Veep 6.06 "Qatar" - Review:
Directed by Becky Martin & Written by Steve Hely
This isn't the first time Veep has used the turbulent world of overseas politics to its advantage and this time it's time for Selina to go to Qatar in a trip where she is looking to exploit her reputation on the international sphere which is the only thing that she has left. The cold open introduces us to another Funeral, this time of that of Crown Prince Nasser bin Hamad el Gani in Doha. Whilst there she is relying on Gary to tell her who she can talk to and who she can't talk to and she's clearly out of her depth in this situation, eventually getting roped into taking a photo with an ambassador only to find out that a warlord who is also at the funeral effectively photobombed Selina, putting her international reputation at risk for being photographed with someone who doesn't exactly have any positive international reputation, and she's immediately criticised. I found it pretty hilarious how they broke the news to Selina via a paper at the same time that Marjorie and Catherine were skyping to tell Selina about the fact that they're going to have a baby. Selina swears violently upon seeing the press reaction and immediately shuts down Marjorie and Catherine, blaming bad connection, who are left thinking that this was how she reacted to the news of her being a grandmother. It's pretty clear that Catherine can never get anything right in her timing, and those long held beliefs that come across when she's talking to her therapist that her mother is always putting her down and getting in her way are further being proven accurate.
It's interesting to see how Veep has progressed this season at a time when real world politics are arguably more outlandish than the incidents happening on the show. Just last week Sean Spicer for example was reportedly annoyed about being passed over to go and meet the Pope by President Trump, which is something that really wouldn't look out of place on this show at all. I'd love to have seen how Selina, Kent, Jonah and everyone else would have got on in the real world, but the drama created by the show still manages to be incredibly entertaining. In order to salvage her reputation Selina decides to take a photo and have an interview with someone who is slightly less evil than the warlord and she turns to a Women's Rights Dissident from Sudan who has opposed the very warlord who she was photobombed by. Nireen is chosen over several people with disabilities, something that Selina is unwilling to be pictured with. In another amusing sequence, it was great to see the team scrambling to find a suitable person to take a photo with Selina, who even went as far as to draft in Mike, who hadn't managed to get the hang of internet overseas and was stuck on internet data roaming, and ended up being so useless at his job he accidentally wound up downloading a movie on mobile internet data. Mike vs. Modern technology could be a potential idea for a spinoff show, if you're listening, Veep writers.
The episode itself divided much of its time between Selina's adventures in Qatar and Sudan, and Jonah's misadventures in Washington this week. With his team of allies he ends up coming up with a name for themselves, the Jeffersonians, after mistaking Hamilton for being a President because he's so important he had a musical named after him. As someone who's a big fan of the Hamilton musical it was great to see it getting a reference here, particularly with the newly-christened Jeffersonians almost breaking into song shortly afterwards. I can imagine the Jeffersonians becoming Veep's GOP equivalent in the future, with Jonah at its head. Jonah himself meanwhile finds himself facing a problem with Roger Furlong, in that he wants dinner at Roger's house but Roger will only accept if Jonah supports his airport bill. Jonah eventually agrees, but they're not going anywhere without being married. Shawnee conveniently arrives to propose an engagement to Selina in one of the most unromantic ways to propose an engagement ever, and Jonah accepts this. Shawnee herself is initially mistaken for someone else by Roger, who ups his game when he finds out who she really is. Shawnee herself isn't too thrilled by the engagement idea, but goes along with it anyway. At the house, Jonah decides to bring up the idea about moving office to Roger, who waits until his wife leaves the room to explode at Jonah in front of all the guests saying why it's a bad idea.
Shawnee decides to use the airport bill as leverage in order to get Jonah the new office that he wants, and Roger is forced to agree as his wife returns to the room. Given how profane Roger is at work it was amusing to find out that he has a swear jar at home, and his wife doesn't seemingly suspect a thing, especially given how smoothly he transitioned away from insulting Jonah to sealing the deal as she entered the room. Jonah is overjoyed at his new office, even if it is arguably a lot weaker than the old one. Kent and Roger come to the mutual conclusion that the place is too depressing to even commit suicide, and Kent offers the chance to go to the roof for a Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid style shootout. In terms of references alone this episode was awesome, using my favorite musical as well as one of my favorite movies, so that always gets the episode positive points. I seriously need to start taking notes of more of the insults that the writers come up with here, because it's just so brilliant. But then if you've stuck around since the beginning of Veep, you'll know that it's probably the best show for insults currently on air.
Still in the States, Dan himself winded up pressing the issue about sexual harassment with Jane after she appears to be going too far. This calls in a meeting with the HR people, and Jane ends up having a spectacular meltdown in front of the HR woman sent to investigate her claims. This leads to Jane getting moved from her job despite the fact that everyone still believes that Dan and Jane were actually having sex, and Jane has a final breakdown on air as she's forced to resign from her post in favour of a digital platform, which she looks absolutely horrified upon hearing the news, believing that this is finally going to be the death of her career despite arguing that without her, CBS This Morning would be nothing. With Jane moved out of the picture it's going to be interesting to see how well Dan gets on in his job now, either as her replacement or working underneath somebody new, and it'll be interesting to see if Jane herself tries out any moves to get payback on Dan.
Meanwhile, Selina's two visits to Sudan were one of the many highlights of a spectacular episode. When she visits the refugee camp to meet Nireen the talks go down about as well as expected. What was quite amusing as well was to see Gary tell her that the place was surrounded by landmines making her just like Princess Diana, and then Selina promptly ordered Gary to go in front of her just in case he ended up stepping on one, instructing the kids to get back behind him. Small moments like these really help improve the quality of the episode in general, and when this episode had multiple moments that were as funny as this, you know it's going to be a good one.
Selina's second visit to Sudan came about because President Montez decided to visit Nireen but neglected to talk about women's rights in the meeting with her, and seeing this as an opportunity to get revenge on Montez, Selina returns to Sudan again to bring up the issue with Nireen and make a statement of support. However this comes into conflict with a deal that she's making with the Chinese that's being brokered by Jaffar, the ambassador who she spends the night with, despite being told by Amy that dating someone who was a Muslim would unfortunately mean political suicide for her. Selina is in love though, and eventually decides to take Jaffar and the Warlord's side when making a speech and doesn't bring up women's rights in favour of a deal that would also make public the fact that she would get credit for freeing Tibet, something that she has really craved since Montez took it from right under her nose. Unfortunately in true Selina style, the Warlord believes her speech wasn't convincing enough and pulls out of the arranged deal and Selina loses everything, plunging her back to square one. Jaffar goes too, saying that his father wouldn't approve of any relationship between the two after the leaks of the Paparazzi photos.
Selina is now probably regretting that she didn't go ahead with the speech that she promised Nireen that she would campaign for, ending an episode on a disappointing note for her. Like her daughter, it seems she can't get anything right, and to make matters worse, her international reputation could potentially be going up in flames. Regardless of what happens to her however you can always be sure that it will be an entertaining episode and this was no exception, and I really like how this season is turning out so far. Even though Selina has long since surpassed the role of being Veep, it's been excellent to watch, and this season has really exploited her post-presidency role to its full capacity.
Veep's next episode airs this Sunday at 9:30pm on HBO.
