The Most Brutal Lines From Veep S07E05: ‘Super Tuesday’

It’s hard to believe that after tonight’s “Super Tuesday”, there are only two episodes ever left of Veep. Not only because I really can’t imagine a world without a show as hilarious, witty, poignant and take-no-prisoners as it is, but also because, well, it doesn’t feel as if much as happened this season. It’s mostly been business as usual for the show and its vast array of incompetent bureaucrat characters and other than some maneuvering and position it doesn’t seem like the season has really accomplished that much, despite the fact that something like a year has probably passed between the season premiere, where Selina Meyer announces her campaign, and this episode, as Super Tuesdays usually happen early in the spring.

I don’t know if that’s necessarily a criticism as I like spending time with these characters and I don’t think it’s ever been the case that I haven’t laughed hysterically at a given episode of the show, but it’s just remarkable to fathom. In a way, though, the slow-turning wheels of the American political system is kind of this show’s motto.

What’s more, I actually feel like I finally got a glimpse of what this show’s endgame might be like, and funny enough that glimpse came in the episode’s C-story. Richard Splett started the season working for both the Ryan and Meyer campaigns, left both to randomly become mayor of some hick town in Iowa, and ended this episode as the Lieutenant governor of the state after accidentally outing a bunch of corruption. I can totally see a world where Richard somehow winds up becoming president by accident. He’s secretly the smartest character on this show, he’s genuine and earnest, which is what people say they want out of a presidential candidate, and with Dan at his side it feels like almost the perfect compromise for a show where the thesis statement has always been about how terrible everyone in politics truly is.

And after all, making Selina president seems too obvious and too good a fate for that character, and even this show can’t be so cynical as to make Jonah fucking Ryan president In fact the show seems to be setting both of them up for big falls, as Selina’s arc in this episode went from trying to hide her ex-husband’s embezzlement to trying to ignore the that she accidentally had the Chinese kill Andrew. And as for Jonah, well, they keep digging and ever-deepening hole of depravity for him, as it’s revealed that Beth is actually his half-sister and not just his stepsister, not to mention pregnant with their inbred child.

Veep is cynical and unrelenting, but it would be a hell of a twist for it to end in a semi-positive place with someone like Richard Splett as the new president. But with only two episodes left I’m sure we’re in for plenty of surprises.

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Brutal Takedown of the Week: Last week, I dedicated the brutal takedown of the week to what might be the final Jeff Kane appearance as Peter MacNicol returned to deliver some doozies. I’d be remiss if I didn’t offer the same reverence this week to Dan Bakkendahl’s Roger Furlong, arguably an even better ringer for Veep than MacNicol has been. Furlong already made a brief appearance earlier in the season, but it’s in this episode he gets to shine, delivering no fewer than four great lines as well as setting up his trusty sad sack aide Will (Nelson Franklin) for a vicarious fifth (not to mention how both he and Amy slam Jonah by referring to him as “Congressman Slender Man”):

• Furlong: “Holy shit, Bruckheimer, when you get an abortion you’re supposed to leave the mangled fetus at the clinic, not staple it to the skeleton of a gay condor and run it for president.”
• Furlong to Beth: “What Saudi prince’s rape dongeon did you finger-trolley your way out of?”
• Furlong: “Chances are you’ll still get assassinated but the killer – may god guide his hand – will just have to work a little harder.”
• Furlong: “Have a good weepy slide down the shower wall this evening.”
• Will/Furlong: “Well I was hoping to finish my passion project.” “Which is?” “Rerouting my urethra to the back of my balls so that I have to sit to pee like a real girl.”

Best of the Rest:

• Selina wants to leak some of her death threats, like “someone should put a bullet in your shriveled old face.” “No, just make up some death threats that are nice.”
• Marjorie/Selina/Gary: “This is the face of clinical depression.” “With the hair of a mental patient.” “My kingdom for her beret.”
• Selina: “Well this has been a dry fuck on a sandy beach.”
• Selina: “First of all call, it the Washington post like a non-asshole. And I don’t know anything about foreign interference. And stop staring at my like I’m some sort of teenage runaway that you just strangled.”
• Selina: “Just give [the faith money] to one of those gay-converting Baptist colleges to fund a statue of a gold-plated Jesus fucking a triceratops.”
• Jonah/Beth: “I told Beth that we would go to Arkansas so she could give me a handjob in a hot spring.” “It’s my birthday.”
• Beth/Jonah: “I didn’t get Clay vaccinated because it causes autism. And now he just has a little bit of autism.” “When I was a kid they said best case scenario was I had autism and fucking look at me now.”
• Selina: “What are they giving away free Tommy Bahama dick cozy’s?
• Ben: “Me so complicit me go jail long time.”
• Gary/Selina: “I have your estrogen patch.” “You wear it. Maybe you’ll grow some hair on your vagina.”
• Doctor/Dan: “You brought a woman into my clinic to have her pregnancy terminated.” “Could you be a little more specific?” “I’m actually worried she might have a thyroid issue because of her eyes.” “Oh! Amy. Reminds me I gotta Apple Pay her for her half.”
• Selina RE Gary: “I don’t think people are gonna buy that a guy who calls vaginas crank em crank ems is gonna be able to pull off some sort of multi million dollar fraud.”
• Amy/Jonah/Beth: “Is that what a real orgasm feels like?” “Ugh do women have those?” “That’s what I’ve been telling you.”
• Selina is to meet “the fake real woman from your speech.” Kent: “Just in the nick of time, she was about to be stoned by the local child army.”
• Richard: “That’s hilarious, a talking company. Where would the mouth even be?”
• Keith: “Hey now, you’re not a grilled chicken sandwich and a miller light.”
• Selina: “When do the new Kent’s come out?”
• Kent addressing Mike’s young child: “Chief strategist Kent Davidson, how do you do.”