Review: A ‘Veep’ Thanksgiving gives us a wonderful Jonah-related gift

A quick review of last night's Veep coming up just as soon as I have a bachelor's degree in hotel management from Cornell…

“Thanksgiving” wasn't a single character tour de force like “Mother” last week, but it did an excellent job of spreading the wealth among all the characters, putting them into unexpected situations and seeing how they respond. For instance, I was, like Ben and Kent, very pleasantly surprised to see VP Doyle turn out to be so good at filling in for Selina while she was suffering the hideous physical side effects of her “debagging” procedure.

The most amusing of these fish-out-of-water situations in present day was Dan realizing to his horror that he had become the Gary to Tom James, with that perfect shot of the two body men facing each other with trays in their hands. But that subplot also set up one of those occasional but necessary moments where Dan gets to be slightly smarter and more human, as he realizes Tom is up to something bad for the administration, even if he's going to need Amy's help(*) to put all the pieces together.

(*) Meanwhile, Parks and Rec alum Jim O'Heir is apparently now typecast as a politically-connected guy with an attractive blonde wife and daughters. I hope Amy's never has to deal with her father having a fart attack.

But the most exciting fish out of water story is the one introduced late in the episode, as Jonah's kingmaker uncle (Peter MacNicol, playing hilariously against type and fitting right in) decides to run him for congress as a placeholder for his cousin Ezra. The mere thought of Jonah Ryan as a candidate, let alone as an actual congressman – with Richard J. Splett as his chief of staff – overwhelmed me with joy. As shows-within-shows go, Jonah's campaign could not be more potentially delightful.

What did everybody else think? Could Selina's red eye have been any grosser? Would you prefer that Richard was the candidate and Jonah his resentful chief of staff? And what is Tom up to, exactly?

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