Smart political comedies are a rarity these days. Not that they were ever in particular abundance. But with modern politics getting ever more rancorous and divided, Veep somehow manages to skewer the political establishment without tipping its hand as to a partisan agenda. Julia Louis-Dreyfus continued to absolutely kill it as Vice President Selina Meyer in the show’s second season, doing what was arguably the best acting of her career, and certainly some of the best comedic acting of the year. Unlike some of her other Seinfeld alumni, Louis-Dreyfus has managed to escape the shadow of that show and really prove herself a tremendous comedic talent no matter what project she lands on.
She didn’t do it by herself, though. Rather, she was surrounded by a tremendously talented ensemble cast and given and buoyed by creative direction of Armando Iannucci, who proved himself previously with the U.K. series The Thick of It and its tremendously funny spin-off movie In the Loop. Iannucci has become a master of a specific type of rapid-fire, bone-cuttingly sharp dialogue that goes by so fast it’s likely to leave viewers breathless. It often manifests as a series of back-and-forth putdowns between the show’s characters, but somehow in between all the insults there is some really on-point political satire as well.
Veep is a treasure for jaded cynics on both the left of the right of the political spectrum, and really, aren’t we all jaded cynics at this point? At a time when the Congressional approval rating is literally lower than that of hemorrhoids and toenail fungus, the mean-spirited opportunists of Veep seem all too believable. If the show weren’t so damned funny, it would be awfully depressing. As it continues on into its third season, it will be interesting to see what new ignominies Veep’s writers can heap upon Selina Meyer to keep things fresh.