Desean Terry On How Daniel’s Neil Diamond Meltdown Plays Into His Season 2 Character Arc

Awards Daily chats with Desean Terry of The Morning Show on Apple TV+ about belting out Neil Diamond and what the Season 2 ending means for Daniel.

Of all the characters on The Morning Show to be warning everyone about COVID (and going unheard), why does Desean Terry’s Daniel feel like the perfect character for this? Terry has some ideas.

“Because what’s fun about Daniel warning people about COVID is that we get his journalistic integrity and also his sense of humor about things, how self-deprecating he can be in all of this craziness. I think he’s a fun character to send to Wuhan. He’s both able to understand and see the severity of it and how disgusting the whole thing is while at the same time nodding to himself and being like, ‘This is my fucking life.'”

Daniel has a rough Season 2 of The Morning Show—and it’s not even because of COVID. Stella (Greta Lee) deems him as not having enough charisma to moderate a debate and he’s still having to be shuffled around when it comes to accommodating Alex (Jennifer Aniston) and Bradley (Reese Witherspoon).

“I think Stella sees things based on numbers and she’s very limited in terms of her vision. She really sees things in these numbers that are based off historical projections. What she did not understand or what she misses with Daniel—and I hope it’s something that they continue to explore on the show—is this new developing world of media where you can have a podcast in your authentic voice and speak to every segment of the population and all the sudden you’re attracting people by the troves. I don’t think that she’s yet trying to capitalize on that. It feels to me that that’s part of where Daniel is heading.”

That could be where his character is heading, but Terry could never predict that his character would sing Neil Diamond’s “America” this season. Terry laughs about how the moment came about.

“At first he was gonna slay—he was gonna hands-down slay and that’s what I signed up for! But then [showrunner] Kerry Ehrin started to reconceive the song in a sense that she knew she wanted it to be messier. We also wanted it to be about what’s going on with him internally, so the song really feels like a breakdown. We get to see Daniel’s neurosis in this epic manner.”

But. . . why “America”?

“I think the song choice still completely evades me. I tell myself, he went up to the pianist and Daniel was like, ‘What do you know?’ And the pianist was like, ‘America, Neil Diamond,’ and Daniel was like, ‘I know that one—let’s go!’ That’s the only thing I can come up with.”

It was also kind of a big middle finger to everyone. As Terry sees it, if Alex can fail to show up for work and be a total diva, why can’t Daniel?

“I think Daniel has learned from what happened with Alex that behaving bad often gets you what you want. So he was trying to show his charisma, but I think he was also taking the playbook that he had learned from from Alex, that doing something like hijacking the show gets you attention. Part of the reason Daniel is overlooked and feels overlooked is because he’s played by the rulebook. And he said that in Season 1. So him going off the rails is him saying, okay, I’m not playing by the rulebook anymore.”

Following the Neil Diamond song, Daniel continues to be unhinged when he has a tense on-air conversation with comedian Peter Bullard (Dave Foley), where he accuses him of being offensive toward him and describing him as “mincing.”

“It will be interesting to see exactly where we find [Daniel] in Season 3. I think something else that also happens with Daniel is—mincing no words about it—white folks behaving badly has different repercussion than a black man behaving badly. He definitely did not get what he wanted from singing the song and part of what’s going on underneath him with the interview, which I love—he’s so seething.”

Which makes you wonder—we never see how social media reacts to Daniel’s action online. Could he be a viral sensation and an Internet champion?

“He’s saying what people want to say. His fashion is on point. There’s gotta be [a cult following]!”

But wherever Daniel ends up in the future, it probably won’t be with UBA. In the season finale, he has an emotional phone conversation with Mia (Karen Pittman) where he tells her he’s not coming back to the network.

“I really love that scene with Mia. I love the relationship with Mia throughout the entire season, but I really love that conversation and connection they found. They’ve been at odds with each other this entire season and they finally got to an agreeing place. That agreeing place was a conversation about how insurmountable these challenges are for them in the workplace. I think where Daniel is leading to is finding that balance of authenticity for his voice, and valuing it in a capitalist marketplace. He’s been complaining, but he wasn’t fully taken the steps for himself to really push forward on his own political or sociopolitical agenda. I’m hoping for Season 3 he starts to find that balance.”

All seasons of The Morning Show are streaming on Apple TV+.