I watched the first season or so of Veep (2012-2019), with Julia Louise-Dreyfuss as a scheming, acerbic Vice President of the U.S. (political party unspecified), but got annoyed with the excessive amorality of the characters and their interminable petty squabbles.
Scene 1; Palo Alto, California. The Veep (Julia Louise Dreyfuss) is speaking at Stanford. Her Strategist (Gary Cole, below) notes that tickets are $5000. Tomorrow she's speaking at Clovis, a company worth $4.3 billion ("more than I make in a year!"). Darn, I thought she would be going to New Mexico.
While she is holding a baby and talking baby-talk, its mother asks why she backflipped on fracking. They get into an argument. The team tries to disengage, but you can't just walk away while holding a baby.
Scene 2: The VP Chief of Staff is yelling at the Communications Director (Matt Walsh, left), asking why he didn't disengage quicker. Meanwhile the Veep and her Assistant Gary (Tony Hale) discuss the damage: "You're going to alienate women in their 30s." "Oh, no!" she exclaims. "I'm left with gay Latinos and Jews at college." A very precise fan base.
Scene 3: At the Veep's office, the staff watches tv: Danny Chung (Randall Park, below) is talking about the fracking fiasco (gleefully; he must be an enemy). Deputy Director of Communications (Reid Scott, top photo, left, and below) wants to "take the fucker out."
To add to his woes, on his computer, his frenemy Jonah is rapping about the fiasco, having the Veep say "And that's why drinking chemical sludge is good for you."
Jonah calls the Deputy Director to gloat. White House Chief of Staff yells at him, then tells the Deputy Director that they have to take out the mother (the lady who argued with the Veep about fracking). Find some dirt on her. Make her out to be a bad mom. Wait, I thought they wanted to destroy their enemy, Danny Chung. They want to destroy the Mother too? That's a lot of personal assassinations for 23 minutes.
Scene 4: White House Chief of Staff has a beer with the Deputy Director and complains about his job, "going from 6-pack abs to this keg. I ain't seen my penis since the Gulf War." Has anyone else seen it?
The Deputy Director wants to be the Veep's campaign manager. It's doable, the Chief of Staff tells him, if he is willing to get "down and dirty," like finding some dirt on Danny Chung: there's a rumor that when he was in Iraq, his squad tortured a prisoner. Ok, back to destroying Danny Chang.
More after the break
