She doesn’t, but she does have a husband (Joe Morton) and a third, equal partner in their marriage (Teddy Sears). All he wants to know is that she has no skeletons in her closet. A significant portion of the first half of this episode is devoted to introducing us to New York State Senator Dede Standish (Judith Light) and her chief-of-staff, Hadassah Gold (Bette Midler), who spend that time either (a) getting courted by a hot senator from Texas (Sam Jaegar) who is planning to run for the Presidency and wants a running mate from the moment he announces. He demurs, saying he can’t win, and that’s when a vaping Astrid drops the bombshell: His opponent is in a throuple. The next time we see Alice, she’s sitting in a dorm room with Skye, McAfee, James, and Astrid, telling Payton he’s got to run, and that they’re all there to help him. Then this stunner of a moment, as she leaves the coffee shop weeping: She turns back and says, in the voice and demeanor of the old Alice, the one playing the role of First Lady: “Maybe we could have an affair or something.” She almost pulls it off, dropping the mask right at the end. She asks why he didn’t turn back, a question that definitely got more potent with time, and defends herself and her choices while crumbling just a little bit with every moment. Finally, finally, Alice becomes a real person, and Julia Schlaepfer gets some meaty stuff to do. The Alice conversation comes first, and it’s not only one of the best scenes in the episode, but in the series. He’s also there to encourage Payton to do the things that terrify him, such as walk up to Alice on campus even though her fiancé is there, and at least consider the opportunity that McAfee and James toss into his lap. It seems that River’s presence - as an emotional coach, or the personification of the part of Payton that feels, or his Dream Ghost, whatever you like - has been roused by Payton’s slow return to life, and he’s around to make sure that no one changes the station when the Cure comes on. River wanders the club from time to time, bussing tables and saying nothing at all, until a wedding invitation - for Alice and a guy named Thad - sends Payton on a quest to get her back, with his dead friend riding shotgun. Payton hasn’t left everything from that time behind, however. (The best example comes from Alice, more on that later.) They’ve grown up a little, and they’ve stopped playing pretend. All the performances are more naturalistic that heightened rhythm and energy pops up only occasionally.
So here he is, a college student with a drinking problem and, just because, a world-class singing voice, someone layered and messy and a little bit broken and undeniably human. They were both, Infinity and Skye assure him, misquoted. And they became friends at a shoot for a Vanity Fair article, which was unkind to Payton.
BANACEK SEASON 1 EPISODE 8 FREE
Infinity got a huge book advance and is getting more free stuff than ever. Later, they wander the streets and reminisce. They also flit to a table in the back, where the first and second of many welcome surprises await: Infinity, with lustrous hair and gorgeous nails that scream money, and Skye, who is not wearing an orange jumpsuit. (Seriously, Ben Platt hurls himself off that couch headfirst.) But his eyes don’t just flit to the drink. Payton is feeling with his whole body, and drinking with his whole body, and puking with his whole body.
A drink sits on the top of the piano and his eyes flit to it now and again, but mostly this is about the physical and - more importantly - emotional act of singing. We rejoin Payton in New York City, where we learn he’s attending NYU and serenading people in a bar.
Maybe season one ends with the beginning of season two, because the point of Payton’s cycle is not the end of the election. And presumably, the knowledge of what it’s like to have legions of devoted fans who want nothing more than to hear you sing “Vienna” over and over again, no matter how drunk you are. He picked up other things during that trip, so maybe he starts with some new pieces in those tiny boxes. But there’s another possibility: Maybe Payton’s journey this season wasn’t a line, but rather a circle, another trip through the Wash & Brush Up Company we see in those opening titles. Maybe they just could not resist the urge to get Bette Midler and Judith Light in the mix as soon as heavenly possible.
Maybe they didn’t want to end on a low note. Why did Ryan Murphy, Brad Falchuk, and Ian Brennan start their second season of The Politician at the end of the first? Maybe they felt the high-school story was done after seven episodes.
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