I’m gonna go ahead and say that Dan Egan is the MVP of Veep tonight. “Clovis” was a good episode, delivering a healthy dose of the scathing humor that viewers expect from the show. But Dan’s subplot showed that even when Veep isn’t being hilarious, it can still be gripping when dealing with the back-stabbing and wheeler-dealing that is synonymous with politics.
“Clovis” finds Selina and her team, minus Dan, in California, touring Palo Alto tech facilities. Tech culture is pretty low-hanging fruit, and has been skewered a lot recently (from last week’s Parks & Recreation, to a weekly basis on Silicon Valley), but this plot is still good for some laughs. So much of that comes from the ensemble, who all share such bitter, believable chemistry, and seem willing to try anything. Some plot points went nowhere – Selina was accosted by a mom opposed to fracking, which fizzled out, and Gary was afflicted with a sore shoulder, which just existed to explain why a handsome man was leaving his hotel room (the man as a masseuse – sorry, “masseur,” as Kent would say – and not a prostitute).
But my favorite part of “Clovis” was Dan’s back-door dealing, and the way he manipulated Jonah to direct focus away from Selina’s run-in with the aforementioned mother. In its third season, Veep has managed to give Jonah a strange amount of power; Ryantology.net is blowing up, so Dan capitalizes on Jonah’s baser instincts to get a story out that Selina’s rival Danny Chung engaged in torture while stationed in Iraq. True or not (it isn’t), it dominates the news cycle, and ends up costing Jonah a $4 million buyout offer from Clovis. Dan Egan might be the most entertaining sociopath on television.
“Clovis” had Veep‘s usual machine-gun delivery of jokes, but to be honest, what interested me most was Dan’s subplot of manipulation and misinformation. It’s a dirty mirror that showrunner Armando Iannucci forces us to look into, and he usually does us the courtesy of masking the ugly reflection with humor. With “Clovis,” that isn’t always the case.
A Few Thoughts
– “You have to say Smarch!” I hope that’s an obscure Simpsons reference
– Glad to see that Kent is a bigger presence this season. Gary Cole (and his beard) are always welcome
– Next time I’m hungover (probably tomorrow), I’m going to put in Dan’s order of “a cheeseburger made of aspirin”
– I love that Selina thought that Ron Jeremy was the voice of Scar in The Lion King
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