By Dustin Rowles | TV | May 13, 2019 |
By Dustin Rowles | TV | May 13, 2019 |
While another HBO series is sh*tting the bed as it goes down in flames, Veep came up with an absolutely perfect series finale this week, one that was both shocking and yet weirdly predictable.
During a contested Democratic Convention, Selina Meyer sold out her last remaining principle (agreeing to outlaw gay marriage in exchange for a few delegates) and recklessly chose Jonah Ryan as her Veep before throwing Gary (and her entire staff) under the bus in exchange for the nomination (poor Gary went to prison, her fall guy for the Meyer Fund controversy). By completely selling her soul, Selina Meyer gained the Presidency back (for one term), but it came at a cost: She had no friends remaining, found herself surrounded by political enemies, and she alienated even her daughter, leaving President Meyer alone, embittered, and sad in the Oval Office. Twenty-four years later, when she was laid to rest, many of those closest to her didn’t even come to her funeral (Jonah had been impeached, while her daughter was too busy celebrating her death over margaritas). In the end, even her death was overshadowed by the death of the beloved Tom Hanks, the perfect final nail in the coffin of her legacy.
It could not have been a more fitting way to end the series that, in so many respects, mirrored the Trump Presidency that Veep has been satirizing all season long: Selina Meyer got everything she ever wanted, and it left her completely miserable.
It’s also worth noting that Julia Louis-Dreyfus, who has six consecutive Emmys for her work on Veep, managed to dial it up yet another notch, lashing out in furious anger in some scenes, and yet at Ben’s hospital bed and in selling out Gary, we could feel a genuine sense of sadness buried beneath the Selina Meyer facade. In some ways, we could feel the emotion of ending the show after eight years. Indeed, everyone on this show should get credit for their work this season (and Peter MacNicol should get a guest Emmy despite only appearing for 5 minutes, all told), but they may as well rename the Best Lead Actress in a Comedy the Julia Louis-Dreyfus Award. She was stunning, and the writing on this series — led by showrunner David Mandel — was next-world amazing.
There were a tremendous amount of great lines in the series finale, but for maximum impact, I’m going to limit myself to the best ten.
— Roger Furlong (to Jonah): Because you were born with three umbilical cords wrapped around your neck, Hep-C Kevin McHale.
— Roger — May the best man win.
Will — And may the hairiest man zip tie me to a slaughterhouse drainage grate and make tender hate to my rear and mouth, in that order, at his leisure.
— Ben (to Amy) Your offer is about as good as a Siracha enema.
— Selina — In the words of the great Eleanor Roosevelt, I would rather cheese grater my clit.
Ben — So, put a pin in it?
Selina — That, too.
— Jonah — I love America, but it is time to face facts. This is a horrific country that is falling apart because it is full of people who are different from me.
— Jeff — The Jews have a word for this feeling I’m feeling right now. I can’t remember it. It sounds like three Germans cumming inside something it doesn’t want them to.
Beth — Aw, Jewish is such a beautiful language.
— Selina (to Michelle York, in a doozy of a speech) He will never see you as anything other than the TGIFriday’s hostess on Proactive who lets him bend you over his desk while you close your eyes to avoid coming face to face with that framed photo of his family in Aspen while he drowns your Little Mermaid back tat in a pool of jizz and admires his own reflection. I just hate to see smart women throw away their political career for men who only see them as the gash of least resistance.
— Amy — Do not, under any circumstances, make Jonah Ryan your VP.
Selina — There is no safer place to stick Jonah Ryan in all of Washington D.C. Being Vice President is like being declawed, defanged, neutered, ball-gagged and sealed in an abandoned coal mine under two miles of human shit. It is a fate worse than death. Besides, I am not going to die, because I have the face and the twat of a high school cheerleader who has only done anal.
— Amy (to Jonah) — She is offering you Vice President, you monument to vaginal dryness.
— Sue — (to Jonah) — The President told me to pencil you in for half-past go fuck yourself.
Jonah — I would start treating me with the respect that I deserve.
Sue — I am.
Farewell, President Meyer. You were the best worst President the United States has never had.