[This story contains spoilers from the fifth episode of The Morning Show season three, “Love Island.”]
After jumping ahead two years, The Morning Show hit rewind this week to go back to where the Apple TV+ series ended last season: March of 2020.
The fifth episode in season three, titled “Love Island,” flashed back to shortly after the outbreak of COVID-19 to fill viewers in on what happened in the missing two years between seasons three and four of the Reese Witherspoon and Jennifer Aniston media drama.
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Most notably, it answered the big question looming over the first half of season three: What’s the secret between news anchor Bradley Jackson (Witherspoon) and UBA network boss Cory Ellison (Billy Crudup)? A secret so big they would do anything to keep it quiet? (Even suggest paying out the network’s hackers $50 million to keep their private communications from being leaked.)
Well, “Love Island” answered the mystery when it revealed that Bradley, after breaking up with Laura (Julianna Margulies) and leaving their quarantine hub in Montana, goes to cover what would become the Jan. 6 insurrection in Washington, D.C. And while running through the halls of the U.S. Capitol to capture riot footage with her iPhone, her camera zooms in on a familiar face: Her brother, Hal (Joe Tippett), whom she unintentionally records assaulting a police officer during the riot.
Bradley, distraught over the discovery, decides to delete the footage of her brother’s assault and omit it from her reporting on the insurrection. Torn between her career as a journalist and her empathy for her only surviving family member after just losing their mother to COVID-19, Bradley chooses her brother.
Revisiting the insurrection on the series was orchestrated and choreographed by the season’s new showrunner Charlotte Stoudt, director and executive producer Mimi Leder told The Hollywood Reporter in a recent interview. “It was really important to go back,” explained Leder, who spoke to THR amid the writers strike when Stoudt was unavailable due to the work stoppage. “It was a very smart device to go back into COVID and to what led Bradley Jackson to her storyline, which was super, super important: her big secret.”
The episode, which was directed by Stacie Passon, was filmed at L.A. City Hall. The creative team, which included production designer Nelson Coates, looked at “hours and hours” of real insurrection footage, said Leder, to deliver “the most authentic look we could create.”
“To put our Bradley Jackson at the center of it was really pivotal to the character, as she discovers her brother assaulting a police officer. Her brother who is now sober, who has a baby on the way,” said Leder. “She discovers what he has done and she makes a decision to lie, and it’s the sin of omission to not tell the story and delete the footage. And it’s the lie she carries the entire season.”
The Morning Show is no stranger to tackling momentous news events; the writers pivoted to center the first season around the #MeToo movement, and then pivoted again to tackle the outbreak of the pandemic in season two. The third season, as THR previously noted, will also include the overturning of Roe v. Wade.
So the team chose to center Bradley’s new season storyline around a Jan. 6 plot twist, despite how eerie it was to film.
“We do use some exterior footage from the actual insurrection. But all of the interior is us,” said Leder on recreating the attack on the Capitol. “It was very difficult to film. It had a large scope. And it was very fresh on our minds [during production in mid-to-late 2022]. And it’s now, obviously, still very fresh in our minds.”
Michael Ellenberg, who produces the series through Media Res, called prep around the episode “brilliant and incredible.” He told THR, “As producer, you’re tracking it all and making sure it all goes well, and then all of a sudden, you are sitting in City Hall downtown and you start to see the signs and the chanting and the violence and the rest of it, and it’s chilling. All of a sudden, we were in it.”
Ellenberg said Bradley’s family dynamics, which have played out across the series, remain relatable to a wide audience. “It speaks to so many families in America, and frankly all around the world, with the politics of the last decade and the division inside a family that so many people live through,” he said, also in a recent chat. “So it’s an intense experience, but for the characters, a quite moving one as well. We hope that we’ve gained some perspective on these events and what they meant to ourselves and the country, and hopefully the audience will have a similar experience.”
The flashback episode reveals that the FBI later requests Bradley’s raw footage to aid in their investigation of the assault on the officer. This prompts Bradley to confide to Cory what she did and they agree to decline the request, citing journalistic independence. Cory, though angry and disappointed, ultimately decides to keep Bradley’s secret — since it would not only ruin his star anchor’s career (who he may be in love with), but also jeopardize the entire news network if ever found out.
His decision ultimately implicates him in fraud, giving him every reason to protect both himself and Bradley in the present-day of season three. Viewers also see Bradley leverage the success of her Jan. 6 reporting to get a promotion as UBA’s new primetime news host, which is where she began the season.
The revelation of Bradley’s decision, however, now raises complicated questions around the character. As a journalist, how much can Bradley blur ethical lines and keep the audience rooting for her?
Witherspoon, along with co-star Jennifer Aniston, are unavailable to weigh in amid the ongoing SAG-AFTRA strike. But Kristin Hahn, Aniston’s producing partner with Echo Films, said that, with a fourth season already renewed, Stoudt plans to dive into those questions throughout the rest of season three and in the season still to come.
“The insurrection storyline felt like it would continue to resonate and literally, in headlines in the present moment, it’s still really resonating,” Hahn told THR in a recent chat. “We really try to choose current events that we believe we will probably still be grappling with in the years to come, and the relevance hopefully of those conversations continue. That was one we all agreed we couldn’t pass up and would have to figure out the Rubik’s cube [for Bradley’s character] down the line. Charlotte will figure it out! No question.”
The Morning Show characters have a knack for making the wrong choices, and Aniston’s character will continue to make questionable decisions in season three as well. But that makes the show’s starring duo more engaging to watch, according to Ellenberg, and the discussion around rooting for these characters makes for a lively debate in the room.
“It’s a question we’re always asking on the show,” said Ellenberg. “If you’re going to tackle some of these heavy subjects, you better not be sanctimonious. Our characters have hearts. I think they do know the difference between right and wrong, but they make the wrong choice all the time. And their mistakes, I think, is what makes them more relatable.”
He continued, “And I think that’s what’s exciting about the show and about audiences right now: They’re more drawn to the dangerous choice. So as long as you feel like there is goodness within our people — and I think you see that across the board on the show — you have a lot of rope for them to make a lot of wrong, complicated choices. The show is interested in trying to find commonality between people at the end of the day. I think we find it’s more relatable the more our characters get it wrong, as much as when they get it right.”
Leder noted, “It’s about the lies we tell ourselves.”
The Morning Show’s 10-episode third season releases new episodes Wednesdays on Apple TV+.
