Review: Veep (Season 5, Episode 5)

The turkeys – Drumstick and Cranberry – are pardoned from the Thanksgiving table (a White House tradition), and also tax evasion, as quipped by Selina (Julia Louis-Dreyfus). Luckily, Selina is only the recipient of the botox. The rest of the nation is unfortunate, however, as they are the victims of an outbreak of salmonella amongst the turkeys. Selina has no respite to count her blessings, as her cosmetic procedure may have gone to plan; but the extended, hilariously executed prolonged recovery period hampers Selina’s ability to address the nation about the ongoing salmonella outbreak. Without seeing Selina’s post-surgery side effects on-screen, Ben’s (Kevin Dunn) description is enough: “Jesus Ma’am, you look like a Southern housewife who’s just burned her husband’s dinner.” This is the second moment in Season 5 where the nation has been disadvantaged by Selina’s appearance – the first being Episode 1’s zit, that seemingly caused an economic meltdown.

Dreyfus is given more of a backseat in ‘Thanksgiving’, which is understandable considering her tremendously outrageous performance in the preceding episode ‘Mother’. Instead, this episode focuses more on the ensemble cast of the Meyer campaign. We’re mid-way through the season with a majority of the characters in new and old roles; two of the main roles being that Dan (Reid Scott) is now Tom’s (Hugh Laurie) aid; Selina’s Gary (Tony Hale), in other words, which comes as a slow realization to Dan. Jonah (Timothy Simons) now has a Congressional run courtesy of his uncle, which is one of the worst ideas that this show has concocted. Jonah as a future President? And here’s to us thinking the concept of Drumpf becoming President is bad enough! And then there’s the secret that Tom is hiding, that hints towards him devising something that could see him in the White House, instead of Selina. With all these different past and current members of Meyer’s campaign eying up the Oval Office for themselves rather than for the woman they’ve been supporting, it’s beginning to look like a hell of an ending for Season 5.

Thinking about it, this season has been fantastically conceived. We’re five episodes into the fifth season, and we still have no idea as to whether Selina won or not after the season four finale. We’ve left that episode, the Nevada ballots, and now to Jonah, or as Selina calls him, “the Jolly Green Jizzbag”, running for congress – seemingly in a stroke of genius by his uncle (Peter MacNicol).

Thanksgiving isn’t looking so thankful after all: “Somewhere in the world there’s a woman exactly my age getting her pussy eaten and I’m stuck here.”

Veep airs on Sky Atlantic on Tuesdays at 11:10pm.