A couple of days ago, I returned the Season 3 DVDs of Veep to the Library and checked out Season 4. As you know, the HBO show stars Julia Louis-Dreyfus as Vice President Selina Meyer, who from the start was eager to replace President Stuart Hughes.
That president is a character in the great tradition of sitcom characters who are frequently mentioned but neither seen nor heard (Karen’s husband Stanley on Will & Grace, for example).
In Season 2 (or was it at the end of Season 1?), Meyer learned Hughes did not intend to run for re-election, and Meyer soon started laying the groundwork for her presidential campaign.
Season 3 is for the most part concerned with Meyer’s campaign in the lead-up to the New Hampshire primary. Her primary challengers are former Secretary of Defense Maddox (Isaiah Whitlock, Jr.), former Minnesota Governor Danny Chung (Randall Park) and former baseball manager Joe Thornhill (Glenn Wrage).
Chung wins the New Hampshire primary… I suppose I am in as much of a position to give spoilers as to get them. For those of you who don’t like spoilers and haven’t seen Veep at all, be forewarned: I will be talking about the first three seasons of Veep.
But those of you who want to give me spoilers about the following three seasons, go right ahead. Jar Jar Jonah is still around in Season 6? I probably could’ve guessed that on my own.
I suppose already the headline gives a spoiler: Selina Meyer was sworn in as the 45th President of the United States at the end of Season 3, after Hughes abdicated. And by looking on IMDB, I’ve already given myself a “spoiler”: Meyer loses the election.
I’m not going to stop watching this show just because someone tells me who Meyer loses to, or even if someone tells me the show’s entire arc for the following three seasons.
In fiction, what happens (the fabula) is important, but how it happens and how it is told (the syuzhet) are also important, and Veep is an important parable for today’s politics. In my opinion, it is a show worth watching regardless of how much of the fabula you know in advance.
Meyer is someone who wanted to be president just for the sake of being president and who often blames others while taking no responsibility for her mistakes. That sounds a little bit like Trump, but there are some tremendous differences.
For one thing, with her experience as vice president, Meyer has some idea of what the job of president entails. Also, Meyer can speak French in addition to English. Trump can speak English… asterisk, asterisk.
Maybe Meyer doesn’t take any bold positions, in her attempt to be all things to all people. So, despite her various screw-ups, she winds up holding up the status quo. Not that I love the status quo, but with all the disasters of the Trump maladministration, the status quo is not completely terrible.
Which party is Meyer in? The writers have been careful not to say, and it is understandable that neither Democrats nor Republicans want to claim her.
When Gov. Martin O’Malley (D-Maryland) visited the Veep set (see the Season 3 special features), he seemed to want to be careful not to associate the real life Democrats with Meyer’s party.
There have been some clues. In one episode, Meyer says that if she loses the support of women, she’d only have gays and Latinos left. That suggests to me she’s a Democrat.
But on the other hand, at the debate in which she forgot the third R of her immigration policy and winged it with “repel”? That suggests she’s a Republican. But on the other hand, her unwillingness to take a definitive stand on guns…
We can do that all day. If Meyer is indeed a Democrat, she’s not the best Democrats have to offer. The real life women of the Democratic Party are smart people with courage and conviction.
We don’t have Selina Meyer. But we do have Elizabeth Warren, Tammy Duckworth and Debbie Stabenow, to name just three inspiring women of the Democratic Party.
Whether they all stay in the Senate or any one of them goes on to be president, that’s a spoiler I can’t give or get. But for now, it’s okay not to know that.