The lead up to CBS’s second-quarter earnings call on Thursday afternoon had all the trappings of a made-for-cable-TV opera buffa. Nary a week earlier, the company’s legendary C.E.O. and chairman, Les Moonves, had been accused of sexual misconduct by six women in The New Yorker. (Moonves has since apologized for making “some women uncomfortable,” but said he “always understood and respected—and abided by the principle—that ‘no’ means ‘no.’”) Ronan Farrow’s exposé dropped amid a long-simmering feud between Moonves and Shari Redstone, who has taken over her family’s operations from her ailing 95-year-old father, who reportedly communicates, in part, by tapping on an iPad with a voice function that includes simple phrases such as “yes,” “no,” and “fuck you.” In protest over Shari’s desire to recombine CBS and Viacom against the wishes of CBS executives, CBS recently filed a lawsuit in a Delaware court seeking its approval to issue a massive new dividend, thereby diluting the Redstones’ voting stake in the company from nearly 80 percent down to about 20 percent—a corporate bird-flipping of epic proportions. Now, it seemed, Moonves would be confronting the entire ugly narrative on an earnings call. CNBC broadcast the event live.

But Wall Street has a playbook for negating roiling public dramas, and Thursday’s CBS earnings call offered a plum opportunity to do just that. Everyone involved played their scripted roles. Listeners and viewers were immediately informed by CBS investor-relations personnel that, on the advice of legal counsel, CBS management would not be answering questions related to ongoing legal matters. Meanwhile, a confident Moonves said that CBS is doing great, his strategy for the company is working, and its future is still bright—all of which, despite the current imbroglio, appears true. He stayed a country mile away from the allegations against him, and said nothing about the litigation against Shari.

Moonves’s decision not to address the allegations against him predictably set the Twitterverse afire. “In ignoring the elephant in the room, CBS management, Les Moonves, and investors sent a clear message to the world that business will carry on as usual until there’s more proof that Moonves crossed a line that CBS won’t tolerate,” tweeted Sara Fischer, Axios’s well-regarded media-trends reporter. An additional dose of antipathy was also directed toward the small group of research analysts who asked questions pertaining simply to CBS’s financial performance and its future prospects, rather than about Moonves’s future, succession at CBS, and why the CBS stock price has fallen around 10 percent since Farrow’s exposé was published. Charles Gasparino, the Fox Business senior correspondent, noted, via Twitter, “CBS earnings call is yet another example of how too many Wall Street analysts are in the bag for companies they cover. O.K. Moonves wont answer questions [about] the sexual misconduct allegations, but these cowards wont even ask him about succession, which is important to investors.” Rich Greenfield, the outspoken research analyst who has been surprisingly bullish on Viacom, noted in response to Gasparino, “If you listened to the call, you would think Moonves is about to be named C.E.O. of the year.”

It’s clear by now that the #MeToo movement is accustomed to the swift retribution that has followed a piece of bombshell reporting. But the Moonves saga is unfolding differently. Executives in the habit of making $60 million-plus per year are also usually in the habit of hiring lawyers who know how to tighten the screws on corporate boards. Unlike previous #MeToo targets, Moonves is the chief executive officer of a public company who recently signed an 87-page contract that spells out, in excruciating detail, the circumstances under which he could be fired “for cause”—and presumably receive no severance—or that he could leave CBS for “good reason,” and take with him a payment estimated at close to $200 million. (His contract is sufficiently complicated that it’s not obvious what that payout would be.)

Moonves could leave CBS for “good reason” and collect around $200 million if his day-to-day duties were circumscribed in any way. What better way for him to prove to the world that he is still in charge of CBS, as its C.E.O., than to be front and center on an earnings call, talking about how great things are going at the company and how great things are looking in the future? This may not delight many observers, but CBS’s board, or its lawyers, may have insisted that Moonves go on the call and act like everything was business as usual, even though it is probably not, so that he can’t then claim a “good reason” for leaving. Those who would prefer that Moonves just vacate Black Rock immediately are getting a chilling lesson in how Wall Street works. Someone who has earned between $60 million and $70 million a year for a decade, and whose CBS stock is worth around $175 million, probably won’t ignore a potential $200 million payout.

The script is clear. Until the two newly hired law firms finish what promises to be a lengthy and thorough investigation—under the auspices of a special committee of the board that includes Robert Klieger, Shari Redstone’s lawyer—there is virtually zero chance that Moonves will step down, be fired, or do anything that would make it seem like he is anything but in charge. One caveat, of course, would be if more women emerge to accuse Moonves of additional wrongdoing, especially in the 12 years he has led CBS, in which case his departure likely would be swift.

As for the supposed cowardice of the research analysts and their collective failure to ask about the allegations in The New Yorker piece, this is a red herring. They are not journalists. They do not get paid to ask uncomfortable questions about an executive’s personal life, especially when it’s been made clear at the start of the call that the questions won’t be answered anyway. They are paid to write research reports about the company’s financial performance and its prospects, so that institutional and retail investors can make informed decisions about whether or not to invest in the debt or equity of a company. Not asking about Moonves’s predicament does not mean they are in the bag for CBS; it just means there is no upside for them in asking those questions in a public forum. Unlike a journalist who gets rewarded for moral outrage on Twitter, a research analyst who asks such a question risks getting fired. Most people are not going to take that risk.

The good news for the #MeToo movement is that Moonves will almost certainly leave CBS. His alleged behavior, if true, is unacceptable, and especially so for the C.E.O. of a famous American company. The bad news for the movement is that he probably won’t be leaving CBS anytime soon, and if he does leave, it may well be with a substantial payout that represents a compromise of what he might have gotten if he left for “good reason.”

For the CBS shareholders, including the Redstone family, there’s no good news here, despite the company’s second-quarter performance. The uncertainty about the leadership at CBS will drag on, the litigation in Delaware will probably go away (as will the plan to dilute the Redstones), and then Shari Redstone will be free to do what she has wanted to do for three years now: re-merge CBS into Viacom so that the combined company will be easier to sell down the road. In short, underneath Moonves’s good cheer, it’s a nightmare scenario.

The piece has been updated.