Nicole Beharie signs on to help Jon Hamm attempt to make The Morning Show watchable

By God, if they haven’t reeled in another one. Miss Juneteenth star Nicole Beharie has signed on to become a series regular on season 3 of Apple TV+’s newsroom drama The Morning Show, Deadline reports, joining Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon as a new lead.

Beharie will play Christina Hunter, a new anchor on the show who is described as “a grounded, competitive, and charismatic Millennial” who works just as hard as she plays. It’s the actor’s first series regular role since her turn in FX’s Sleepy Hollow; other recent endeavors include HBO’s Scenes From A Marriage reboot miniseries and the Sterling K. Brown and Regina Hall-led mockumentary Honk For Jesus, Save Your Soul.

Beharie is only the latest high-profile addition to The Morning Show’s season 3 cast, after Jon Hamm was confirmed earlier this year to be joining the series as a “corporate titan” named Paul Marks. Julianna Margulies, whose character Laura Peterson was first introduced last season, has also been confirmed to be reprising her role. Other new season 2 additions included Greta Lee, Ruairi O’Connor, Hasan Minhaj, Holland Taylor, Tara Karsian, and Valeria Golino.

Despite the series’ tendency to be, as our own Saloni Gajjar puts it, anywhere from “out of step with reality” to “unhinged,” The Morning Show is currently up for multiple Emmys, including Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama for Reese Witherspoon, Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama for Billy Crudup, and Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama for Marcia Gay Harden. Crudup, who plays network executive Corey Ellison, previously won an Emmy for his widely-lauded performance in 2020.

Although season 1 began with hints of flying colors, an attempt at memorializing COVID culture in season 2 did The Morning Show no favors, even despite inarguably elite talent. It’s impossible to rely on even the strongest actor to save wayward writing with an iffy core, and this series may as well be the bastion of such (scratch that, actually—that’s probably still The Newsroom.) But if the sole diamond to emerge from the coal mines of UBA is snippets of onscreen chemistry between Beharie and Hamm, hey— beggars can’t be choosers.