There’s nothing subtle about the melodrama that The Morning Show becomes when Alex Levy takes center stage — and this time, quite literally, at the opera. Opera has always been about heightened emotion and excess, and the episode title “Un Bel Di” (a direct reference to Madame Butterfly) embraces that spirit fully.

Even when it veers into the unintentionally comic — with Jennifer Aniston confusing emotional intensity with wide-eyed hysteria — it works. The episode is elegantly crafted, tightly written, and chaotic in all the right ways.

Celine: the true villain

Season 4 has changed the show’s DNA. Once, every major character was flawed, narcissistic, and complex in their own way — Alex, Bradley, Cory, Chip — all morally gray. Now, there’s a single true villain: Celine (Marion Cotillard, icy and magnetic), a French power broker manipulating every thread of the story, from newsroom politics to international scandals.

This episode finally reveals the scope of her schemes. Celine is behind the Martel Chemical cover-up — the Wolf River environmental disaster — and she’s willing to sacrifice anything, even a journalist’s freedom, to protect her family’s name.

Bradley in danger

Bradley is detained at the Minsk airport on trumped-up espionage charges. The arrest is both propaganda and strategy, clearly orchestrated, and not coincidentally connected to Celine’s influence.

Before being taken, Bradley manages to send Chip a short video and some of the Wolf River files, but then she vanishes. From there, the episode becomes a race against time: the UBN team (Alex, Mia, Chip, and even Paul Marks) must find a way to get her back.

Meanwhile, other storylines fade into the background — Chris’s emotional turmoil, the podcaster (still unnamed here) eyeing a Senate run with Celine’s backing, Miles’s absence. Everything now revolves around saving Bradley.

A night at the opera

Alex pulls every string she can. She takes the case to Ben and Celine. Still, by explaining what Bradley was doing in Belarus, she inadvertently reveals too much — that Bradley is dangerously close to uncovering the Wolf River truth.

Desperate, Alex turns to the last man she ever wanted to rely on: Paul Marks (Jon Hamm), her ex-boyfriend and a businessman with dangerously close ties to a Russian oligarch, Dmitri Ivanov.

The scene that gives the episode its title unfolds when Paul invites Ivanov to the opera, and Alex shows up with Mia as her companion, in an encounter charged with diplomatic and moral tension.

Oh, and yes, there’s still undeniable chemistry between Alex and Paul. The once abusive, amoral, and emotionally cold man now seems empathetic, vulnerable, and very much still in love. And, fortunately for the romantic subplot, we learn he’s single again — and back in the game.

Lucky that Mia, who manages Chris, happened to be wandering the network’s halls, right? Even though she’s no longer an employee, she uncovers Chip’s plan and quickly understands the risk Bradley is in — making herself indispensable.

She speaks Russian, and she’s the one who realizes that Ivanov wants more than backroom favors: he’s demanding access to an AI software developed by Paul, a move that would turn Bradley’s rescue into a federal crime.

Still, Alex agrees to the deal.

The plan collapses

For a moment, everything seems settled — until the inevitable collapse. The deal suddenly falls apart without any apparent explanation.

Looking back, we understand why: Amanda, Paul’s right-hand woman, tipped off Celine. To protect her own interests and her family’s name, Celine shuts down the negotiation. Bradley remains imprisoned, and the diplomatic standoff deepens.

The fact that Alex will refuse to believe Amanda acted alone — without Paul’s knowledge or approval — will be hard for him to explain. At least it guarantees Jon Hamm will be back next season.

Ultimately, to protect her interests and her family’s company, Celine killed the deal. Bradley stays imprisoned, and the crisis spirals into chaos. The final reveal — that Celine knowingly sabotaged the rescue — gives weight to the glint in her eye that Marion Cotillard has been perfecting all season. She’s not just a manipulator; she’s the show’s first true villain.

Cory’s grief

Meanwhile, Cory spirals. Once the series’ closest thing to a villain himself, he’s now the show’s most sympathetic soul — still reeling from his mother’s suicide, lonely and vulnerable, and walking straight into Celine’s trap.

Their entanglement is as doomed as it is revealing. Celine seduces him only to dig through his late mother’s belongings in search of evidence about Wolf River, and finds nothing.

What she doesn’t know is that Cory has it. In the episode’s closing shot, we learn that he’s carrying the Wolf River Contamination Report in his jacket pocket, where, unbeknownst to him, his mother hid the most dangerous and important document everyone’s after.

The irony is striking: the most unpredictable man on the show now holds the key to exposing everything. Your move, Cory!

And a side note: Seriously, Cory asked his mother about the case, and she lied? Why didn’t she explain everything before she died? Why leave such a crucial piece of information hanging? Will he use it to help Bradley or to keep Celine? He will definitely get his position back!

A prelude to chaos

“Un Bel Di” feels like the true overture to the finale — a crescendo of deceit, grief, and power plays that positions every character for the last act.

Bradley remains missing. Alex stands between heroism and complicity. Paul doesn’t yet realize how deep he’s been played. And Cory — the broken, grieving executive — may hold the only real chance at redemption.

The Morning Show has always thrived on chaos, and here, it finally feels operatic in the best sense: dramatic, absurd, human. The finale promises to be explosive — and like any good opera, someone’s bound to fall before the curtain closes.