Take Three: The Politician

The Politician: Season 1, Episode 3 “October Surprise” (B+)

This episode didn’t start with presidential trivia as I had expected it might, but it did include a formidable and memorable scene in which Payton referenced his future presidency and used it to convince the Harvard admissions guys that they had better let him in on his own merits so that they wouldn’t miss out on his brilliance. It’s fascinating to see Payton operate on his own, since he works a certain way when he knows he has an audience but is truly a force to be reckoned with when he’s powered by his own confidence and his belief in what he’s saying. I also enjoyed when he went over to Infinity’s house to yell at her and shouted down Dusty, telling her that he didn’t have the patience to deal with her. I hadn’t recognized Ben Platt’s “Dear Evan Hansen” costar Laura Dreyfuss as McAfee, and now I see it every time she appears on screen. It’s hard to keep up with the ever-changing duplicity here, though I like that characters like Payton’s hapless brothers do keep reappearing. James is proving to be a crucial asset, though the assistance he gave to Astrid turned out to be the opposite of helpful. Ricardo sending in that video seems to have truly turned the tide, and he wasn’t happy at all with the fact that it also meant that Infinity doesn’t want to talk to him anymore. The ending of the episode was rather dark, with Dylan McDermott’s father running upstairs to find a major mess and his daughter missing, and it’s hard to know what could possibly come next.