Undecided Voter
Episode 5 of The Politician begins in another household with an ordinary teen, Elliot, getting ready for school. He doesn’t seem bothered with the election and girls are the only thing on his mind. As he arrives at St Sebastian’s, Kris starts talking to him about voting for Astrid because they know he is one of the undecided voters. While masturbating in the bathroom, Elliot witnesses Payton talking to another undecided voter, Amir. After Amir leaves, James and Payton talk about Elliot. James calls him a loser and tells him not to waste his time but Payton berates him, telling him that everyone is important. After leaving the bathroom, James talks to him on his way to class about the election but Elliot ignores him and ends up punching him. Both candidates then meet for a final debate. Skye, who is now Payton’s vice president, takes Astrid down. Astrid takes the stand and presents her new vice president – Haitian Pierre Toussaint. He makes a bold promise too; get Drake to give a concert at the school. Suddenly, Infinity arrives and screams into a megaphone that Astrid ran away with her boyfriend, creating yet another scandal. Mcafee asks Elliot after the debate if he is leaning towards a specific candidate. As he’s interested in girls, he replies that he doesn’t really care. Both candidates come to talk to him at lunch, but he again seems really disinterested. The conversation soon turns into a full-blown argument between the two, before Elliot leaves, throwing his food in the bin. Payton then decides to speak to Elliot one on one to find out what he really wants. After probing him, Elliot replies that he would like a private bathroom and better vending machines. The episode ends with Elliot telling his parents at dinner that he didn’t vote for anyone as he doesn’t think his vote matters. This shorter episode of The Politician offers us something very different from the others we have seen so far. We take a look at an ordinary kid, lost in between all the cliques in high school. While the episode doesn’t do much to move the story forward, it was quite refreshing to include a simple teen and seeing Payton caring about every single one of his voters is a nice touch too. There is a pretty satirical moment in the episode as well involving a nod toward the data usage by Cambridge Analytica company in the form of Amir’s gathered statistics. With voting just around the corner, all that’s left to do now for both candidates is wait for the results. Just who will be the president when the dust settles remains to be seen.
