Veep 6.04: "Justice" - Review:
Directed by Dale Stern & Written by Rachel Axler
Taking place in the aftermath of a funeral of a Congressman, Selina finds out that she could be in the chance of getting a seat on the Supreme Court as an outsider nomination. It looks like in this alternate reality version of Veep Congress is actually more competent than in real life, which is saying something, and although Selina didn't ultimately end up being considered for the post, she was on the shortlist, which could have potentially put Veep in a very different position indeed and would have effectively changed the momentum of the series almost as quickly as it is getting used to Selina's post-Presidency role. However, this only served up as an excuse for even more bad news to hit Selina, in that she didn't end up getting the job, providing more of a let down to her. It's worth noting as well that on top of this, everything that gained traction from Selina as Supreme Court pick started with a lie that gained so much support it became the truth, meaning that as a result there were lots of things to unpack in this episode.
The biggest revelation of Justice is the fact that Selina has had a minor heart attack which could lead to dramatic repercussions for her. This particular revelation however is something that Selina was actually happy to hear as it meant that she avoided getting "a prescription for Eileen Fiher, Fosamax and lube," however Gary took this a little differently, experiencing a heart attack. This lead to both Selina and Gary to be put in the same ward at the George Washington University Hospital, putting them in close proximity to one another moreso than normal. Gary kept wondering if it was heaven, multiple times upon waking up, but Selina in turn is there to remind him otherwise. She goes one step further too and gives Gary a reason to stay alive by making it all about her, giving him a reason for him to stay alive so that he can buy her book next year. Despite what he's been through, he won't be given a free copy as Selina believes that would set a bad precedent. In an even more awkward situation, Selina has to be reminded about Gary's age and his birthday, with Selina finding it hard to believe that he's only 40. Eventually Selina reluctantly accepts the offer to attend Gary' birthday party, but whether she'll actually show up or not remains to be seen. If there was ever a potential idea of Veep that I was looking forward to exploring in more depth it was Gary's birthday party in Alabama, and hopefully this is something that we get to see on this show, whether it gets a brief mention or a whole episode devoted to it.
It turns out that we're not quite done with Sherman Tanz, the man whose controversial pardon from Selina saw Yale reject her offer to have a Presidential Library. It turns out that Tanz is willing to give $5m to Selina if she can find somebody who will finance his campaign to save the for-profit prison system, which the President is leading a charge to remove for good. This would be bad news for Tanz' business as he needs more people to remain behind bars, and Selina uses this as an opportunity to joke that she should have kept him behind bars for his business. This causes Tanz to turn to Congressman Jonah Ryan, who has failed to fully understand the concept of Daylight Savings Time and as a result arrives almost an hour late for a meeting to find Tanz sitting in his chair. Tanz writes Jonah a check, but doesn't even sign off on a very small number of campaign contributions. It turns out that despite this Tanz decides that working with Jonah would be the best move for him, declaring that "I am all in on Jonah Ryan," as Selina's plan falls apart all around him. She had no way of knowing that the Tanz/Jonah partnership would develop so well, and now she's found herself with the prospect of losing access to the whole five million dollars that she was promised, as Jonah is granted multiple support teams by Tanz, and presented with a long-winded multi-page bill where he looks annoyed at the prospect of having to read the whole thing. In the end, he ends up going to war against Daylight Savings Time in Congress, in an hilarious end-credits skit, It says something about the current political climate right now that a Congressman declaring war on Daylight Savings Time wouldn't be surprising at all. This whole Daylight Savings time portion of the episode really worked especially as we got an opportunity for a Back to the Future joke, with Richard, who was consistently left on hold when trying to contact Jonah for most of the episode, declared that he believes the Daylight Savings Time is "like living in Back to the Future".
Meanwhile, Dan has to juggle two things at once, his boss Jane and Selina's daughter, Catherine, who wants to have a daughter with Marjorie. Catherine it turns out is growing frustrated by the whole process as it doesn't feel organic enough, so brings up the idea with Marjorie that she sleeps with Dan for a more natural development. Marjorie is willing to go along with this, but this turns from awkward to even more awkward when Dan brings up the offer of a "puppy pile", proposing a dinner afterwards and a movie. However by the looks of things there isn't much of a chance of that happening as it turns out that Dan has slow-swimming sperm, which could bring him bad news in the fact that he might not be able to raise children of his own, let alone father Catherine and Marjorie's. In true Dan style, he's only cared about the fortune that this will save him in expenditure. His job is causing more trouble as well in that he's doing such a good job at sucking up to Jane his colleagues believe that he's actually sleeping with her, which is something that he insists he hasn't done since he was fourteen and that was only because he needed the grade. But despite this, he's still managing to handle his own in his new carer.
Veep 6.05: "Chicklet" - Review:
Directed by Beth McCarthy-Miller & Written by Gabrielle Allan & Jennifer Crittenden
The second of these two episodes that I'm covering in this review was the more personal out of the two for Selina, who it turns out is experiencing problems with her history, namely, she doesn't know everything that she thought she did about her dad who may not be the completely loveable person that she thought he was, in a crash course as well that developed the partnership between Mike and Selina in interesting ways, that caused Gary to get jealous of the fact that Mike was someone who Selina was actually opening up to. There was a joke here as well that it took them 20 years for them to get to know each other, and the resulting dynamic that followed was a really awesome one, especially when it was revealed that Selina hired Mike because he was the least fuckable Press Secretary after the previous one had been having an affair, back in Selina's White House Days, something that Mike only realises because he was hired about that time.
There's a lot going on in Chicklet as well. It turns out that the aptly named American University may be willing to host Selina's library, but there's just one problem with this approach, it won't be Selina's library and it will merely see her papers added to the American University. It turns out that this clashes with Selina's ego driven approach, and she compares it to "American Universeshit" whilst walking out to participate in National Volunteer Week to a crowd of adoring students, which she is only reminded of its existence by the always helpful Gary. Selina is constantly feeling down, and believes that it would have been better off for her if she were assassinated in office, but knowing her luck she would have ended up crippled and not killed. To make matters worse for her, the Madame Tussauds wax figure has been unveiled and it's positioned in an extremely compromising position. The staff are doing their best to keep that fact hidden from Selina who is more worried immediately about being next to Gerald Ford, wondering if she was placed in the hall of half-term wonders and labelling the real one as made of wood. This sends her into a big emotional-driven meltdown which despite her insisting otherwise is something that happens after a heart attack.
This in turn sees both Mike and Catherine recommend Selina a therapist. It turns out Mike has been seeing one with his wife to improve their marriage and it worked wonders for him, but Catherine on the other hand reveals that she's been seeing one since thirteen. It turns out as well in the credits we actually get to see a conversation take place between Catherine and her therapist who reveals that she's been having the same issues since they first started talking, despite Catherine's insistence otherwise. Shortly after this Catherine and Marjorie turn to Richard after learning of the problems that Dan faced last episode, only to find out that due to Richard's ultra-conservative upbringing he doesn't know how to masturbate, having been raised with the belief that self-pleasuring was a sin. However, he tells the waiting Marjorie and Catherine that he'll probably figure out how it works.
Meanwhile, Jonah is introduced to Tanz's wife and daughter, and this goes about as well as you'd expect for Jonah. Tanz's daughter is not impressed by the candidate that Tanz has chosen but Jonah makes a passionate speech about always being underestimated his entire life, and it's only made him stronger and taller. He ends up in bed with Tanz' daughter, Shawnee, which is something he goes to brag to Richard about on the phone after leaving him on hold for most of the episode. It turns out that Jonah is offered a cheat sheet by Kent on what to say for the bill whilst Tanz's daughter tells him that a bow tie would be preferable to what he was currently wearing. Jonah doesn't want to look weak with a cheat sheet in front of the other Congressmen, but they're aiming for a look of a small town grocer or a school teacher with him. Meanwhile, Kent wants him to vote one way in a bill, but he ends up being persuaded by Shawnee to vote the way that Tanz wants, with a bit of persuasion by Shawnee.
Mike and Selina meanwhile, after learning from Selina's Uncle that her father had secrets of his own and was responsible for selling the horse Chicklet as a child, not her mother, head to the barn where Chicklet was kept, heavily drunk, and proceed to tear it apart, enacting all their anger out on the place, Selina venting her anger at her father whilst Mike vents his anger at Selina for not paying him, which Selina seems to go along with. This is probably going to get my nomination for scene of the week right here as once again it was just so damn good, and plays to the strengths of Julia-Louis Dreyfus' acting. I'd much rather watch a spinoff show about a younger Selina than the upcoming CBS spinoff show about a younger Sheldon from The Big Bang Theory based on what we learned about her childhood years in this episode, and the stuff that we learned here was handled really well. The fact that she still chose to leave Mike behind, blaming him on driving the car into the barn was just perfect and classic Selina, as she was hauled away by her bodyguards.
Dan also got some screentime this episode as it turns out someone's spreading news about him and Jane to the tabloid press. The press also gets news of a meeting between Amy and Dan in a nightclub that they spin into the fact that Dan is having a potential affair, so Dan goes to clear this up with Jane in her office. Dan works out that Jane is spreading the rumours deliberately to maintain her sex appeal so she will still remain a news anchor, and isn't mad at Dan speaking to Amy because they weren't seeing each other in the first place, to Dan's relief. Now that Amy is back with Selina again following her brief stint in local Government it's interesting to see how long Dan will continue in his role on CBS This Morning, as so far, he seems to be doing a decent job, always finding himself in interesting new situations of his own. The series has always done an excellent job at balancing its talented cast, and regardless of what comes next, one's thing for sure, I can't wait to watch it.
It turns out as well that the end of this episode sees Selina come to the conclusion that she needs to put her library in her childhood home, in the barn where Chicklet lived. This however directly contrasts with Catherine and Marjorie who are in the room with Richard about to tell her about the baby at the same time, and they want to raise a family there. This continues to reinforce Catherine's belief that she is the one who is always persecuted by Selina, and the fallout from these two opposing revelations too, could have further consequences for their family dynamic, especially given everything that Catherine's already been through this season. But for now, neither side seems to be willing to back down on this argument even if Catherine and Marjorie are likely to end up disappointed by the end.
What did you think of Justice and Chicklet? Let me know in the comments section below and check out the next episode of Veep this Sunday at 9:30pm on HBO.
