From American Horror Story to Hollywood to Scream Queens, every Ryan Murphy show has its own distinct visual style, and The Politician is no different. Through two seasons of political espionage and dirty tricks so far on Netflix, the show established itself with a color palette that fans could probably recognize from outer space: bright colors, symmetrical shots, and sharp, well-dressed characters on screen at all times. Which is why a scene late in the Season 2 finale that depicts a conversation between Georgina Hobart (Gwyneth Paltrow) and Dede Standish (Judith Light) through a pixelated FaceTime conversation feels a bit out of place.
If you were thinking this couldn't possibly have been the show's original plan, well, you were right. While Ryan Murphy confirmed back in April that filming for the show's second season had been completed prior to the COVID-19 shutdown, it's clear that in post-production it was determined that a reshoot was needed. And rather than wait until the stay-at-home order was lifted and normal television production would be safe for all parties again, they simply decided to work around the problem and rework whatever scene previously existed into a new FaceTime call. Refinery29 confirmed through Netflix that "the FaceTime call was filmed during the stay-at-home orders."
It's a fair thought to wonder what the scene would've been like in a locale that the show set up for; it's also makes you wonder how badly the scene must have been messed up that a scratchy FaceTime recording was the better option.
At the same time, though, it's a fun glimpse for viewers into the homes of both Georgina and Dede (who at this point are supposed to be the Governor of California and a defeated longtime state senator), which are really just Paltrow and Light filming in their own homes, not in Netflix and Ryan Murphy's professionally chosen wardrobe, having some nice and relaxing quarantine cocktails. Cheers!
In the end, The Politician is lucky that they wrapped filming just before the lockdown went into effect and only came out needing to redo the one sceneand found a way to make it work. With Season 3 on the way but not in production, it'll be a while until we see more of these charactersso it's nice that they at least got one last FaceTime before what might end up being a lengthy hiatus.