“I was heartbroken at the end of the first season of The Politician because I thought for sure there was no way there were going to be able to bring me back for season 2,” Corenswet explains in between sips of his coffee and homemade whipped cream (his father and sister taught him how to make the latter from scratch). Corenswet’s assumption makes sense, since — eight-month-old mild spoiler alert — Politician antihero Payton Hobart (Ben Platt) grows past needing his touchstone of emotion, the memory of Corenswet’s late dreamboat River Barkley, by the season 1 finale . “I went back to New York by myself feeling like, Ah, well that was just the best thing that could have ever happened. And that will be it for me,” Corenswet recalls.