Summary
The Morning Show Season 4 kicks off in Episode 1 with a potential international incident and a deadly conspiracy to backdrop the complicated interpersonal drama.
The problem with The Morning Show basing its seasons on big topical events is that, in the case of production delays, it can cease to be topical pretty quickly. We’ve had California wildfires and the Covid-19 pandemic and the January 6th insurrection, all of which have largely faded from memory in the endless churn of a 24-hour news cycle that seems to get bleaker and more sensationalistic all the time. The long-awaited and much-anticipated fourth season of Apple TV+’s award-winning drama casts a wider net than any one specific topic, honing in on the function of the news in a technologically evolving world of deepfakes and AI, where conspiracy theories are believed as a matter of course and corporate cover-ups are everyday occurrences. Episode 1, “My Roman Empire”, is really good at establishing this new context and the crisscrossing narrative strands that wend through it.
To be clear, we’re picking up in April 2024, with the UBA-NBN merger officially complete, the Paris Olympic Games on the near horizon, and generative AI threatening to replace half of the company workforce by replicating their likeness and voices in a panoply of languages. Controversial dudebro podcasts are being given airtime, the staff is on the cusp of mutiny, and the Olympics deal represents a make-or-break milestone in apolitical, financially lucrative, depressingly anodyne news coverage. It has to go off without a hitch, which means it almost certainly will not.
The problems start pretty much immediately. Alex is tasked with interviewing Roya Nazeri, an Iranian fencer whose father, Arsham, serves as her translator. She’s supposed to ask softball questions about what fencing means to her and what competing on the international stage means for Iran. But seconds before the interview starts, Arsham passes Alex a note disguised in a handshake that reads, simply, “We want to defect”. Alex derails the interview by asking about a political prisoner and, in the ensuing confusion, directs Roya and Arsham to her car outside, which speeds away, causing a traffic accident and, potentially, an international incident.
As it turns out, Arsham works for Iran’s nuclear program, and the Iranian government will want him back at all costs, which means a deliberately apolitical sports interview might be the tipping point in the Iran-Israel stand-off in Gaza. Celina wants Stella to take Alex off the Olympics coverage until the games begin, so Chris is taken off The Morning Show to do the interviews in her stead. This leaves TMS down a host, and with Mia fretting about ratings and her own career, the decision is made to try and bring in a host who’ll give some bang for their buck. And who better than Bradley?
Reese Witherspoon in The Morning Show Season 4 | Image via Apple TV+
The Morning Show Season 4, Episode 1 does a good job of justifying this decision in a way that doesn’t just feel like getting the band back together. Post January 6th, the center has shifted. Bradley’s straight-talking southern girl attitude makes her red state-friendly, and that’s a demographic that UBA needs to court. It’s cynical, but it’s necessary, even if Alex doesn’t think bringing Bradley back into the fold is the best idea.
Bradley’s working as a college lecturer and keeping a low profile. She has escaped imprisonment for the events of Season 3 only by the good graces of the U.S. government, and nobody back at UBA knows she was complicit in the cover-up. This, which Bradley and Alex argue about when she eventually returns, is Alex’s main point of contention. If she’s trying to save the network from ruin, it wouldn’t do for Bradley’s misdemeanours to become public. And they very much might, since Bradley seems keen on sticking her nose into a corporate conspiracy. Before she agrees to take the job, she’s sent several messages on a WhatsApp-style encrypted messaging platform from an anonymous interlocutor who reveals that UBA is covering up some kind of leak from the Martel Chemical Plant that is killing the local wildlife and people. Why? Who’s the messenger? Will Bradley’s journalistic instincts take over, and if they do, will she report her findings to the FBI, as the terms of her freedom dictate she must? These are some of the more compelling questions emerging from the premiere.
The said premiere ends with a disgruntled Alex calling Cory, who spends most of the episode trying to replace the star of a movie he’s producing, to arrange a little chat about Bradley. It’s clear that Bradley’s return to The Morning Show isn’t going to be smooth sailing on multiple levels.
And Another Thing…
Here are some other happenings in The Morning Show Season 4, Episode 1 that wouldn’t fit into the recap proper:
- Alex can’t let the Iranian thing go and continues fretting about Roya throughout “My Roman Empire”. She eventually turns to her semi-estranged father, played by Jeremy Irons, for advice on how to proceed. His advice, which she’s sure to ignore, is to leave it alone.
- Stella is in a secret relationship with Miles, played by Aaron Pierre, who turns out to be Celina’s husband. That doesn’t seem like a tenable situation.
- The best line of the episode goes to Cory, who wakes up to see the sky flooded with orange smoke thanks to a forest fire and quips, “Did they make Trump the pope?”
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