Greta Lee Confirms Exit As Stella In Season 4

A cast member on The Morning Show confirmed that they’re leaving the Apple TV show and reflected on her character’s journey. The Morning Show season 4 is currently streaming on Apple TV, with only three more episodes to go until the finale. Technology has played a major role in the current storyline, with deepfakes and AI dominating the characters’ lives.

up during The Morning Show season 4, episode 6, “If Then,” Stella ran into a metaphorical brick wall when her personal secrets came to the surface via her AI chatbot in front of an entire group of people. She ended up leaving her role as head of news at UBN and catching a flight to escape her misery after Miles’ rejection.

This left a lingering question of whether Greta Lee, who plays Stella, was truly leaving the show for good. The actor spoke to Variety and confirmed that as far as she’s aware,this is the end for her.”

Lee added that she would love to see a situation where Stella returns at some point in the future when The Morning Show storyline catches up to what’s happening in the world of AI in 2025 (the show is currently set in 2024).

This is the end for her, as far as I know. But of course, since the show is so prescient and a direct commentary on what’s happening, I would love to see what kind of world would exist where she comes back, and what she might have to say.

However, a grand return can’t happen anytime soon because “the world has to shift a little bit more to make room for her” in a way that would necessitate Stella’s comeback.

When I think about her and what I want for her, I don’t know if there’s a place for her that exists quite yet. I think the world has to shift a little bit more to make room for her in the way that I would want to see her. Otherwise, we’ll just see her being a slave to this corporation. Being a slave to unfulfilled desires, and I don’t want that for her.

Instead of being a “slave to this corporation“Lee wants Stella to be”roughened up“by the real world and return when she actually has something”ingenious“to bring to the table.

I want her to be completely taken by surprise by what’s out there for her. If she ever comes back, I want her to be sort of like Matthew McConaughey as the beach bum, with bongos and the hair. I want her to really be roughed up a little bit by real-world living. Just to feed her soul a little bit, and become a person. Because I really do think it’s from that place that maybe she would have something ingenious to offer.

For now, though, there are no plans for Lee to reprise her role The Morning Show. She believes that Stella’s fall from grace was inevitableespecially after she lost her moral high ground when she went along with a gross stunt involving a female server licking a beverage from a table in season 3.

Ever since then, Stella hasn’t given herself the time or energy to change her ways or even to realize she was spiraling out of control. Now that Stella is no longer at UBN, Lee hopes that her character does just that—preferably on a beach.

But I’m hoping she will now get a chance to. I think that’s part of the problem for her. It’s like she hasn’t been afforded the opportunity to reflect or to forgive or even, in a lot of ways, acknowledge in a bigger way some of the things she’s endured and done in order to get to where she is. So I’m hoping she’s doing that on a beach somewhere.

Aside from her reputation being demolished, Stella faced rejection from Miles when she got on the plane, which is actually a much better outcome for her necessary growth, according to Lee, who claimed that her character is now “free.” While that was a scary moment for Stella, and she might have thought at first that she had lost everything, the reality is that “she’s got everything.”

I think it’s a whole new sensation that she has literally never experienced before. It’s a lot to process within a few moments. When she realizes Miles isn’t coming, she is taking stock and realizing she has nothing. But the surprising thing for her and someone like her is in that moment of realizing she’s got nothing, it sort of means she’s got everything. That’s the gift of the horrible circumstances that have fallen on her. She really is free. I think, arguably, that step towards the plane is the scariest thing she’s probably ever done in her life.

Stella may be gone from the Apple TV series, but The Morning Show cast is still being led by Jennifer Aniston’s Alex Levy and Reese Witherspoon’s Bradley Jackson.

With only four more episodes left in season 4 (and a fifth installment already ordered by the streamer), there’s still plenty of time for more scandals to shake up their lives beyond the recent AI nightmare.

The Morning Show season 4 streams Wednesdays on Apple TV.