So it turns out I was wrong about Veep‘s third season: it wasn’t trying to copy the pattern of Parks and Recreation‘s fourth season, which stretched a campaign out over twenty-two episodes. Rather, like the show itself, the season cut to the chase, it skipped the filler, whatever you’d like to say – Veep effectively, and surprisingly, went straight to the end of the campaign.
Selina is doing much better than she did last week, strangely galvanized by a $1,200 crate that Kent has gifted her with. She thinks it makes her look “folksy,” while Mike maintains that she looks like “Dustin Hoffman on a crate.” Nevertheless, the down-home posturing seems to work, until she has to give an interview to pretentious douche Quincy Carter, who leaves a room by quoting obscure Shakespeare stage directions (“Exit, pursued by a bear”).
When Quincy leaves, Selina’s staff starts throwing around their snide nicknames for donors, from Sue’s GUMMI (Give Us More Money, Idiot) to Ben’s HADDA (How About Digging Deeper, Asshole) to Dan’s DICKS (it doesn’t stand for anything). Unfortunately, Carter’s recorder is on the whole time, and the next day a scathing story about the behavior of Selina and her team is published. Julia Louis-Dreyfus is quite good in these scenes, her slumped shoulders and drawn eyes the universal sign of defeat. But Veep is never without its acidity, as she tells her team, “I don’t deserve this. You do, but I don’t.”
But that’s when Veep pulls its biggest narrative coup: Kent arrives at a shelter where Selina is pretending to listen to a refugee couple from Syria, and tells Selina that POTUS is stepping down to spend more time with FLOTUS, who’s not doing so well mentally. Selina will be President, election be damned. This revelation leads to an all-time classic Veep scene, as Selina retreats to the bathroom to process this revelation. Gary joins her, and when she tells him the news, he starts crying so hard that his nose bleeds. Selina looks through his bag for a tissue, only to find random sundries, such as a magnifying glass, a book on bicycling, and several tampons. This whole scene is great, if for no other reason than it ends with Kent seeing the future leader of the free world, splay-legged on a bathroom floor, laughing hysterically, and surrounded by tampons. A nice cap is put on the whole episode – the whole series, really – as Selina says “I’m going to be the fuckin’ President.”
Season four of Veep has been uneven but largely successful. The ensemble has meshed better than ever before, and showrunner Armando Iannucci has wisely let some of his supporting actors – Gary Cole, Kevin Dunn – really shine. It was a brave, surprising move to put Selina in the White House, and I applaud the show for it. But now I wonder, can you really still call the show Veep? POTUS has a decent ring to it.
Season Grade: 4 1/2 Stars
About Author
