John Likes TV: Veep, Season 1

After crafting one of the most bitingly funny satires of the last decade in In the Loop, Armando Iannucci instantly became a comedic talent I'd always keep an eye out for. Many have tried, but no other filmmaker—or, excepting Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, comedian in general—managed to so smartly capture the absurdity of Bush-era politics.

But it's been almost three years since In the Loop, and Iannucci hadn't made much of a peep (at least in America; lucky Brits have since been treated to two more series of The Thick of It, the show upon which In the Loop was based). Then came news, late in 2011, that he'd be teaming with the phenomenally talented Julia Louis-Dreyfus for an HBO comedy series based around the misadventures of America's first female vice president. That was all I needed to hear before I was sold.

Veep premiered in April and had a run of eight episodes, the last of which aired Sunday, June 10. All eight range from great to excellent, as Iannucci, co-creater Simon Blackwell managed to create something dense and dynamic while never losing sight of the importance of chemistry among the top-notch cast. Simply put, Veep is currently the funniest show on TV. And nothing else comes all that close.

The series is all about Vice President Selina Meyer (Louis-Dreyfus in Emmy-winning form). She's a democrat with high hopes on passing major pieces of legislation involving filibuster reform and clean jobs during her time in the second-highest office of the land. Consistently, however, she and her staff find themselves at the brunt of shallow, petty media firestorms: "Selina and the First Lady are rivals!" "Selina fired a Secret Service agent for smiling at her!" "Selina doesn't think Asians are real Americans!" (OK, that last one wasn't exactly shallow...)

Amy (Anna Chlumsky, also from In the Loop) is the VP's chief of staff. She's generally level-headed and quite loyal to Selina, but when she brings in a real dick of a deputy director of communications, Dan Egan (Reid Scott), she finds herself off her game a bit. Gary (Tony Hale) is a non-entity in the office, more suitable to finding the VP the right hand lotion or bringing her tea than he is to making important PR or policy decisions. Mike (Matt Walsh), meanwhile, is head of communications, but no one in Washington takes him seriously, meaning he's a consistent source of aggravation for the office. Only Sue (Sufe Bradshaw) seems truly competent at her job, which unfortunately is only to give the VP the bad news that the President, in fact, hasn't called.

Those expecting some slapsticky Sarah Palin bashing will be disappointed; Veep is far more nuanced than that, and Selina Meyer is a different beast entirely. I saw some writers bemoan the fact that she isn't likable and doesn't have must of a life outside the office, but I think that's precisely the point. Meyer loses any sense of agency she once had by agreeing to become VP. She's 100% defined by the office, which is, in turn, 100% defined by the president and his staff.

You see a lot of this in "Nicknames", the series' fifth episode and one of its strongest. The president has all but killed Selina's clean jobs proposal, but Dan goes behind her back and gets a hapless senator to introduce a version of it as an amendment on an important piece of "fiscal responsibility" legislation, which is atop the president's wish list. The amendment locks up the Senate—50 vote for it, 50 against it. Now, Selina is forced to either vote for her plan and betray the president or remain loyal to her boss and end any chance at passing her legislation. “This is some weird-ass, Through The Looking Glass shit,” Selina says. It shouldn't come as much of a surprise, though, that there's nary a mention of clean jobs in episodes 6-8.

The one character I haven't touched much on is Jonah (Timothy Simons), the White House's liaison to the VP's office. He's a grade-A douche, but easily one of the series' most entertaining individuals. Every episode, he struts his way into Selina's office to the sound of groans from everyone around him. Jonah's life is put under the microscope in "Nicknames" (just another reason that particular episode is so strong), and we get first-hand evidence of why he's thought of by everyone—even those lower than him on the food chain—as a worthless dipshit. Dan is reluctantly befriending him in the hopes of becoming a confidante, so the two attend a metal concert ("This is fucking primordial!" Jonah exclaims while thrashing around like a fish out of water on the dance floor). Dan, as always, is all business, and he couldn't be more repulsed by the pathetic excuse for a Washington insider that is Jonah Ryan. Yet he ends up getting played, and Selina's subsequent freakout is among my favorite little moments of the series (check it out here).

As you can see, I dug "Nicknames", but it's not Veep's only gem of an episode. Some other highlights:

Episode 3, titled "Catherine", gives us the best glimpse of non-VP Selina Meyer. Her soft-spoken daughter visits for the day, and the two (along with the rest of the staff, of course) attend a party celebrating Selina's twentieth year in Washington. Selina around her daughter is painfully awkward, and Gary and Selina's way of working the welcome line is genius.

Selina's gender is, funnily enough, not talked about much, but there are a few really funny moments involving her lack of sports knowledge. In "Chung" (episode 4), Selina appears on Meet the Press. When she and the moderator engage in some post-interview repartee, he asks her what she thinks about the running abilities of the Baltimore Ravens' Ray Rice. "Ray Rice," she begins awkwardly. "Ray Rice, he play nice." Cue the groans from Amy, Gary, and Dan.

In the season finale, "Tears", Selina learns about some perilously low poll numbers which show two in three Americans just plain don't like her. While being interviewed by a reporter, she also learns the president is golfing with a rival of hers (a Governor Chung, who the episode mentioned above is named after). She breaks down, not completely, but enough that this odd display of emotions becomes a story. So a congressman, who had been seeking Selina's endorsement but later rescinded the request after learning of her dismal poll numbers, has another change of heart. He wants her again. After taking the stage, she has another tearful moment, and the congressman tells Dan to pull the plug on this—fast. But her recovery is strong, and the crowd is on its feet. Guess what? The fucker wants the endorsement again. It's a brilliant satirization of our 24/7 news cycle and a really funny display of visual comedy.

Of course, not every joke, scene, or episode hits the mark. A sampling of Veep's few lowlights:

The only major story misstep occurs over two episodes: 6 ("Baseball") and 7 ("Full Disclosure"). Early in "Baseball", Selina confides in Amy that she might be pregnant. She's been seeing a lot of a guy named Ted (The Office's Andy Buckley), and she happens to be quite late. Much of that episode, which has its moments, is devoted to getting Selina to take a pregnancy test in as discreet a manor as possible. It's not easy, as you could imagine for a woman in her position, but just before the credits roll—and while Selina is speaking to a classroom full of students—Gary tells her that she is, in fact, "very, very pregnant." It's a huge, potentially series-changing moment. How does Iannucci handle it in the show's next episode? Five minutes in, we learn of her recent miscarriage. "It's fine. I mean it was like a really heavy period," she says. I wasn't attached to the idea of seeing Selina deal with the PR nightmare that would have been an unplanned pregnancy, but it deserved more than a cheap write-off after one episode.

"Full Disclosure" as a whole is as close to a misfire as Veep has come. To keep Selina's pregnancy incident quiet, the office decides to turn over to the public "all" of her records—e-mails, memos, etc. Of course, much of this information is going in the shredder, but under the guise of openness and accountability, they'll be better equipped to conceal truly damaging info. Predictably, it all goes horribly wrong, and we're left with the prospect of Selina firing one of her senior staff members—Amy, Mike, or Dan. We know none of them is going anywhere—not just because they are series regulars but also because Selina is far too ineffective to pull the trigger on a threat like this. As such, the episode's drama feels hollow.

In the show's second episode, "Frozen Yoghurt", a stomach virus is making the rounds in Washington. Selina contracts it at the most inopportune time, just before a planned photo op at one of the city's most beloved frozen yogurt shops. She almost poops her pants and doesn't want to eat anything. Potty humor doesn't belong on this show. It's too good. Here's to hoping they don't ever go back in that direction.

I give Veep's first season an A-. Like I said, it's as funny as anything else on TV, yet frightening at the same time because the dramatized political machinations feel a little too real. In other words, I don't doubt that Selina Meyers, Dan Egans, and Jonah Ryans exist in our government today. So give the show a watch (after you catch up with In the Loop, of course) and prepare to laugh your ass off.