CBS’s sci-fi political dramedy BrainDead is back with another battle pitting Maryland’s two senators, Democrat Luke Healy (Danny Pino) and Republican Red Wheatus (Tony Shalhoub), against each other. But you’ll never guess which one is portrayed as a heartless wacko… Kidding! Of course, it’s the Republican!
The episode, with the ridiculously long-winded title “Back to Work: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at Congress and How It Gets Things Done (and Often Doesn’t),” begins with Luke meeting with some veteran constituents who need Congress to get NIH to restore funding to clinical drug trials that were halted during the government shutdown. One man is about to die from liver cancer that they say is reversible if he gets the meds. Luke wants to push funding quickly through the Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, but first on the agenda is the naming of a kiosk, which is supposed to be an uncontroversial rubber-stamp vote.
What plays out is an absurd liberal parody of how conservatives act, complete with a nonsensical obsession with Sharia law, blind hero-worship of Reagan, ignorance, misogyny, and even some Francophobia thrown in for good measure.
Chairman: Last session, we were considering renaming the West Entrance Capitol Kiosk the Sharie Kiosk after Ed Sharie, a decorated Capitol police officer who was killed in the line of duty. And if there are no objections, I move we so vote.
Luke: I second...
Red: Mr. Chairman, point of information. Are we really considering having a Capitol kiosk, a kiosk where little kids can buy candy bars, christened with a name sounding like "Sharia"?
Chairman: I’m sorry, what?
Red: I said, I'm wondering if this committee is fully aware that this name will sound to many visitors like "Sharia law"?
Luke: Senator, it's not named after Sharia. It's named after Sharie. Ed Sharie. With an "E."
Red: I’m not deaf, Senator. I-I know the difference between an "A" and an "E." But not everyone does, and therein lies the confusion, Mr. Chairman.
Luke: Wait, do you honestly think people are gonna...
Red: I think many of us are concerned about political ads, which will suggest that we voted for "Sharia law."
Luke: Yeah, but... You didn't, so...
Red: This is what I suggest. Mr. Chairman, this kiosk, where I have enjoyed a coffee and a pastry many times, I believe it should be named after Ronald Reagan.
Luke: Oh, for God's sake. (All murmuring)
Ella: Yes, 'cause we haven't named enough things after Ronald Reagan. Wouldn’t that be nice?
Chairman: Okay, look. I would like to point out to you, sir, that Officer Sharie was not only a dedicated Capitol police officer but a decorated veteran.
Red: I understand that, and I do not mean Officer Sharia any disrespect when I suggest that our former president was a veteran as well.
Luke: No, he wasn't.
Red: Well, yes, he was. He served in World War II.
Luke: No, he made a movie in which he served in World War II.
Red: And a very good one-- King's Row, in which he lost both his legs.
Ella: Mr. Chairman, I find this entire proposal an outrage. When can we name something after a woman?
Red: Tell a woman to do something, then we will consider naming something...
Ella: Emma Goldman! Why can't we call it the Emma Goldman kiosk?
Chairman: Are you serious? A communist?
Ella: No, she was an honored socialist.
Red: She was a communist!
Ella: No, she was not, learn your facts.
Red: You want a woman? How about Nancy Reagan? Or Ayn Rand? Ayn Rand.
Senator: And you know, I-I don't know about "Kiosk" anyway, I mean, isn't that a French word?
Red: It is. It is a French word.
Senator: I think it should be Reagan Concessions.
Red: Yes, except not "Concessions" because Reagan never conceded to anything.
It gets worse. It turns out that Red, the Evil Republican whose brain has been taken over by alien ants, is using the kiosk issue to hold up the vote on the clinical drug trials in a cynical political ploy. He thinks Luke is angling for 2020 and doesn’t want him getting credit for saving a veteran with liver cancer. He’s willing to let a veteran die to prevent Luke from potentially getting a great campaign ad.
Luke’s father says it’s just as good for his political career if Republicans let the man die because then he can point the finger of blame on them and use it as a campaign issue. But in the end, Democrat Luke is, of course, shown to be the better man. Red visits the cancer-stricken veteran to get the publicity and pictures he so desperately wanted and while Luke stands on the sideline happy to eschew credit for the sake of the trials being funded. What a guy!
Of course, we know that in real life Democrats are the ones who play the worst kind of politics by repeatedly block bills that fund veterans services. You have to watch a fictional tv show about alien ants taking over the planet to see the roles reversed.
