#veep 7

Anon, it’s a great question that relates directly to the fundamental change in Veep S1-4 and Veep S5-S7. Essentially, I would argue that the show shifts from being about politics to being about power. The two are related, but quite distinct. Politics is about the norms of institutions that influence the practice of governance, and about the ways in which individuals and groups navigate those norms and rules to gain and maintain power. Obviously power is a huge part of that story, but there is an inherently institutional dimension at work. Politics is an apparatus, a self-regulating process. You can’t make a political deal in a vacuum (Mandel tries, but it…does not work.) 

“Power” is a looser concept, and more abstract, because it’s so impossibly huge and fundamental. It exists in many more modes and dimensions than politics. You can’t tell a story about politics without an institution or an overarching system at work in the story. You can tell a story about power with almost anything, in any context. 

A lot of the smaller differences between S1-S4 and S5-S7 are due to this fundamental shift. Armando Iannuci is interested in politics as a system and the way humans attempt to seek power within that system. David Mandel is interested in the quest for power and its personal consequences, and he happens to be telling that story within a political setting. (He also approaches the concept with an absurdist sensibility as an artist, which has a lot of implications that should be the subject of a separate mini-essay.) He never would never have written an episode like “The Choice”, where Selina consciously wrestles with what to say about abortion. It’s a political decision in which she struggles with her own complex relationship with feminism and the limitations placed on her as a VP and as a female politician. Her actions and capabilities as a political actor are grounded in these overarching structures—party politics, gender and religious politics in the USA, her role as VP—that shape her thinking. In a Mandelian version of the story, Selina would spend approximately a minute figuring out her response, and the rest of the episode would be devoted to the interpersonal dynamics of her decision, like what Catherine has to say. But in S3 of Veep, Catherine isn’t a part of the story at all. From what we know about her, surely she would have some input on the subject, but that’s not really the point, because that version of Veep isn’t (as) interested in that dimension of Selina’s experience. 

In contrast, S6 and S7 ignores the political costs of power in favor of its personal costs. Mandel frames Selina’s ascent to the presidency as a personal tragedy. Selina says whatever she wants to gain power, even when it doesn’t make sense from a political standpoint. In his universe, Mandel takes it as a given that that’s how all politicians work—because fundamentally, all humans interested in power are unscrupulous monsters—so that’s not the main point. The main point is that Selina gains the presidency and loses her people. That’s a commentary on power in a political setting, but not politics itself. (Whether he does this effectively is up for debate, but it is what he’s trying to do, I think.) 

One particular consequence of that difference: in S5, Dan and Amy’s relationship almost immediately loses its political dimension, which was a main part of their connection in earlier seasons. Before, their professional goals/identities were intertwined with how they felt about each other. But by the end of S5, their connection is only rendered in terms of emotion, specifically Amy’s unrequited affection for Dan. Suddenly, the story of Dan and Amy could be taking place anywhere. They could be working at a bar, they could be superheroes, they could be lab partners in a high school biology class, but their story would still be about how Amy is hung up on Dan even though he’s a dick who doesn’t see it.

In the end, I ultimately think the show—accidentally or not, presciently, depressingly—tapped into whatever Trump tapped into in order to win the 2016 election before he was even elected:this ominous mess of white supremacy and toxic masculinity and religious patriarchy, the dangerously tangled relationship between politics and modern media, and the increasing sense of paralysis and gridlock in the face of seemingly unstoppable forces (evil billionaires and their corporations dooming the planet, nations finding new and more intimate ways to attack one another through computers, democracy feels like a sham, etc.) When Trump actually became President, it sort of gave Mandel permission to fully lean into all that, and truly leave the nitty-gritty of politics behind.