Veep (Seasons 1-4)

So Veep is kind of a hard show to review because I feel like the individual seasons are too short to really give a great review without getting redundant. I feel like I'd be saying the same thing for 7 seasons. Also, I blasted through the first 4 seasons that its hard for me to really speak individually on the first season now since they've kind of blended together. However, I also felt like commenting on 7 seasons of television would cover way too much ground, especially since over the course of 4 seasons, this show and its characters drastically change. So I figured it would be best to do a half way review, give my initial impressions of the show after 4 seasons and then compare it with where it ended it up after the 7th season.

The first season of Veep starts with Vice President Selina Meyer (played by Julia Louis-Dreyfus). I think the first really great aspect of the show is that you ascertain Selina's story in the first 15 seconds if you're paying attention to the opening credits. She ran for President, fell in the polls and conceded, taking the position of Vice President to a President that we never actually see in the show.

The first season mainly follows her day to day as she tries to make the most out of her position as Vice President and the daily shenanigans of her staff who are either ruthlessly mean spirited people, or relatively good people who just get ruthlessly stepped on by the mean spirited people.

The staff includes her Chief of Staff Amy (played by Anna Chlumsky), Dan, her Deputy Communications Director (played by Reid Scott),  Her director of communications Mike (played by Matt Walsh). Her bag man Gary (played by Tony Hale), and her secretary Sue (played by Sufe Bradshaw). Additionally, they are consistently irritated by an annoying White House Liaison named Jonah (played by Timothy Simons).

As the show goes on, there are more characters introduced like the President's Chief of Staff Ben Cafferty (played by Kevin Dunn), White House Senior Strategist Kent Davidson (played by Gary Cole, Selina's daughter Catherine (played by Sarah Sutherland) and A LOT of guest roles from very funny actors and actresses, almost too many to count.

If you take anything away from this review, its that this show's main appeal is its insult humor. This show is mainly the characters just shitting on one another as they slog through a very pessimistic view of government in today's political world.

One of my best friends watched this show as it was coming out and he mentioned that the creators really tried to avoid making the show just a recreation of current events, but it's amazing how some elements of the show seemed to be almost prolific in the way they occurred when they aired well before some of the shenanigans you may see on the news.

Julia Louis-Dreyfus really carries the show. It is worth noting that the first season (like a lot of sitcoms like The Office or Parks and Rec) is not as strong as the following seasons. It's clear they didn't have as big of a budget and they were still finding their voice and that might be why I watched the first season a while ago and never continued. Dreyfus for me falls into that category with the first season in that I wasn't sure I was going to like her as the main character for 7 seasons. But as I went back, the first season, while the weakest in the first four, is still pretty good and Dreyfus is still pretty great.

I think her performance is colored in by those around her and they really start to grow on you despite the majority of them just being horrible people. As mentioned before, they all are caricatures of a very pessimistic view of politics where everyone is trying to get ahead and one bad move can have you on the out.

The best part about the show is how much goes wrong and how prevalent the concept of failing upwards is present in the show.

While the supporting cast is all phenomenal, I think one of the most hilarious parts of the show and a great example of both that failing upwards and insult humor comes in the form of Timothy Simon's character Jonah. He is easily the most hated character in the show and yet he continues to have a consistent presence in the show that never feels forced or unnecessary. And he's honestly become one of my favorite characters just on how he is consistently there in one form or another and consistently getting shit on the entire show.

The show obviously takes Selina from a relegated position as the Vice President to higher status and positions (I.E. Spoiler: She does become President eventually). But the show continues to maintain a very simple premise while infusing new plot points that can easily be identified in the first episode.

For example: in the second season Tony Hale's character introduces a girlfriend that he started a relationship with in between seasons. In the third season Matt Walsh gets married to a character we never met before. It's pretty well done in setting up really funny circumstances to keep the characters engaging and keep them from getting stale or just doing the same thing every season.

At the same time they maintain a lot of the same traits in order to continue jokes from previous episodes. Gary is a nervous submissive to Selina. Dan is an ambitious asshole willing to do whatever to get ahead. Amy is a hard working ambitious asshole who has a sense of loyalty towards Selina that makes her a punching bag. Mike is an incompetent but lovable loser. Jonah is a punching bag who you consistently are reminded that he deserves it. And the same goes for new characters that are introduced and guest stars. They're not insanely deep characters, but they are complex enough to make the day to day interesting.

One thing I both like and dislike about the show is how it never really gets too in-depth with the characters on an emotional level where we're supposed to like them. Long running comedies like The Office or Parks and Rec eventually hit a moment where no matter how much Michael Scott is annoying, he's still good deep down and you love him. It almost seems like Veep characters are deep down evil and you only grow a connection with them to see them fail. Like you want Selina to succeed, but at the same time you're totally content watching her fail because the end result really isn't that different.

It's been really funny juxtaposing this show with Community while I've been watching both (#Socialdistancing). I've watched Community a lot and I know that you come to love those characters because you did a deep dive with them over 6 seasons (minus one for the gas leak season).

While you do the same deep dive with Veep, it's both a very satisfying and kind of gross feeling deep dive where you keep digging and never really get the character satisfaction you'd expect from a comedy like this. It's good because its something different and its had the popularity to continue on for so long to do it in a way that works beyond the first season, but it doesn't really make it a show I could see myself casually re-watching like Community.

But now that I'm thinking about it, Community and Veep are very different shows and a more apt comparison is if House of Cards and It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia had a baby, you'd get Veep. And in the same way you connect with the characters of It's Always Sunny because they're bad people. Veep has that same feeling.

I'm obviously going to continue to watch Veep and I'll try and give a Seasons 5-8 review sometime here in the near future. But my overall thoughts is that its a unique comedy in the vein of It's Always Sunny where the characters are all horrible (give or take one or two), and its a lot of insult humor.

I would say it does take a little bit to get going with the first season, but that's any comedy. Julia Louis-Dreyfus does a fantastic job and the show is oddly prolific in the situations it made prior to 2016 in an attempt to poke fun at a sometimes ridiculous system of government we have. You're not gonna feel particularly good after watching Veep, but that's kind of the point. Instead of seeing these characters rise, you only see them fail upwards and its immensely entertaining.

But those are my thoughts on Veep (seasons 1-4). What did you think? Comment and Discuss! You can also send me your thoughts on Twitter @MovieSymposium as well as send me your requests for films and TV shows I should review in the future. If you follow me on Twitter, you can get updates on future movie news and reviews coming out of this blog.

Thanks for reading!