Summary
The Girls on the Bus gets off to a breathless start in its two-part premiere, but while it’s sometimes eye-roll-inducing, the plot picks up a lot of steam by the end.
The Girls on the Bus debuted on Max with a two-part premiere, getting Season 1 off to a breathless start as we head out on the campaign trail. Based on the 2018 book Chasing Hillary by New York Times journalist and co-creator Amy Chozick, The Girls on the Bus Episodes 1 and 2 introduce us to a group of rivalrous female journalists, some very flawed Democratic candidates, and a few juicy twists and turns for good measure.
There’s a lot to do here; a lot of people to meet, a lot of exposition to chew through, and a lot of jokes to make at the expense of Gen-Z. The first two outings handle this admirably, while also building genuinely compelling relationships and subplots that should yield some intriguing drama down the line.
Back on the Bus
Our POV character is Sadie McCarthy, a relatively inexperienced political journalist who at some point, according to the flash-forward cold open, will be arrested by the FBI. Before that, though, she’s attempting to prove herself on her second campaign trail after a disastrous end to the first one.
It’s established immediately that Sadie is too passionate. She falls for her candidates, writes about them in an emotional way, and then gets personally upset when the political machine chews them up. She has been off the political beat thanks to biased reporting and biding her time writing obituaries, including a viral one for a Chinese mallard, but she wants back on the bus to cover campaign frontrunner Caroline Bennett, who is likely to be the first female President of the United States.
Sadie’s editor, Bruce, is willing to vouch for her, but only if she can keep her coverage objective and land a big scoop. Only one of these things will happen.
Sadie Is Already Too Close to the Campaign
Also covering Bennett is Kimberlyn, a reporter for Liberty Direct News – an obvious stand-in for Fox News – who has to compete with her blonde, white Megyn Kelly-alike colleague Nellie and deal with her future mother-in-law. Just before leaving for the Iowa caucus, the starting point of the campaign trail, her boyfriend Eric proposed, and while Kimberlyn said yes, she didn’t anticipate his mother calling every two minutes for details on the wedding.
It was Liberty Direct News who ruined Sadie’s political journalism career by catching her crying when previous candidate Felicity Walker, with whom Sadie had formed a close personal connection, unexpectedly lost the race. This is why she has been cautioned not to get too personally invested in Bennett, which proves immediately more difficult than she expected when she realizes that Bennett’s press secretary is her ex-boyfriend, Malcolm (otherwise known as “Loafers”.)
Sadie and Loafers didn’t break up on good terms – he thought they were in a serious relationship and on the cusp of moving in together, she didn’t, and he’s still stinging from her ghosting him. Thus, he won’t give Sadie access to Bennett for that scoop she needs.
How does Sadie secure an interview?
Without Loafers, Sadie has to think outside the box. Luckily, an opportunity presents itself in the form of Kimberlyn and Lola, a hyper-liberal Gen-Z influencer is on the bus with backing from a sponsorship, has no idea what she’s doing, and intervenes in Kimberlyn being pelted by a milkshake when she aggravates a crowd who think her words are literal violence.
Lola helping out a Liberty Direct reporter doesn’t please her fickle followers, and she and Kimberlyn end up stranded in the middle of nowhere. While they’re bickering about who’s right and who’s wrong, Sadie offers Kimberlyn a ride if she gives up the location of where she’s interviewing Bennett.
Sadie is able to get a sit-down with Bennett and, as she did with Walker, falls for her rhetoric immediately. She writes a glowing piece about her in her personal style – endorsed by Hunter S. Thompson, who I forgot to mention she frequently has visions of and communicates with – which makes the front page and secures her a spot on the bus for the duration of the trail. Kimberlyn, though, gets overlooked in favor of Nellie, who tricked Kimberlyn into covering for her in an attempt to steal her Bennett interview, and then got the POTUS detail anyway because of optics (she’s white, Kimberlyn’s Black, which comes up several times in The Girls on the Bus Episodes 1 & 2.)
The Caroline Bennett Sex Scandal
Just as Sadie’s piece goes out, news breaks that Bennett was involved in an Eyes Wide Shut-style sex party in which she may or may not have allowed someone to eat fruit out of her genitalia. Inexplicably, though, Bennett refuses to drop out of the race, so Sadie is stuck covering her.
Things take a turn when Felicity Walker publicly endorses Bennett. Sadie continues to have a mild obsession with her, but that dims a little when Walker blames her for losing the presidential race in the first place. However, Sadie still believes that Walker endorsing Bennett despite the controversy speaks to her essential character, but there’s something else afoot.
Kimberlyn breaks a story that reveals the sex parties were even worse than anyone first thought, and that young women were being exploited and money was changing hands. Bennett is instantly ruined and achieves no votes in the primary, causing Loafers to quit. Now no longer a conflict of interest, he and Sadie spend the night together, but he sets alarm bells blaring when he accidentally says “love you” when he’s leaving the next morning, and when he’s cagey about who he’s working for.
How does The Girls on the Bus Episode 2 end?
Sadie deduces that Loafers is working for Felicity Walker, who has decided to run again. Given the circumstances of her re-entering the race and the conversation she had with Sadie earlier, the passionate idealism is gone now, and Sadie plays underhandedly to secure an interview with Walker. She might not be on Bennett’s bus anymore, but she’s far from out of the race.
At the end of Episode 2, Sadie receives room service that she didn’t order. On a silver platter is an envelope with her name on it, and inside that is a burner phone. Things are getting very interesting indeed.
What did you think of The Girls on the Bus Season 1 Episodes 1 & 2? Let us know in the comments.
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