What Was More Batsh*t Crazy This Week: Veep or the 2016 Election?


Our continuing experiment to figure out which is crazier, Veep or the 2016 election, caught a sizable break this week. Ted Cruz picked Carly Fiorina as his  running mate for the general election he won't ever be a part of. Fiorina is much closer than Hillary Clinton to Veep's Selina Meyer, who is statistically the most honest candidate in the race and possesses real political substance. In Fiorina we have the kind of empty drifting ambition that fits perfectly within Veep's universe.

The second episode of the fifth season of Veep is possibly the Veepiest Veep episode ever made. The particular joy of the show has always been the use of aggressive sexualized language in the context of the bland pieties of American political landscape. And this episode has plenty of great bits of masterful swearing, as usual: "If you miss that deadline, find a rattlesnake and shove it up your dick hole, because it's a lot more fun than what I'll do to you," one of the analysts tells a volunteer. When Ben Cafferty meets his political idol, whom he knew as an intern, the man remembers him by his nicknames: "Fatty dicksuckle," "B-B-B-B-Benny and the Jizz," "Buttfucker." Cafferty's just pleased that he registered: "Buttfucker! That's me!" None of it's personal.

The sexual language has real consequences this time, though. The recount in Nevada is consuming all of Selina's energy. Her operatives proceed through the ballots trolling for votes. One ballot has scribbled on it: "Fuck Selina Meyer." Or maybe there's a comma there, which would make it "Fuck, Selina Meyer." Amy argues that the comma turns the ballot from an expression of outrage to "earthy but unambiguous enthusiasm for Selina Meyer."

This is also an episode in which the president actually gets laid. Selina, in this episode of Veep, does what every red-blooded person over the age of 50 wants to do: She fucks John Slattery. They meet at a banking task force, where he is one of the bankers being tasked. Needless to say, starting a relationship in the middle of a reelection campaign is not ideal, as her advisors point out.

Selina's relationship with Slattery's character is, um, efficient. Meyer shows him the closet where Warren Harding fathered a child with his teenage mistress, and everything proceeds as the founding fathers intended. Once the impromptu banking task force has concluded, she cuts the pleasantries: "Right, we gotta get you out of here." He hints at more possible meetings. "I'm just saying I'm not that kind of a President. Do you know where my shoes are?" 

Their relationship is immediately complicated when he leaves her bed to work for her opponent. Infuriated beyond her usual constant level of infuriation, Selina utters what may be the perfect Veep line, the line the show has been reaching for during its entire run: 

"He fucked me and then he fucked me? What is he trying to do, fuck me?" 


The reality of the 2016 election continued to be bizarre beyond belief, of course. A little thought experiment as an example: Ask yourself if the following story is satire or not. After John Boehner called Ted Cruz "Lucifer in the flesh," a group of Satanists expressed their deep sense of offense at the comparison. Is the above scenario taking from The Onion or is that real life? 

That's the state of American politics, and the current election cycle: always on the edge of the believable.

This week, however, Veep actually made me do something that was more absurd than reality, in that it made me look up who Carly Fiorina is dating. 

So, for this week anyway, Veep managed to beat out reality. 

Running total:

Veep: 1

Reality: 1  

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