’The Morning Show’s Latest Bonkers Reveal? Reese Witherspoon’s Bradley Jackson Reported Live from Inside the Jan 6 Insurrection

The Morning Show is back on Apple TV+ today, once more testing the limits of logic and putting its egocentric characters through increasingly bonkers situations. Considering the fact that The Morning Show Season 2 gave us Steve Carell‘s sexual miscreant character Mitch Kessler driving his car off a cliff in Italy and Jennifer Aniston‘s Alex Levy livestreaming her battle with COVID-19 to boost streaming service subscriber numbers, you might be wondering how The Morning Show Season 3 could up the ante.

Well, in The Morning Show Season 3 Episode 1 “The Kármán Line,” Reese Witherspoon‘s Bradley Jackson winds up subbing in for Alex on a trip to space. As in, outer space. But that’s not all. We also learn that Bradley Jackson is now the most respected name in television journalism because she was literally on the ground, reporting on the scene, via her Apple branded iPhone, at the January 6 insurrection. Friends, I guffawed.

The Morning Show was originally pitched as a prestige drama loosely based on the revelations about the squeaky clean-seeming morning news shows published in Brian Stelter’s Top of the Morning: Inside the Cutthroat World of Morning TV. What it became was a superstar-anchored soap opera, full of awkward conversations about cancel culture, diversity initiatives, and sexual politics in the workplace. What saved The Morning Show was that it was also a helluva entertaining showcase for actors like Billy Crudup, Jennifer Aniston, and Greta Lee.

The Morning Show Season 3 seems to have embraced its trademark combination of crazy storylines and star-studded splendor. On the positive side, Jon Hamm and Nicole Beharie join the cast, offering their spectacular talents to the already overwhelmingly delicious ensemble. On the bonkers half of things, though, Bradley Jackson is still a character who boggles the mind.

Originally introduced as a ginger-haired, straight-shooting, inexperienced starlet with a strong Southern drawl, she’s already been sanded down into a standard blonde anchor in designer duds nursing a drinking problem. In The Morning Show Season 3 premiere we learn Bradley is now not even on the titular AM news program, but anchoring the prestigious UBA Evening News. Not only that, but her fellow journalists are feting her for being the best, bravest journalist ever because she just so happened to be trapped in the U.S. Capitol with a cell phone on January 6, 2021.

The January 6 insurrection is such a horrific and charged moment in contemporary U.S. history, akin to the death of Osama bin Laden, and The Morning Show‘s casual nod to it feels as tone deaf as The Newsroom‘s handling of the latter event. There is no real life journalistic analogue to Bradley Jackson in this instance, which makes the Apple TV+ show’s framing all the more wild.

Of course, The Morning Show doesn’t give us enough time to worry about this revelation. The bulk of the premiere episode is devoted to the impending Hyperion rocket launch. At the last minute, Alex dips out of the trip in rebellion, queuing Bradley up to take the trip, with next to zero preparation. It’s yet another wild swing from a show that can’t resist hurtling into madness.

Whether you love or hate The Morning Show‘s penchant for high drama, there’s no doubt from Bradley’s early Season 3 storylines that the Apple TV+ show refuses to change its M.O. It’s going to be bonkers and we just have to deal with it.