My Review of Political Animals Episode 3- The Woman Problem

Bud goes to get information to help Elaine make her decision, Doug and TJ go with him and Doug finds out some new information, the president makes a move to head off the potential challenge from Elaine, Elaine feels out her family regarding her potential run, and Susan shows that she can play the political game very well.

Washington is abuzz with rumours that Elaine is going to run and the president has decided to take steps to neutralize her. Bud nominated a woman named Diane Nash; who is also a lesbian; to the Supreme Court when he was president. Justice Nash was one of Elaine's law professors and mentors. The President tries to pressure Justice Nash into retiring saying that he will nominate Elaine to the Supreme Court. Susan catches wind of the plan and informs Elaine about it in order to give Elaine time to neutralize ther threat. This has the side benefit of allowing Susan time to pull together information to write "The Story" about Elaine challenging the President in the primaries. Having been thwarted, the President sends Elaine on a long trip for a similar purpose. What he does not count on is Bud and Douglas.

Bud has gone to visit a friend who is a polling master. Unfortunately, Bud apparently slept with the guys wife, which is obviousl not endearing Bud to the guy. However, he comes around and agrees to help Elaine. Now we get to my one complaint with the episode. The episode consistently referred to the last presidential election as being 2 years ago. Problem? The episode is taking place in 2012 (as mentioned in the dialogue). 2010 was *NOT* the last presidential election. So someone, somewhere screwed the pooch on this score.

Anyways, in the last election, Bud did a couple of interviews where he used the words "penis" and "vagina" which many people (including Douglas) blamed for Elaine's loss in California. According to the pollster, Elaine couldn't win, so Bud decided to fall on his sword (so to speak) and use the words in the interviews in order to make it look like he lost her the primary. When he heard this, Douglas decided to work with Bud to help Elaine.

Douglas also discovered that TJ is still doing drugs and Douglas is not happy about this (and that is putting it mildly!). Elaine also figured out that Douglas gave TJ the money and she was not happy about it. Douglas defended his decision to give TJ the money by saying that if TJ had something to focus on and be proud of, he would be less likely to use drugs and drink. Likely? Don't know. TJ is the king of excuses. I am not sure what can be done to help him at this point.

Douglas is also in trouble where Susan is concerned. On her own, she decided to hold off on the story. She has agreed to hold off on the story until Elaine makes her announcement provided that Douglas provide her with the inside information about the decision making process. Not a good thing.

Elaine's mom is not happy about Elaine running, but will support Elaine if needed. TJ claims to be ok with it, but I am not sure if he really is.

Until next week!