Note: This story contains spoilers from “The Morning Show” Season 4, Episode 6.
“The Morning Show” lost one of its core executives this week, but that might have been the only way for her to make it out in one piece.
Episode 6, titled “If Then,” saw as Stella (Greta Lee) juggling a tense contract negotiation and the sudden unveiling of the AI tool she had been championing at the network ahead of their broadcast of the Olympics. Combined with a crippling business relationship between her and Celine Dumont (Marion Cotillard), a catastrophic glitch in the AI during a public demonstration proves to be the final nail in Stella’s tenure as CEO of UBN — and ending Lee’s run on “The Morning Show” after two seasons.
“Seeing how this all ends for her … It was so sad and upsetting and shocking,” Lee told TheWrap of her character’s big exit from the Apple TV series. “But it’s one of those things where I feel like she is at peace, and I don’t think there’s any other alternative. This is what had to happen, and I’m so glad that, in the end, she’s liberated.”
Lee confirmed that Episode 6 marks Stella’s final appearance on “The Morning Show,” at least for now. Below, she tells TheWrap about filming Stella’s downfall and watching the twist unfold in today’s America.
Episode 6 sees Stella losing her job after her AI goes rogue and spews a lot of her own negative feelings during a public demonstration. How did you approach getting to those deep emotions she felt as things fell apart?
I got so sick, actually. There are some moments in this job where your body can have a physiological reaction ahead of your brain. Shooting that scene, where she has her nervous breakdown doing the AI presentation, I actually had to be carted off. I was in front of hundreds of background actors, I walked off the stage and I got extremely ill — like to the point where (director Millicent Shelton) was holding back my hair. I remember at that moment just feeling like, “This is so out of control.” and I was shaking. It’s very dramatic.I remember our producers and the crew sort of asking me, like, “We’ve known you for years. We don’t know you as a method actor. What is going on?” I think ultimately I just had a really bad 24-hour stomach flu bug.
But I think when you have several years of playing someone who is so strong and so infallible — it’s a lot to hold up those buttresses for that long and to that extent. So it was so brutal just because of my love for her, but I also felt like I owed it to her to show the truth of what it’s like for someone who feels like they’re an outsider, who feels like they’re up against impossible odds, who feels like they’re completely isolated and a lone wolf and tasked with pretty impossible challenges repeatedly, over and over and over again.
I wouldn’t call it fun work, but I really owed it to her.
Stella leaves UBN and thinks she is leaving with Miles, who ends up choosing Celine and leaves her to go on her own. I love the end where we’re just seeing her taking in what just happened. How is she feeling at that moment?
For the first time in her whole life, her future is open. It’s wide open and she is liberated. She has the ultimate freedom, so I’m hopeful for her. I think it does end on a happy note in that way and that’s everything I would want for her. I want her to go off and have the chance to start from scratch, unburdened by all these other old ghosts that had been bringing her down for so long.
Is this the end of Stella’s journey on the show or will we see her again? What do you hope is next for her?
Sadly, the answer is yes, this is the end. I feel so bittersweet about it. This show and the people involved with making the show, this is family to me. But I think there are these moments when it becomes clear that an arc and a character lives out the course of what it needs to be, and anything more would be doing it a disservice, I think. It was always so important to show the full scope of the reality of someone like her. I think it involves this kind of an end and therefore beginning for her, theoretically. But never say never, who knows.
At this point, I can say with confidence that this is goodbye.
Stella’s disillusion with legacy media at the end feels very timely as companies roll back DEI efforts and free speech is stifled by the government. You filmed this a year later. How is it to see the show resonate in this new way now?
I hope it resonates. But it is with a very, very heavy heart that I find myself in this position today. I’m getting choked up just hearing you describe this moment. We could have never predicted where we would have ended up. I feel like the almost naive optimism and hope that someone like Stella had just a few years ago is reflective of how I felt, and that I think so many of us felt in terms of this promise for change, and to feel unified and connected with our fellow countrymen and the whole world. I would feel remiss not to acknowledge that that is not where we are right now. It’s messy and dark and complicated. The promise of representation and diversity and inclusion and equity and all of these things that Stella fought tooth-and-nail for are things that present in a totally different and challenging way in the future that she faces.
I do think what Stella would say is that through all of these waves and the ups and downs, if you hold on to that fire inside, there’s always moving towards the direction of justice and dignity and integrity, even if the timing doesn’t feel right. Even for me personally, and I carry a little bit of that Stella flame inside, I can only hope that we have Stellas out there who are scheming and strategizing and thinking about some sort of comeback.
“The Morning Show” releases new episodes Wednesdays on Apple TV.”
