The Indian Chief
Episode 3 of The Politician Season 2 begins with Hadassah receiving an anonymous letter showing a picture of Payton. She shows it to Dede who tells her to drop it as they have won, but Hadassah insists on running with it. The next day, Payton wakes up to find that same picture all over the media, claiming that he has a problem with native Americans. Payton defends himself though, given he was 6 and this was a Halloween costume. His team suggests that he needs to make a speech with Skye next to him to show that he doesn’t have issues with different races. Skye agrees to it but makes a passionate speech about cultural appropriation as she believes Payton has crossed the line. She then convinces him to come with her into a different neighbourhood to register people of colour. Payton meets with the press and apologises, promising to do better. In the evening, things get a little tense in the bedroom when Alice tells Payton and Astrid she feels that she is getting less attention. Payton apologises again and promises to make it more fair for her. The next day, Payton meets with his team to discuss making more climate change events. After some poll results they find out he is 29 points down. Payton tells them he knows he is losing but they already knew their campaign was going to be difficult since the start. However, they have been doing this together as friends and believed in something. He is proud of what he has become so far and wants to keep on fighting. In the evening, Infinity goes on the agreed date with Andrew and tells him once and for all to leave her alone. As she leaves, we find out that she has finally been able to say no to people. We then cut to her giving out a speech about pollution and telling people to vote for Payton. Payton and Skye meet with Infinity afterwards to thank her for her support. However, she tells them she wants them to follow her in her zero waste lifestyle or she will tell everyone he’s a fraud. She gives them 24 hours and a checklist to adhere to. The next day, Payton and Skye compare checklists. However, Payton was unable to go through with number 15 which is to reuse shower water to cook and drink. Skye berates him and threatens to tell Infinity if he doesn’t comply with it. Meanwhile, Hadassah receives another picture of Payton but this time a very recent one of him dressed as an Indian chief again. Both women call Payton over to their office and show him the picture. Payton is outraged as he claims to be an admirer of Geronimo and doesn’t think there is anything wrong with it. Dede tells him she doesn’t want to release the picture. However, someone in his team has been digging and wants to leak that she has plagiarized a paper on Robert Moses; she will not release the picture if Payton tells his people to stop. Payton agrees and Dede vows to help him in his next campaign. While Tino comes clean to Georgina and tells her he loves her, Payton finds out that it was his twin brothers who sent the picture of him as a child. However, the second one was taken from someone in his team. He organises a meeting with his five friends and confronts them about it. Alice admits that it was her as she was feeling jealous but she was confused when she saw it, so she sent it to James who in turn sent it to the rest of the group. McAfee then comes forward as she wanted the truth out now. Outraged by this revelation, Payton fires her and throws the woman out. McAfee heads to see Hadassah and tells her she is the one who sent the last picture. She did it to put Payton’s campaign out of its misery and to show them they should hire her as she wants to follow them to Washington. She also tells her that Andrew is a mole and to get rid of him. The episode ends with McAfee meeting with Payton in a bar as we learn that this was a plan to infiltrate Dede’s office as a last attempt in their campaign. Just when we think Payton has given up, we see that he had one last card up his sleeve when he planned an elaborate infiltration into his rival’s team. It will be interesting to see what happens next and quite what McAfee will discover. Another surprising change is Infinity and her obsession with climate change. This brought some fun moments as we see Payton struggling with her demands for a zero-waste life. The Politician has been very enjoyable so far, with enough dark humour and satire to make this second season a good follow-up to its first.
