Alpha House, the half hour original series from Amazon, springs from the mind of Gary Trudeau of Doonsbury fame. Although I missed new Doonsbury strips during the sabbatical that Trudeau took while he was working on the series, it was worth the deprivation.
Alpha House follows four Republican congressmen in their re-election battles, looming indictments, and other entanglements. John Goodman leads up the cast as a former basketball coach good-ol-boy turned congressman. Trudeau uses Goodman and 4 other Republican stereotypes to poke fun at the partisan politics of the day.
One of the sub characters, Adriana de Portago, is a wealthy Cuban-American heiress, runs a super PAC that finances the campaign of her boyfriend, Andy, as well as other GOP candidates. I like that her name “de Portago” is a riff on the Mitt Romney belief that Mexican’s should self-deport, a joke created by Lalo Alcaraz featuring a fake political movement by Daniel d Portado.
Witty, sharply drawn dialog and story lines are welcome entertainment.