Season 2 of Ryan Murphy, Brad Falchuk and Ian Brennan's Netflix comedy is even more disappointing than Season 1 because it's way out of touch with the current election year, says Daniel Fienberg. "At seven episodes, several running under 40 minutes, The Politician is neither effective escapism in a moment of general cultural discomfort, nor does it have anything vaguely insightful to say about our electoral process — a basically unforgivable sin for a show airing in an election year," says Fienberg. He adds: "The Politician continues to be the first Ryan Murphy production — though Murphy directed no episodes this season and only co-wrote the premiere — with no appreciable connection to the zeitgeist. An episode trying to mock 'cancel culture' and politicians getting caught having done blackface is also a year behind the curve. The show's bizarre pride in saying 'throuple' over and over again, as if they'd tapped into the latest in outré sexuality, is straight-up sad given the creators' track record. And it's a mystery why the wrinkles in Payton's sexuality have been smoothed out entirely, and why the show's LGBTQ+ characters have become the most marginalized in the season two narrative. The real world is coming apart at the seams, and The Politician dedicates an astonishing amount of its limited time to debating the rules and strategy of rock-paper-scissors. And here's the thing: That subplot is the best part of the season. That's how edgy The Politician has become. Even the visuals, despite a roster of directors grounded in the Murphy-verse, don't pop in the stylish way the first season sometimes did."
ALSO:
TOPICS: The Politician, Netflix