Veep 6.09 "A Woman First" - Review:
Directed by Brad Hall & Written by Erik Kenward
It's the big day for Selina. Her book has arrived, fully completed, and released to the public at large. Don't worry, we all knew that things were going to go downhill from the moment that Selina and Jaffar returned from a happy vacation abroad, with just the two of them (and Gary, who did not see anything on a topless beach where they both went), but they're bitterly disappointed when they learn that the advance copies of Selina's book has a typo in them, and on not just any page, but on the first page. Naturally, Selina being Selina, she's more concerned with this over the fact that Catherine has an incompetent cervix, as well as making sure that her couch doesn't get damaged in the process. As always, it's just another example of the proof that Catherine needs to provide a perfectly valid excuse as to why her therapy always boils back to the same issue, her mother doesn't care about her at all.
The autobiography has been titled "A Woman First: First Woman", something that Jaffar remarks that wouldn't have gone down too well for Selina if she'd have said that in her country. It's no surprise then that her staffers are about as incompetent as it gets, but then things go from bad to worse for Selina when her work in the Presidency is exposed to the public by Leon basing it off a diary he found from Mike, containing all the details that he of course forgot to take with him from the White House. Selina desperately tries to get back at Leon but he's not giving in, objecting to the use of Amy being offered as a sexual favor, also claiming that The Washington Post has been sued before by Presidents who have been better at being terrible than she was. Selina clearly does not want this news to get out, even though it would probably mean for good publicity for her book, because there's always the case of any publicity is good publicity. She's just hopeful at this point that it won't end up destroying her legacy. And she could end up in far more trouble than just a destroyed legacy, because to make matters worse, The Washington Post also has information on the whole scandal waiting to happen where she used kids' social security numbers to target campaign mailers. This was a call-back to the incident earlier in the series that could potentially come back to Selina in a big way, namely involving jail.
However, there is one saving grace for Selina that prevents the bad stuff from destroying her completely, the revelation that she, not Montez, was responsible for freeing Tibet which was also written in Mike's diaries. After multiple attempts to try and gain credit for something that she should have gained in the process, coming so close to getting credit for it her visit to Qatar, she now has what she's been fighting for all season, something that's about as hard earned as the fact that Yale are finally willing to listen to her about a new book deal. The only drawback to this is that her childhood home is already in the process of destruction, but with Selina looking onward and upward to bigger things, she quickly moves that problem aside for Catherine to deal with.
Dan meanwhile has lost his job at CBS: This Morning, and he doesn't even get cake for it. It turns out that his actions have hopelessly backfired on him when he attempted to get Jane McCabe removed from his position, and is forced to compliment her work as he's moved out of the job. Jonah himself has also lost his own job following the government shutdown, being relegated to a small office. He also ends up losing that too when his Uncle, Jeff, declares that he's replacing Ezra, and on top of this, he's also been dumped by Shawnee who initially stuck with him despite wanting to initially move up the wedding and going through with Jonah's circumcision. He soon has far bigger issues than not being able to have an erection for six weeks, but he also has to worry about not only having to find a new date again, but he also has to look for a new job having lost his old one.
It seems like most of of this episode was spent taking the characters out of their job and putting them together for a potential reunion with Selina in the finale. The ensemble is best when they're together so it will be really interesting to see how Veep handles this approach going forward, especially when Ben brought up the idea of "The Three Meyersketeers" with Kent and Dan. Dan's convinced he's still got a chance in broadcasting, but where next for Selina and Ben? Could they be drafted back into Selina's team? It was certainly amusing to see Kent's reaction to being dismissed from his job, having cried three times with the third being tears of joy.
Throughout the episode it was great to see Veep take aim at late night television as well with Adam Scott (Parks and Recreation!!!) stepping in to play a talk-show host interviewing Selina. It was great to see Adam Scott here and I hope it's not the last we see of him on Veep, because his interactions with Selina were fantastic, especially with the whole gimmick where he got young children to read out bits of what reviews had said about Selina's book to her. And It's only a matter of time before a late night talk show host tries that on someone in real life... (Who's your money on doing it first? Assuming they haven't done it already. I can't keep track of every late-night show.)
For my money, Woman First was probably the best episode of the season so far. It had several great moments, the usual fantastic insults, and potentially proved to be a real gamechanger going into the series finale. It hit all the right notes for me and as a result, the season finale can't come quickly enough.
What did you think of Woman First? Let me know in the comments below and check out the season finale of Veep this Sunday on HBO at 9:30pm, directly after the finale of Silicon Valley.
