Now we’re talking. This episode mostly sticks to politics, and it’s much better for it.
The maneuvering is the good stuff – threats, back channels, and a genuinely risky gamble near the end that had me leaning forward. Kate finally stops reacting and starts playing the game, and I’d really missed that from her this season.
The relationship filler is still hanging around, but it has finally shrunk to a garnish instead of a main course, and the whole hour breathes better because of it.
It doesn’t reach the highs of the show’s very best episodes – some of the verbal sparring could land harder, and one or two lines clunked badly – but this is a solid, confident hour that keeps the season’s plot grinding in the right direction. It does the job.
After the mess of the first stretch of episodes, I’ll happily take a show that simply knows what its job is. 7.5/10.