Summary
UBN’s second major departure in The Morning Show Season 4 is revealed in “If Then”, but it deploys a bunch of hokey storytelling devices that don’t all work in order to get us there.
We’re just past the halfway point of The Morning Show Season 4, and we’ve already had two major departures from UBN. Sure, Mia quitting didn’t really take, and I’m sure she’ll be back in the building full-time before long, but Stella’s exit here in Episode 6 seems a touch more final. After being mysteriously absent from the previous episode, the chickens really come home to roost for Stella, with her terribly misguided AI tech that has scarcely been mentioned since the premiere and her affair with Miles, which Cory told Celine about to get his movie funded, both dovetailing into a perfect storm of career-ruining embarrassment.
This is a lot more dramatic written down than it ends up being in execution, though, since “If Then” deploys a bunch of really hokey storytelling conceits to get things into position. The most egregious is Stella’s own narration, which is pitched in the manner of some old-fashioned film noir gumshoe deliberating over a tricky case. You also have to question what the point of Celine knowing about the affair in advance really was, considering that Stella manages to reveal it entirely on her own. And the big midpoint scene of a rogue AI going bonkers is the show operating at a degree of exaggerated silliness that is very difficult to take seriously, all things considered.
Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t think anyone cares about Stella enough for a full episode dedicated to her personal and professional crises to really work. I thought the same about Chris, too, to be fair, but there’s nothing here that comes even close to Nicole Beharie’s superb monologue, which rescued that installment on its own. There’s some other stuff going on, including a bit more simmering sexual chemistry between Alex and Bro and a teeny bit more development in Bradley’s — and now Cory’s, weirdly — investigation into the Wolf River scandal, but it’s all shoved into the margins.
Stella’s problems in The Morning Show Season 4, Episode 6 kind of begin and end with the AI. The program isn’t working correctly and isn’t going to be ready to roll out in time for the Olympics coverage, and Chris is now threatening to boycott the games if she doesn’t get a better deal (Chris herself isn’t in this episode, but Mia, who is now representing her, shows up once or twice.) Celine also keeps subtly tormenting her by piling on more and more pressure, obviously because of the Miles thing, even though Stella doesn’t know she knows.
Stella does turn to Miles for support, but it devolves into an argument when she floats the idea of running away together, and he won’t commit to it. Then again, neither would she, at least not under normal circumstances. It’s quite obvious that they both “chose” each other to avoid the fling ever getting to the point where either of them had to take it seriously, but it’s equally obvious that it has evolved beyond that point, and both of them are too self-serving to acknowledge it. This produces a cruel twist of the knife at the end of “If Then”, but we’ll get to that.
After falling out with Miles, Stella has no choice but to turn to the AI itself, a chatty virtual assistant-type program that has her likeness and answers back, albeit not in the way she’d like. Stella is mortified to receive objective confirmation that Mia’s accusation earlier — that she isn’t a true ally and trampled over people of colour to secure her own position and make UBN more money — was accurate. But she’s more mortified when the program goes completely rogue during its grand unveiling and repeats all of the things she said to it, including pondering whether she’s in love with Miles or not, in front of the entire world — including Celine.
Aaron Pierre in The Morning Show Season 4 | Image via Apple TV+
Celine calls an emergency board meeting while Stella goes running to Miles. It turns out she does want to abscond with him after all. Naples sounds nice. She makes it all the way to the airport and the last boarding call until she realizes that Miles isn’t coming. Celine got to him first and made him choose, and he chose her. She’s now acting CEO of UBN, and Stella is gone, just like she wanted, even before she found out about the affair. It’s a brutal climax for Stella, who I’m not sure we’ll be seeing again.
Stella shouldn’t have debuted the AI — it wasn’t ready. But UBN had promised a big announcement that was initially intended to be Bro covering the Olympics with Alex. But that falls through because Bro wanted to host the presidential debate in exchange, and Celine and Stella decided to pretend that he could in order to get him on board and then pull the rug at the last minute, blaming it on the commission. Bro’s too individually powerful for that play to work, though. As soon as he recognises something is up, he drops out. His romantic chemistry with Alex, who attends one of his comedy nights to try and talk him into the deal, remains through the roof, though. Something’s going to happen between those two soon.
And finally, Wolf River. Bradley — who is barely in The Morning Show Season 4, Episode 6 — and Chip are still looking for the mystery woman in the photo found in Cory’s emails. At the very end of “If Then” she’s identified as Sophia Volk, a former chemist at the chemical company. Luckily, she still has the same number, so Bradley is able to reach out to her.
Cory, meanwhile, is looking into the same thing on his own. Bradley’s accusations in the previous episode obviously sat with him, and he wants to know who exploited him by getting him appointed to Head of News just in time to bury the story. A photo of his mother at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner leads him to believe that she might have put a word in Fred Micklen’s ear, so he goes to visit her. He’s a bit distracted by the flyer he finds for an assisted suicide clinic in Zurich, but the conversation is fruitful. His mother didn’t say anything. Celine, however, seemed rather cosy with Fred.
After confirming that Celine’s family paid off Fred to secure Cory’s appointment and thus bury the story, he confronts her half-heartedly. But she makes it clear that he’s going to have to choose between the past and the future, and that his movie is only going to exist in one of those. Cory being Cory, I think we can figure out which he picks.
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