I really enjoyed The Politician season 2 (heavy spoilers ahead) but the handling of LGBTQ characters was nothing short of a mess, and frankly felt kind of hurtful, which is being echoed by a lot of LGBTQ viewers. For a show with eight+ major LGBTQ characters (Payton, Astrid, McAfee, Georgina, Skye, James, River, and Alice as revealed in S2), this season had little to show for it except on the polyamory front (which was good to see represented). All these LGBTQ characters ended up with someone of the opposite gender or single. Making a conscious decision not to verbally confirm sexualities and gender identities and not centering on gay pain-type storylines was a smart and refreshing choice in the first season. But the second season crossed a line into implying these defined sexualities can’t exist at all and are obsolete in this post-modern world of ‘everybody is fluid’ progressivism. Not only does that invalidate the sexualities of many LGBTQ individuals, but it excuses how the representation this season was conveniently... hetero.
Specifying that River was not bisexual despite his love for Payton and Astrid was so unnecessary. Clarifying that Payton wasn’t attracted to him ‘in that way’ was in direct contrast with the first season ‘he made me feel things not in a traditional heteronormative way.’ And for not mentioning most sexualities in the first season, it was disheartening to hear the term “bisexual” used only to qualify what the characters are not.
Putting McAfee in a sex scene with a man and especially having her engaged to a man at the end even tho based on the first season many saw her as a lesbian felt like an attack. Unless the point is to in the future explore her blatant overcompensating and insecurity in her sexuality as was shown during the second season, then her story becomes lesbian (or otherwise queer girl with an established preference for women) ends up with a man. Many of the characters are bi/pan/fluid which is completely valid but adding McAfee there when she showed no interest in men during the first season felt highly uncomfortable and aggressively invalidating.
It was nice to see Georgina with an accomplished woman after she and Brigette didn’t work out... until she dumped her to have an affair with a man who ends up being a terrible person (especially when his plot was mostly useless). Another long sigh.
Lastly, Alice and Astrid’s threesome revolved around Payton, to the extent that Astrid seemed emotionally detached from Alice. Then there was the negative jealousy trope common with how the media treats three-way relationships. Also they somehow managed to queerbait with canon fluid/queer characters (didn’t know this could be done) by showing this possibility of Alice and Astrid running away only to have Payton and Alice get back together and start a family.
We see a quick moment of Skye in an inappropriate relationship with a female professor and a shot of James but the remaining lesbian and trans characters, respectively, end up single at the end, and moreover had notably less screentime. Additionally, we don’t see Astrid after the time jump at all, and all we know is that she’s on her own since Alice went back to Payton.
All of these outcomes together created an unsettling tapestry when it came to LGBTQ representation. A lot of the progress in queer storytelling made during the first season was undermined in the second. Thankfully we’re beyond the need to argue a lack of representation, but now exists a new problem of the lack of positive representation. While it’s great that everyone in this show is so unapologetically queer and fluid, it‘s hurtful to see them only end up in hetero relationships.
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