowned correct. No viewpoint is dismissed outright.
It’s rare television that respects the audience enough to let us be uncomfortable.
Bradley’s Realisation: Freedom Isn’t Always What We Think It Is
Bradley, meanwhile, undergoes a quiet but devastating realisation: the freedom she believed she had has been masking deeper repression. Watching her confront this is like witnessing a mirror crack; it’s subtle, painful, and unexpectedly illuminating.
Her journey becomes a reminder that identity is rarely a triumphant declaration. More often, it is a negotiation: messy, shifting, and vulnerable. In some ways, the show suggests that being “liberated” isn’t the same as being honest with yourself.
And it’s portrayed with such honesty that it feels both inevitable and heartbreaking.
Lightning in a Bottle: Craft, Chance, or the Muse?
Television writing is structured and collaborative. The writers’ room takes all the good ideas and melts them down into a workable script. The problem is all this polishing and melting sometimes takes the edges off the intent. Instead of a prickly conundrum of a story, you’re left with a slick summary of emotion.
Yet every now and then, you can feel when a team discovers a spark. Some fragile, electric idea and instead of whittling it down, they chase it. They trust it. They let it grow fangs.
Lightning in a bottle, then, isn’t luck. It’s craft meeting bravery. Intention meeting instinct.
Astonishingly, Look Who Created This Episode
What makes this even more remarkable is this: the episode was written by Ali Vingiano and Scott Troy, and directed by Jessica Yu — and according to Wikipedia, it was Vingiano’s second writing credit, Troy’s first writing credit, and Yu’s first directing credit.
I mean, what?!!?
A narrative this layered, this emotionally intelligent, this daring… from creatives still so early in their tenure on the show.
It’s not just impressive — it’s literally awesome.
And Then…
Here’s the irony that completes the circle: according to IMDb, this episode has a 6.7 rating — the second-lowest score of any episode in any season.
If that doesn’t prove the subjectivity of art, nothing will.
What left me breathless left others unmoved, or confused, or annoyed.
What felt to me like a masterwork felt to others like a misstep.
And that’s the beauty of art.
It isn’t democratic.
It isn’t consensus-based.
It’s personal. Deeply, stubbornly personal.
This episode spoke directly to something in me. Something I understood intuitively but could not articulate or create myself. It reminded me why I love storytelling, and why I believe that true artistic brilliance doesn’t require universal agreement.
But:
I know I’m right about it being great.
(And honestly, that’s all the consensus I need.)