You can sense the urgency in this, the penultimate episode of Veep. Oddly enough, not in moving the plot forward, as “Oslo” takes an unexpected detour across the Atlantic and away from the Democratic primaries in order to award Selina a Nobel peace price (or something in its vicinity), but rather in terms of the topics and ripped-from-the-headlines current events it wants to tackle before wrapping up the series in next week’s finale.
And the results were oddly prescient for a show that wrapped filming months ago, as the episode manages to poke fun at both the Julian Assange saga by temporarily making Selina a fugitive from Interpol and an alleged war criminal, hunkered down in an Embassy under less than ideal conditions with the threat of imprisonment looming outside, as well the rise in measles outbreaks linked to the anti-vaxxer movement, and in this case, specifically to Jonah Ryan, who spreads Chicken Pox in the pattern of a dick all across the eastern seaboard as well as to his father, who winds up dead by his own hand. Both of these stories have recently popped up in the news, making the fact that the show was able to sneak these references into their penultimate episode (not to mention make them feel important and not just throwaway gags they were just checking off a list) all the more impressive.
Almost as impressive is the continued cavalcade of guest stars in this final season. After seeing the likes of Rhea Seehorn and Andy Daly join the cast in pitch-perfect roles, “Oslo” saw guest spots from Thomas Lennon as a CBS executive (in a subplot, by the way, which included a hilarious transition for Mike into network TV anchor as he continues to fumble his way up the ladder) and Michael McKean, who falls into that Peter MacNicol bracket of amazing veteran actors who instantly fit into the show and make you wonder why they weren’t around any sooner. McKean plays Governor Valentine of Iowa, introduced in a scene where he knocks Dan and Richard down a peg for their meteoric political rise, and pretty much written off in the next when he contracts the shingles after his visit with the Chicken Pox-infected Ryans, forcing him to resign and making Richard the governor and a superdelegate who will likely have to decide next week who becomes his party’s nominee for president (or, as I predicted last week, somehow stumbles into the presidency himself and saves America).
I don’t know if any of this week’s developments will factor in to next week’s finale, as Selina takes a step forward and two steps back, like she always does, and Jonah continues his fall into further depravity, as he always does, but it’s a marvel to watch a show ostensibly still in its prime go out on its own terms, still firing on all cylinders. The proof is in the pudding, as you’ll see below with all the great lines from “Oslo!”
- Selina: “I want tosound like Bono trying to impress his own reflection in the mirror.”
- Minna/Selina: “So my last three lovers are complaining that my dirty talk is both incessant and soporific.” “Maybe you should let them choke you.” “You think they would rather choke me than listen to me talk?” “I can only speak for myself.”
- Keith/Selina: “[The drone strike] was classified until somebody on your staff clicked on Asian girls bound and gagged.” “Oh Ben… Or Kent… Or Leon… Or Marjorie..”
- Amy: “Your anti-vaccination message is bringing together an unheard mix of Orthodox Jews, uneducated fringe conspiracists and kamboucha-douching private school moms.”
- Gary: “The menu has been an atrocity. The guests are vegan and the president won’t eat anything without a face.”
- Minna: “I thought you were talking about your daughters wedding to your homosexual doppelganger?”
- Selina: “As the former President of the United States, truth and justice can gargle my balls.”
- Dan/Richard: “Last night I tried to find one non-chain restaurant to eat at and Yelp basically told me to go Fudrucker myself.” “Sounds like a settings issue.”
- Governor Valentine (Michael McKean) to Dan: “Save it, Manhattan date rape mystery.”
- Ben/Selina: “I could be dead by the time you get out of here.” “No offense Ben, but that could be like tonight.” “God willing.”
- Selina/Minna: “Minna, you don’t go to prison for not being the head of the IMF.” “Just the prison of unmet potential.” “Go sit in the corner, Minna!”
- Amy/Jonah: “Didn’t you have chicken pox as a child? Or were you too busy bedwetting and cutting fuckholes in watermelons?” “That only works with fleshy melons.”
- Jonah: “I hate you so much I could walk into a supermarket and shoot everybody.”
- Minna/Gary: “Selina, if you go to prison you will not have your Gary to clean up after you.” “No, I’ll be there.”
- Kent: “For polling purposes you’re practically a generic white male.”
- Selina: “I feel like the grim reaper just dropped his scythe and started eating me out.”
- Valentine: “Jonah Ryan has as much chance at becoming president as a stack of retarded raccoons in a trench coat, but if anyone is crawling out of our cesspool of a state to become his Ag. Sec it’s going to be this pigfucker.”
- Selina and the Georgian Dictator: “Chivalry is not dead.” “No, her name was Svetlana and she’s definitely dead.”
- Selina: “Call Leon tell him to get his dick out of whatever homeless woman froze in front of the hotel.”
- Beth: “Jonah and I don’t want any more kids until I can get my cake pop business off the ground. And we can do genetic testing to make sure they’re not born dead.”
- Richard/Jonah: “Make sure his nose is wet.” “What?” No, that’s for dogs.”
- Jeff: “I can’t believe you gave him chicken pox, I always had you pegged as an AIDS guy.”
- Kent/Selina: “Peggy Noonan has a column about Babar and American exceptionalism.” “Oh but she’s a dumb cunt.”
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