The politicized decision to kill the DeSantis episode came as Showtime’s parent company, Paramount, cut costs to reflect a gloomy streaming business. The company folded a diminished Showtime under the streaming umbrella Paramount+, and laid off a wave of staffers, including the executive who greenlit prestige unscripted shows and documentaries.

The new president Chris McCarthy, has a background in less expensive reality TV.

But the first sign of trouble for the DeSantis episode came on only Thursday, May 25 days before it was set to air.

The episode had already been vetted by Vice’s internal legal team, and returned by Showtime executives without any requests for changes. Both Showtime and Vice had already sent around promotional materials and screeners for the episode to reporters.

On Showtime’s site, the network said the episode contained allegations from “former detainees that he was present at force-feedings that were condemned as torture by the UN” raised the “role of Navy JAGs in the investigation of the detainee deaths.”

But just four days before the show was set to air, Vice received a note from Showtime’s post-production staff, which normally focuses on issues like color and sound. The production team told Vice “the broader network group teams are taking a deeper internal look at this Sunday’s episode, which will delay its premiere.”

Vice, which had just declared bankruptcy and was desperate to save anything it could, proceeded delicately. Subrata De, Vice’s EVP and global head of programming and documentary, and Vice’s showrunner Beverly Chase, sent a note to the production team at Showtime asking for more details. They told employees they would return to the DeSantis piece later in the season.

The new Showtime team didn’t respond to their inquiries, people familiar with the situation said. And Showtime quickly scrubbed promotion of the episode from its website.

When the Hollywood Reporter broke the news a week later that the episode had been shelved, Vice asked that the two sides work together to draft joint statements to give to reporters, and a spokesperson told reporters that “we are very much still in discussion about the scheduling of this episode. We are proud of our reporting and of our continuing partnership with Showtime.”

But within days, it became clear that Showtime was not still in discussion about the scheduling of the episode. Executives at the network stopped communicating with editorial employees at Vice including De and Chase. And immediately after the seventh episode aired, the company filed a motion in bankruptcy court to opt out of its contract to pay Vice.