“I would describe Season 1 as lifting those rocks up and looking at the worms and ugliness and the fallout,” executive producer/dierctor Mimi Leder exclusively told Parade.com ahead of the Season 2 debut. “And I would describe Season 2 as our exploration into identity, into racism, sexuality and we pose questions quite often about the cancel culture. And so that’s what we’re looking at in Season 2.” Aniston similarly told USA Today about where her character is headed, “She is finally asking the hard questions: ‘Who am I? How did I get here?’ The job was so No. 1, and all that she cared about, that everything kind of all fell by the wayside, and she’s just left pretty much alone. And the need to be relevant and the need to stay on top was so important that she just became complicit, and she turned a blind eye to things that she should not have turned a blind eye to, because it didn’t matter.” When The Morning Show returns, Alex and Bradley’s relationship will be on the rocks—despite how they joined forces to expose The Morning Show’s toxic workplace environment in the Season 1 finale—to the point where Alex has actually exited the show. That shocking update is something fans learned on Aug. 23 when Apple TV+ dropped the first Morning Show Season 2 trailer, along with tons of clues about new Season 2 cast members. Want more spoilers? Here is everything we know so far about Season 2 of The Morning Show.
When does The Morning Show Season 2 premiere?
Season 2 of The Morning Show, which will contain 10 episodes, premieres Friday, September 17 on Apple TV+.
Is there a first look at The Morning Show Season 2?
The first three photos released from Season 2 show Alex and Bradley seemingly on good terms despite Alex’s MorningShow departure. There’s also a shot of new cast member GretaLee as a tech whiz named Stella who joins the staff at UBA.
Who is in The Morning Show Season 2 cast?
Jennifer Aniston as Alex Levy, The Morning Show co-host
Reese Witherspoon as Bradley Jackson, The Morning Show co-host
Steve Carell as Mitch Kessler, former The Morning Show co-host
Billy Crudup as Cory Ellison, UBA executive
Mark Duplass as Charlie Black, The Morning Show’s executive producer
Also returning for Season 2 are Nestor Carbonell, Bel Powley, Karen Pittman, Desean Terry, Tom Irwin and Marcia Gay Harden.
Who is leaving the cast of The Morning Show in Season 2?
Gugu Mbatha-Raw’s character, talent booker Hannah Schoenfeld, died from an overdose in the Season 1 finale. Hannah had been sexually assaulted by Mitch when she was a junior booker, and when she complained, the network chairman offered her a promotion, which she took. But it never set well with her, and Hannah was struggling, despite having accepted a new position in Los Angeles.
Who is joining the cast of The Morning Show?
Julianna Margulies will co-star as Laura Peterson, an anchor at UBA News in the new season. “Laura started kind of like a Dateline show,” showrunner Kerry Ehrin told EW.com. “She’s a UBA star and an icon at a DianeSawyer level. We wanted to create a mentor figure for [Witherspoon’s] Bradley that was somebody who does things differently." Meanwhile, Margulies told TVLine about her character, “Laura operates absolutely differently than any of the characters that you see in that show, because she is 100 percent comfortable in her skin. She’s the only character, I think, on the show that has no skeletons in her closet. Everything is out in the open, and she’s at the top of her game without any fear of anyone taking that away from her.” Hasan Minhaj will play Eric Nomani, Alex’s The Morning Show successor who will partner with Bradley. Of course, Minhaj is best known for being a TV journalist—albeit a very tongue-in-cheek one—on The Daily Show. “I’ve been playing a fake TV anchor for seven years, so this wasn’t a stretch for me,” Minhaj joked with CNN ahead of Season 2. He also told the outlet that he appreciates The Morning Show’s grappling with sensitive issues surrounding race in Season 2. “As the United States was going through and continues to go through a racial reckoning, one of the things I loved that was being addressed through the show is who gets a seat at the table and why,” he explained. “And I loved that they showed, really in quite great detail, how when new voices enter the fray, how that pushes against the hegemony and people don’t like that.” Will Arnett has joined as Doug Klassen, Alex’s agent who will negotiate her return to The Morning Show. Holland Taylor joins as UBA’s savvy chairwoman, Cybil Richards. “This character comes in as sort of the ultimate power voice of the network,” Taylor told Parade. She’s not seen that often; she’s not needed that often. But when she comes in, she usually messes with Cory, who is the president or CEO of the network. She messes with something that he’s doing, sort of violently cripples some stunt that he pulled or blocks him from doing another one.” And Leder adds, “Holland Taylor is a brilliant, brilliant actress and person, lovely. Her character represents the old guard. Her character, as she says, “I’m a cockroach, I ain’t going away.” I think that’s very true of the old guard and how they feel about their position in the corporate world. And she represents that world.” Greta Lee is playing Stella Bak, who according to Apple+, “is a tech world wunderkind who has joined the UBA executive team.” Ruairi O’Connor takes on the role of Ty Fitzgerald, a young social media star.
Is there a trailer for The Morning Show Season 2?
Here it is! In it we see that Alex has quit The Morning Show, and Bradley is now the star (along with Eric as her co-host), but the ratings must not be doing well because Cory is doing everything in his power to get Alex back, saying, “Alex, I need you to come back. You are the only thing that can save us. I don’t think I’ve ever said that before.” Then, for Friends fans, there is the fun moment where Bradley says, “I feel like they’re bringing in my big sister to clean up my mess." Witherspoon, of course, played Rachel Greene’s (Aniston) younger sister Jill in two episodes of the NBC comedy.
Are there The Morning Show Season 2 spoilers?
According to Leder, “Alex is definitely struggling with staying relevant and the fallout from Maggie’s book. And Bradley is struggling with her relationship with her brother, her addicted brother, and her family. Both of their arcs in this season are about balancing their personal lives and their professional lives all at the same time. They very much go on this journey. Alex is very traumatized by her past with Mitch, which makes it harder for her to balance who she is supposed to be at work and if the public will find out who she really is and cancel her.” Season 2 will also deal with COVID-19 as it is set in 2020 during the height of the pandemic. According to Leder, “We live in this alternate universe but we deal with real life subjects as we did last season with Me, Too. And so, we had to. We felt it was really important to talk about COVID, the beginnings of COVID, before the world changed. We’re a news show and the news media missed COVID in the beginning. It was like, “What is that thing? Well, you know, it’s in Italy, it’s in China, it’s not going to affect us.” And so they missed it by a long shot for a while. And so we felt we needed to represent that, as well.” The show will also deal with racism, which is demonstrated in the trailer, especially when Daniel Henderson (Terry) is not considered for promotion to co-host with Bradley when Alex leaves the show. Daniel says, “There is a pattern of behavior here that disadvantages the people of color.” And Alex doesn’t trust Laura Peterson. Look for the two strong actresses to have some great confrontational scenes.
The Morning Show uses music from the Rat Pack
“When we shot the [empty] streets of New York, we actually didn’t even know what we were going to do with them,” Leder said. “We were in shutdown and we said, ‘Let’s get a unit in New York and shoot the empty streets. I know we’re going to use it. We don’t know how.’ And then using Dean Martin’s Return to Me was really a love song to return to life. New York, come back. The world, come back. Please return to the way it used to be. It just worked so well with the empty streets. It was very chilling for us, anyway. And then, Frank Sinatra always sings New York, New York New Year’s Eve, and so that is also why we used Frank Sinatra at that point. Because in the beginning of the show we say, ‘Wow, 2019 sucked,’ right? And then we go into 2020, and they’re going into it thinking it’s going to be great and we, the audience, know 2020’s going to be hell.”
What happened at the end of The Morning Show Season 1?
The season 1 finale ended with The Morning Show going to black when Alex, who had learned she was going to be replaced because of her age, and Bradley staged their coup, exposing the misogyny, toxicity and sexual misconduct behind the scenes of The Morning Show with audiences live on air.
Is The Morning Show based on a true story?
Yes and no. The series is based on Brian Stelter’s 2013 nonfiction book Top of the Morning: Inside the Cutthroat World of Morning TV, which he researched and wrote based on the morning shows we all know in real life.
Will I need an Apple TV+ subscription to watch The Morning Show?
You will. The Morning Show airs exclusively on Apple TV+. There is a seven-day free trial and then the streaming service costs $4.99 per month through the Apple TV app and on your smart TV. Next, Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon on How The Morning Show Takes on #MeToo, Racism and Ageism
