Lots of things happened, not for the best, on tonight’s Veep. It turns out POTUSelina really does have a knack for solving international conflicts, which is owed entirely to her skills as a communicator and not at all to her inept (yet hilarious) staff. She brokered a successful peace negotiation between Israel and Iran. Even if her presidency does end up only lasting for 8 months, what a legacy!
While she’s overseas she makes an historic stop in Tehran, after spending an extra day in Israel during a 10-day world tour. The purpose of the surprise Iranian trip was not only to solidify the peace resolution but also to negotiate the release of Leon West, one of the Meyer office’s most ardent critics.
Leon The Detained
Despite the personal tribulations of West, Selina is coming off of an epic international relations high. Zipping around the Air Force One cabin like a hummingbird, Selina is full of can-do attitude. That subsides quickly when Leon West finally boards the President’s plane. It would appear that after that day-long delay in Israel, the Meyer campaign made overtures to privately delay Leon’s release to coincide with her own arrival in Iran for the optics. Turns out, even after two weeks sequestration in a Tehran hotel room, Leon’s wits are still very much about him, because he starts putting together that the Meyer Presidency chose to engineer his release to their benefit. Considering how antagonistic he has been toward them, this is news they very much hoped would not find its way into his hands. This brouhaha does give us a very funny look at an overly sleep-medicated Ben. Multiple sleeping pills and solving (yet another) potential scandal do not mix, if you can believe it. Meyer’s extended tour also leaves Vice President Doyle to hilariously fumble through a speech that was clearly written for Selina.
Gary and Mike The Deplaned
Leave it to those two to find a way to be left behind in a totalitarian country. While shuffling between Air Force One and the press plane, the Undynamic Duo watch as Air Force One takes off without them. The back-up Air Force One, it turns out, is out of commission for at least a week. Isn’t that perfect? In an effort to gain access to the press plane, Mike raids the liquor reserves of the back-up plane. The problem, of course, is that the back-up plane is on a completely different side of the airport as the press plane. Guess what is not great to have in your possession in a very, very totalitarian theocracy? Bags full of tiny bottles of booze. On the flip side, at least neither Mike or Gary will have to be detained like Leon.
Dan The Detached
After Dan Egan’s ouster from the President’s office to rectify the data breach, Dan has been trying–desperately–to shake off the stink of being fired and land a new Washington power-position. In comes Sidney Purcell, Dan’s would-be lobbyist savior. Sidney is yet another contentious player in the Meyer stratosphere, having given the office some serious heart-burn during the Clean Jobs Act while Selina was Vice President. In fact, this is not the first time Dan has approached Sidney looking for a possible career change. In Season 2, during the Government shutdown, Dan was convinced that Selina’s political trajectory was no longer on an upward swing, so he met with Sidney for a possible lobbying job with Big Oil. Just as Sidney found out back then, Dan’s willingness to switch loyalties so easily does prove to be an asset of the utmost importance in lobbying. One of Dan’s first assignments is to be the counterpoint to Amy on a CNN broadcast discussing the White House’s international tour. I’m not sure how Dan’s new position as a consultant got him on air for that discussion, but at least Dan is still in the mix! He is, as Amy first described him in the series premiere “a shit,” but he’s a charming shit.
The Debriefing
Selina decided to call in some support to beef up her team and–hopefully–make it a little less chaotic. Enter Karen Collins (Lennon Parham) who is Selina’s old friend and former colleague from her lawyering days. As Karen says upon meeting Amy, her specialty is “common sense.” In a rare move full of insight, it would seem that Selina is starting to fully realize what her White House is missing. Karen’s new position as Senior Adviser is solidified as necessary when not a single member of Meyer’s team knew she was coming aboard. As Bill Ericsson intimated last season during the campaign, Selina’s team should know all of Selina’s moves, including the ones that they’re not privy to. Catherine, not one to be left out of the inner circle of disappointment, became engaged to the very boyfriend of which President Meyer is none too fond. I’d also like to take a moment to give kudos to Leon West’s mother, who was serving up some serious Stockard Channing a la Practical Magic glam for the arrival of her son back into the United Sates.
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