The Politician Season 2 is a hollow and perplexingly stale glimpse into American politics

The Hollywood Reporter

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."

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• The Politician does have campy pleasures, but Season 2 does all the wrong things: "The show almost certainly needs fewer characters but has instead added more," says Hank Stuever. "And instead of getting some breathing room, the remaining oxygen is spent running in circles for all seven episodes of Season 2 (which premiered Friday). Rather than sharpen its cleverest ideas, it unleashes several more half-thought scandalous subplots, most of which have to do with sex. It’s a romp, after all — a show about people who’ve lost any semblance of moral compass, which, as TV viewers in the 21st century, we should be plenty used to by now, whether this lack of goodness is personified in dramas, comedies or our actual breaking news. It’s entirely possible to watch The Politician and not know whether its take on politics is meant to be meaningful and relevant or — and this may be the better way to enjoy it — completely and coldly meaningless. The Politician’s burn-it-down regard for all politics is a tired stance and a bit off topic in the current moment, which so badly needs a rebuilding of good politics and good people. Let us fall back, then, to the show’s only sure defense: It’s a comedy."