{"id":148158,"date":"2025-11-19T11:26:14","date_gmt":"2025-11-19T11:26:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/148158\/"},"modified":"2025-11-19T11:26:14","modified_gmt":"2025-11-19T11:26:14","slug":"the-morning-show-boss-explains-season-4-ending-teases-season-5","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/148158\/","title":{"rendered":"‘The Morning Show’ Boss Explains Season 4 Ending; Teases Season 5"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tSPOILER ALERT: This piece contains spoilers for The Morning Show<\/a> Season 4 Finale Episode \u201cKnowing Violation.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe sun has set on another season of Apple TV<\/a>\u2019s The Morning Show with a finale full of headline-making moments and, most importantly, the truth coming out.<\/p>\n

\n\tCeline Dumont (Marion Cotillard) outed herself as controlling the narrative at UBN and covering up the Wolf River story, but several moments had to come together to catch her. Bradley Jackson\u2019s (Reese Witherspoon) being held hostage in a gulag in Belarus started the trail of dominoes because Bradley\u2019s release depended on either Celine or the State Department. Alex (Jennifer Aniston), who was pushed out of UBN by Celine via blackmail, threatened to sue Celine and the network with her father (Jeremy Irons) and Chip (Mark Duplass) by her side and, with Cory\u2019s (Billy Crudup) help, eked a confession out of Celine via a phone call Cory had made to her seemingly privately.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn the aftermath, Ben (William Jackson Harper) still has the Olympics to get to as well as a suggested dinner date with Mia (Karen Pittman) while over there. The two had previously clashed over whether to air Alex\u2019s press conference admitting to how she really left UBN because Ben trusted Celine\u2019s side of things while Mia was in on the plan to expose Celine. When asked if they would be tasked with righting the ship next season, showrunner Charlotte Stoudt<\/a> teased the pair\u2019s path moving forward.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt\u2019s gonna get interesting between them. You\u2019re right to pick up on [that]. I still think [Mia] is a little like \u2018That job really should have been mine.\u2019 But I think there\u2019s also a lot of mutual respect between them,\u201d she told Deadline. \u201cHe wasn\u2019t sure whether to throw his boss under the bus. And Mia was quite sure, so, yeah, I think they\u2019re gonna do a dance together all season, definitely.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIn the below interview, Stoudt further elaborated on Mia and Ben being \u201cthe two most competent people\u201d at the network in addition to forecasting what\u2019s in store for Bradley and Alex, Paul Marks and more recent additions to the \u201cdeep bench\u201d that is The Morning Show cast.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Marion<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tMarion Cotillard as Celine Dumont in \u2018The Morning Show\u2019 Season 4<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tApple TV<\/p>\n

\n\tDEADLINE: Celine has her downfall. She heads back to France. The Olympics are about to happen in France. Did you leave it like that so you could work her into next season? Or is she done?<\/p>\n

\n\tSTOUDT: In terms of the immediate storyline, I always say if a character isn\u2019t dead, they could always come back anytime. We do tend to take leaps in between seasons just because of the time it takes to write and shoot the show. So, for the moment, Celine may be doing penance at the family home and having a bit of a leash on her for the time being.<\/p>\n

\n\tDEADLINE: Would you be open to having Stella come back<\/a>? You\u2019ve had Bel Powley come back. Is that something you\u2019d want to do in the future?<\/p>\n

\n\tSTOUDT: We love Stella. We miss her terribly, but I think her departure made for a strong story<\/a>. And also, Stella\u2019s story, to me, is really a Stella-Mia story. And Stella initially blocked Mia<\/a>, right? But now, oddly enough, a door is open that wasn\u2019t open before, and Mia\u2019s now thinking, \u2018Well, gosh, maybe I wanted the wrong job. Maybe I wanted the big job after all.\u2019 So I think that may be Stella\u2019s strongest legacy, to sort of remind Mia what she might be capable of, and that she might be a much better fit for that job than Stella ever was.<\/p>\n

\n\tDEADLINE: Are you saying CEO or President? She is shown standing at Stella\u2019s and then Celine\u2019s desk in the finale looking around the room.<\/p>\n

\n\tSTOUDT: I\u2019m not saying she\u2019s gonna get there, but I was interested in the thought entering her head, where she\u2019s like, \u2018Oh, what about this? Huh, I never thought really that far.\u2019 I remember when I came out here, and I was just like, if I could just get my WGA card, I would be the happiest person on earth. I never dreamed I would ever have a chance at showrunning, even though I had done a lot of previous work. So I think it\u2019s sort of interesting when your mind makes that leap of, \u2018Oh, what if?\u2019<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Karen<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tKaren Pittman in \u2018The Morning Show\u2019 Season 4<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tApple TV+<\/p>\n

\n\tDEADLINE: And then you have Miles, who was in between Celine and Stella. Is there room for him to stay in the picture?<\/p>\n

\n\tSTOUDT: Honestly, we\u2019re still breaking, we\u2019re a little bit early into the writers\u2019 room. Anything can happen. I will say that Aaron Pierre is having a pretty great career. He\u2019s now in a Star Wars movie<\/a>, so you may have seen the last of him. He is beloved by all, though, I will say that.<\/p>\n

\n\tDEADLINE: Bro Hartman has his political aspirations. Is there still hope to cover the election next season?<\/p>\n

\n\tSTOUDT: We usually leap forward. You don\u2019t want a show coming out that\u2019s dealing with events that are two and three years earlier. That begins to feel a little dusty for the viewers. And also, we\u2019re in a show where Biden and Trump were running for president. We don\u2019t have fictional people. So, I don\u2019t know how much there frankly was to say about the election that these characters could influence. I think it\u2019s more interesting to look at the effects of the election on these characters, which is kind of the world we\u2019re living in now.<\/p>\n

\n\tDEADLINE: Had you planned out any scenes or anything to cover the election, or did it just not reach the cut-off?<\/p>\n

\n\tSTOUDT: We talked about it. It didn\u2019t feel like something that would generate a lot of story, honestly. They can\u2019t affect the election. The election, whatever happens in real life, has to happen on the show, because that\u2019s the nature of the show. So it didn\u2019t seem to present a whole lot of story. And because of our timeline, we were more interested in, what would they care about, which was like, \u2018Can the Summer Olympics go off without a hitch because we\u2019re gonna make a lot of money?\u2019 So I like to keep it on what directly affects them, as opposed to a thing over there that they can just report.<\/p>\n

\n\tDEADLINE: John Ham\u2019s character Paul Marks comes back and has an important role. He and Alex now seem to be on even ground. Is there hope for that spark between them?<\/p>\n

\n\tSTOUDT: In Season 3, Alex and Paul didn\u2019t have very long to see what they might have had. When you do the timeline of it, they were together very, very briefly. It was almost like a drive-by thing where, like, \u2018Oh, this could be a thing,\u2019 and I think they\u2019ll always be \u2014 I think when they\u2019re in the room together, something happens, and he is just drawn to her. They\u2019re both so high-achieving, are excited by someone they can\u2019t really control, they\u2019re a little unsure of, I think that\u2019s a turn on for both of them. There\u2019s definitely something left to play out there.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"L-R:<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tL-R: Jon Hamm and Jennifer Aniston in \u2018The Morning Show\u2019 Season 4<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tApple TV<\/p>\n

\n\tI think he did want to say, \u2018I\u2019m sorry for Season 3.\u2019 And I also think whenever Alex turns up, his life becomes exciting. She\u2019s the lady who blew off the rocket. She\u2019s the lady who shows up and says, \u2018Why don\u2019t you put your entire business at risk by doing this deal with a sanctioned oligarch?\u2019 It\u2019s outrageous, but I do think these guys are such daredevils, right? They really want to climb Everest and do all these \u00a0\u2014 adrenaline, he needs the adrenaline. This is a guy who wanted to go to Mars, and she gives that to him. He\u2019s like, \u2018Oh, let\u2019s try this. Let\u2019s roll the dice.\u2019 I think that he\u2019ll always be drawn to that aspect of her.<\/p>\n

\n\tDEADLINE: I liked when he said \u2018There\u2019s this karmic debt that I have to repay.\u2019<\/p>\n

\n\tSTOUDT: Oh good. I think he feels that, and I there are plenty of other karmic debts he\u2019s not gonna pay, but he\u2019s like \u2018The one to Alex is the one bothering me.\u2019 He\u2019s as messy as anybody else in this show, but there\u2019s something about her that I think always pulls him to the right side of things.<\/p>\n

\n\tDEADLINE: Speaking of messy, Ben\u2019s character gets the head of news position, which seems to come with its curse, you could say, but he does have that conflict where he doesn\u2019t know whether to broadcast Celine, and then they do the phone call, and it happens. What you did you envision for his arc? Is UBN corrupting him?<\/p>\n

\n\tSTOUDT: He came from NBN and had a relationship with Celine in a sense that she knew just how good he was at his job. What was important for me, emotionally for him, was that he\u2019s such a deeply capable person, so good. We really did model him on \u2014 NBC was so smart about the Olympics. It was just candy, the way they marketed it, and how they covered it. We were like, \u2018Well, what if that\u2019s Ben?\u2019 He\u2019s really good at his job, but then he gets this place, and nobody likes him, no one cares that he\u2019s good at his job. I think he was, in this season, a little bit betwixt and between.<\/p>\n

\n\tRELATED: \u2018The Morning Show\u2019 Season 4 Star William Jackson Harper On Where Ben Fits Into The \u201cGamesmanship\u201d At UBN: \u201cHe\u2019s Willing To Play\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

\n\tLook at his side of it. Alex goes on TMS one day and says, \u2018Yeah, I\u2019m resigning, and everything\u2019s good.\u2019 And then the next morning, she\u2019s at a press conference saying \u2018I\u2019m gonna sue [Celine].\u2019 She does sound a little crazy. Would you believe her? And Celine is somebody who\u2019s really made the trains run for a while at both companies. So, I kind of understand why he has a hesitation because he doesn\u2019t know everything we know. He doesn\u2019t know about the deep fake, he doesn\u2019t know any of those things. He\u2019s just going, \u2018What is going on here?\u2019 Obviously, Mia knows more. So she\u2019s in on it. It\u2019s a little different for her. I think it\u2019s fun to see that those two will always be calling each other on stuff. I kind of personally think they\u2019re the two most competent people. They actually do the work.<\/p>\n

\n\tDEADLINE: Cory\u2019s involvement is also very messy. Was it intentional to have the audience really hanging on what he would decide to do in this situation with Celine and everything?<\/p>\n

\n\tSTOUDT: Absolutely, because he, I think, was the most split person by the end. Alex just had to make a decision. \u2018Am I gonna roll the dice? Am I gonna put everything on the line?\u2019 But I think she had no choice. This lady was just totally coming after her.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Billy<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tBilly Crudup as Cory Ellison in \u2018The Morning Show\u2019 Season 4<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tApple TV<\/p>\n

\n\tFor Alex, it was a question of like, \u2018How much am I gonna put on 22 red?\u2019 Am I gonna put all my chips down, or what? She couldn\u2019t be in that TMS interview where she has to pretend that everything\u2019s okay. I really wanted that to be relatable. We\u2019ve all had situations at work where we wanted to say something we felt was true, but for whatever reason, we really couldn\u2019t say it. I wanted to evoke that feeling, and I think she just can\u2019t stand it, she can\u2019t let Celine win.<\/p>\n

\n\tRELATED: \u2018The Morning Show\u2019 Season 4 Star Billy Crudup \u201cHated\u201d Playing Cory\u2019s Desperate Decision To Secure His Deal With UBN: \u201cHe Does Pace At Night\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

\n\tMeanwhile, Cory is in such an emotionally unstable place. If his mother hadn\u2019t done what she\u2019d done, if the Bradley thing hadn\u2019t happened<\/a>, I think he would have had a plan. He would have had a clear way through this. But I think he\u2019s so emotionally wrecked that it takes him a while to get his bearings. And then he has that memory of Bradley, and he realizes \u2018I was a bad boyfriend. She said were gonna mess up, but it still has to be okay.\u2019 He did not give her grace, and she messed up. I think that was a lesson he had to learn the hard way.<\/p>\n

\n\tDEADLINE: And then you have Bradley in the Gulag.<\/p>\n

\n\tSTOUDT: I hope it wasn\u2019t too bad.<\/p>\n

\n\tDEADLINE: I mean, it happens.<\/p>\n

\n\tSTOUDT: It happens. That\u2019s exactly right.<\/p>\n

\n\tDEADLINE: Alex comes and gets her back. It felt right that it had to be Alex to do that. Looking back on all the seasons, when you start a new one, do you decide, \u2018Oh, we\u2019re gonna separate them or keep them together?\u2019 Is that how you are approaching Season 5?<\/p>\n

\n\tSTOUDT: You\u2019re spot on that, really, that\u2019s the love story of the show. It\u2019s always going to be Alex and Bradley, and the temperature of their relationship really pushes the story every season. I do think they\u2019re always going to disagree. One of them, Alex is going to say you have to be inside the system to change it. Bradley is always like, \u2018It\u2019s impossible to change the system. You have to be outside of it. [It\u2019s] impossible to change the system from within.\u2019 They\u2019re going to have that argument \u2018til the end of time, but the thing is, they both do want change. So, they\u2019re aligned on some things, but they\u2019re always going to disagree, and that disagreement is going to pull the story forward. It\u2019s possible this year, they might agree more than they have ever done before.<\/p>\n

\n\tRELATED: \u2018The Morning Show\u2019 Stars Reese Witherspoon And Jennifer Aniston Tease Season 4 Dynamic Between Bradley And Alex: \u201cWe\u2019re In Different Places Now\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

\n\tIt was really important for me that, at the end, the world, behind that plane, behind those two women on the tarmac, it\u2019s very dark. You can\u2019t see very much, but they\u2019re close, [Alex and Bradley] have each other. I kind of needed that embrace, honestly, of like, \u2018You\u2019re not alone, whatever you\u2019re going through and struggling in this very chaotic, kind of uncertain world, you can have a community and that community can sustain you.\u2019<\/p>\n

\n\tDEADLINE: Bradley\u2019s father was introduced a while back. Could he re-enter the picture? And what\u2019s up with Alex and Chip\u2019s reconciliation?<\/p>\n

\n\tSTOUDT: Family members are always good to show up and torture, torture people. Chip also needs to learn a few more things. At least, by the end of Season 4, even though he\u2019s pushed away Alex initially, you know, he\u2019s there at the dinner table trying to figure out how to help her. I think that relationship, which is wonderful to watch, you know, isn\u2019t done yet, isn\u2019t over yet.<\/p>\n

\n\tDEADLINE: With the upcoming fifth season, do you envision future seasons? Could this be the last one?<\/p>\n

\n\tSTOUDT: Part of that truly is an Apple question. And also the actors. They\u2019re very busy, and they have lots of other things going on. I would say we\u2019re early enough in the writing room this year that my real answer to that is, I\u2019m not sure. It\u2019s just about, where do you where do these people end up? And how long does it take them to get to a clarity about their lives? And certainly. Right now, I don\u2019t know anybody is feeling that clear about anything. [It\u2019s] a very destabilizing time.<\/p>\n

\n\tDEADLINE: Do you have any ideas for new characters or cast for next season?<\/p>\n

\n\tSTOUD: We always need fresh blood on the show, even though we have such a deep bench of actors. I thought what Bro did for Alex this year was fun. It was just a new antagonist. Somebody like Paul is on her level in one way, but she\u2019s very vulnerable with him in a way that she doesn\u2019t have to be vulnerable with Bro, which means they can really spar and do their screwball comedy stuff, which I just think is a lot of fun.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Boyd<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tBoyd Holbrook as Brodie in \u2018The Morning Show\u2019 Season 4<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tApple TV+<\/p>\n

\n\tHe\u2019s a great scene partner for her. I think we\u2019ll always be like throwing more chum in the water to bother people.<\/p>\n

\n\tDEADLINE: More wild cards to shake it up.<\/p>\n

\n\tSTOUDT: More wild cards. Absolutely. There\u2019s so many people in the media landscape, whether it\u2019s Barry Weiss or Alex Cooper. It\u2019s so interesting how these people, who were a little bit niche, are coming to the main, and like Fox licensing these people. It\u2019s just a very interesting time. If you\u2019re on the margins, you can really get a platform. We want to try to keep up with that.<\/p>\n

\n\tRELATED: \u2018The Morning Show\u2019 Star Reese Witherspoon On Bradley\u2019s Betrayal Of [Spoiler]: \u201cI Don\u2019t Know If That One\u2019s Recoverable\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SPOILER ALERT: This piece contains spoilers for The Morning Show Season 4 Finale Episode \u201cKnowing Violation.\u201d The sun…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":148159,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[3288,31364,93,61,60,12896,282],"class_list":{"0":"post-148158","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-apple-tv","9":"tag-charlotte-stoudt","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-ie","12":"tag-ireland","13":"tag-the-morning-show","14":"tag-tv"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148158","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=148158"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148158\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/148159"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=148158"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=148158"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=148158"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}