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Spoilers follow for The Overview Effect, the season-three finale ofThe Morning Show.
At the end of the finale, Bradley Jackson turns herself in to the FBI.
To be less glib, I should say that puts Bradley in an interesting place professionally and emotionally.
The person who embodies that split most to me is Bradley.
You came intoThe Morning Showmid-stream, taking over from Kerry Ehrin after two seasons.
Were you pitching Apple a specific direction for the show when you were hired?Everyone was so generous.
Kerry, who created these incredibly memorable characters, said, Its yours, do what you want.
And everybody was pretty much like, What do you want to do?
Because of my background in thrillers, I wanted a season with a fair amount of propulsion.
Im always happy to hear an idea that wouldnt have occurred to me.
How did you land on that being the inciting incident?It started with emotion.
It was like,Is COVID going to be over?
I wrote it without thinking about how it was going to be fairly challenging to film.
How did you end up casting Jon Hamm?He was the front-runner all along.
I wanted someone that was Alexs equal and a person who would be interested in being with an equal.
I also wanted someone who could out-Cory Cory.
In a weird way, that situation is almost a triangle with those three playing off each other.
I was like,This lady needs some intimacy.Her daughter is not around.
She needs to be close to someone, as any human does.
Theyre playing at the same level.
Its not like hes trying to manage her; its comfort with her power.
To everybody else shes just talent.
What if somebody said, Youre amazing, do what you want?
Thats why she takes his offer seriously.
She originally created that tech for a very progressive, quite leftist reason.
What happens when you get pulled into a more centrist corporation?
I liked a tough woman totally unsentimental and unapologetically telling him shit.
He has no family, so in a way, shes his family.
I could do a whole season of just Amanda!
Id be typing away happily.
They werent like, Dont talk about tech.
They never said anything about how tech should or should not be portrayed.
Paul Marks is not all of tech.
Hes not Elon Musk.
But is he right?
And what happens when Chris someday learns that Cory did that?
Chris is a character you introduced this season.
There are stories, even apart from Bradley, to tell with her.
Laura was such a composed adult person when I watched season two.
I was like,That ladys the only person making sense here.
Then, with the Cory-Bradley of it, I think they tentatively … took a step.
They both have a lot of reckoning to do with their choices on their own.
Did you always have the season structured so that youd have apandemic flashback episode?
The ask is very painful for both of them.
Early, early on we decided we would do a My Pandemic episode.
It was not going to be about COVID but all these relationships.
Was that intentional?It wasnt intentional because I love all their scenes together.
I love that scene in episode two where Alex says, Did you fuck a predator?
and Bradley is like, Well, I protected you even if he didnt.
I like that kind of no-holds-barred friendship, the person who can really tell you the truth.
We want to get them together more in season four.
The monologue was actually twice as long as whats in the episode.
It was like 35 steps to get something on air, and to me that was like competency porn.
Its a system of checks and balances pushing things forward.
I felt like someone should say that, and Chip seemed to be the right one.
Paul got him fired.
He had to watch Alex and Paul making out.
Its not just out of the goodness of his heart.
Do you have a list of all the fake shows UBA produces?
I never get tired ofDonner Partyjokes.
Its like a baking-dance-competition show and a detective-vampire show.
you’re able to enter a scene thats apparently dramatic and it can become absurd or vice versa.
I think thats emblematic of the time were living in.
You get these newsfeed updates about wars and under that its Taylor Swifts new boyfriend.
Its all context collapse.
The tone ofThe Morning Showreflects how were getting information.
Its something Kerry Ehrin baked in.
Its always interesting to figure out what form that should take.
Is it possible to really change an institution?
When youre swimming in the Hollywood pool, youre always asking yourself that.
