What I’m Watching: Boss

Boss: Season 1, Episode 5 “Remembered” (B+)

It’s absolutely fascinating to see this crew of hard-working political people jump into serious spin mode when Tom was revealed to have signed a document related to the water pollution when in a previous position so many years back. Ezra’s three-pronged strategy was quite brilliant, and it was so impressive to see it play out on the screens in front of them, with Kitty carefully watching each news channel to see the focus change from Chicago to Bensenville. Kitty tasking her underlings with planting for sale signs on lawns demonstrated both the extremes to which she was willing to go and her ability to think on her feet and swiftly solve problems. Tom managed to have two terrifically intimidating and awful moments in this episode, the first involving him pulling his pants down and going to the bathroom in the middle of a meeting and the second involving a tirade against the half-assed nature of gluten-free muffins. I’ve heard plenty of arguments against being vegan, but never one quite as harsh as that one. Despite his strong moments, Tom seems to be hallucinating to a disturbing degree, imagining everyone in his life in his office when Ezra was talking to him and then conjuring up an image of Meredith comforting him after seeing him drop his pills. His meeting with Emma where she apologized to him led him to break down on the elevator, and he doesn’t even know what’s happening at that same moment, with Ben being promised many things by Cullen and others if he drops out of the race.