In anticipation of Veep’s season finale, Dan Pfeiffer, a political commentator for CNN and a former senior advisor to President Obama, wrote an insightful article for Grantland last week about how Veep is television’s most authentic depiction of the nation’s capital.  Pfeiffer backs this assertion up with three reasons: the humanity of the series’ characters, the banality of their day-to-day lives, and the absurdity that matches today’s political climate.  While I agree completely with Pfeiffer’s statement, I would like to add a fourth reason for Veep’s place at the summit.  Simply put, the show is a love letter to politics.

Yes Veep, despite its cynicism and crassness towards the American political system, is truly and completely infatuated with the excitement of politics.  Its characters may be overworked, under-caffeinated, and constantly exasperated, but they’ve all willingly given the best years of their lives in service to the soul-crushing, thankless machine that is Washington D.C. for a reason.  We don’t often get to see that reason, hidden behind each character’s emotional walls of skepticism and self-deprecation, but in this season’s finale, with election night in full swing and everyone glued to their TVs (and many, many tablets), we have the rare opportunity to experience the passion and exhilaration that allows these characters to take each week’s abuse and keep coming back for more.

From the beginning we hear that this election is the ‘closest in living memory’ and the phrase ‘too close to call’ is repeated ad nauseam throughout the episode.  At first this generic expression is derided as ‘transcendent bullshitting’, simply one of many clichés stammered out by Dan and Amy while co-commentating on CNN.  But as the night goes on and the election literally does become too close to call, it becomes almost a rallying cry in defense of the emotional excitement of election night against attempts to coldly mathematize the proceedings through statistical models and projections, embodied here by blogger Matty Curtis, a Nate Silver analogue.

Over the episode, the difference between media outlets calling actual results versus assumptions based on projections becomes blurred, as Selina almost concedes over an unfavorable outcome that turns out to be a miscall.  As news stations race to be the first on the mark and thus attract the most viewers, this dependence on forecasts rather than hard data makes everything unclear.  As Tom puts it as he tries to console a despondent Selina, ‘These are projections, these are not real results.’  In highlighting this, Veep puts the spotlight back on the romanticism of the night; potential world leaders waiting on knife’s edge as results trickle out, forced to wait for the final decision just like the voters at home.  Having the answers all mapped out before the counting even begins runs contrary to the spirit of the event, and while cries of ‘too close to call’ may often be just transcendent bullshit, it’s all part of the spirit of the proceedings that has the characters just as enraptured as the viewers.

Though she’s surrounded by the support of her entourage, Selina’s emotions are understandably all over the place, as she swings from exuberance to abject defeat depending on the most recent result.  When the race finally ends in a tie, all the emotions come flooding out in a shocking monologue that summarizes all the frustration that’s been building over her time as president: ‘You do your best, you try to serve the people and then they just fuck you over, because they’re ignorant and they’re dumb as shit and that’s democracy.’  This eruption is balanced by more subtle and amiable character moments, such as her mother-daughter time with Catherine, which give Selina the depth of personality that’s needed to keep the audience invested in her success.  A big performance tonight was definitely needed after two episodes relatively out of the spotlight, and Julia Louis-Dreyfus does an excellent job showcasing both the positive and negative aspects of Selina on the night where she may or may not become president.

Of course, Selina losing is never really an option with the series already on board for another season, but a victory would be overly predictable and continue to distance the show from its title.  That the election ends in a tie is a masterful stroke by the writing staff, meaning the decision goes to the House, with Tom becoming President in the event of a second tie there.  Finding such a creative (and legally accurate!) way for Selina to potentially end back up in the titular role of Veep adds true stakes to next season and shows that the series’ wit goes far beyond Jonah-directed insults (of which there were none this episode!).

Positioning Tom as Selina’s opponent in the upcoming season is another strong move.  Selina has always felt threatened by his popularity, and more than once we’ve seen through Tom’s charming façade to the disdain he views for Selina’s success over his.  The two becoming outright rivals, even while remaining on the same side, is a natural choice for a series whose one weak point is a lack of true competitors for Selina’s position.

Altogether this was an excellent finale, and a strong exit by series creator Armando Iannucci.  The cast even receives a curtain call at the end of the episode as Selina calls them all onstage, a nice nod to all the work that’s been done over four seasons (Dan’s left out of the proceedings, but he does get his head projected onto a giant screen, which I’m sure he’s pleased about).  As for the future, Iannucci seems to have respectfully left many things open-ended for his successor, David Mandel, whose previous work includes Curb Your Enthusiasm and Seinfeld.  Selina’s campaign can continue on in any direction, Bill may or may not end up in prison, as he continually reminds everyone around him, and Amy might just have a place back on Selina’s squad.  Iannucci’s final love letter to American politics is a smash success, and a crowning example of why, when it comes to political television, Veep truly is commander-in-chief.

With both Game of Thrones and Veep finished, I’ll be taking a summer holiday until mid-July.  I’ll be back with a look at True Detective season two so far, with reviews coming weekly from there.  See you then!

Apologies for missing last week’s review, but on the day I was going to review an episode where Selina is stricken ill, I felt under the weather myself and decided to put off episode eight’s review and combine it with episode nine.  This unexpectedly ending up working pretty well, as these episodes are linked together, both in subject matter and in their unconventional structures.  Episode eight combines Selina’s general absence due to illness with the madcap efforts of her staff to tank the unpopular Families First bill.  The following episode has her staff trying to cover up the events of last week at a congressional hearing while Selina, though no longer ill, is still largely detached from the rest of the proceedings.

For the series’ main character, Selina is oddly marginalized in both of these episodes, and hopefully this will be compensated by a memorable performance in the upcoming season finale.  Her illness in episode eight deprives her of her usual scathing wit, though she’s gifted some physical comedy and make-up work befitting her deathly ill state.  To be fair, it seems as though the writers acknowledged her criminal under-use by giving her a rapid barrage of voice memo jokes during the ending credit sequence.  During the hearing her stature and know-nothing stance means she’s largely spared from questioning about the failed bill, and her news about Catherine’s break-up with her lobbyist fiancé works mostly due to the relationship we’ve seen play out between Selina and her daughter in earlier episodes, rather than her short segment here.

In Selina’s absence the rest of the cast takes the opportunity to shine, as their last-minute attempts to torpedo the bill showcase each character at their most manic while the congressional hearing lets us watch them squirm under the spotlight in a comeuppance that’s been building all season.  Both episodes let each character’s personality shine, through their differing forms of incompetence while trying to kill the bill and their reactions while isolated and under scrutiny during the hearing.  Gary becomes power-mad, ‘speaking’ for the President while she is ill and describing himself as a ‘pipeline’ directly to her head before backtracking and describing himself as a ‘nobody’.  Mike attempts to distance himself from any information about the bill and tries to remain ignorant, which can’t be too hard for him, then solidifies his position as Veep’s worst liar as he stumbles deeper and deeper into a ridiculous story about ‘Knee-free’ cream.  Even the normally dependable Ben loses his composure at the discovery of a paper trail linking the White House to Dan and Amy’s hiring to discredit the bill, though he’s back at his best while giving testimony, showing his elder statesman status by remaining relaxed and dictating proceedings while the other characters trip over themselves trying to duck away from the firing squad.

Ultimately, after seemingly everyone has had their turn passing the buck, Bill Ericsson is the one left holding the blame in order to prevent these various scandals from growing further out of control.  Bill has been a strange character this season.  Previous billed as a superstar campaign manager, he somehow was not even considered for the role after Amy quit, and never really displayed any of the skills to give him that reputation in the first place.  Bill was still a very funny character as we learned that icy cool demeanor did not extend towards dealing with the media or the general public, and he certainly leaves the show on a high as he manically attempts to plead his innocence against the mounting accusations against him (‘do you want me to take off my shirt so you can see all the knife handles sticking out of my back?), but he was conspicuously absent from more than a few episodes this season, and I wonder if other commitments minimized the amount of time he was able to spend with the show and facilitated his axing before the season’s end.  In any case, we must bid the giver of ‘unfriendly friendly hellos’ an unfriendly friendly ‘goodbye’.

With the various scandals that have dominated this season of Veep possibly taken care of, the Families First bill dead in the ground, and Selina’s election campaign not given much airtime so far, the subject matter of the season’s finale episode is really up for grabs.  This upcoming episode being the final one helmed by creator Armando Iannucci, such narrative freedom should give him, and the series, the flexibility to end this season on a high.  Unfortunately for Selina, a high for the series usually means a low for her administration, so we can only imagine what disaster awaits her on Sunday.

This season of Veep has seen characters dropping out of Selina’s staff faster than victims in an Agatha Christie novel, and we narrowly avoided adding another fatality to the list as Mike almost buckles under the weight of the ‘shitshoveling’ he’s asked to do for the president and her team.  Having the episode open with Mike and his wife in a café is a nice touch- we haven’t seen much of her in a while and I suspect he hasn’t either.  Their conversation together, while brief, helps to remind us of his personality outside his typical role as Selina’s put-upon press secretary.  He has a stable life outside of the rush of Washington’s day-to-day drama, unlike many of Veep’s characters, and could probably use some more two day weekends to take advantage of this.  All this makes his emotional exhaustion and near breakdown that much more impactful.  When he takes an exasperated tone explaining the origin of the ‘Mommy Meyer’ nickname for the President’s Families First bill and Selina calls him out on it, Mike looks like he’s headed down the same path that Amy did just two episodes earlier- a complete emotional collapse followed by an abrupt dismissal.  Luckily for him, he manages to pull himself together and carry on, and it’s likely the support of his wife that made the difference.  Mike dodged a bullet this episode, and he surely won’t be the last one to feel the strain as Selina’s campaign struggles on.

Much of Mike’s stress comes from two sources this week: the ‘Mommy Meyer’ bill and Tom James’ slip-up at a town hall event.  I’ll look at Tom James more in a bit, but first I want to talk about the President’s bill.  I’m a little confused about this plot point, as the episode continuously reminds us that it’s unpopular, without telling us why.  We know Selina is passionate about improving child care and specifically helping working mothers, in fact, it’s the only real stance Selina seems to have, as she otherwise attempts to dodge explaining her views or adjusts her opinions to best take advantage of the political climate.  That this is such an important issue for her makes the series’ reluctance to tell us more about the problems with the bill so disappointing.  Is Selina’s personality making it unpopular with the public?  Does her team’s incompetence mean the mechanics of the bill are unsound?  Or are Selina’s political opponents poisoning the bill’s reputation to hurt her re-election chances, or perhaps tacking on so many addendums that it has lost its original purpose?  All of these possibilities are mentioned, but none are singled out as the primary reason.  Selina’s pizza dinner with her law firm friends had multiple opportunities for one of them to blurt out the problem, but other than some shared glances and half-mentions their displeasure with the legislation goes unexplained.

Maybe the characters in Veep themselves don’t know what the problem is, just that the ship is sinking and there’s only time to bail water, not look for the leak.  (the President’s friends seem to have an opinion, but when has Selina ever reached out to the average person?)  Veep as a comedy has always been centered on the characters, rather than the plot.  Politics have always purposefully been kept ambiguous and each episode’s structure runs on a strongly bipartisan note: Put Selina and her staff in a new pressure cooker each week and watch them crash into each other with hilarious results.  So maybe the reasons why the Families First bill is failing aren’t as important as how the President reacts; criticism from all sides grinds on Selina throughout the episode, first from her staff, then from the media, and finally from her old friends, causing her to snap.  It will require some continued verbal gymnastics to skirt the small stuff if this is to be a recurring plot point however.

As for Tom James, it took three episodes but we’re finally seeing who he really is, other than an infallible superman that exists to make Selina look bad by comparison.  Tom has built his success on being likable and easy to connect with, and it’s a good skill to set him apart from Veep’s other politicians who hold their cards close and prefer the hushed tones of a backroom deal to grandstanding speeches (every time a politician climbs a podium in Veep, the result is guaranteed to be cringe-worthy).  In this episode Tom goes a little too far with his easy-going personality, as he offers up that a shooter who happens to be a veteran is as much a victim as the people he killed.  This admission, while obvious a poor choice of words, is still an understandable statement coming from Tom, who’s obviously influenced by the hardships of his wounded veteran son.  This focus, along with his support of drug legalization, gives Tom political motivations outside of Selina’s campaign and helps to develop him from a simple foil to a well-rounded character.  We see more of Tom’s personality when he stumbles upon the true extent of the ‘cupcake’ data scandal.  While his initial anger at the exploitation of grieving mothers is an indication of his strong moral compass, his agreement to keep it under wraps and continue on as a part of Selina’s campaign shows his ability to stay focused on the big picture and avoid being bogged down by potential media distractions.  Being able to see the forest instead of just the trees is definitely a valuable skill among Selina’s easily incited staff and, despite his slip-up, Tom has proven himself not just a poster boy to help Selina grab votes but a skilled politician and team member as well.

With the season entering its third act, all these plotlines will be reaching their peak soon.  The Families First bill is heading for a vote, the data scandal is growing bigger, and election night looms on the horizon.  Watching Selina juggle all these issues at one will make for a wildly entertaining conclusion to a so-far excellent season of Veep.

More Veep and Game of Thrones next week!

Armed with her new running mate, Selina is back on the campaign trail.  This is the first time we’ve seen her stumping for votes this season, and from a comedic standpoint it’s pleasing to see that becoming President hasn’t improved her ability to connect with her electorate at all.  While Selina sputtering out half-formed anecdotes when forced into the company of the general public is certainly nothing new for the show, the stakes are higher this season as her ineptitude is contrasted by the easy affability of her running mate, Tom James.

We get to see a lot more of Hugh Laurie’s character this episode, and his rapport with various politicians at last week’s convention is shown to extend to the general populace as well.  At every campaign stop he steals the spotlight, proving to be more popular, more charming, and better equipped for seemingly every situation than Selina (a low bar, admittedly, but one he clears with plenty of room to spare).  But despite all the attention on him, we still don’t know much about who he is.  In the episode’s closing scene it’s implied he knows his popularity is more or less single-handedly supporting Selina’s campaign, so why did he agree to take on an auxiliary role to someone who is clearly a lesser politician?  Hopefully future episodes will give us a better understanding of his motivations, as for now Laurie’s talents are somewhat wasted as a simple foil to Selina’s struggles.

Though Tom may get few jokes of his own this episode, his seemingly effortless success brings out some hilarious moments from Selina as she battles to keep the attention on herself.  With the media and even her own staff going gaga over Tom, Selina decides to ‘go commando’ at a campaign stop, foregoing preparation and Gary’s hovering support in order to prove that she can be as personable and easygoing as her running mate.  Of course, this fails spectacularly; as Tom proves adept at every topic from soy-milk pancakes to embossed moldings, Selina is left with half-baked bee facts and an ‘achin’ for bacon’.  Selina should know better than to operate without Gary’s assistance by now, but her competitive nature gets the best of her yet again.  This is bad news for her chances in the upcoming election, but good for us as the audience.

Outside the upper echelons of politics, Dan, Amy and Jonah are all beginning to view Washington as an abusive system.  After her explosive walk-out in last week’s episode, Amy has teamed up with Dan in the cutthroat world of political lobbying, though their views of the job they left behind couldn’t be more different.  As a natural ladder-climber, Dan has moved on completely from his time in the White House.  Rather than dwell in the past, he’s gunning towards the future (apparently one that has his face on a banner).  Amy, despite sharing Dan’s ambition, is more of an idealist, and her dreams of helping to instate the first female president being smashed has left her bitter and vengeful.  Amy’s breakdown in the parking garage with Dan spelt their differences out completely.  Amy can’t shake her disillusionment over Washington, exclaiming that ‘it chews you up, it spits you out’.  Dan’s advice to Amy?  ‘The best way to get revenge on these people is to use them to make a shitload of money!’  Ironically, Amy’s inability to leave her previous occupation behind makes her a better lobbyist than Dan, who in shedding his past completely has lost his much-valued White House contacts as well.

Finally, Jonah’s emotional fallout from Teddy’s abuse develops in a uniquely Jonah Ryan way, as he discovers that he was the only male in a group of tall, short-haired women to be victimized by Teddy.  Despite his abuser’s sacking, Jonah’s misery continues as he’s subject to workplace ridicule and harassment to join a class-action lawsuit.  It’s commendable for the show to examine many of the problems that a male victim of sexual abuse can go through, especially in the take-no-prisoners environment of Washington, and actor Timothy Simons finds the perfect emotional balance in his performance.  He makes the normally despicable Jonah a sympathetic character as he tries to continue his normal White House routine, adding nuance to a character that, while always hilarious, has been in danger of losing his significance as the rest of the cast rises above his station.  He’s helped greatly by cohort Sam Richardson, whose character, the well-meaning aide Richard, is likely the only person in Veep with the capacity to give Jonah the kindness and support he needs as he reels from the realization that he ‘looks like a middle-aged woman’.

The struggles of Veep’s junior characters reflects Selina’s own difficulties, as the President increasingly appears to be clinging on to a political environment that’s trying its best to leave her behind.  Though she’s found a temporary salve in the form of her new wildly popular running mate, her insecurities may soon turn her only advantage into yet another potential adversary.  Watching the trainwreck of Selina’s campaign, along with wondering whether Dan and Amy will rejoin it or forge their own paths, will make for an interesting rest of the season.

This week the President is on the hunt for a new running mate, as current VP Andrew Doyle informs Selina he’ll be stepping down in response to the data mining scandal that has been building throughout this season.  Luckily for Selina, she was already looking for a new partner, and she can barely constrain her joy as Doyle offers his resignation, laughing out the lines ‘I’m furious!’

Doyle’s last-minute withdrawal also means that Teddy gets his comeuppance for his continued sexual abuse of Jonah, though Doyle (somewhat understandably) originally assumes Jonah is the perpetrator rather than the victim, muttering ‘those poor interns…’ before getting the story straight and sacking Teddy.  This dismissal was an odd point in the episode, as Jonah isn’t present at all for his abuser’s downfall, and Patton Oswalt’s character is instead simply shuffled off in an underwhelming resolution.  Hopefully we’ll see more of Teddy despite his firing, as Oswalt is talented enough to flesh out his role more than he’s been able to so far.

With her convention speech just hours away, Selina races through candidates looking for the perfect match.  This develops into a pair of impromptu interviews with Danny Chung and George Maddox, two characters we haven’t seen in a while.  After Chung’s rejection and Maddox’s too-eager acceptance, Selina is still at a loss for a proper running mate, despite the repeated proposal of Senator Tom James by an increasingly exasperated Amy.

Amy’s rage has been building steadily this episode as sycophantic newcomer Karen attempts to box her out of the President’s inner circle.  (Lennon Parham is hysterical as Karen, her body language in every scene is definitely worth a rewatch as she times her facial expressions to match Selina’s and positions her body in front of Amy’s at every opportunity, all of which makes her own rejection from the group at the end of the episode even more rewarding.)  Being ignored, parroted and disregarded has Amy ultimately lose it as she rips into Selina with a caustic diatribe that’s been a long time coming.  Despite Amy’s tirade ending in her quitting, Selina seems to have seen the truth of her campaign manager’s words, as she loses her enthusiasm for Karen and decides to go with Tom as a running mate.

Hugh Laurie didn’t have much to do this episode as new potential VP Tom James, though that may become the running gag with his character.  James’ competence and straightforward demeanor stands in stark contrast to Selina previous potential running mates: Doyle is angry and biting, Chung is a pompous blowhard and Maddox is grossly inept.  Honestly, James so far seems unique from almost any other character in the show, who are all either bitter, paranoid, or incompetent (and most are all three).  This disparity is shown best when Selina and her entourage continue to overreact to Tom’s fake-out acceptance of the VP position.  As the laughs continue and he’s made to tell the joke again and again, his puzzled reaction shows how much of a different world he operates in compared to the insanity that Selina has surrounded herself with.  Hugh Laurie will doubtlessly find plenty of moments to show his comic skills, but his character may find himself regretting his regretful acceptance.

Tune in next week for Game of Thrones and more Veep!

In this week’s episode, Selina takes to the skies on a whirlwind Middle East tour while trouble continues to grow back in Washington.  Building on her successful Middle East peace talks from this season’s second episode, the President’s foreign policy visits surprisingly appear to go very well.  Compared with her absolute incompetence in domestic politics, Selina’s apparent acumen in international negotiations is a bit unexpected.  If she’s unable to secure her party’s nomination, maybe she should consider a future role as Secretary of State.  Though Selina would obviously be loath to accept anything other than the pole position after the heights she’s reached, the opening few minutes of this episode are the first time we’ve seen her truly happy since she found out she’d be stepping in as President at the end of last season.  Just as in that episode, Selina seems to find success and happiness intoxicating- no surprise for someone whose day normally swings between public humiliation and private damage control.

Selina is even pleased by apparent comparisons to Nixon, presumably for her foreign relations initiative, but considering the various scandals brewing back home, her administration may be more aptly compared to Nixon’s final days in office.  Despite rescuing the always-irate journalist Leon West from detainment in Iran, it’s implied that his release may have been delayed to grant Selina a photo opportunity, and the idea’s floated that Selina and her staff may have been responsible for his arrest in the first place.  The stolen data leak continues to loom large, even after Dan’s firing, and Kent’s ill-advised proactive polling has raised the ire of the Vice President’s office as well.  The VP gets a hilariously awkward speech in this episode, and his building screen time also sets the stage for more involvement in upcoming episodes.

These serious issues developing back in Washington are counterbalanced by the light-hearted antics of Selina’s staff in Iran, as Ben occasionally rises out of an Ambien-induced stupor to deliver gems such as ‘teetotalitarian state’ and Gary and Mike desperately try to push miniature alcohol bottles in a broken plastic bag after being left behind at the Tehran airport.  Teddy’s continuing sexual harassment of Jonah is now also out in the open, after Jonah divulges the incidents over speakerphone to an increasing audience of staffers.  With Teddy’s abuse certain to now be known throughout the White House, some kind of resolution should be coming soon.  But will this development be something Selina and her team can use as leverage against the Vice President’s office, or is it yet another blunder for the media to use against Selina once she returns home?

Altogether it feels like this episode is building toward something more significant by advancing events in the background and bringing all the characters into position for a larger incident that likely awaits Selina back in the White House.  Setting this episode outside the usual confines of the Washington cauldron allows the characters and the audience and bit of respite and levity before, as Sue so aptly puts it, the ‘S’ hits the ‘F’.

Tune in next week for Game of Thrones and more Veep!

The characters in Veep operate in a cutthroat environment, and the constant turmoil and stress that Selina and her entourage deal with each episode is reflected in their interactions with each other.  In an administration that deals with disaster after disaster, compliments and affirmation are like unicorns, and conversations are bookended with mockery and scorn rather than hellos and goodbyes.  However, despite the constant barbs and threats, the characters in Veep have always operated with the same core team- they may not like each other, but they consistently work together to solve each week’s problems.

So after a data breach scandal requires the White House to cough up a convenient scapegoat in order to divert media attention, discarding a minor character outside the group makes sense and continues the status quo: the group panics, berates each other while putting out various fires, comes up with a patchwork solution, and awkwardly moves forward towards the next inevitable blunder.  When that’s not enough, the next natural choice is Jonah: the group’s expected fall guy and someone who’s already spent time exiled from Washington politics.  Unfortunately, before Jonah can be thrown into the volcano, the data scandal grows larger to the point where it becomes a federal offense and a major sacrifice, a ‘face’, is needed to keep the press from digging deeper.  No one in Selina’s staff is without fault, whether over this incident or any of the many others, and so when Dan is chosen to be fed to the lions, it exposes a political hierarchy that the audience (and many of the characters) were previously unaware of.

When Dan is informed of his impeding ‘resignation’ by Ben and Kent, he threatens to go public with his knowledge of the scandal, and is put in his place by an uncharacteristically intimidating speech from Ben.  ‘You don’t threaten this administration because we will fucking destroy you,’ Selina’s Chief of Staff menaces, framing himself as the administration and Dan as an inconsequential speck in his way.  With Kent standing cross-armed at Ben’s side, the message is clear: the ranks are closing, and Dan is left outside.  Fellow ladder-climber Amy is also reminded of her place in this episode.  When discussing the criminality of the data breach, Amy states ‘‘we could go to jail’, to which Selina replies firmly ‘yeah, YOU could go to jail’.  Amy views the problem as a group issue, and herself as one of the group.  Selina views the problem as her own, and Amy as just one of the ‘fifteen percent’ of White House staff ‘hired to be fired’.

After being with Selina from the beginning, it’s understandable that Dan and Amy believe that their worth to the administration is higher than it apparently is.  However, as Selina’s status rises, she has surrounded herself with more valuable senior statesmen, specifically Ben and Kent.  When Ben offers to take the blame and resigns, Selina is distraught, showing how much she values his services.  When Dan is dismissed, it’s done through intermediaries with Selina not even involved.  This disregard for Dan’s status is even more pronounced after how ecstatically he earlier revealed his plan to throw Jonah under the bus.  Dan giddily places Jonah in harm’s way to elevate his status, and soon finds himself expelled in the same way.

In many ways there are parallels between the conclusions of this episode and the last, when Gary gave Selina an impassioned speech about how his essential services were not being appreciated.  Will Dan muster the courage to tell Selina the same?  He and Amy have been with Selina longer than her more powerful allies.  Perhaps a theme of this season will be Selina forgetting her beginnings after her sudden rise to power.  It would certainly make her potential fall from the presidency that much more poignant.

If Dan opts not to appeal to his and Selina’s shared history, could his firing lead to a begrudging partnership with fellow Washington maverick Jonah?  That angle would allow Jonah’s sexual harassment subplot to develop, after Dan witnesses Jonah and Teddy’s ‘jock stuff’.  Otherwise Dan may choose to align himself with one of Selina’s rivals for the presidency.  Joe Thornhill is short a campaign manager.  Whatever he decides, the abrupt dismissal of one of Veep’s original characters shows the lengths Selina is willing to go in order to preserve her place at the top of the political ladder.  However, she won’t remain at the top if she continues to disregard those who have been with her the longest.

Tune in next week for Game of Thrones and more Veep!

Happy William Henry Harrison Day everyone!  Yes, Selina Meyer’s presidency is into its second month, and after the disaster of her State of the Union address in last week’s episode, she’s likely just as surprised as we are.  While season four’s first episode had Selina and her entourage still getting over their move to the West Wing and culminated in the spectacular failure of her State of the Union address, this week is a slower boil of minor problems and mistakes that builds towards a more personal, but much more impactful moment for not just the episode, but the whole series up to this point.

While Selina attempts to mediate historic Middle East peace talks, Gary is delegated to preparing the state dinner or, as Selina puts it, “I’m handling world peace, you just go make the room pretty”.  Last episode showed that Gary has not been handling his marginalization well, and while I expected this issue to bubble in the background until reaching a breaking point near the end of the season, Veep has Gary hit critical mass early and hard.  Moving paintings and overspending on floral arrangements may seem like minor issues, and Selina initially viewing them as such is how Gary became responsible for them in the first place, but in a high-scrutiny position like the presidency, these problems can quickly grow out of proportion.  Peace talks are interrupted by notes concerning the number of Native American paintings in the West Wing, while lavish spending on ice sculptures and gigantic floral arrangements threaten to overshadow the state dinner.

All this builds up to a vitriolic trashing of Gary in his office (filled with color swatches and carpet samples) that skips the playful jabs of Veep politics and goes straight for the jugular.  “You are unimportant, and you have suckered onto me like some kind of car window Garfield,” Selina exclaims, and while it’s not surprising to see the new Commander in Chief so dismissive of those who support her, the directness of her attack is surprising after the manic celebration the two shared after learning of her rise to the Presidency at the end of last season.  Even more astonishing than Selina’s attack is Gary’s rising to defend himself.  “When’s Catherine’s birthday?” he asks, and quickly corrects her when she gets it wrong.  “Most of the time you don’t even know that I exist but I am fucking everything to you”.

Once again I want to highlight Sam Anderson’s work in The New York Times Magazine about these two characters, and how the relationship between them forms the emotional and comic core of the series.  Anderson so aptly states:

“The show draws most of its comic energy from the disjunction between public and private — the threshold, which a politician must cross hundreds of times every day, from reality to image: from the insecure, petty, foul-mouthed, power-hungry, private person to the bulletproof, platitudinous, smiling public figure. Selina pivots constantly between these two worlds.  Gary is the pivot on which she makes that turn.”

Without Gary, Selina’s likability ratings would be as low as her daughter’s, and Catherine’s hilariously uncomfortable medal ceremony with the Girl Scouts is Veep showing us once more how vital a role Gary plays in Selina’s political success.  What’s not surprising is that Gary knows all this, but that he has the courage to tell it to Selina.  “I’m your calendar, I’m your Google, I’m your Wilson the volleyball”, Gary declares.  “I have let myself be laughed at, I have let myself be humiliated, and I’m happy to do it.”  While the sacrifice Gary made for Selina involving ‘Labor Day’ is left unaddressed for now, the message is clear- Selina needs Gary just as much as he needs her.

Luckily for Selina, she recognizes this.  “In a relationship it’s just good to clear the air” she states after Gary’s impassioned defense, putting the two of them in a ‘relationship’ just moments after declaring Gary as ‘unimportant’.  The argument diffuses over a slice of Gary’s ‘Happy William Henry Harrison Day’ cake from earlier in the day (Veep continues to find clever ways to tie each story together) and the episode ends with the two walking off together.  Selina strides purposefully in front and Gary hovers close behind: television’s most lopsided yet codependent relationship.

 

More reviews of Veep and Game of Thrones next week!

Season four’s first episode opens with Selina Meyer amongst a crowd of outstretched hands and smiling faces.  Over the course of her Vice Presidency and recent Presidential campaign, Selina has attended a dizzying amount of meet-and-greets and public speaking sessions and, playing to her two-faced nature, the humor has always been the rapid-fire alternation between false geniality when interacting with her supporters and biting distain as soon as their backs are turned.  But now she’s finally among the people whose adoration she actually values, other powerful politicians.  And she’s not just among them, but above them.  The first female president of the United States.  Of course, Veep being a comedy of failure and embarrassment, her joyous moment is immediately undercut by her teleprompter going blank just as she starts her first (and possibly only) State of the Union address, leaving her stunned and literally speechless in front of the entire nation.  Ladies and gentlemen, Veep is back.

With Selina standing flabbergasted in front of millions, the episode cuts back to the hours before the speech as we get a look at how the she and her team are adjusting to the move to the Oval Office.  While most characters are elated with their newfound importance, the only person who seems to be struggling with the transition to the big stage is Gary, Selina’s bag man.  Sam Anderson recently published an amazing piece in The New York Times Magazine about ‘codependent’ relationship Selina and Gary share.  The first three seasons of Veep have quietly but expertly told a story about how the ‘most and least powerful characters’ in the show are the two who need each other the most.  Now, with Selina’s new position of power and Gary’s lack of security clearance, this ‘demented double act’ is separated for the first time.  Selina seems to not even notice, dismissed her most dedicated attendant with a brutally direct “I don’t need you Gary”.  Considering how valuable Gary has been to her so far, I’m sure it’s only a matter of time before she comes running back to him, but for now she’s just too busy for her most devoted aide.

An early scene has the new President’s day being scheduled down to the minute, including a ‘potential’ fifteen minute break during which Selina can sleep and have nutrient paste squeezed in her mouth.  Veep does a good job of illustrating these additional obligations and stresses of Selina’s new position without the episode being bogged down in new information- a litany of international issues and crises are peppered throughout the episode as almost a background hum while Selina and her team focus on somehow incorporating both her additional program spending and her predecessor’s budget cuts into the same speech.

“You can absolutely do two contradictory things at once. For example, I love my mother, but I had to put her in a home.  And it’s actually better if I don’t visit.”  Selina explains to her Chief of Staff while discussing the speech, displaying simultaneously her lack of compassion and a mastery of the mental gymnastics that Washington requires in order for such morally directionless people to find themselves in such powerful positions.  After some negotiating, or “cock-thumbing” (Veep remains as irreverently profane as ever) with the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Selina manages to find the political capital to manage both the spending cuts and still include her pet programs.  But just as her big moment arrives, some further political maneuvering means her speech can’t be read as prepared; she’s left standing in front of Congress with no prepared material while her media team scramble frantically to write a new draft on the spot, and the episode comes full circle.

Selina’s desperate adlibbing to the nation is three minutes of uncomfortable comedy gold (apparently we’re all ‘boarding a train to a place called the future’).  My only criticism would be that too much time is spent cutting back to her collected aides as they fret and comment on her improvisation.  Giving Julia Louis-Dreyfus more room to work could have produced some highlight-reel material, though I’m sure we’ll have plenty more opportunities to see Selina publically humiliate herself as the season continues.

Plus, what’s going to happen with those hikers?

My review of Veep (as well as Game of Thrones) will continue next week.  See you then!