The Common Sense Revolution is a political slogan that ruined both Ontario and Toronto, this documentary focusing on Toronto. Specifically, Trainwreck’s new installment, Shianne Brown’s Mayor of Mayhem focuses on the man who brought that revolution to Toronto politics, Rob Ford, a pre-Trump politician. A councilor, Rob Ford took advantage of the 2009 garbage strike. He ran for mayor and won, bamboozling an electorate lacking political literacy. Despite taking power and destroying workers’ rights, Ford knows that his own enemy is himself and his substance addictions. Local journalist Robyn “Face Card” Doolittle is one of the installment’s interviews, as she recounts her proximity to Ford’s crack scandal. He and his staffers denied said addiction and videos proving so despite the fact that videos and other evidence existed.

The Rob Ford crack scandal is ubiquitous enough that everyone in the Western world has heard of said scandal. It is the subject of two feature films and a garbled episode of Law and Order Criminal Intent: Toronto (sorry Griff). This installment of Netflix’ Trainwreck series at least tries to add to that conversation by using journalists as its interviewees. It mixes those interview segments with reenactments, especially one when Doolittle gets into a stranger’s car for the story. She does things that I would never do, that’s a journalist’s job to chase a story worth her words. A part of me wishes that Mayor of Mayhem built itself around her or former Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair instead of making the troubled mayor an antihero.

Running at a brisk 49 minutes, Mayor of Mayhem‘s other interviewees include Ford’s former staffers who are fascinating but only to a certain extent. One of them talks about how he believed and thought ‘I didn’t believe there was any kind of footage’. I use the word fascinating because there’s a naivety in this, like what do you mean you didn’t believe? Ford, like most Conservatives, are incapable of surprising me at this point in their capacity to deflect and to deny. Putting his staffers on the interview chairs is also bothersome because they claim that they never tell their side. They always tell their side, they manipulate the media, I was there, they can’t cry to the cameras like this.

Mayor of Mayhem eventually returns to Doolittle and I hope I’m not overstepping for the rest of what I’m writing. To paraphrase what I probably already implied above, this installment defangs her in favour of Ford’s former staff. It’s understandable why this installment does this because despite me, it’s rude to speak ill of those who are dead. I understand that the conversation about him involves addiction and substances, which deserves some sensitivity. But this doc doesn’t even do anything like that. Instead, it uses that scandal as a distraction to the real story, that Ford’s policies were destructive. The nicest thing I’ll say about Rob Ford is that he was a pawn in his family, a martyr for Doug to use. Homophobes don’t deserve rehab.

Stream Trainwreck: Mayor of Mayhem on Netflix.