What I’m Watching: Veep

Veep: Season 5, Episode 7 “Congressional Ball” (B+)

It’s always some unseasonal holiday on this show, first with Thanksgiving and now with Christmas, and all that means here is that Selina is going to be especially awful in her attempts to achieve some political aim. She’s still fighting for the presidency, and it seems that, thanks to their secret meeting, her number one competitor is not O’Brien but Tom, who is lobbying congressmen to abstain from the vote so that he can become the pick instead. I enjoyed Selina’s many meetings with Stephnie Weir’s Congresswoman Nickerson, who was all about the free stuff and then was ready to play ball when Selina stopped being nice and came out with her typical vile threats. The 50 Hottest D.C. Staffers list was a fun distraction, particularly with Gary Welsh’s name being misspelled and our Gary accidentally ending up on it, while Dan also placed but seemed totally unfazed by it. I noticed both mistakes that Jonah made, the first of which was to identify Brattleboro as being in New Hampshire rather than Vermont, and the second of which was the star placed in his first name on his campaign posters. Teddy’s return was poorly-timed for their momentum, especially since Richard managed to once again turn the camera off instead of on, leaving the only version one that made Jonah seem like a truly terrible person. I wonder how many more enemies will come to try to take Jonah down, since somehow he still manages to be popular despite his many missteps and idiocies.