The Politician Season 2: Review

I have never hated a show that I love, so much.

That genuinely sums up my feelings towards this season and the show as a whole. Never before have I hated a season of television so much whilst enjoying every episode. It's a pretty unique experience and I'm going to try and explain why I feel like this.

For those who don't know, The Politician is a political satire show made for Netflix by American Horror Story creator Ryan Murphy as part of a five year deal he made with them worth $300 million. Murphy has a good track record with shows ranging a variety of genres from horror, to comedy, to musical, to courtroom drama, all with relative success. He's not just a dab hand at writing good content, he's also brilliant at writing marketable content. His stuff sells, the quality is just a bonus.

In general I find his work very watchable. It's full of attractive people making dumb and morally ambiguous choices. That's his USP as of late. The problem is... it could be so much more...

I really enjoyed the first season. I was aware of its faults and I was aware that it was pulpy and kind of empty but the idea of it kept me watching. The concept of a school election being just as full of backstabbing, dirty politics, scheming and plotting as the real deal was a funny and entertaining idea to me and it did express some smart themes.

I liked Payton as a character and I thought the acting was good. To be honest most of the family stuff left little impact on me but the actual body of the show felt solid and very bingable.

I was really excited about this season because this was the point where playground politics would become real. This is where the mistakes made in the previous season would come back to haunt Payton. Where the relationships became more complicated, where the plotting would become more contrived...

Instead we got a lot of good set-ups which led to a lot of anti-climaxes.

The frustrating thing is that there's plenty of really good stuff here! All of the first season cast return and thankfully the family stuff is scrapped appart for Payton's mum running for the state senator of California, a plot point I LOVED initially but like a lot of the plot points it wilted in the end. I like the political commentary it provides and the themes about doing the wrong things for the right reasons. I thought the character of Dede Standish was brilliant I liked Astrid's storyline although there was still less of her than I would have liked.

However throughout the season it felt like something was missing. The thing that had made this show work in the first place.

Without the school setting this doesn't become a satirical show about rich kids battling it out and playing dangerous games to get more power, this becomes a wildly inaccurate and ridiculous melodrama about idealized rich politicians... being idealized rich politicians. The playground, the minimised political arena and the unimportant-ness of it all was what gave the first season it's edge and made it funny!

It gave the writers a chance to explore modern politics through metaphor and that was entertaining. The second season doesn't have that and even worse the second season doesn't suffer from any consequences from the first... or any consequences at all now that I think about it...

Hadassa and Dede were two standout characters for me played brilliantly by Bette Midler and Judith Light who both seemed to click into the tone of the show perfectly. Their parts were definitely the saving grace of the show because the stakes were higher for them than our main characters and it was hard not to agree with them a lot of the time.

The problem was that both sides of this election campaign were not only liberal but devoid of much real antagonism. The only reason they hated each other was their own ambition which actually made for pretty boring TV. Their attempts to smear each other seemed weak which was great morally but as far as creating exciting conflict in a TV show goes... it didn't.

The first season had some brilliant "oh s*&t" moments which made you wonder how they were going to get out of it. This season things just seemed to happen and solutions came along five minutes later not unlike Murphy's latest TV show Hollywood.

However despite having NOTHING that a good TV show should have... I still really enjoyed it.

It's fun, it's wacky, the characters are great. The satire works and this season is definitely funnier than the first. I felt that although there weren't physical consequences from the first season that the character development was consistent.

Much like Payton himself, this show has a blinding charisma which makes you completely overlook its faults while you're watching it. It's only afterwards that you realised you've been watching zero substance for an hour.

Unlike the first season, this season doesn't leave me wanting more.

I honestly think this series has forced me to raise my casual viewing standards. I enjoyed it while I was watching it but ultimately I felt like I got very little out of it.

4/10