The Cast
Apple TV+’s ‘The Morning Show’ has always been a mirror, sometimes warped, sometimes dazzling, reflecting the chaos of modern media. Four seasons in, the mirror is still cracking, and the reflections are more fascinating than ever. Season 4, which debuted in September 2025, finds the series more confident in what it is: not a solemn prestige drama about journalism, but a high-octane character study about image, power, and survival in an industry built on illusion. The result is uneven, over-the-top, and absolutely watchable.
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A Changing Network in a Changing World
When the series began, it was about a scandal that ripped apart a network. Now it’s about the world that scandal built, and the people still trying to control it. The fictional network at the show’s centre, UBN, faces an identity crisis in a fast-evolving media landscape. There’s talk of new technologies, artificial intelligence, and digital broadcasting, but the deeper story is about the people behind the cameras struggling to stay relevant as the definition of “news” itself changes. The series doesn’t just ask what truth looks like; it asks whether truth even matters when perception rules everything. The writing leans into questions about authenticity and control: What happens when your voice, your face, and your reputation can all be replicated by a machine? How do you stay human in a world that rewards flawless performance?
Alex Levy: The Face of Control
Jennifer Aniston’s Alex Levy remains the show’s gravitational centre. Once the on-air anchor fighting for respect, she’s now firmly part of the power structure, a woman navigating the delicate balance between moral conviction and self-preservation. Aniston plays Alex with icy precision and flashes of deep vulnerability. Her performance has evolved beautifully across the series, from defensive and wounded in earlier seasons to calculating and commanding here. You sense both her exhaustion and her determination. She’s not always likeable, but she’s magnetic, the kind of person who can hold a room even when she’s losing the argument. Season 4 deepens Alex’s inner conflict: can she lead without compromising herself? Can she stay authentic in an environment where authenticity is a brand strategy? The show doesn’t offer easy answers, and Aniston thrives in that moral grey zone.
Bradley Jackson: The Outsider Reimagined
Reese Witherspoon’s Bradley Jackson, the fiery reporter whose idealism once reshaped the network, is in a different place this season; personally, professionally, and emotionally. Her arc explores what happens when integrity collides with consequence. She’s still fierce, still volatile, but also more introspective. What’s interesting is that Bradley’s story now feels less about chasing truth and more about finding purpose. She’s confronting who she is without the spotlight, a sharp contrast to Alex, who’s learned to live inside it. Witherspoon continues to bring restless energy to the role, grounding even the most melodramatic moments with conviction.
Cory Ellison: The Show’s Secret Weapon
Billy Crudup’s Cory Ellison remains The Morning Show’s ace card. He’s part philosopher, part salesman, part corporate chaos. Crudup plays him with electric unpredictability; one minute charming, the next chilling. Cory embodies everything seductive and horrifying about modern media power: the charisma, the manipulation, the ability to spin any crisis into an opportunity. What makes Crudup’s performance so compelling is that he never lets you know whether Cory believes his own lines. He’s the trickster in a room full of believers.
A Broader, Riskier Canvas
One of the strengths of Season 4 is how much bigger the show’s world feels. The newsroom is no longer the only battlefield; boardrooms, studios, and even global events become stages for reputation and influence. The season’s overarching theme revolves around technology’s growing role in storytelling: the rise of synthetic media, the erosion of trust, and the blurred line between truth and entertainment. The show doesn’t dive too deeply into tech jargon, instead, it uses these ideas to ask human questions. What happens to journalists when algorithms decide what audiences see? What happens to identity when your image can outlive your mistakes? The result is a mix of glossy futurism and classic soap, a blend that sometimes collides but rarely bores.
Supporting Players Shine
The ensemble continues to deliver some of the series’ best moments. Nicole Beharie brings depth and quiet power to her role as a rising star dealing with public scrutiny. Karen Pittman’s Mia, the hardworking producer juggling impossible choices, remains one of the most relatable figures in the newsroom. Both actresses ground the story’s more exaggerated turns in something emotionally real. There are new faces too, including international executives and tech innovators, that expand the show’s commentary on global media and corporate control. Their inclusion underlines how small the UBN universe used to feel, and how much bigger (and more dangerous) it’s become.
Themes of Power, Gender, and Age
If there’s one thread The Morning Show has consistently pulled with confidence, it’s gender politics, and Season 4 doubles down. It’s about women in their 40s and 50s navigating industries that still fetishise youth and punish ambition. Alex’s and Bradley’s struggles, one trying to hold power, the other trying to reclaim it, speak to broader anxieties about visibility and value. The show’s depiction of female ambition is messy but refreshing. It doesn’t shy away from moral compromise, or from showing how women can harm one another while trying to survive a system built to exclude them. It’s not always subtle, but it’s honest in its contradictions: empowerment that comes with manipulation, solidarity that crumbles under pressure, and feminism that sometimes looks a lot like self-interest.
When It Works (and When It Doesn’t)
Season 4 has moments of real brilliance, sleekly written exchanges, fierce performances, and scenes that hit like a gut punch. It’s also wildly uneven.
The show still struggles with tone, veering between earnest social commentary and glossy melodrama. Some subplots feel undercooked; others feel overstuffed. You can sense the writers juggling too many characters and trying to give each a moment in the spotlight. But even at its messiest, The Morning Show is never dull. Its chaos feels almost intentional, a reflection of the noisy, scandal-hungry world it’s depicting. In that sense, its contradictions are part of its charm.
A Series That Knows Its Audience
Apple TV+ has always positioned The Morning Show as one of its flagship titles, a mix of star power and serious themes. By Season 4, the show seems to have embraced its own identity. It’s no longer pretending to be Succession with better lighting; it’s a glamorous, self-aware drama about people who live and die by perception. That tonal clarity helps. The dialogue feels sharper, the pacing brisker, and the stakes higher. It’s aware of its own excess, and at times, it almost seems to wink at it. Visually, it remains stunning: all glass offices, muted neutrals, and screens within screens. The production design does half the storytelling; sleek, cold, and a little too perfect, like the world it’s critiquing.
The Verdict
Season 4 of The Morning Show may not be flawless, but it’s fearless. It’s a series that thrives on contradiction; righteous yet ruthless, intelligent yet indulgent, chaotic yet compelling. At its best, it captures something true about modern power: that every crisis is also a branding opportunity, and every truth-teller is one bad headline away from hypocrisy. At its worst, it collapses under its own ambition. But even then, it’s fascinating to watch, an emotional rollercoaster with Emmy-calibre acting and the production values of a prestige thriller. Jennifer Aniston delivers her most controlled and layered performance yet; Reese Witherspoon finds new depth in vulnerability; and Billy Crudup continues to steal every scene he’s in. The show’s blend of topical storytelling and personal drama still works, even when the seams show. The Morning Show remains one of television’s most divisive series, but perhaps that’s exactly what makes it matter. It’s about the messy, morally complicated people who bring us the news, told through the lens of the same spectacle they claim to critique. Season 4 doesn’t tidy up that contradiction. It doubles down on it, and that’s what makes it worth watching.
Verdict: 4 out of 5
Stylish, unpredictable, and occasionally infuriating, but still one of the most entertaining hours you can stream.
Jennifer Aniston as Alex Levy
Reese Witherspoon as Bradley Jackson
Billy Crudup as Cory Ellison
Mark Duplass as Chip Black
Karen Pittman as Mia Jordan
Greta Lee as Stella Bak
Néstor Carbonell as Yanko Flores
Jon Hamm as Paul Marks
Marion Cotillard as Celine Dumont
Jeremy Irons as Martin Levy
Aaron Pierre as Miles
William Jackson Harper as Ben
Boyd Holbrook as Brodie “Bro” Hartman
