Here we
are at the series 2 finale already.
Yesterday’s episode saw Malcolm launching an attack to save his job and
protect the party he believes in. Today,
we see the depths to which Hugh will go to save his job, and his own beliefs are swiftly on the chopping job.
Hugh
has been tasked with promoting a bill to close schools for SPED children and
mainstream them instead, a bill he’s firmly against. As he says, it’s “the one thing” in his job
that he really feels strongly about, largely because Glenn Cullen, his advisor
and old friend, has a child who benefited greatly from special education. Glenn understands that Hugh’s hands are tied,
but when he insists that Hugh do whatever he has to do, he doesn’t realize the
license Hugh will take with it. Things
get ugly, and while the episode is still very funny, there are moments that are
hard to watch.
A
little more about Glenn – he and Hugh have been in the political trenches together
for years. Like I said, they’re old
friends, but while Glenn can usually get away with saying things that the rest
of Hugh’s staff can’t, the power differential between them is always present,
never more so than here. He would call
himself experienced, while Ollie would argue that he’s verging on
obsolete. Generally, he seems to be the
least two-faced person at the department (which, since the reshuffle, is now
the Department of Social Affairs and Citizenship, a.k.a. DoSAC.) Not that he doesn’t look out for himself when
the chips are down, but he’s more loyal and less opportunistic than a lot of
other characters on the show.
After
yesterday’s feast of good material for Malcolm, he has less to do here. He mostly sticks to playing the government
bogeyman – Hugh literally tries to hide from him at one point. DoSAC has moved to a new building after the
reshuffle, housing several other departments, and plenty of humor is mined from
the fact that Malcolm now has four ministers to shout at in the same building.
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