It’s 2:58 a.m. when
word starts making its
way through the staff of ratings top-dog
The Morning Show that longtime cohost
Mitch Kessler (Steve Carell) has been
fired for a series of affairs with young
staffers. By 7 a.m. his work-wife of
15 years, Alex Levy (Jennifer Aniston),
equal parts pissed-off and bereft,
poignantly announces Mitch’s removal
on-air, essentially filing for a public
workplace divorce. What the audience
sees is a network decisively dealing with
yet another #MeToo monster, but behind
the scenes it’s a skirmish on multiple
fronts, with Alex scrambling to maintain
her position. Meanwhile, there’s a new
kid in town, says-it-like-it-is small-town
reporter Bradley Jackson (Reese
Witherspoon), brought in after producers
spot her in an impassioned viral video.
The Morning Show, one of the first shows
from Apple TV+, is nothing short of a
treatise on life in America in 2019:
impossibility of redemption after
disgrace. But tying it all together
is a wondrous performance by Aniston.
Her Alex may be on the brink
of obsolescence, but the actress has
never been more relevant.
There’s a certain type of romantic who
disappears so fully into her partner’s
identity that when the relationship is
over she’s left ill equipped to while away
the long weekend hours. In Dollface
(Hulu), Kat Dennings plays Jules, whose
boyfriend of five years ditches her over
huevos rancheros and then unhelpfully
suggests that it might be time for her
to start “hanging out with other women.”
What proceeds is half fever dream, half
all-too prescient
insight into the prickly,
confounding
complexities of life
among the XXs. The
show injects zeitgeisty
hits—Jules works for
Wöom, a pastel-coated lifestyle brand
for women—and lightly skewers the
wellnessification of modern female life. But
where Dollface breaks new ground is in its
wackadoo asides: A table populated by
Jules’s formidable Wöom colleagues slides
away from her when she tries to make
friends. It turns out that adult female
friendship is as trippy and perplexing for
Jules as it is for the rest of us.—HILLARY KELLY
All Broke Up
Two new shows deal with
dramatic endings.
LEAN IN
REESE
WITHERSPOON
PLAYS THE
SASSY UPSTART
NEWSCASTER IN
APPLE TV+’S THE
MORNING SHOW.
TELEVISION
“Picture me sitting under a tree, thinking about what direction to
take,” explains Waris Ahluwalia of House of Waris, a lifestyle
Egyptian hibiscus (abundant in antioxidants) are all certified organic and left
whole for maximum potency. Elegant sachets of seven restorative blends for sleep,
mental clarity, and digestion, among other things, are scheduled to be sold online
and served in such destinations as Los Angeles’s Chateau Marmont. “Stress
is a 21st-century epidemic,” says Ahluwalia, in a call to action. “Boiling, steeping,
brewing, drinking: It’s 10 minutes, and you deserve that.”—lilah ramzi
New Leaf
Waris Ahluwalia opens a jewel-box tea salon.
VLIFE
94 NOVEMBER 2019 VOGUE.COM
TV: ZOE GHERTNER.
VOGUE
, 2019. WELLNESS: COURTESY OF HOUSE OF WARIS; ISTOCK/GETTY IMAGES.
