Ryan Murphy just dropped a first look at the return of his ‘gay utopian’ drama The Politician
Ben Platt in The Politician (GIOVANNI RUFINO/NETFLIX)
The Politician season two is headed for Netflix imminently, and to say we’re excited would be an understatement.
Ryan Murphy’s latest effort will pick up where season one ended, with Payton Hobart (played by Ben Platt) fighting to unseat Dede Standish (Judith Light) in the New York Senate, which he sees as the next step in his path to the presidency.
Dede’s re-election was supposed to be easy with her chief of staff Hadassah Gold (Bette Midler) by her side, but Payton’s ambitions could put those plans to bed.
In The Politician season two, Payton will have to decide exactly what kind of politician he wants to be — and if he’s comfortable exposing secrets and lies in the process.
Elsewhere, Payton’s mother Georgina (Gwyneth Paltrow) makes a significant decision that could upstage her son.
Judith Light and Bette Midler in The Politician (Courtesy of Netflix)
The Politician season two given release date.
The Netflix series — which debuted last year to mixed reviews — also stars Lucy Boynton, Zoey Deutch, Julia Schlaepfer, Laura Dreyfuss and other well-known stars.
The second season’s seven episodes will hit the streaming platform on June 19.
Murphy has teased that the third season – which, by the sounds of things, could be its final one – won’t be as quick to arrive.
“I think where season two ends, what I would love to do is take a couple of years off and have Ben Platt get a little bit older for his final race,” Murphy told Collider.
“That would obviously be a presidential race, right? That’s always what we had designed, and I think that’s what our plan is.”
Gwyneth Paltrow in The Politician season 2 (NICOLE RIVELLI/NETFLIX)
Ben Platt said the series shows ‘the spectrum of sexuality’.
While The Politician garnered mixed reviews from critics, it was a big hit with audiences and was praised for its LGBT+ representation.
Speaking to PinkNews last year, the show’s star Ben Platt said the show is grounded in a world where everyone is “a little bit queer”.
The Dear Evan Hansen star told PinkNews that although the show is “very satirical and very biting” about the political class, it’s also a quiet statement of representation, with as many on-screen queer relationships as straight ones.
Platt explained: “I think it’s really important that Ryan has portrayed this Utopian society that hopefully we’re headed towards, where everybody falls somewhere along the spectrum of sexuality, everyone’s a little bit queer, and no one feels the need to discuss it or label it.”
He continued: “I think Payton isn’t necessarily interested very much about the genders of River or Alice [love interests played by David Corenswet and Julia Schlaepfer], it’s more about what he can gain from each relationship.”
