Reid Scott

Katherine Newbury (Emma Thompson) is an acclaimed talk show host "Tonight with Katherine Newbury" with an extensive career in comedy, but her show's ratings have seen a steady decline over the past decade. The network's president, Caroline Morton (Amy Ryan), tells Katherine to fix up her show or she will be replaced. Caroline says that the current season will be Katherine's last. Katherine has a tendency to invite old women to her shows, who do not connect with the audience. Caroline says that Katherine is proud to not connect with the mainstream audience, almost as if it is beneath her to put the effort. Billy Kastner (Marc Kudisch) is a talent manager and wants Katherine to invite some of his talent to her show. Katherine has been hosting a late-night comedy show since 1991, and has hosted over 6000 episodes, with 43 prime-time Emmy awards. She has recently won the American Humor Award as well. Brad (Denis O'Hare) is the head writer of Katherine's show. Writers include Gabe (Lucas Caleb Rooney) who has a 2nd child and asks for a raise, Tom (Reid Scott) monologue writer, Burditt who has worked on the show for 27 years, Charlie, Eugene (Paul Walter Hauser), Chris Reynolds (John Early) and McCary (Blake DeLong) Gabe is fired by Katherine after he points out that she hates women and that the show suck and has had for years. Katherine has not met her writers for years and instead refers to them by numbers (1 to 7) as she can't be bothered to remember their names. In an attempt to revamp the show, Katherine has Molly Patel (Mindy Kaling) hired to her writing staff, mainly on the basis that she is an Indian American woman while many of the writers are white men. Katherine has a reputation of not letting women last on her staff. Hayes (Luke Slattery) is Tom's younger brother who has applied for a position at the show. Molly worked at a chemical plant and participated in an essay contest which gave her the chance to meet the president of parent-parent company of Katherine's show. In that meeting she asked for an intro to Katherine, as she loves comedy. Brad knows that Molly is not right for the job but hires her for 13 weeks. As a result, Hayes is rejected, and he was far more qualified than Molly. Katherine is under tremendous pressure and on the first day of the re-start, she fires 2 workers (Gabe and McCary - who came late to work), which also happens to be Molly's first day at work. This instantly makes all the other writers hate her, plus the fact that she berates the show in her very first meeting (which Katherine likes as she is being honest, and her husband Walter also said the same to Katherine the previous night). Tom hates Molly as she is the reason that Hayes did not get hired. Molly overhears him and retorts that she would rather be a diversity hire than a nepotism hire. In a team meeting, Tom educates Molly that all the writers get to office at 10 AM. They write their jokes based on day's headlines and submit to Brad. Brad selects the jokes and sends them to the writers for refinement. The show is taped at 6:30 PM and everybody goes home. Only Brad and Tom are allowed on the stage. Although Molly has little experience in comedy and initially struggles, she proves her worth by giving Katherine good material to work with on her show as well as ideas on how to reach out to a bigger audience. For e.g. she figures out that up until the crisis meeting Katherine had not even met most of the writers on her team. Burditt (Max Casella) becomes her new cabin share. In one meeting Molly gets told off for offering more unsolicited criticism, but no solutions. Burditt advises her to write something, and she does, which is accepted by Katherine for the very next show. But on stage she decides to skip the joke as it is considered too political and shows the true nature of Katherine's beliefs to the audience. The first attempt at inviting more "current" stars is a disaster when you tube star Mimi Mismatch (Annaleigh Ashford) is invited to the show, who storms off after she realizes that Katherine is attempting to make fun of her and show her in an intellectually inferior way. Mimi accuses Katherine of being bitter, out-of-touch and an old lady who is mean to people she has never met. Tom Campbell (Reid Scott) is the monologue and is threatened by Molly's presence as she is smart and has Katherine's ear. After the Mimi disaster Katherine hires a PR expert who makes her invite the media to a party at her home. Molly meets Katherine's sweet husband Walter (John Lithgow). She also saves Katherine from one of the pointed questions from the media about her harsh treatment of the writers. One night Molly has to attend a charity event where she is doing stand-up comedy in support of Lung Cancer. Katherine is working and forbids Molly to go, but she goes anyway. Katherine follows her and watches her make fun of the fact that she got fired 15 mins ago, on stage. Katherine is fascinated how Molly took personal events from her life and made that into comedy material. She decides to follow up on that and make the show more about herself. The jokes become more personal and political. The results prove successful. The show becomes more engaging, and the ratings go up, so much so that Caroline's family is also watching it. Katherine learns that Caroline wants to pick young, popular comedian Daniel Tennant (Ike Barinholtz) to replace her as the new host. Katherine resists, as Daniel's comedy is vulgar and misogynistic. With backup from her writers, Katherine defies the network's demands and decides on air to continue her career. An email from one of the writers, Charlie (Hugh Dancy), gets leaked, in which it is revealed that Katherine had an affair with Charlie after her husband Walter (John Lithgow) was initially diagnosed with Parkinson's disease. In the middle of the drama, Katherine fires Molly when she tells her she is acting poorly in the wake of the news (Molly advises Katherine to admit to the affair on the show and to share her side of the story). Eventually, Katherine makes amends with Walter and the other writers and admits her affair to her audience. Her sincerity and passion for the show convinces Caroline to let her stick around, and Katherine later apologizes to Molly and hires her back. One year later, the show's team has diversified, Molly is promoted to co-lead monologue writer, and Katherine's show is more successful than ever.