Veep still gets it right - if exaggerated

Julia Louis-Dreyfus's Veep continues solid into the second season, with the humor still building - especially as we get more accustomed to the types that populate her office, each of them quite believable (if exaggerated) and at least one cast against type (the polling guru who controls the President, cast not as a wonkish nerd but as a handsome outdoors-man). What continues to make the series especially strong, aside from JLD's great acting, is the range of her character and of the reactions she provokes in us: sometimes she's winning and charming and we root for her, sometimes she's a tyrant and a termagant and we wonder how she could be so cruel to those she works with. And in this she's typical of many politicians, I think - able to put on the charm when needed, but touch as nails, and often terribly narcissistic, in constant need of reassurance and reinforcement. Her tirade on AF2 when she learns her comic song has gone viral - of course she should never have expected it to remain confidential - is great. And the dislikable characters - Jonah from the West Wing, her aide's girlfriend the overbearing Dana, the Senator from Ohio - are so loathsome it's entertaining every time they're on screen. Five seasons? I don't know if it can sustain that, but going along fine and the midpoint on 2.