The Morning Show season 2 will get a coronavirus update

The second season of AppleTV+’s Emmy-nominated drama The Morning Show is being rewritten to tackle the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on the news industry.

AppleTV+ drama The Morning Show was renewed for a second season long before it racked up eight Emmy nominations, including one for Best Drama and several more in the major acting categories. But whatever the producers’ original idea for Season 2 was, the finished product is going to look more than a bit different whenever it hits our screens.

According to star Mark Duplass, the series’ second season is currently undergoing rewrites to incorporate another real-world plot thread: The coronavirus pandemic.

In an interview with Deadline last month, the actor, who plays producer Chip Black, confirmed that while season 2 had begun shooting, rewrites were underway to reflect and include the global impact of COVID-19 into their stories.

"“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. 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 stars Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon and follows the unfolding crisis at a popular morning news program when one of its long-time hosts is accused of sexual misconduct. The series handles the ramifications of the #MeToo movement with nuance and care, and it seems likely that it will handle the impact of COVID – on the news industry and the world at large – in a similar manner.

How the series will depict the fallout from the season 1 finale, which saw Aniston and Witherspoon’s characters out their network head for bribing victims of sexual harassment to stay silent, was already anyone’s guess. How a pandemic will play into all this – particularly one that devastated New York City where the fictional Morning Show broadcasts – is another question mark, but it should certainly make for a compelling story.

Have you watched The Morning Show? What would you like to see in season 2?