One of the more interesting things about Veep’s latest season is that it begins its focus on something that we haven’t seen in the modern era of American history: a tied electoral college. To be President of the United States one needs to cross the 270-electoral vote count on election night; in the case of a tie it comes down to the House of Representatives to break it and thereby determine the next President of the United States. Veep begins with the aftermath of the tie and this season follows around Selena (Julia Louis-Dreyfuss) and her wacky band of miscreants as they try to navigate the wacky world of tied electoral politics.
The show has maintained its “good but not amazing” sort of vibe as it’s still solid, and subversively funny on occasion, and is long settled into a comfortable groove. Veep has a lot of good things going for it, coming off a 2016 that was one of the more interesting in modern American political history, but the biggest thing it has going for it is that it follows constitutional procedure fairly faithfully going in.
The one thing most television political shows have going against them is that they take a handful of facts about the system and then design what they want around it. Veep takes the one scenario we haven’t seen in modern American history, of a tied electoral college, and plays it out through the whole process as prescribed in the Constitution. It’s amusing to see the world of Veep play it out, including the film’s insanely probable but realistic manner in which a President of the United States could be selected by the House.
The show is a farce, of course, but the fact that it takes the sort of time to be able to fully explore all of the ramifications of what would happen in the case of a tie. Throw in the wacky shenanigans of the show and puts it into a potentially real situation that’s accurate in how it shows its processes and amusing to watch.
Deleted scenes and some audio commentaries are included.
HBO presents VEEP (Season 4). Starring Julia Luis Dreyfus. Run Time: 360 minutes Not rated. Released on DVD: 4.11.2017
