“The Morning Show” has always felt a bit like it was generated by AI — like if someone prompted Sora to make “The Newsroom” vaguely about #MeToo, or conceive the most flattering possible lighting for actresses over 40. So when the show adds AI to its bubbling stew of topical references in the opening minutes of Season 4, with media CEO Stella Bak (Greta Lee) introducing a deepfaked stable of anchors theoretically able to report the news in any language ahead of the 2024 Olympics, the subplot has an air of inevitability. The characters of “The Morning Show” love nothing more than to grandstand about the truth, but “The Morning Show” itself revels in flashy toys and a glossy, well-packaged surface. It’s perfectly suited to our new era of LLMs such as ChatGPT, a trend star Reese Witherspoon has publicly championed.
But “The Morning Show” is also powered by exactly what AI can’t fake: The singular charisma of beautiful, famous human beings, a not-so-secret weapon the Apple TV+ drama fittingly quadruples down on for its fourth go-round. To reinforce Witherspoon and Jennifer Aniston as work frenemies Bradley Jackson and Alex Levy, “The Morning Show” brings in Marion Cotillard as Celine, the latest president of the board; Aaron Pierre as Celine’s artist husband, Miles; Jeremy Irons as Alex’s father, a law professor; William Jackson Harper as a producer; and Boyd Holbrook as a Joe Rogan-esque podcaster who’s inexplicably working at an old-fashioned network and is literally named “Bro.” (See what I mean about being plausibly generated by AI?) Together, these guest stars form a supernova of talent designed to overcome such trivial challenges as coherence through sheer brute force. Would that it were so simple!
Season 4 picks up in spring 2024, about two years after Bradley turned herself into the FBI for covering up her brother’s involvement in the January 6th insurrection. (Just typing that sentence brings a smile to my face.) Compared to last season’s bold, soap operatic fusion of real-world events with its heroines’ lives, “The Morning Show” — under the leadership of returning showrunner Charlotte Stoudt — is much more gunshy in this latest batch of episodes. Both the war in Gaza and the 2024 presidential election get only cursory mentions, perhaps because they’re more controversial, complex or just grim than the series is comfortable with. Unwilling to pull from the headlines, “The Morning Show” simply invents international incidents from whole cloth, like an Iranian fencer deciding to defect in the middle of her interview with Alex. The storyline allows producing director Mimi Leder to stage a full-on car chase within a journalism drama, but never acquires its own momentum.
Incorporating all the new players into an already packed cast proves challenging, partly due to the show’s odd unwillingness to let go of old baggage. Do we really need to check in on Alex’s billionaire ex Paul Marks (Jon Hamm) when their relationship is so definitively over? What about pairing up Alex’s former deputy Chip (Mark Duplass), now a successful documentary filmmaker, with Bradley to investigate an environmental cover-up — a storyline that plays out like an unauthorized sequel to “Erin Brockovich”? The dynamic duo’s work even reunites them with a previously departed cast member who appears to have undergone a total personality transplant. Why the show bothered to bring back an unrecognizable version of the character instead of introducing a fresh one is anybody’s guess.
Without clearing more space, “The Morning Show” is left to awkwardly retcon Celine into relevance; we’re meant to understand she’s always been important to the fictional media company’s corporate governance — we’ve just never seen or heard of her before. Harper and Irons both disappear for long stretches at a time. Holbrook’s Bro may get the most developed arc, but he’s named after a stereotype for a reason; the man is more a composite of tropes about politically incorrect poseurs than a legible person. The only properly utilized fresh face is Pierre, who broke out in the action film “Ruby Ridge” and who “The Morning Show” shamelessly exploits as eye candy. Pierre’s future roles will doubtless be more multi-dimensional, but it’s fun to see him cater so clearly to the female gaze.
Surprisingly, Season 4 does its best work not with these shiny additions, but with veterans finally getting their due. “The Morning Show” has spent several seasons loudly talking the talk about racial inequity in the workplace, a tradition it continues through the baffling and clumsily written Stella. (The role is a strange detour on Lee’s rapid ascent to stardom post-“Past Lives.”) This time, the series at least walks the walk, giving both Karen Pittman’s put-upon producer Mia and Nicole Beharie’s Olympian-turned-TV-star Chris a chance to step up. The Olympics are, of course, an opportunity for ex-athlete Chris, while Pittman stepping back from “And Just Like That” — a series whose conclusion leaves a gap in the “hatewatch with wine” space “The Morning Show” can’t quite fill — gives Mia more space to take up.
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Unlike Paul or Chip, these women haven’t overstayed their welcome; unlike Celine or Bro, they have an actual history in this world. Their late blooming as full-fledged protagonists feels borrowed from a more methodical, patient kind of show. It’s also not enough to anchor all the madness. “The Morning Show” has always been a compulsively watchable, campy kind of mess. In Season 4, the mess takes center stage.
The first episode of “The Morning Show” Season 4 is now streaming on Apple TV+, with remaining episodes airing weekly on Wednesdays.
From Variety US