Boss 01x02 -‘Reflex’ or, “closeups of Kelsey...

Boss 01x02 -‘Reflex’

or, “closeups of Kelsey Grammer looking sad”.

A filthy city is the fitting backdrop of this episode - the opening scenes show mounds of bags on every street corner as a bill to get trash collection services restarted is dangerously close to being voted down. Having established its grand political setting in the first episode, this one lets that element take more of a back seat and instead starts to tell us about the history the characters have with one another, especially looking at Mayor Tom Kane’s own family. His marriage of convenience to Meredith Kane (Connie Nielsen) is explored, she’s revealed to be potentially even more scheming than he is. She’s the face of a foundation attempting to raise the standard of education in the city, is in this episode seen reading to sick kids, but at the same time is estranged from her own daughter Emma (Hannah Ware). Their conversation towards the end is short and very terse, there’s no love lost between them. Quick to the point with her daughter (‘Are you clean?’), she then goes snooping through her husband’s things in search of information about his visits to the neurologist. There’s no hint she’s concerned about his health except for where it could inconvenience her ambitions - a conversation between the two of them about ‘fortifying’ their relationship by casting out the drug-using child carries equal weight here.

Background into Emma’s life is starting to come through this episode as well. Her history with drugs, suggested previously, is apparently an ongoing problem. The church-funded clinic she works at is in a pretty dire financial situation, the budget contains ‘a lot of minuses that should not be minuses’, and leaves us with the important note that ‘drugs are expensive’, perhaps suggesting that she has left with things she shouldn’t have. Upset by the conversation with her mother, she goes to the house of dealer Darius (Rotimi Akinosho), who hook up, an unsurprising step for them that could signal an intensifying of her exposure and use of drugs in the next few episodes. A concrete indication either way isn’t given in this episode, but should the clinic close due to budgetary constraints, she may find herself out of work and in a vulnerable position in the near future.

Closing out the episode, Tom sits on the balcony of a previous mayor, a man in a catatonic state, completely unaware of the world around him. The significance of his severely diminished brain function is not lost on him, who watches as the nurse feeds him sliced fruit, moving it around his lips until his sucking reflex takes over, an entirely involuntary action that emphasises the pathetic state of the man who used to run Chicago.