With midterm elections looming Vice President Selina Meyer is scoring higher ratings than the president in several popularity polls which she hopes will boost her influence and help her curry favour with the chief executive. But as she knows all too well even the most banal action can set off a ripple effect that has unexpected far-reaching and often disastrous - consequences. Episodes Comprise: Midterms Signals Hostages The Vic Allen Dinner Helsinki Andrew Shutdown First Response Running D.C.
The second season of Veep is a great lesson in how TV shows have to be allowed to find their feet.
I enjoyed the first season of Armando Iannucci's US-set counterpart to his hit UK political-comedy series The Thick Of It, but it wasn't quite the runaway success that I was hoping for. Some of the gags fell flat, and many of the characters didn't quite feel fully-formed, beyond a few basic character attributes and catchphrases.
But this second series shows a notable improvement, with each and every member of the ensemble cast feeling more comfortable in their character. And at the same time, there's a much more compelling ongoing storyline for Julia Louis-Dreyfus' long-suffering vice-president to get her teeth into.
It's notoriously difficult to pin down in a review exactly why comedies work, but I'll give it a go. Veep is funny not because of the situation (frustrated vice-president surrounded by scheming and/or inept staff) nor because of the storylines (politics can be pretty dull in and of itself, after all), but because of the characters, and the way those characters interact.
Louis-Dreyfus as the "veep", Selina Meyer, provides a central hub for all of these characters to rotate around. She herself is amusingly vain and cynical, silly without being stupid, and eminently likeable despite her flaws. She's surrounded by a staff that includes her fussy but loyal aide, Gary; her astute but uptight chief of staff, Amy; a bumbling director of communications, Mike; an incredibly cynical and machiavellian speechwriter, Dan; and a sharp-tongued and intimidating secretary, Sue.
While it took a while for the first season to establish all these character attributes, the second season is able to hit the ground running. It assumes you're familiar with the characters and situation from the start, and as a result it can have a lot more fun crafting its elaborate and intricately-plotted storylines.
Talking of which, the plots of these second-season episodes seem stronger than the first: they're a lot more like The Thick Of It in that quite a lot of things happen in quite a short space of time, and you have to pay close attention to follow exactly what is happening and to understand exactly why people are reacting in the way that they are to certain situations. There's also a very interesting larger overall plot involving Selina's chances of having a second shot at the presidency - and while I won't say how that plays out, it leaves things in a significantly different place for the start of season three.
But all of that plottiness makes the show sound like hard work, when it's really not. Veep's biggest laughs come from its broadest comedy moments, whether it's Selina's barely-concealed political ambitions threatening to poison her immediate working relationships, or her career teetering in the balance in the wake of her latest big gaffe or scandal.
While Julia Louis-Dreyfus is undoubtedly the show's greatest asset, though, it's the ensemble cast and the sharp writing that really brings it all together. This second season is well worth checking out and is a significant improvement on the first, so even if you've tried Veep before, it might be worth giving it another shot.
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All ten episodes from the second season of the US political comedy spin-off of British show 'The Thick of It', created by Armando Iannucci and starring Julia Louis-Dreyfus. The series follows Vice President Selina Meyer (Louis-Dreyfus), assisted by her personnel, which include Chief of Staff Amy Brookheimer (Anna Chlumsky) and personal assistant Gary Walsh (Tony Hale), as she goes about her daily business in Office. However, things are rarely plain sailing in both Selina's professional and private life. The episodes are: 'Midterms', 'Signals', 'Hostages', 'The Vic Allen Dinner', 'Helsinki', 'Andrew', 'Shutdown', 'First Response', 'Running' and 'D.C.'
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