In which DCist and the City Paper discuss Veep, HBO’s new comedy about the vice presidency.

Jon: First, “fuck.you” will always trump “2.me.” And while we’re on the topic of Veep‘s clever profanity, I’m afraid I need to run a brief corrective to my opening volley. In my post yesterday, I attributed Dan being told “I hope you don’t take this the wrong way but you look like an asshole” to Anthony, the owner of the yogurt shop after being held up for hours while waiting for Selina Meyer’s arrival. In fact, it was Mike McClintock who spoke that line much earlier in the episode. Antony’s barb to Dan (and partially to Mike) was, “You live in your own little world with your Capitol Hill heads stuck up your asses.” I regret the error, even if it’s sometimes difficult in Armando Iannucci’s vocabulary difficult to keep track of who’s calling whom an asshole.

But I’m glad we’re also discussing Iannucci’s brand of physical comedy, both diarrhetic and subtle. There are two more instances I caught upon re-watching the episode. First is Gary’s quiet agony while Selina, Amy and Mike are discussing the president’s sudden “slide-in” on the clean jobs commission. As the three bicker, Tony Hale writhes silently in the foreground. The other comes just after Selina and company are ejected from the Situation Room, which as you pointed out, suggests that it’s a good thing that there’s some distance between her and the launch codes. As the gray-suited White House aide is gathering the briefing books, Julia Louis-Dreyfus pokes her head back in the room with a schoolgirl’s jealousy.

Photo by IowaPolitics.com

Those optics will kill a politician, but you’re right that no long career in federal service can not include at least one photo-op at Ben’s Chili Bowl. President Obama has made multiple trips there—hell, on one March 2010 visit, he even brought along Monsieur le Président et Madame Sarkozy. I’d wager that whatever mishap Selina had with a phallic food object might have been a subtle nod to Rick Perry’s deep-throating of a corn dog at the Iowa State Fair last year. (Selina Meyer’s politics might be opaque, but it’s a safe guess that Iannucci’s do not align with the Texas governor’s.)

As for the optics of “normalizing,” the yogurt shop suffered an exaggerated version of what real-life businesses endure when they are told they will play host to a presidential—or even vice-presidential—visit. The requisite security precautions can stanch the normal flow of business. Who would want to drop by a frozen yogurt shop if it meant first undergoing a magnetic wand and pat-down search? It must get frustrating when the executive branch is running late. Somewhere in town, there must be shopkeepers who had very bad days at the register because they were kept waiting on the White House. Anthony, the yogurt-maker, put up with plenty by the time he snapped at Dan and Mike.

And I suppose the depiction of our D.C. was portrayed well enough by what appeared to be a block of Baltimore’s idyllic Mount Vernon. I’d say there’s a decent chance we see the Georgetown Metro at some point in Veep, which HBO just renewed for a second season. I trust Iannucci for the most part, but given his past mishandling of our geography (see Malcolm Tucker’s mad dash to the State Department that actually heads away from Foggy Bottom in In The Loop), I wouldn’t put it past him to make the same Metrorail mistake as No Way Out.

Come to think of it, that shot in Baltimore, too.

Header by Brooke Hatfield/Washington City Paper.