If you appreciate the humorous aspects – accidental and intentional – of VP Joe Biden and the Emmy award-winning comedic style of Julia Louis-Dreyfus, you most definitely will love the second season of “Veep,” which is truly hitting its stride in the humor department. (So much so, HBO just renewed it for a third season.)
Take her in front of a roasting pig on a spit at a community barbecue, while discussing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on live television, as aides frantically tried to either move her or disguise the background, which makes her look entirely tone deaf to the kosher-keeping crowd.
It’s a scene that definitely goes down in the annals of comical creativity on television, and just another example of JLD being at the top of her game as Selina Meyer, the fictional vice president of the United States, created by Armando Iannucci.
“Veep” is adapted from his successful British comedy “The Thick of It,” which since 2005 has racked up a number of BAFTA and British comedy awards. As it does across the pond, the rapid-fire, mockumentary style wit here rolls fast and furious across the political terrain and power chambers of Washington, D.C.
After the above-referenced scene at a hick picnic in some backwater town deemed important for its voters, JLD develops a serious case of helmet hair after having to wear a cowboy hat during the lengthy appearance.
That she then has to appear on videoconference with the president and his cabinet in an emergency foreign-policy crisis makes for some cringe-worthy, but hysterical moments.
When Selina’s daughter post a controversial diatribe online, the almost always politically incorrect vice president says, “Get some towels, I may need to daughter-board her.”
As for us, we need those towels to wipe away some of the tears of laughter.
Veep, HBO, 10 p.m. Sundays, starring Julia Louis Dreyfus, Tony Hale, Anna Chlumsky, Reid Scott
–Hillary Atkin
