6x07 Blurb

[7.6/10] One of the things I admired, if not always liked, about Veep is that it never tried too hard to redeem Selena or show that she was secretly good or likable or had something to be reclaimed. She’s just someone full of ambition and lacking in empathy or scruples who continually snatches defeat from the jaws of victory.

But in its more recent seasons Veep has been apt to show that there’s at least some tragedy to who Selena is, destined to never be happy and only attuned to pursue things that will keep her further from the things that may actually make her life better. When she confronts Tom James, what emerges is two political rivals, nominally friends, who have stabbed one another in the back time and time again.

And yet, the episode seems to suggest that in another world, they might have loved one another. This isn’t a sentimental show, and everyone on it is so terrible that it’s hard to imagine any of them being able to maintain a stable relationship (short of the delightful, guileless Richard), but there’s the suggestion that if it weren’t for this rats nest of politics, two people who liked each other may have been able to find some happiness together.

Tom James admits, in a naturally roundabout way, that he was miffed that Selena never called him after their carnal encounter, that he was stung by it. And Selena admits that she changed her behavior as a senator because of her crush on him, that she thought about him constantly “in the nuthouse.” It’s a powerhouse scene from Julia Louis Dreyfus and the inimitable Hugh Laurie, conveying the complicated, doomed romantic feelings between them. And then in walks Tom James’s young wife, pregnant, a walking reminder of the life that Selena maybe wanted to have, or at least could have had, but where their shared ambitions forever closed that door and burned that bridge.

So she walks out and gives this sad, self-justifying speech about her portrait unveiling. All of this shit, all of this suffering, is fine, just fine, because in 100 years all anyone will know is that her portrait’s on the wall, that she was president. It’s cold comfort, a dark sort of affirmation of someone clearly in pain and destined not to have the things she really wanted, personal or professional or otherwise, in the shitstorm of a life she lives and has lived. It’s a dark, blistering note for Veep to play, but it’s a compelling one.

The rest of the episode has its moment. Jonah shutting down the government (with the help of the ever-name-changing Jeffersons) essentially just because he wasn’t invited to the unveiling is a funny bit, and as usual, Timothy Simons plays his petulance to the hilt. Dan and his co-anchor not having on-screen chemistry is more of a nonstarter of a story, but it has a few good one-liners, so it gets a pass.

Overall though, it’s the Selina-Tom James business that carries this one, and it takes the show to weird, semi-new, semi-dramatic places. Who knew hated former Simpsons writer Ian Maxtone-Graham could muster this sort of stuff.