Ellen Carr is one of Victor’s prized directors. She’s dry, snarky, and immensely competent. Victor adores her because she’s brilliant, capable, and angry.

She’s practiced at navigating the bullshit that being a woman director in the old boys’ club of television, and she likes working with Victor because he’s far more interested in craft than in playing nicely with others. Also, he’s as angry as she is.

Ellen is less sure, however, how to navigate the vaguely incestous clusterfuck that is the crowd of people Victor chooses to surround himself with. Liam appears to be a flake. Alex is surly. Ellen doesn’t care if they are (but is not convinced that they aren’t) fucking. And Alex and Liam’s costars — the rest of the people Ellen has to wrangle while she wrings Victor’s vision and the script into reality — are even more drama-prone divas. At the end of every day Ellen is thrilled to go home to her wife, their dogs, and a drink.

But the actors of The Fourth Estate are talented, and Ellen knows that she is one of the best. When the cast actually shuts up and does what she tells them, together they can make serious art.