‘The Morning Show’ Boss Breaks Down That Major Character’s Surprise Episode 2 Return: ‘She Didn’t Get Justice’
By Jose Alejandro Bastidas
Copyright thewrap
Note: This story contains spoilers from “The Morning Show” Season 4, Episode 2.
“The Morning Show” dropped another jaw-dropping twist in Episode 2, after the identity of Bradley Jackson’s anonymous source was revealed to be a person from the show’s past.
Claire Conway (Bel Powley), a former production assistant on the show’s fictional “TMS” in Seasons 1 and 2, is the one who encouraged Bradley (Reese Witherspoon) to return to the anchor desk so she could investigate a cover-up within the company’s walls. Showrunner Charlotte Stoudt, who joined the show in Season 3, said bringing the character back for this new mystery felt right with the themes at the center of Season 4.
“She didn’t get justice in regards to Hannah’s (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) death … I think she’s decided to become more radical,” Stoudt told TheWrap of where we find Hannah in Season 4. “The show is always asking ‘How can you achieve change?’ Alex represents trying to change things from the inside. Bradley straddles inside and outside, and is a little split on either space. Claire is very definitely on the outside.”
Stoudt also teased that Claire’s return provides an “interesting” opportunity to revisit her past relationship with Yanko (Nestor Carbonell). “It didn’t seem like that relationship had been fully resolved.”
The episode, titled “The Revolution Will Be Televised,” also caught Alex (Jennifer Aniston) in the middle of an AI crisis. After the premiere saw her spontaneously assisting an Iranian Olympic player defect from her government chaperones, Episode 2 follows as Alex got accused of planning the incident from the start after an AI-altered video surfaces during the investigation.
“Technology is taking our agency away. People can literally put words in our mouths. That’s a thing that can happen very convincingly,” Stoudt said. “This idea of personhood and our autonomy is really being challenged by deepfakes.”
She teased AI reverberates across Season 4, as UBN grapples with the effects of trying to adopt the emerging technology too quickly into their processes. But that story also took a backseat when Alex ended up caught in the middle of an environmental process, prompting her to live stream and potentially get into even more trouble.
“The Morning Show” releases new episodes Wednesdays on Apple TV+.
