When Morning Wars first launched on Apple TV in 2019, many expected a glossy drama about the high-pressure world of breakfast television. And in some ways, it is. The studio lights, the celebrity interviews, the scramble for ratings—it’s all there. But at its heart, the show is about something deeper. It’s about power, truth, and what happens when the carefully controlled world of television collides with the mess of human failure.
Now going into its forth season, what makes it more than a showbiz soap is the way it wrestles with the upheavals of the past decade: the #MeToo reckoning, the cost of power, and the culture wars that have reshaped public life.
The series has a fascinating backstory. It was originally based on Brian Stelter’s book Top of the Morning: Inside the Cutthroat World of Morning TV, a behind-the-scenes look at the rivalries and politics of American breakfast programs. But the show’s direction changed when the #MeToo movement broke into the headlines in 2017, and the sexual misconduct allegations against NBC’s Matt Lauer became public. What began as a workplace drama quickly turned into something more urgent: a story about abuse, silence, and the cost of protecting powerful people.
Jennifer Aniston plays Alex Levy, a veteran morning host who has spent years holding her spot at the top. She is polished, sharp, and deeply aware of how fragile her position is. Reese Witherspoon plays Bradley Jackson, an outsider plucked from regional reporting who shakes up the network with her blunt honesty and unpredictable energy. Their relationship drives much of the show: two women navigating ambition, trust, and survival in an industry that often pits women against each other.
The show begins in the aftermath of scandal. Alex’s co-anchor Mitch Kessler, played by Steve Carell, is fired for sexual misconduct. The network scrambles to control the damage. Executives look for scapegoats. Viewers demand answers. And Alex is left to hold the show together while quietly asking herself: what did I know, and when did I choose not to see it?
This is where Morning Wars is at its sharpest. It doesn’t reduce misconduct to one man’s sins. It asks how whole systems—networks, colleagues, friends—allowed abuse to go unchecked. Some looked away because it was easier. Others stayed silent because they feared losing their jobs. Some justified it as the cost of keeping the show on the air. These questions echo beyond television. They press into any workplace, any community, and yes, even the church.
For people of faith, it is uncomfortable to watch without thinking about what Jesus said: “The truth will set you free” (John 8:32). Yet the truth in Morning Wars is never tidy. When it comes out, it brings pain, humiliation, and brokenness. Some careers end in disgrace. Some people are dragged into the light unwillingly. And yet the alternative—staying silent and protecting the system—is worse. Darkness thrives where lies are protected.
The show is also honest about women in power. Alex and Bradley are not saints. They both lie. They both act selfishly. They both fail others. But they are also strong, driven, and unwilling to be reduced to background players in a male-dominated world. This complexity feels real. Sin does not fall neatly on one side. The struggle for integrity is shared.
And there’s something biblical in that struggle. Power itself is not evil. But the way we cling to it, the way we protect it at the expense of truth, is. In Morning Wars, executives talk about protecting the “brand” and the “institution.” It sounds familiar. How often have churches or other communities used the same language to excuse silence? Protecting the institution instead of protecting the vulnerable. Saving face instead of seeking justice.
As the seasons move on, the show expands to take on other issues—cancel culture, political polarisation, even the COVID-19 pandemic. Sometimes it works, sometimes it feels scattered. But when it focuses on the core theme of truth and power, it resonates.
At times it feels overloaded—like it’s trying to be the show that diagnoses everything wrong with America. But when it narrows its focus on its two leads, it’s compelling.
Aniston’s performance is especially striking. She shows Alex’s cracks beneath the polish—her fear of being replaced, her guilt over what she ignored, her need for control. Witherspoon’s Bradley is her opposite: messy, blunt, sometimes reckless, but often the one willing to speak the truth no one else will. Together, they capture the tension between protecting what you have and risking it for what’s right.
The show doesn’t let the audience off easily. It doesn’t give us neat answers about who is good and who is bad. Instead, it reminds us how complicated people are, and how sin infects systems as much as individuals. It also shows how lonely it can be to tell the truth. Bradley often pays a price for speaking up. Alex pays a price for hiding. Neither path is without cost.
For Christians, this raises searching questions. Do we stay silent to protect our seat at the table? Do we excuse or minimise harm to preserve our own comfort? Or do we risk our reputations, our friendships, even our positions, to bring truth into the light? The gospel calls us to stand with the vulnerable, even when it costs us. It calls us to confess, to repent, and to seek justice rather than hide behind appearances.
Still, Morning Wars can’t escape a kind of soapiness. It loves a scandal, a breakdown, a dramatic speech. At its worst, it feels like an expensive network drama dressed up as prestige TV. But that doesn’t erase the fact that it’s tapping into something real: the way power, gender, and truth are constantly renegotiated in public life.
Hitting its fourth season, the show will be tackling a multitude of storylines including a major look at how AI may or may not shape the future of television. Other topics will give momentum such as climate change cover-ups, corruption, secret affairs, and chemical spills. More star power is added with Jeremy Irons giving Alex some backstory as her professor father, and Marion Cotillard playing Celine, the savvy French board president who may be friend or may be foe.
Morning Wars isn’t a sermon, but it does show the damage that comes when truth is buried and when power is protected at all costs. It’s messy and often uncomfortable, but so is real life.
Watching it, I can’t help but about institutional religion, like television networks, faces the same temptation: to protect the institution instead of seeking the truth. And the same challenge: when the light comes, will we welcome it, or will we try to hide?
Seasons 1-3 are available on Apple TV and new Season 4 episodes are coming out every Wednesday
