Veep final season, hilarious and too close to the truth for comfort

My only concern w/ the great HBO series, Veep (starring Julia Louis-Dreyfus), especially the final season (7) is: Couldn't you guys speak more slowly? Of course they can't and don't, and that, too, is part of the fun of this hilarious and frighteningly on point and contemporary series - you have to listen to every word, as the humor, the quips, and the quirks are constant and hilarious, with some of the best lines delivered as just throw-aways. JLD is perfect once again as the egotistical, tempestuous presidential candidate Selena Meyer, and we see her maneuver her way through minefields on her way to the nomination, supported by a her loyal staff members whom she rebukes and abuses and on whom she depends completely. Of course everything is over the top, this is TV, but anyone who's worked in a political office or on a campaign will recognize the types and the personalities and, in particular, the mercurial nature of the boss or candidate, needing fawning and support, screaming like a termagant at the office and making nice with all the important people when in public (street angel, house devil, as one of my friends puts it). All of the supporting players are credible and rich - a true ensemble production - and most of the secondary characters are as well, most notably Timothy Simons as the odious candidate Jonah Ryan - many of whose racist and homophobic and sexist campaign speeches and opportunistic stances would in other eras have played as over-reaching and beyond the pale but which, sadly, today seem way too close to the truth.

What's realistic and what's not on Veep

Finished Season 3 and started Season 4 of the hilarious HBO Julia Louis-Dreyfus vehicle Veep, and continue to find it not only one of the best ensemble shows on TV but painfully accurate (and of courses extremely exaggerated for comic effect) about government operations and staff support. I'm sure that anyone with experience in the field will recognize the types, and I'll say no more about that. Over the course of the series, so far, we've watch JLD rise in power and in self-assurance - by the end of Season 3 (possible spoilers to follow) she ascends to the presidency when the prez - whom we never see and in fact whose name we never learn - resigns to care for the ill first lady - but she's still in midst of a failing campaign for election. All of this feeds her ego and leads to increasingly levels of tension, pressure, and jockeying for power among her staff and among a new set of sycophants and hangers-on. One thing I have to note that's not realistic: although it works as part of the drama, JLD would not bring her vice-presidential running mate into the position of VP on her ascendance; the Constitution calls for the new president to nominate a VP, for Senate approval (it's happened only once), so the position would be vacant for a while. First episode of Season 4, when JLD delivers her first State of the Nation Address and staff fumbles through multiple re-writes and then the ultimate disaster, the wrong v. posted on her Teleprompter, is any staff member's nightmare and, believe me, it's one episode that could almost certainly occur in real time.

Veep season 2 builds toward its inevitable conclusion

Season 2 of the Julia Louis-Dreyfus vehicle, Veep, builds inevitably toward her decision to split with POTUS (the president is never named, nor seen) and run for president herself. The last episode is a terrific back-and-forth as she struggles with her decision, sending each of her staff members into a frenzy, each reacting differently but each one immediately looking out for self - loyalty to a boss in politics can evaporate in 2 seconds. A particularly strong episode in season 2: the TV crew visit to Veep in her home, a seemingly puff-piece feature interview that turns at various times extremely nasty when the interviewer (Allison Janney) drops a few provocative questions. Entire episode filmed in one location, all interior, and very smartly cut from interview footage the the various prep actions of both the news crew and the Veep staff. Consistently, this series gets the personalities and the predicaments right - exaggerated for comic effect, of course. JLD carries the show, w/ her malicious smile and her wilful blunders, but the supporting cast, each a type: the steely and dead-serious scheduler, the affable and rumpled media guy, the smooth and ambitious top aide, the equally ambitious but maybe just slightly yearning for a life of her own chief of staff, the idolatrous personal aide - all will be instantly recognized to anyone who's been around elected officials and their entourage.

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.

Julia Lous-Dreyfus's Veep becomes increasingly complex over the course of Season 1

Veep is not only good in the first season but gets consistently better over the course of the 8 episodes, as Julia Louis-Dreyfus's character becomes more nuanced and complex - till at the end she seems not just the narcissist and somewhat clumsy speaker we saw in the first episodes, funny as they were, but now someone who can go toe to toe with a repugnant Ohio politico, can nimbly dance around the corners of an issue or a situation, can rip into her staff and play them off against one another as needed, and, most surprising, suffers the hurts we all are heir to, can break down, even in public, and then can rally and use her vulnerability as a lever to knock others off balance. The ensemble cast, all types, all of them recognizable to anyone who's been around elected officials and their entourages, are consistently funny, acerbic, ambitious - and media-obsessed. It's the serio-comic version of house of Cards, which presents Washington politics in a harsher (but equally accurate, at least regarding the types and personalies) light. We can see that the arc of the narrative is carrying JLD toward a presidential campaign of her own. How can you not go there w/ her?

Veep is lots of fun ane realistic (to a degree)

The Julia Louis-Dreyfus HBO vehicle Veep is a lot of fun on so many levels, to name a few the brash humor and verbal jousting among the competitive and eccentric members of the VP staff, JLD's terrific portrayal of a character who's the epitome of house angel/street devil, sweet and effusively positive in public (mos of the time) and a harpy in the office and in ordering about her staff, and probably most surprising the accurate sense (exaggerated for comic effect of course) of how a high-level political office operates, threading a course through a field of many hazards: pushing a legislative agenda, building an image for a future election and a rise to the next step, compromising on key issues, playing up to powerful people whom they hate, pleasing the boss (or, JLD's case, the president - never seen, at least in the first 4 episodes of season 1), managing the media, seeking photo ops, handling the ceremonial obligations, and trying to keep personal life out of the picture. It's not exactly realistic - it's a 30-minute comedy series after all - and it's had to accept that JLD (Selina Meyer) could rise as high as she has and still make the elementary blunders that get her into trouble in most of the episodes, but the show is full of quirks and quips, moves at a rapid pace, and gives us a funhouse-mirror version of high and low level political operatives and loyalists at work.