The Morning Show is making its triumphant return on September 17 with season 2. The official trailer teased the upcoming drama ahead, and the second season is shaping up to be even better than the first. Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon are back for season 2, along with the rest of the terrific ensemble cast. The show earned 8 Emmy nominations in its first season, with Billy Crudup winning for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series.
It’s been nearly 2 years since The Morning Show premiered, but season 2 is just weeks away. From the first trailer to new cast members, these are the latest updates about The Morning Show season 2.
‘The Morning Show’ Season 2 Trailer
The first official trailer was released on August 23. Season 2 finds The Morning Show team emerging from the wreckage of Alex and Bradley’s actions to a new UBA and a world in flux, where identity is everything and the chasm between who we present as and who we really come into play.
In the trailer, Cory begs Alex to come back to The Morning Show. “You are the only thing that can save us,” he says before laughing. “I don’t think I’ve ever said that before. Alex does return, and Bradley doesn’t want to get “edged out.”
Will Arnett makes his first appearance as Doug in the trailer, and he’ll be working closely with Alex. As Alex returns, the COVID-19 pandemic is setting in. Alex thinks Bradley should cover it. “Don’t forget this is your show,” a producer says to Bradley.
Meanwhile, Maggie is set to release an expose that could ruin Alex and the rest of UBA. “There is a pattern of behavior around here that disadvantages the people of color,” Daniel tells Mia.
“We need to get our facts straight. We need to decide what the truth is,” Alex says to Bradley. Bradley replies, “Did you hear what you just said?” As Alex strives to get her world under control, Julianna Marguiles’ character Laura begins to take Bradley under her wing, but Alex doesn’t trust Laura whatsoever.
Release Date
Apple TV+ finally confirmed the release date for season 2 of The Morning Show on June 14. The show will be returning to the streaming platform on September 17 with 10 episodes. The cast has been filming the second season since October 2020. Showrunner Kerry Ehrin told Variety in 2019 that they were planning to film the show in the summer of 2020 of “be on next November.” However, the COVID-19 pandemic shut down production for months, so a 2020 release date was no longer possible. Luckily, after all the waiting, the new episodes are almost here!
Filming
Production on season 2 halted on March 12, 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Reese Witherspoon told Regina King in Variety’s Actors on Actors series that The Morning Show season 2 had been in production for “four weeks” before getting shut down. Filming resumed in October 2020. Reese tweeted about the news, “And We are Bacccckkkkk!” In December 2020, Reese posted a video from The Morning Show set and wrote, “Guess who’s back!!!!”
And We are Bacccckkkkk! 🤗@TheMorningShow @AppleTV https://t.co/dXkqz4f7Zn
— Reese Witherspoon (@ReeseW) October 7, 2020
Jennifer Aniston also shared a photo during production in January 2021. “Aaand, we’re back…” she captioned photos of herself with her hairstylist Chris McMillan. The SAG Award-winning actress was still filming in February 2021 when she posted an Instagram video from the set as she made her morning coffee.
New & Returning Cast
Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon are both back as Alex Levy and Bradley Jackson. Fellow season 1 cast members Billy Crudup, Mark Duplass, Nestor Carbonell, Bel Powley, Karen Pittman, and Desean Terry are also returning for season 2. Gugu Mbatha-Raw is not coming back since her character died in the first season.
Steve Carell is expected to return as Mitch Kessler. He had originally signed a one-year deal, but The Morning Show producers “wanted him back and had indicated that they were pursuing a new deal with the actor,” according to Deadline. Steve is briefly featured in the trailer for season 2, which was released on June 14.
The Morning Show season 2 will welcome a number of new cast members. Hasan Minhaj, who hosted the Netflix series The Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj, has joined the cast. He will play Eric, a “charismatic, rising star who joins The Morning Show team,” according to Deadline. Hasan posted about his exciting new gig on his Instagram page in November 2020. “A new chapter. Can’t wait for y’all to see the new season of @themorningshow!” he wrote. This marks Hasan’s first acting role in a drama series.
Julianna Marguiles, best known for her roles on The Good Wife and ER, is a season 2 cast member, Variety reports. She’ll play Laura Peterson, an anchor at UBA News. Julianna is heavily featured in the season 2 trailer, where she’s seen interviewing Jennifer Aniston’s character during a tense moment. “Laura started kind of like a Date Line Show,” Kerry explained. “She’s a UBA star and an icon at a Diane Sawyer level. We wanted to create a mentor figure for Bradley that was somebody who does things differently. The idea really stemmed from having a character who had done the work and what it looked like in this industry and in the UBA environment. She’s at the top of her game.”
Greta Lee and Ruairi O’Connor have also joined the cast as series regulars. Greta will play Stella Bak, an “ambitious leader of an online media company that caters to a millennial and Gen Z audience,” according to Deadline. Ruairi, who recently starred as King Henry VIII on The Spanish Princess, will play Ty Fitzgerald, a “charismatic and savvy YouTube star.”
What Will Season 2 Be About?
The first season of The Morning Show ended with a number of bombshells in the wake of Hannah’s tragic death. Chip lost his job and revealed he was the one who leaked the story about Mitch to The New York Times. Alex put her foot down once and for all decided to speak out — while live on the air. Alex and Bradley told the world about the toxic workplace culture and sexual misconduct that’s gone on at UBA.
Following the season finale, showrunner Kerry Ehrin told The Hollywood Reporter that season 2 would be “a lot about transition. And still, at the same time, a lot of the same sh*t goes on! You set new rules, but then it falls back. This is true in the real world. Where it becomes: are we paying lip service to women’s rights? So it’s really just examining the transition period more but with the same themes of: What is real? And people having this desire to have control over their own lives, which they perceive as being through power.”
Reese teased a “new world order” in season 2 back in 2020. “I feel like at the end of this 10 episodes, there’s a whole new world order. It’s chaos,” she said in January 2020 at the TCA press tour. “No one knows who is in charge and what leadership means at this point. I think that’s what we’re exploring in the culture right now as it goes topsy turvy, what is the new normal? I’m excited that we’ve got a lot more to explore.”
Season 2 will also include the coronavirus pandemic. Mark Duplass revealed that the writers were “rewriting” some of season 2 after production was shut down. “We shot two episodes before we shut down due to the pandemic, but I know that they’re also rewriting, which is crazy because that’s what happened in the first season,” he told Deadline. “They had a whole set of scripts [then] and they rewrote everything to include the #MeToo movement, and now we’ve got other, larger, global phenomenon to deal with. I don’t know what they’re doing but I know they’re rewriting.”
The Morning Show director Mimi Leder noted that the second season of the Apple TV+ series will mirror what the real-life morning shows experienced during the pandemic. “We’re a morning show that deals with the ills of the world, racism, injustice, and all that morning show light stuff. And then you incorporate COVID, just like the morning shows did,” she told Gold Derby in August 2020.
The season two trailer features UBA working hard to try and get Alex back on the air. Alex left UBA at the end of season one after making the bombshell reveal on-air with Bradley. Bradley and Alex have an incredibly tense moment in the trailer, as well, as they navigate what sort of working relationship and friendship they will have going forward.
How To Watch ‘The Morning Show’
The first season of The Morning Show is currently available to watch on Apple TV+. An Apple TV+ subscription is only $4.99 a month. The Morning Show season 2 will premiere on the streaming service. Season 1 dropped 3 episodes at once for its premiere and then moved to a one-episode-per-week release. Season 2 will likely follow the same format. The show is not available on any other streaming platform like Netflix, Hulu, or Amazon Prime Video.