What I’m Watching: The Politician

The Politician: Season 1, Episode 5 “The Voter” (B+)

I was surprised to learn that this episode was only 28 minutes long, which is an interesting feature of some Netflix shows – “Mindhunter” did it in its first season also. I guess if the content of a particular story only runs a certain amount of time, why drag it out unnecessarily just to fill forty minutes or an hour? In this case, this was an entertaining opportunity to explore how one completely uninvested student experienced the election, bombarded by campaign analysts and the candidates appealing directly to him when all he wanted to do was play video games and masturbate constantly. This episode really highlighted the absurdity of the high school election, with promises made like a pledge to bring Drake to perform at the prom, all costs covered by a student fundraiser. Skye being allowed to trash Astrid repeatedly on stage felt excessive, though that’s the least of the unbelievable things presented on this show. I’m glad that Infinity didn’t just disappear, showing back up to rail against both candidates with a megaphone and no one really listening to her. Elliot being profiled as an undecided voter just pissed him off as he was continuously berated from all sides, and punching James and pushing Kris were sudden but predictable expressions of his frustration with not being left alone. Payton, to his credit, did seem sincere in trying to convince Elliot that he was actually listening to him, but it didn’t pay off since the unengaged swing voter decided not to even cast a vote after all.