Editor’s Note: The following contains spoilers for The Morning Show Season 3, Episode 3
The Big Picture
- Cory Ellison’s manipulative and sinister behavior catches up to him in Season 3 of The Morning Show, as his double-crossing ways result in the collapse of a major merger deal.
- Ellison’s pursuit of executive success has led him to prioritize big bucks over genuine relationships, alienating those who helped him succeed, like Alex Levy and Bradley Jackson.
- The data leak and failed merger serve as a wake-up call for Ellison, highlighting the consequences of his power-hungry actions and signaling a potential turning point for his character.
Our resident good-guy, Cory Ellison (Billy Crudup), has taken a bit of a turn for the worse in Season 3 of The Morning Show, which has found our president of the news division at UBA right smack dab on the receiving end of a double-cross á la Jon Hamm. Paul Marks (Hamm) decided he had had enough of Ellison’s antics, putting a firm end to the merger that the two were just about to make final, much to the surprise of Ellison, who had been banking on the deal for quite some time.
While we’re technically supposed to be rooting for UBA through thick and thin, seeing Ellison finally get his comeuppance was a shockingly welcome sight, as he’s been playing quite the game of chess lately with just about everyone at UBA. From his treatment of his two main moneymakers, Alex Levy (Jennifer Aniston) and Bradley Jackson (Reese Witherspoon), to his purposeful leaking of a racist email of Cybil Richards’ (Holland Taylor) simply for his own benefit, Ellison has been working around the clock to be five steps ahead of everyone else — regardless of how sinister his moves might be. But in Episode 3, it turns out he was one step behind Marks all along, who finally gave Ellison the slap in the face that he deserved.
Was Cory Ever a Good Guy on ‘The Morning Show’?
In Season 1, the answer to that question definitely felt like a firm “yes,” but just as we’ve watched Bradley Jackson rise positively from hometown reporter to national evening news anchor over the last three seasons, we’ve seen Ellison slip into a pretty slimy shadow of the man he once was. Perhaps at heart, Ellison actually is a good guy, but he let the allure of executive success get the best of him towards the end of Season 2 and in this current third season of The Morning Show. He formerly operated at a micro level, championing Jackson in being the absolute best anchor possible, but has now switched to the macro, focusing only on the big bucks and being someone to fear rather than to relate to.
Season 2 of the series found Ellison pushing for the implementation of UBA+, a new streaming service that would transform the news world, though it was pretty unpopular among other executives at UBA, who more so considered it Ellison’s pet project than anything of importance. The only reason UBA+ ended up being massively successful is because its launch directly coincided with the COVID-19 pandemic, which brought in viewers who had nothing else to do but sit at home and watch Alex Levy suffer through COVID on-screen for all to see.
And that’s another thing: he has Levy and Jackson to thank for much of the recent success he’s experienced at UBA, but he’s still unwilling to give either one the proper thanks that they deserve. Instead, Ellison has chosen to plow ahead and leave everyone who’s helped him get to where he is behind. When Levy asked to be given more executive responsibilities and be brought onto the UBA board, it was immediately a firm “no” from Ellison, who doesn’t want someone he perceives to be a loose cannon mess with what he’s got brewing behind the scenes. And then, of course, there’s the way that he’s treated Jackson after learning about her (former) relationship with Laura Peterson (Julianna Margulies), which we’re pretty sure he’s responsible for leaking to the press. While something definitely happened between Ellison and Jackson, we’ve yet to find out what exactly it is, though it’s most definitely playing a role in their strained relationship right now.
‘The Morning Show’ Season 3 Could Be the Beginning of the End for Cory
Since UBA+ became the network’s shining star all thanks to Ellison (and to a completely random, worldwide pandemic), he’s been riding a pretty serious power high, which has made him even more calculating than he ever was before. He made the decision to keep his potential, major merger with Paul Marks a secret, risking people’s lives in the process (including his own), which shows just how much he’s willing to give up for corporate success and power. In an effort to appeal to Marks, he sent himself and Bradley Jackson up into literal space on Marks’ rocket ship, masking the true reason behind the event.
Because it was originally supposed to be Alex Levy being shipped up to space instead of Jackson, Marks appeared to have taken revenge on Ellison by unleashing a massive data hack and leak on UBA, sending the entire network into a tailspin when both personal and professional secrets were made public. Assuming that Marks was behind the hacking, Ellison tried to beat him to the punch by using the leak to his advantage, purposely making public an email from Cybil Richards that ultimately sent her packing from UBA, a move that would directly help Ellison in his upcoming merger with Marks.
While Ellison ended up getting what he wanted in having Richards thrown to the curb, his merger with Marks was unceremoniously thrown right to that same curb with Richards, as Marks felt that UBA was now a liability between the leaked pay discrepancies among staff members based on their race and the overall distrust in privacy at the network. Basically, UBA was deemed radioactive by Marks, and with that new designation, Ellison is now facing a completely new chapter in the books at the network, along with some hefty financial settlements he’s most likely about to pay — and that’s now without the help of a lucrative merger.
In many ways, Ellison is getting exactly what he deserved, and ultimately, the data leak and subsequent merger fall-through could serve as a major wake-up call for the executive. He’s gotten a little too big for his britches lately and needs to learn that he can’t operate UBA alone — he actually should be listening to his fellow board members (and anchors) instead of trying to remove them as soon as they stop agreeing with him. Whether this marks the end of Ellison is up to him: he can decide to lead a new wave for UBA or choose to live in the past.
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