Power Play

****SPOILERS**** Senator Hays Stowe,Hal Holbrook, is caught between a rock-not Iraq-and a hard place in his attempt to get the highly qualified Joseph Bodine a vacated congressional seat. Bodine is needed to get help Senator Stowe pass a major educational bill slated to be voted on in the US Congress within the next three months. To Senator Stowe's shock & surprise he's told that the head of his party in the state George P. Mallon, Burgess Meredith, has plans of his own in picking millionaire Louis Masterson, Arthur Space, for the post despite him being totally unqualified, in being a lifelong good time party and playboy, for it.

As Senator Stowe locks horns with political kingpin or king maker Mallon he's shocked, like he's so many times in this episode, to find out that his squeaky clean old man former Senator for six terms Holden Stowe, Jon Lomer, also made deals with Mellon in order to get his support in passing bills in the congress. With his career in politics now on the line if he doesn't go along with Mallon's pick, Louis Masterson, for the vacated congressional seat Senator Stowe can either go along with his choice or ,in not getting any party support in upcoming elections, resign his seat and throw his support in with the local crazies, or longhair and unshaven set, who's support is a sure recipe for defeat at the polls.

****SPOILERS**** In a last attempt to get the far more qualified Joseph Bodine the party nomination Senator Stowe pulls a rabbit out of his hat that even the sneaky Mallon couldn't quite match. That's by leaving the decision up to who would get the vacated seat to the people who that person would represent not the power brokers, like George P. Mallon, behind the scenes but those who vote in his district. By not using any underhanded tactics or even blackmail Senator Stowe finally and grudgingly got Mallon to see things his way. That in having a free and open election and thus letting the chips, or votes, fall where they may without stealing or having any guarantee who's to win the election that's to be voted on. Instead of someone being hand picked by the party boss for the congressional seat without the people who he's to represent approval.

No wonder politically naive hippies like the pudgy and pouty Sylvia didn't trust anybody over thirty. This episode takes the baton from the preceding episode and proceeds to beat the audience over the head with it. The elderly politicians and power brokers pulling the strings behind the scenes are simply not to be trusted. But, as Stowe learns, sometimes they have to be tossed a juicy steak when you need them to play nice and support your pet project, i.e., that pricy education bill.

Burgess Meredith plays the curmudgeonly old coot with unkempt hair character that Will Geer played last time. These aging power brokers try to bully Hays Stowe, treating him like a fart in a hurricane, reminding him he rode his daddy's coattails to power.

In this story, Stowe is just back from a trip to Geneva and a week luxuriating in nature, "sharing a crag with a mountain goat," as a bellicose Boyle puts it. Why's Jordan so mad? Well, in the time Stowe was incommunicado some political sleight of hand took place back in Stowe's home state. It was agreed an open congressional seat would be filled by the qualified Joseph Bonine, but state party chairman George Mallon has played a shell game on Stowe and is now supporting the unqualified Louis Masterman. Worse, Mallon expects Stowe to toe the party line and back the Masterson nomination.

Stowe is to blame for some of his woes. He was happily globetrotting and now returns consumed with inside-the-beltway concerns. Tip O'Neill had not yet coined his famous adage that "all politics is local," so Stowe can perhaps be given a pass for forgetting the little people back home who elected him. He grumbles and grimaces at the prospect of going back to the unsophisticated flyover country of pig farms and covered bridges. But in his heart, he knows it's right.

Mallon (emphasis on the "mal") is a buffoonish man who puffs a Cuban cigar whilst tending his pigs. His uncombed hair and ungrammatical sentences grate on the sophisticated Stowe, who suffers fools gladly if it meets his end (that annoying education bill). Mallon thinks highly of himself, and likens the "party regulars" to the pigs he raises, saying the people have their noses in the trough and want to be fed. It's practical pork barrel politics--bring home the money and lots of it.

Speaking of lots of money, that is what Masterman has donated to the party. And since he who pays the piper calls the tune, he requests "Hail to the Chief," or at least the congressional equivalent.

To writer Ernest Kinoy's credit, he skillfully balances rose-colored idealism with ugly reality. A highlight of the show is a conversation among Stowe and various stakeholders, from a minority leader, a veteran ward heeler, and a naive hippie. Stowe tries to explain politics is about tradeoffs, quid pro quo, and giving a little to get a little. They don't want to believe that. Isn't Stowe their Mr. Smith gone to Washington? This scene is filmed with handheld cameras and looks amateurish by design. People are talking over one another. It's compelling and captures perfectly the plight of the politician who is acutely aware he can't please everyone.

Mallon claims Hays' father, retired Senator Holden Stowe, played ball and was in fact a "political animal." Distressed by this disillusioning claim, Stowe goes to visit his father, who is repairing a covered bridge. I would have thought Hays would have visited his father immediately upon returning home, but as the pilot movie implied, their relationship is strained. Holden Stowe of course denies he was ever pushed around by the party or by Mallon. He tells Hays to take back whatever power he lost.

Like an Old West showdown, Mallon and Stowe face off. Or maybe it's more like a Cold War standoff, eyeball to eyeball, waiting to see who will blink first. Stowe is initially seen with his back to the camera gazing out a window, yet another of the series' attempts to evoke in the audience's mind iconic images of the Kennedys. That is especially ironic considering a subplot is the pivotal role the media plays in shaping the image of politicians, from Stowe's exploitative photo op at the school to the Masterson-as-Marlboro-Man commercial. Jordan knows all this, having read Joe McGinnis' bestselling book "The Selling of the President."

Kinoy wrote a nuanced story here. Neither Mallon or Stowe come out untarnished. Mallon isn't presented as the villain of the piece. Instead, he's a semi-tragic figure, a man whose indefatigable dedication to the party has driven his neglected wife into alcoholism and a bad habit of three in the morning drunk dialing (poor Erin takes that call and displays her adeptness at diplomacy). Frances Mallon's warning to Erin about how the glamorous jet-set life of a politician's wife will wear thin quickly is one I prayed Erin will take to heart. Did Erin think back to Hays brushing their daughter off the phone soon after bragging to the press about the teddy bear he has for her? The image is a loving dad; the reality is "go 'way kid, ya bother me." Which sadly is probably the childhood Hays himself endured and will now unwittingly inflict upon young Norma. Sobering stuff.

Burgess Meredith was disappointingly underutilized. One key scene was filmed in so dark a shadow his face was almost completely obscured. His chomping on that Cuban cigar did stir up fond memories of his Penguin portrayals of just a few years earlier. Also in the cast was Jon Lormer as Holden Stowe. That was a miscasting in my opinion. Man, couldn't they have filmed a few minutes with E. G. Marshall during a break on his sister series BOLD ONES: THE NEW DOCTORS?

James McEachin is always a welcome face and gives a short but spirited performance in that conversation scene, as does Holly Near as the young campus radical who rang a lot of doorbells for Stowe. I always remember Near from an ALL IN THE FAMILY episode, and damned if she wasn't sitting in Archie's chair in this scene! And then there's Archie's bartender Jason Wingreen opening the show as a reporter peppering our protagonist with inconvenient questions.

Another episode that is more appreciated than enjoyed, that informs more than entertains. Thought-provoking stories without tidy resolutions. Okay, that said, I enjoyed it and seeing Hal Holbrook verbally bobbing and weaving with Burgess Meredith is entertainment of the kind you just don't see anymore.