7x02 Discovery Weekend

[7.3/10] This felt like classic Veep doing its thing. The setup of Selina and Tom James jousting over the financial support of a new age-y silicon valley billionaire is strong, and leads to lots of good intertwined scheming and barb-trading.

As a pretty big House fan, I’m not sure I will ever stop gushing about the boon it is to have added Hugh Laurie to this show, and I’m thrilled to see him and Julia Louis-Dreyfus doing scene-to-scene combat here. Selina and Tom both topping the other in efforts to get the ear of the donor, while inadvertently setting up a third candidate to be his pick is the perfect “the only option is failure” end of the story for this show.

But my favorite part is the scene between the two of them in the kitchen. When Tom told Selina he loved her before her big toast, I thought he was just saying it to flummox her. And you know, he still might be. That’s the interesting thing about the character -- it’s hard to tell when he’s being genuine versus when he’s just using sincerity as a weapon. But every once in a while, this out there comedy show goes for something real, and it tends to floor me.

That’s assuredly the case here, with Selina and Tom openly wondering what their lives could have been if they weren’t in politics. The idea of them as some cynical but maybe happy couple in the suburbs is sweet and sad, particularly when it devolves into their sharp-tongued realization that it’ll never happen and they’re going to have to try to kick one another’s asses. Melancholy isn’t really this show’s main setting (that would probably be “acerbic irreverence”) but it still does it well.

I also appreciate the complication that while Tom’s saying all this stuff, he’s schtupping his deputy chief of staff (Rhea Seehorn! Another incredible boon!) The combination of political rivalry with personal jealousy is so well done, and the show distributes the twists nicely. I’m also super excited to see what Seehorn gets to do on this show (and as someone who came to Better Call Saul before Veep, I’ll cop to having confusing Seehorn and Anna Chlumsky, making the “his Amy” lines especially amusing).

I also got a big kick out of the #NotMe gag on the Jonah side of things. It’s a nice way to touch on #MeToo while still keeping things comic, and the tearful speech about everything Jonah did being “strictly professional” was a very funny reversal. I’ll admit that the schtick with Teddy’s chemical castration seems pretty weird to me, but that’s just this show’s humor.

Amy’s story gets a little more grounding here too. The campaign mistaking her pregnancy for bulimia (with Selina making snide comments about it) seems totally on brand for everyone. I’m still not invested in her and Dan, but I like the idea that she thinks he might be turning a corner thanks to being called too old, only to see him revert to his old ways instantly. And I like the idea that she thinks of herself as Selina’s protege only to find that Selina doesn't think of her that way. Her decision at the end of the episode is an interesting change of direction given everything she goes through here, though I feel like this isn’t the end of that.

Otherwise, I like that Mike inadvertently breaks a big story by telling an open secret that’s news to him. The insults still fly fast and furious and funnily on the show. And Gary’s lines about a bath bomb had me in stitches.

Overall, a nicely done and dense outing that quickly makes the most of bringing Tom James back into the fold.