A running conversation between DCist and the City Paper’s Arts Desk about Veep, HBO’s series about the vice presidency.
Jon: I know, Mad Men? That was devastating. At least the writers of last night’s episode say they agonized deeply before delivering that emotional haymaker.
Oh, wait. We’re not here to talk about the final unraveling of Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce’s tragic CFO. Veep is the topic, yes?
Timothy C. Simons as Jonah, the White House aide with the “rapist face.” (Bill Gray/HBO)So, I guess I’ll take partial credit on predicting that Selina is, in fact, not pregnant, though I missed the exact reason why. (Miscarriage; I predicted Gary’s inability to read a pregnancy test.) I don’t think I’ve ever seen a failed pregnancy treated as blithely by any other television show, but obviously Selina not being with child is the best scenario for all involved, including the audience.
After a mostly lousy episode last week, Veep regained its early-season pace last night while also managing to provide some real character development. I guess its the definition of political servitude that even the highest-placed staffers are disposable. It might not be the life you and I are used to, but in this town, even the most loyal staffers are always a hair from being escorted from the building. Last night, amid many scandals—pregnancy, discord with the president on clean jobs, reassigning that Secret Service agent—we saw Selina at her most reptilian. She was eager to kill, and it didn’t matter who’s scalp she collected. Mike could be cast off as an poor communicator, Dan as a backstabbing operative and Amy as the boss in charge of it all. (I think Washingtonian’s Sophie Gilbert is right that of the three, Mike is the most deserving of getting shit-canned, especially after that scene in the dismissed, strike that, reassigned Secret agent’s kitchen.
It’s that last option that seemed most jarring. One of the rare threads of friendship we’ve seen on Veep is that between Selina and Amy, who has presumably been shackled to Meyer since well before winning the vice presidency. That interview at the end was harsh penance for several people’s fuck-ups.
And Ted, it turns out, is some kind of powerful D.C. lawyer, a fact that is revealed not in conversation between him and Selina, but by Gary when returning to the office after Ted apparently trashed his lawn. On that note, actually, it was an episode full of glimpses at characters’ domestic sides. Gary has a modest but neatly appointed home. (I know, I know, it’s actually in Baltimore, I could see Gary as a Hill East homeowner.) Jonah, meanwhile, is in a group house stocked with what looks to be a band of equally aggro White House and Congressional staffers. But I don’t think Jonah would be a community-minded Mount Pleasant type; his house is probably just another outpost of Glover Park douchebaggery.
Speaking of that “skyscraper of shit”—as Selina called him—it was nice to see Jonah back on the receiving end of everyone’s hatred. Those emails about an “unnamed White House aide” were lowbrow and predictable, but hey, I laughed. (And it was probably the first time I cracked a smile after that episode of Mad Men.) But I wonder, would birthday suggestions of a cake or hat “in the shape of a dick” pass The Washington Post’s standards?
But if there was a lesson in last night’s episode, it came right after Jonah’s “Dick Cake” routine. With the deluge of stories about Ted’s overnight stays at the Naval Observatory and the pregnancy rumors, Dan nails it: “See? This is what happens when you tell the truth. Nothing good comes of it.”
It was refreshing to see Veep‘s characters back at their most scheming and vindictive. One episode left. If Armando Iannucci wants to do an HBO-style cliffhanger, perhaps he’ll have Selina accidentally start a war.
