Even as CNN was dealing with a horrific bomb threat on Wednesday afternoon, much of the attention in the gossipy, hyper-competitive, often unkind television-news world had once again descended upon the house of NBC. On Tuesday, after all, during the third hour of NBC’s Today show, Megyn Kelly had uttered a series of ignorant, insensitive comments about the palatability of blackface during Halloween celebrations. “You do get in trouble if you are a white person who puts on blackface on Halloween, or a black person who puts on whiteface for Halloween,” she said in a roundtable discussion with Melissa Rivers, Jacob Soboroff, and Jenna Bush Hager. “Back when I was a kid, that was O.K., as long as you were dressing up as, like, a character.”

In her subsequent mea culpas, Kelly emphasized that she had not been attuned to the cultural sensitivities surrounding the history of white people dressing up as African-Americans, including a recent example that she invoked on-air, in which a Real Housewives star appeared to have darkened her skin while donning a Diana Ross getup. But in the moment that the offending words were escaping Kelly’s lips, the mood on set looked palpably awkward and uncomfortable. “I can’t keep up with the number of people that we’re offending just by being normal people,” she said, compounding the error.

Kelly has been an uncomfortable fit within 30 Rock essentially since the moment she arrived from Fox News in 2017. She has been lambasted for everything from the size of her contract (she’s reportedly paid $23 million annually on a three-year deal) to her unspectacular ratings (her Sunday show, Sunday Night with Megyn Kelly, was quietly euthanized; her ratings on the third hour of Today have underperformed). Kelly kicked off her NBC career with a controversial Alex Jones segment, and then a Jane Fonda interview that went awry when Kelly offended the Hollywood legend with a question about her plastic surgery. She’s also been a frequent target of tabloid leaks, such as when the New York Post’s Page Six column recently floated an anonymous comment from an NBC insider dinging Kelly for “milking the #MeToo movement”; or an October 8 story in Radar Online claiming that Kelly’s tight-knit Today colleagues had iced her out of their group outing to see Al Roker in his Broadway debut.

To Kelly’s credit, her atonement for the blackface remarks was swift and forceful. She first issued an apology to colleagues via e-mail on Tuesday afternoon: “Today is one of those days where listening carefully to other points of view, including from friends and colleagues, is leading me to rethink my own views . . . I am sorry. The history of blackface in our culture is abhorrent; the wounds too deep. I’ve never been a ‘P.C.’ kind of person—but I understand that we do need to be more sensitive in this day and age. Particularly on race and ethnicity issues which, far from being healed, have been exacerbated in our politics over the past year. This is a time for more understanding, love, sensitivity, and honor, and I want to be part of that.” The following morning, Kelly received a standing ovation after addressing the controversy at the beginning of her show. “I want to begin with two words: I’m sorry,” she said. “I was wrong . . . The country feels so divided, and I have no wish to add to that pain and offense. I believe this is a time for more understanding, more love, more sensitivity, and honor . . . Thank you for listening—and for helping me listen, too.”

Still, the incident illuminated one of the tensions underlying Kelly’s time at NBC thus far: whether the no-nonsense, hard-charging, and admittedly un-politically correct approach that made her a breakout star at Fox News is well suited to the more staid vibe of NBC, and the Today show in particular. That dynamic feels all the more pronounced now that Kelly has become the subject of critical coverage from her own network. Lester Holt’s Nightly News ran a tough segment on Tuesday night, noting that “this is not the first time Kelly has come under fire for comments about race,” a reference to her infamous declarations, on Fox News, that both Santa and Jesus were caucasians. There was also a segment during the pre-Kelly hours of Wednesday’s Today show that delved into the dehumanizing history of blackface as racist fodder for early Hollywood and minstrel shows. “Blackface targeted the worst stereotypes mocking African-Americans,” NBC News correspondent Morgan Radford explained. Roker concurred in his own impassioned monologue, which he offered shortly before Kelly apologized at the top of her show on Wednesday. “The fact is, while she apologized to the staff, she owes a bigger apology to folks of color around the country,” he said.

Outside of NBC, the backlash has been massive even by the standards of social-media outrage in the Trump era, including rebukes from numerous influential Twitter accounts. “I cannot believe the ignorance on this in 2018,” Padma Lakshmi tweeted. HuffPost editor-in-chief Lydia Polgreen suggested in a tweet that it was “wild that NBC decided to spend $69 million on this person,” adding, “imagine what kind of journalism NBC could do over 3 years with $69 million.” On CNN Tuesday night, Don Lemon chided, “Megyn is 47 years old; she’s our age. There has never been a time in that 47 years that blackface has been acceptable.”

Within 30 Rock, the episode has transcended the usual agita and eye-rolling. As one insider griped to Salon, “Today is one of the rare days when everyone in the building is openly talking about how ridiculous it is.” Insiders I spoke with had similar assessments. One noted that this was just the latest Kelly incident to ruffle feathers at the network, while another said it supplied more fodder for her internal detractors. On Monday morning, Soboroff, who primarily serves as a correspondent for MSNBC, issued a statement on Twitter addressing his participation in the discussion about blackface, which he acknowledged as “racist” while on-air. “What was said was vile,” Soboroff wrote. “Not only has blackface always been and will always be racist—questioning that was disgraceful. I’m ashamed I didn’t speak up more emphatically at the table. I’m sorry if I let you down.” An NBC insider pointed me to a reply from MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough: “You are not the problem.”

Now the question turns to whether the blackface imbroglio will blow over, as past Kelly gaffes have, or whether it will result in a more damaging rift between Kelly and any of her 30 Rock colleagues—and, more important, whether it will have an impact on her future standing at the network. The cast of Today traditionally dresses up for Halloween. Media observers will be watching obsessively to see if Kelly joins them in costume on the plaza to celebrate the holiday next week.

The whole Kelly affair has, on some level, crystallized the challenging dynamics of morning news. Not long ago, the mornings were the cash cow of the network’s news division—the place where well-paid, rather famous anchors could hash out the issues of the day amid ossified headline readouts and visits from animal trainers and movie stars. Like many parts of the media firmament, this formula developed an almost mythic air. Many assumed it could be tinkered with, not destroyed, even as the public conversation coarsened, as the world increasingly woke up to the news via social media, and as Americans cut the cord on traditional television. After Matt Lauer’s ignominious departure over sexual misconduct allegations nearly a year ago, Kelly may very well be among the last of a breed that spans from Barbara Walters and Diane Sawyer to Lauer and George Stephanopoulos—a lavishly paid mega-star carrying a morning telecast. And even if she remains at Today for the remainder of her contract, it seems safe to assume that many viewers will have already tuned her out.