Between Veep, Silicon Valley, and Game of Thrones, HBO had a busy block of programming last night. “Detroit” was an interesting episode of Veep; it acted almost as a bottle episode and narratively it moved with smoothness and precision. Plus, it had more of Sue and Kent’s strange relationship, and it’s nice to see someone on Veep be very good at their job, when most people, like Mike, are very bad at it. If you’re going to have a workplace comedy – which is essentially what Veep is, except that the office is the White House – then you need to occasionally show how and why the higher-ups are in charge. The Office lost sight of this when it turned Michael Scott into either a cartoon or a poltergeist; Parks and Recreation has a better handle on it, and I have hope that Veep will maintain its grasp on the concept, especially if it wants to put Selina in the Oval Office (which seems inevitable, given Veep‘s fourth-season renewal; you can only make a campaign last so long). Wow, I just spent about 100 words talking about two characters who have maybe five minutes of screentime this episode.
“Detroit” finds Selina in the titular city to speak at a job conference. She’s joined by her personal trainer Ray, whose presence flummoxes her staff – except for Gary, who has a bizarre man-crush on Ray, which makes sense because he’s played by Christopher Meloni. Selina’s affair with Ray is the worst-kept secret on the campaign trail, and her entire staff has figured it out in short order. Except, naturally, for Mike, who reacts with an incredulous “Selina and Ray are fucking?” when Ben says someone would have to be a total idiot not to see that.
After an off-the-cuff remark about the Second Amendment gets leaked (by Jonah, of course), Selina attends a gun show for women, full of things like pink AK-47s, which she sums up thusly: “Just one fat dyke after another.” Veep strikes a perfect balance between crass and smart, which is what makes it so enjoyable. That, and Julia Louis-Dreyfus’s go-for-broke performance.
My main complaint with “Detroit” is that it reintroduces Andrew, Selina’s ex. I’ve never been a huge fan of Andrew, partly because whenever he returns it seems like the show is going back to the proverbial well. Andrew insinuates himself back into Selina’s life, they start sleeping together, Andrew oversteps his bounds, Selina kicks him out. Rinse and repeat. Of course, I might be biased because I, like Gary, have a man-crush on Christopher Meloni.
Veep‘s third season is moving along at a nice clip, and it seems like it’s taken some cues from the aforementioned Parks and Recreation in how to make a campaign last for an entire season. I’m wary of the reappearance of Andrew, but excited for the rest of the season.
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