Veep: Utter incompetence

"What?  You work at the White House?!  Oh my God, can I blow you?!"

 Veep returns Sunday night on HBO.

Regardless of where you live, expectations of any Washington-centric show include political machinations featuring members of Congress, lobbyists, and other movers and shakers making deals over steaks, cigars or cocktails.  It's a glamorous display of power, effectuality and uber competence.

Not so much.

If you live in Washington, DC the show has a built in appeal to you because you know DC has as many clowns, charlatans, and b.s. artists as anywhere.  Everyone alternately scrambles or procrastinates to get through the day just as you would in an office park in Scranton, PA.  Which is why Veep is so good...the ubiquitous nature of incompetence in the everyday workplace.  It provides the Office of the Vice President as the backdrop for a typical workplace comedy.  Yet the jokes are specific enough to politics and government the show is far from generic.  Perhaps these are not unique to DC, but some of these characters just scream Washington adding to the hilarity.

Dan - Climber, ascends professionally more due to networking than competence
Gary - Kool aid drinker. It'd be obnoxious if he wasn't so sincere
Jonah - constantly reminding everyone where he works

This doesn't even include the verbal japes the staff take at their own jobs when they refer to making "the medium bucks", using "creative" as a euphemism for "cheap" when it comes to budgeting and the utter contempt most others have for the types listed above.


Besides her staff deftly avoiding most implications of competence, the Veep's office also manages to rebuff any myth of having power and effectiveness in Washington.   Vice President Selena's image of herself as the second most power person in the world does not exactly line up with reality.  This is not unlike Michael Gary Scott's view of himself as a model businessman, comedian and all around best friend to everyone.  Selena's reaction when she discovers this misalignment is however much angrier than that of the Dunder Mifflin regional manager.  Rather than wrap her foot in bubble wrap and sulk, or double down by parading out self created characters to help make his original point (or oftentimes the exact opposite point he tried to make), she instead borderline abuses her staff to turn around their current political mess and get back into the country's/political ally's good graces and live up to her ambition.

Veep spawns from a much darker place than The Office though.  The shows' plotting diverges them further.  Michael may be down and depressed about his 30 year mortgage only to be welcomed back warmly to an office later that day while Selena and her team will be nearly out of the weeds, only to have the facade they've constructed come crashing down on them at the end of the episode, often putting them in an even worse position than they started.

And if you're interested, there's another show in the pipeline featuring the vice president. 

Julia Louis-Dreyfus was up for a Golden Globe and took home the Emmy for the Best Actress in a Comedy.  The show itself was nominated for an Emmy for Best Comedy Series.  It airs Sunday at 10 p.m. Eastern on HBO, repeats throughout the week and is on HBO Go.