Nobody can say that the writers of Power Monkeys have been short of material over the last six episodes. We've had shock votes, Trump, resignations a-go-go, imminent political collapse, leadership campaigns, betrayal and so much more. And it was still coming with the final episode which aired on the day of the publication of the Chilcot Enquiry.
This was a delicate subject handled from the very start with a bold gag about how big the report was. "It'll be a plus when somebody shoves it up Tony Balir's arse," said serial cynic Oliver played by Jack Dee, who has either had the best lines of the series, delivered them the best, or both. In Moscow, however, there was anxiety over a promo film of Putin looking a bit camp. Although he still looked a lot more butch than Michael Gove.
Meanwhile the Brexit team was showing some political insight at last: "Whoever becomes PM is going to sell us out," said Spencer (Kevin McNally), who was working on his speech at the funeral of Gerry's dad and hoping his quips about George Osborne getting ebola were going to get a laugh. And on Trump's campaign plane they were trying to come up with a pithy Tweet about a recent shooting in Louisiana. The Trump team was shocked by the event. Or more precisely that the person shot had been selling CDs at the time. Yes, CDs.
It ended with Jack Dee's character getting headbutted and American Trump supporters screaming "kill the bitch" when asked what to do about Hillary Clinton. Power Monkeys wasn't subtle, but it has been an interesting stab at putting cutting edge satire into narrative form. Albeit not as slickly foulmouthed as The Thick of It, not quite as consistently laugh-out-loud funny as Drop The Dead Donkey.
But even when it has been patchy it has been fun. And considering how it was probably written far more on the hoof to reflect the ever-changing story ("Boris who?") than was ever expected it was pretty good. The way things are at the moment there are enough bombshells going off in the political world to inspire a new episode every week. Or every day.
