Press episode 4 recap: Holly does the unthinkable... and joins The Post
For a left-leaning crusading journalist there’s one golden rule – you never jump ship and join a right-wing tabloid...
If you’re a dedicated left-leaning journalist working for a campaigning liberal newspaper the rules are pretty clear.
Get your stories, keep your nose clean, don’t be sexist, racist or in any way unpleasant – and never, ever go and work for a populist right-wing newspaper run by a wealthy newspaper baron with a penchant for blackmailing the government.
But that’s just what Holly Evans (Charlotte Riley) did in Press episode four. Yes, the show that has got journalists across the country taking to Twitter to fulminate against factual inaccuracies will be crashing their keyboards and smashing their dictaphones in disgust at this one. What were you thinking Holly?
Actually, what she was thinking was that life at The Herald, with shrinking budgets, an editor with her eye off the ball and mouse traps in every corner of the office, wasn't really the place to do the investigative work she wanted to do. Why not give in to the seductive overtures of The Post editor Duncan Allen (the brilliant Ben Chaplin) and work for a paper with the resources to allow her to do her job properly?
That certainly made emotional sense in drama which has shifted along at a tidy lick, and really isn’t as bad as some people are saying. As drama, I mean. The plausibility problem is still there, but we'll leave that for now.
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Even journalists will have enjoyed the downfall of Joshua West, the creepy, sexually incontinent billionaire whom Holly had just nailed prior to her abrupt departure in the latest episode.
Holly's encounter with him in the seedy Royal Albion club was one of the best scenes of the night, a shivery encounter with a man who showed off his power rather brilliantly: by lighting up a cigarette and chugging away. Who would have the cojones to do that?
Viewers would have also cheered Duncan’s stoic resistance to his bullying proprietor George Emmerson (David Suchet) who wanted him to butter up the PM. Duncan refused, but if we've learned anything this series it’s that editors are not the force they once were. Duncan did eventually make the call and make nice with Number 10.
So it’s all set for the final two episodes. Will Holly be able to do her crusading work for The Post? Will she clash with Duncan (almost certainly)? The teaser for next week’s episode suggests she has had a rather glamorous makeover in keeping with her position at the thrusting, flashier title. But one thing bugs me.
In the opening scene of episode one we saw Holly leaving her desk and giving a very sombre press conference on the street. But the office she was emerging from was The Herald's, with a very concerned looking Amina shepherding her away.
We haven’t seen that scene yet, and my guess is it's a flash forward to an event that puts Holly in the centre of the story.
Does it mean she will also go back to her old job?
Clearly this saga has a few more twists up its sleeve. Roll the presses for more...
This article was originally published on 27 September 2018
