Congress: The Writers’ Room
“It’s time to map out the new season of Congress. There are no bad ideas. What do we have?”
***
TV shows used to be written by groups of 6–10 writers, in a room, where they would ‘break’ stories, which is to say map out all the little stories that would comprise the overarching story of the season.
Now that’s a thing that you know.
Imagine, if you will, Congress as a TV show, which in reality it kind of is. I present what the writers’ room might be like on day one, breaking stories. There are no writers identified as it would just be everyone throwing ideas up on the wall and seeing what sticks.
With that…
***
“This is our 118th season of Congress. We all know the ratings keep falling. What are we going to do to get eyeballs on the screen this season?”
“How about we do another shutdown?”
“Ugh.”
“That’s so tedious. And the audience hates it.”
“It plays well in the flyovers.”
“No. Next.”
“What if we elected a grossly unpopular Speaker?”
“They’re all grossly unpopular.”
“Maybe we need to look at the role because we keep casting new people and the Speaker just never hits.”
“Fair. But hear me out. What if we have a character who said the election was legit, but then turned around and said the election wasn’t fair.”
“Are we still milking the election cow?”
“If we do that, then what happens?”
“OK. It’s hard to get the character elected. Like, super hard. Multiple episodes…”
“Bore. Ing”
“… and then to get elected they have to cut a deal where any one person in their party can basically recall them at any moment.”
“That’s interesting.”
“It’s ridiculous. It’s a stunt story. No one’s going to buy that.”
“They might if we make the recall character a truly detestable character. Remember the underage sex story from a couple seasons ago, maybe use that guy?”
“The pedophile guy?”
“Like a redemption arc?”
“Hold up. We’re not doing a redemption arc for a pedophile.”
“Of course not. No, the character is still awful. Basically we use that character to show how the Speaker basically has to sell his soul to come to power.”
“And then we do the shutdown?”
“No. Enough with the shutdown. Get a new idea.”
“What is the other party doing during this?”
“Just sitting there and watching everything burn?”
“I feel like we’ve done that story a bunch of times, too.”
“We have. This is why our ratings keep falling. Give me something fresh. So we do the pedophile-Speaker arc. What’s happening in the Senate during this?”
“Strokes.”
“Is this the congressperson getting thrown out of the theater for the handjob? I thought we were already doing that.”
“Not those strokes. Brain strokes.”
“Go on.”
“We have too many old characters over there. Like, nobody is invested in those characters anymore. We just need to start making room for new characters.”
“I kind of like that. I’m not sure where I land on the whole ‘characters start having strokes off camera’ thing.”
“Who said anything about off camera?”
“What?”
“The character is just talking then, bam, stroke!”
“I think you’re a little too giddy about the whole stroke thing.”
“So the character just falls over and dies?”
“No. Nope. They stand there frozen mid-stroke and nobody does anything, because his people, they want to cling to power, and the other people, they actually feel like he has it coming.”
“That’s dark, on both sides.”
“I love it.”
“Me too. Totally in on that.”
“And it happens to him twice, like in the season opener, and then again later.”
“Does he die the second time?”
“Only inside.”
“Love it.”
“It sounds like we have that pretty well covered. How are we resolving the pedophile-Speaker thing?”
“The Speaker gets in…”
“And then there’s a shutdown.”
“Goddammit! The Speaker thwarts a shutdown! Will that make you happy?”
“Yes. Shutdown story. Score.”
“And the pedophile and his collection of miscreants jacks the Speaker for that.”
“Oh. That’s some Red Wedding shit.”
“This whole season is starting to feel like those middles season of Thrones where it was just constantly the Lannisters winning and it was like, why am I still tuning into this?”
“What if we go lower with the pedophile?”
“Lower? You want to go lower than a pedophile?”
“I can’t wait to hear this.”
“Let’s have the only thing the pedophile’s party accomplishes is throwing the previous party’s Speaker out of their office.”
“That is petty as shit.”
“The audience is going to hate that. Hate it.”
“And where is that character leading up to all this?”
“She’s been off camera dealing with one of the stroke people.”
“There are multiple stroke people?”
“Yes. Yes. Definitely.”
“Do we want to do some strokes on the House side of the show?”
“No. Senate only. The House is a shit show. Strokes are classy.”
“What?”
“They’re like this internal, silent, hand of God.”
“A heart attack is internal.”
“Kidney failure is internal.”
“Spleen.”
“What?”
“I thought we were just rolling off organs.”
“Total organ failure. It’s the shutdown of the body.”
“I will literally kill you.”
“Why did you just throw a mug at him?”
“Because I didn’t have two mugs to throw at him.”
“We are all getting fired.”
“Totally.”
“I don’t even think I want this season on my CV.”
“What happens in the back nine episodes?”
“They go through the same shit trying to elect another speaker. But, this time, there’s a new war in the Middle East in addition to all the unresolved storylines from the last season.”
“Question — at some point do we actually introduce a new character who the audience might actually want to be Speaker?”
“I don’t understand.”
“Eventually, the audience is going to get fed up with this repetitive storytelling, not counting the stroke thing, which is deeply fucked up but at least it’s fresh. Like, if my job wasn’t tied to this, I would stop watching this show.”
“She’s making a solid point.”
“I think that’s a great point, but if I can just throw an alternative into the space, how about we go back to the focus group data and get a character who tests negatively across all demographics, and go with that character for Speaker?”
“Do you not understand the purpose of focus groups?”
“I kind of dig this idea.”
“Just so I’m clear, we’re going to scrap finally creating a likable character and instead go even deeper down the detested character blackhole?”
“Sounds like it.”
“I hate all of you.”
“What’s going to be the crisis du jour in the second half of the season?”
“Shutdown.”
“It’s like he has Tourette's. Do you have Tourette's?”
“Does anyone have a better idea than shutdown?”
“Term limits?”
“God, I wish. The cast keeps shooting it down.”
“How about we do the shutdown, but it’s right around the holidays, so everyone in the country suffers?”
“Except the characters on Congress. They just continue to go about their day.”
“Perfect.”
“Who wants to see that? Nobody wants to see that.”
“I want to take back my ‘no bad ideas.’ These are literally all bad ideas.”
“Doesn’t matter. We’re doing them. And next season — election year!”
***
Stop voting these people back in.
