Veep – It all comes out

This episode initially made me think it totally chickened out. In the first couple minutes, we discover that the pregnancy scandal has become nothing — Selina has had a miscarriage. We don’t really see much of Selina’s reaction to this potentially quite troubling experience, except in very minor, subtle moments. It also seemed like a bit of an easy “cop-out” — taking the choice of what they’d do with the pregnancy and making it no choice at all. But the ending redeemed that a little bit, but not entirely.

Veep often doesn’t have much going on in the episodes in terms of “story,” and this one was particularly light on plot. But a few interesting things happened. The fallout of the Smilegate scandal continues to resonate, leading to an accurate but not entirely funny scene where Mike confronts the “reassigned” Secret Service agent at his home, and an actually relevant political “strategy” — full disclosure. That is, releasing all correspondence records to the press, the idea being that with so much information out there, nothing important will be found. That doesn’t stop the Veep team from carefully redacting specific worrisome documents, especially regarding the clean jobs bill.

A few funny scenes in particular: a hilarious parody of online viral videos with silly animation and special effects, an amusing “I know her better” competition between stalwart secretary Sue and goofball gofer Gary that leads to some shocking revelations. The various scandals are forcing Selina to consider firing someone to make up for the damage. After a shaky suicide layoff pact between Amy, Dan, and Mike fails, Amy is put into a tough position, where it all comes full circle. Without spoiling the ending, it doesn’t quite work as a fix to the earlier annoyance, but it’s a decent way to continue from the foreshadowing earlier the season. And with just one episode left, I still think Veep is an overall funny show with a few moments of satirical genius.

Some amusing out of context quotes:

• “That’s very funny, Bill — you’re fired! I’m kidding, I’m kidding!” — Selina
• “It’s Secret Service, for Chrissake! Secret, as in Shut the F*** Up, and Service, as in you work for me so why don’t you Shut the F*** Up!” — Selina
• “By showing we have nothing to hide, we can actually… hide some stuff.” — Amy
• “I don’t know what you did or didn’t do, but I do know that I can’t know what you do or you don’t know. You know?” — Selina
• “POTUS will not like this; this is gonna cause a total ‘POTAL’ meltdown.” — Selina
• “I’d rather be a pig than an ass-monkey up on its high horse.” – Mike, beautifully mixing crude metaphors

Clacked by Jeremy Fogelman
on Jun 04, 2012 @ 08:13 EST5EDT