The first three seasons of the brilliant, assured HBO comedy Veep were predicated upon a very simple premise: The vice president of the United States is powerless, and the audience gets to laugh as she commits one blunder after another in an effort to have her otherwise disregarded voice heard. It was rarely heard, unless it was to further her ignominy, which is why even the smallest non-defeats for Selina Meyer often feel like victories. The conceit worked because we got to laugh at someone who was both the underdog and the buffoon, and because it played upon our own notions about the office of the vice president.
But vice presidents do not stay vice presidents forever, and there’s only so many times we could watch Selina Meyer (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) fall on her face in a situation where the political stakes really weren’t that high. What’s the worst that could happen? Meyer gets booted from a position that she already loathes?
After three incredibly successful seasons, the series needed to continue raising the stakes, and they needed to do so without ruining the central conceit. Initially, it appeared as though Meyer would break from her presidency and run against him, but for that to truly succeed, Meyer would have needed to string together a series of victories in both the primaries and the general election, and to do so would necessitate a modicum of competence. The show doesn’t work if Meyer suddenly develops some political savvy and maintains it over the year and a half needed to win the presidency.
Instead, showrunner Armando Iannucci figured out a way for Meyer to stumble into the presidency ass-backwards: She ascended the position not through political knowhow (in fact, she continued to shoot herself in the foot regularly in her efforts to defeat the president politically) but because the president resigned to care for his ailing wife.
It was a genius move, because it allowed Meyer to claim the highest elected office in the land without actually winning anything, although you wouldn’t know it from her and her staff’s reaction: They treated it the same as if they had one through political means. It wasn’t a political win. It was a non-defeat, and in the world of Veep, not losing is just as good as winning!
As president, however, I wondered how the series would be able to continue to frustrate the character’s ambitions while allowing her to maintain her office. Once Meyer is defeated, the series will presumably end. Faced with a primary election, being the incumbent essentially gets her halfway there, but how does she win the general election without actually earning the victory?
Enter Tom James (Hugh Laurie).
A couple weeks ago, Meyer selected Tom James to be her running mate after chasing her own VP off the ticket, although it was only after her campaign manager, Amy, had a complete and total freakout that cost Amy her job that Meyer finally, reluctantly chose James (It was one of the best meltdowns in TV history).
If you’re wondering how Meyer will be able to win the presidency and still maintain her status as disregarded, powerless fool, look no further than James.
The groundwork has already been laid: In this week’s episode, we find that James is already the more popular of the two, and even when he makes a mistake that would otherwise cost Meyer 10 points in the polls, James is able to masterfully deliver an apology Meyer never could and make political hay out of a mistake. James is a political celebrity — a rock-star politician. He is to Meyer what Sarah Palin was to McCain before the media uncovered all the bones in Sarah Palin’s closet: The kind of dynamic running mate that can win Meyer the election.
In fact, it won’t be Meyer for whom voters turn out, ultimately. It will be James. Meyer may be the top name on the ticket, but it’s James who will be the headliner. And when James wins the election for Meyer, what’s the absolute worst thing that could happen to her? What will be the richest irony in the world for a deadbeat vice president ascending to the presidency? Having a matador vice president calling the shots. Tom James will likely become Dick Cheney to Selina Meyer’s George W. Bush, the man making all the decisions, rendering Meyer a figurehead in her own presidency.
Ha!
Just how perfect would that be? If Selina Meyer actually wins the election and ends up being even more frustrated and disregarded than she was when she was Veep? If that’s the game that Iannucci is playing this season, it’s a stroke of goddamn brilliance. And the cherry on top of that cake may just be seeing Tom James push through Meyer’s pet project, the Families First bill, and if he does, you can count on it being thought of not as the Meyer Bill, but as the James Bill.
That’s insanely good writing.
