Note: This story contains spoilers from “The Morning Show” Season 4, Episode 1.
“The Morning Show” is going deep on what makes Alex Levy tick in Season 4, and that takes a high-caliber actor.
The Emmy-winning Apple series has put Alex (Jennifer Aniston) through the ringer before — being caught in the middle of a sexual harassment scandal in Season 1, getting COVID in Season 2 and staging a corporate coup against her tech billionaire boyfriend to land at the helm of the network she worked her whole career to build. But this season brings new challenges for Alex as she helps lead the merged UBN network through the chaos of 2024, the biggest one? Her father is back in her life.
Episode 1, titled “My Roman Empire,” introduces Martin Levy (Jeremy Irons), a professor with strong ties in the Middle East who Alex enlists for help after one of her interviews turns into an international conflict. Their interactions make it clear that Martin is not impressed by Alex’s career path, and he encourages her to stay away from the matter at hand for being “above her pay grade.”
Showrunner Charlotte Stoudt said Martin’s arrival came from a desire to explore Alex’s upbringing and understanding what’s at the center of her decisionmaking. The actor to bring the character to life would have to be as formidable as Aniston — Irons far exceeded those expectations.
“Jen is such a powerhouse. You need a very, very strong actor to suggest that he could make her feel small. You need a titan,” Stoudt told TheWrap.
She recalled Alex’s now ex-husband Jason (Jack Davenport) from Season 1, a British scholar like her father, and how Alex might have married him as a way to gain her father’s approval. She teased that their relationship will answer a lot of questions about how “The Morning Show” leader came to be.
“(Jeremy and Jen) are an interesting mashup, but they fit seamlessly,” she said. “We see a vulnerability to Alex that we’ve never seen before, which was very moving and compelling.”
And it wouldn’t be “The Morning Show” without a pressure cooker premise. The season picks up in April 2024, two years after UBA and NBN merged to prevent Paul Marks (Jon Hamm) from taking over the network and selling it for parts in the Season 3 finale. Alex is now head of talent, co-leading the company alongside CEO Stella (Greta Lee) and new president of the board Celine Dumont (Marion Cotillard).
Though UBN started as a “feminist utopia” aiming to do what’s right in a fragmented media market, the mission appeared to be corroded by board demands and a difficult period of layoffs across “The Morning Show” and other of the companies’ assets. But leadership just spent millions to secure the rights to distribute the Olympic Games, a four-quadrant programming extravaganza that would be the company’s saving grace.
But Alex’s interview with an Iranian athlete ahead of the games kicks off a new chaotic chain of events, when her father reveals their desire to defect. Alex helps them escape her escorts but the move causes trouble between nations, ending up in the eye of the State Department and wreaking havoc with the network’s relationship with the International Olympic Committee.
“We wanted to give them enough runway to run into a lot of problems right before the Olympics started,” Stoudt said. “That’s their holy grail. They just want to get to that opening ceremony.”
That chain reaction leads to Mia (Karen Pittman) bringing back Bradley to TMS, who viewers last saw turning herself into the FBI for hiding her brother’s involvement in the Jan. 6 insurrection. After cutting a deal with the FBI she settled into a quiet job teaching journalism, and she wasn’t thrilled with the idea of returning to television at first.
Then she received an anonymous tip about a cover-up at the network that pushes her back into the fold, and she’s determined to dig until she learns who was involved — regardless of what happens to Alex’s new empire.
“It blows up everything,” Stoudt teased.
“The Morning Show” releases new episodes Wednesdays on Apple TV+.
