The Politician Recap – Pilot – Netflix Review. Hello, fellow Famewatchers. It’s been a long time, ain’t it? Anyhoo, we decided to wake up from our hiatus to bring you recaps of The Politician which just started streaming on Netflix. It’s a Ryan Murphy Project so we expect to see guys, guys, and guys; you know, cute guys, singing guys, bad guys, nerdy guys with gymbods, and guys making out with each other. Haha. Oh come on, don’t tell us you also don’t expect this kinda stuff from our Ryan.

Instead of your usual wordy recaps, we decided to try something else and recap this series with GIFs, GIFs, and GIFs. After all, if a picture paints a thousand words, GIFs will paint a million words right?

We begin the series with Payton Hobard (played by Ben Platt) interviewing for Harvard.

He is smiley and all but we don’t know yet whether we are gonna like him or not. Likewise, the interviewer appears to not be totally sold on him because he kinda pushes back on our star’s “aggressive over-achieving” which brings out this reaction from our Payton:

Is that the fakest fake smile on this side of Santa Barbara?

We find out during the course of the pilot that our boy comes from a wealthy family (but was adopted), that his mom is Gwyneth Paltrow (playing the role of Georgina Hobart), that he is running as president for the student body of Saint Sebastian High School, and that he’s bad in Mandarin (he got a D+ on the subject).

Here’s our Harvard wannabe slash student politician during a debate with his opponent River Barkley (played by David Corenswet):

Payton does a good job of answering a question on whether we should “de-racisize” some of the uncomfortable parts of Huckleberry Finn but River steals our stripe-suit guy’s thunder by confessing that he once tried to commit suicide by drowning himself in a swimming pool with a gym plate tied to his feet.

We were like, WHAAAAAT? Why would you do that? You’re good lookin’, you’re rich, you’re high school popular, and you’ve got curly fabulous hair that rivals Steve Harrington’s, why would you even think of offing yourself like that?

Our Grandma Akita – who watched the premiere with us – was like, “Maybe he is lying about the suicide attempt to get votes? Maybe he did it to get his parent’s attention coz there’s no way in hell a rope would mysteriously untie itself from that gym weight if he really wanted to die? Or maybe he is simply telling the truth.”

Well, Grandma, we hope to eventually find out.

Anyhoo, we learn that Payton and River are not only rivals but the latter actually was the former’s Mandarin tutor. They soon became friends and lovers.

Didn’t we tell you that a Ryan Murphy project often involves dudes making out?

Here’s a question for you, fellow Famewatchers: Did Payton’s mom get him a tutor because of his embarrassing D+ grade on the subject or did he get a D+ because he spent the tutoring time making out with River instead of studying?

Payton’s quest for political glory is supported by an Instagram likes-driven advisory committee of three which appears to be very in tune with the electorate so much so that they may be able to replace the people behind Hillary Clinton’s ill-fated presidential bid and maybe win her Michigan or any one of the other winnable purple states.

Anyhoo, here are the members of the COMMITTEE TO ELECT PAYTON HOBARD SCHOOL PRESIDENT THEN U.S. PRESIDENT (from left to right): James (played by Theo Germaine), Alice (played by Julia Schlaepfer), and McAfee (played by Laura Dreyfuss).

For his part, River is backed by his girlfriend Astrid Sloan (played by Lucy Boynton) who finds out about the Payton/River relationship but who, instead of dumping his boyfriend, invited Payton to their budoir for some ménages à trois. Awwww, kids these days!

During the course of the campaign, River gained the support of Skye Leighton (played by Rahne Jones), a non-binary African American girl, who agreed to become his vice-presidential running mate.

Trying to one-up River’s recruit, our Payton tried his best to find a running mate from the special ed class to join him in his quest but his very best (and very apparent) efforts are rebuffed.

Now, although he appears to be on track to becoming the Student Body President of Saint Sebastian, River — for a reason we are yet to fathom — decided to bid farewell to humanity by shooting himself in the head in front of his presidential rival slash lover slash friend slash Mandarin tutee (yes, it’s a word).

A funeral was held and all and our Payton paid homage to his fallen rival/lover/friend/tutor by singing a Christmas song about reindeers and rivers which impressed the audience and our Grandma Akita. Here’s our boy proving that he’s got some pipes:

Now that he is running uncontested, Payton is  on track to becoming the next President of Saint Sebastian and eventually the United States, right?

Not so fast, Mary. He ain’t uncontested after all.

Huh, who would dare to run against him?

Well, Astrid aka River’s girlfriend decided to steal Payton’s singing thunder (our second thunder-stealing in the pilot) and to block his presidential ambitions by announcing during the funeral that she is gonna take up her beau’s mantle and run for President in his stead. The announcement is historic because Astrid and Skye will be the first all-girl tandem in the history of the school.

Rattled but not conquered, Payton eventually persuaded a girl with cancer named Infinity Jackson (played by Zoey Deutsch) to be his running mate. The announcement was well received but, as the episode closes, Payton was told that Infinity is actually faking her cancer.

Stay tuned for recaps of the upcoming episodes. Meantime, her are other GIFS we captured from the Netflix series.

Payton confronting River when he found out that his tutor/friend/lover is also running for President:

Our favorite GIF of the pilot:

IMAGE SOURCE: Netflix/The Politician.

The Politician Recap – Pilot – Netflix Review.