The PM has resigned and now there's a government reshuffle with Hugh Abbot finding himself booted out as Secretary of State for the Department of Social Affairs and Citizenship.
However, there doesn't seem to be many MPs willing to take over the mantle, and out of sheer desperation, Malcolm Tucker - the PM's Director of Communications and internal Enforcer - digs deep and finds a "total nobody" in his words, Nicola Murray.
Murray is of course not only surprised to be plucked out of nowhere for a top government post, but also has a number of skeletons in her cupboard that are only now coming to light given that she wasn't fully vetted by either No. 10 or Tucker himself.
Nicola has great plans for the department, one of which she calls Social Mobility. However, her two advisors, Ollie Reeder and Glen Cullen (both of whom used to work for Abbot, and are now sucking up to Murray in order to keep their jobs), inform her that such a policy is expensive and will cause a lot of resentment from the Treasury Department across the way.
It is also quite clear that Murray's ego and lack of self-awareness within the department reaches astronomical heights and seems to think she is on the promotion high road to No. 10 and doesn't care who tries to hold her back.
But this self-delusion & naivety comes crashing down when she has her first face2face meeting with Tucker, who proceeds to take her to task about all those skeletons!
Season 3 was filmed some 4 years after seasons 1 and 2, and it feels much better for it, not least in production values, but also in the writing. Moreover, despite the lengthy gap most of the lead characters return looking a little more world-weary and sceptical.
With the first two seasons we had Hugh Abbot as the minister - a man into his late 50s, tired, lacklustre, dispirited and just drab and depressing. In season 3 we have a Nicola Murray, a mother in her early 40s full of hope and optimism, which feeds into the episodes.
And yet as with those earlier seasons, there is an undercurrent of mistrust, backstabbing, blame-gaming, shouting, bullying, one-upmanship and grandstanding as all the main characters try to climb their respective greasy poles of promotion and influence regardless of who gets in their way.
A very confident first episode to the season. Not outrageously funny, but very subtle with its dark humour and irony.
