The cathartic and palliative
Veep begins in season one with Meyer executing the stereotypically obscure and thankless responsibilities of her job. She has immediate friction with her bumbling subordinates: her dutiful, loveless chief of staff Amy; less duty-bound, lovable communications aide Mike and his hot-shot deputy Dan; no-nonsense secretary Sue; insufferable presidential liaison Jonah; and the VP’s bag-man, the obsequious Gary. Meyer ascends to the Oval Office through the order of succession in season three, bringing in new regulars like burned-out White House chief of staff Ben and stiff numbers guru Kent. All the supporting characters are acted well, with special marks for Anna Chlumsky’s Amy, Tony Hale’s Gary, and Timothy Simons’s Jonah.
And all receive the progressively impatient and wrathful Meyer’s scorn. Her character is in limbo at the outset of season five, having just tied her opponent in the electoral college 269-269. The deadlock sparks a series of arcane constitutional scenarios and palace intrigue, which, unlike the brooding and severe House of Cards, is treated with savage humor, not savagery. Meyer dispatches her team to help her win at all costs: deploying legal advisers to take the state of Nevada in a recount, playing the foil to Jonah as he attempts to win a special election in anti-Meyer country that could deliver her the electoral college, and wrangling members of Congress during a state dinner with profane and ruthless outbursts. LBJ doled out “the treatment”. Meyer acts like she needs to seek some—medicinal, therapeutic, or otherwise.
Along the way, she jockeys with her running mate, the publicly popular and privately cunning senator Tom James (an Americanized Hugh Laurie), for supremacy. With some careful plotting behind the scenes, he could get the House to tie and have the election thrown to his colleagues in the upper chamber, which would select the president from the two vice-presidential nominees. The joke: A victorious James would have Meyer serve as VP, subjecting her to the cruel narrative humor that is the soul of the show.
As for the show’s heart? It doesn’t have much of one. The main characters, particularly Meyer and Gary, are treated with varying degrees of contempt, and the writers don’t budge. Such a choice would condemn a cynical TV series to a short life. But Veep doesn’t impel viewers to point and laugh at the mishaps of the people on-screen; none of them suffer misplaced personal tragedies or slip on banana peels. Instead, they’re just living out the dysfunctional careers that many Americans perceive to be the reality of Washington. It’s not really cynical if there’s truth to the story, even if certain plot points might be exaggerated for effect.
In the season finale, Gary, easily the most human member of Meyer’s staff, rails against the men responsible for putting her in such a bizarre position. “You f—ers. How dare you. That magnificent woman counted on you, and you losers let her down. All you f—ing cared about was your stupid, bad selves!”
To Kent, the stats geek: “Your numbers? Your numbers are garbage!”
To Mike, the communications chief: “Your speeches? Garbage!”
To Ben, the chief of staff: “Ohhhh, and you’re supposed to give her advice? Is that right? All I heard was dumb, stupid, I don’t know what the f— it was.”
To Tom, the subversive running mate: “You screwed her the worst—in all the ways. Oh, haha, I know, I know you make fun of me, and you know you think that I’m funny, I’m funny, haha! Well at least I cared! I did my job.”
Gary, hysterical, walks out of the Oval Office, leaving his colleagues stunned. In a room of introspection and empathy, someone—Kent, Mike, Ben, Tom—might utter a word of self-awareness.
“Well that just kind of made this whole year worth it,” Ben says after Gary exits, amused and satisfied.
Selina Meyer’s Oval Office is clearly not that kind of room. With Americans so sour on our politics, you could forgive them for thinking that the real one isn’t that kind of room, either.
