Veep 5x4 'Mother': Selina searches her soul. .. for more Nevada votes.

Veep 5x4 is a solid episode for all cast. But the stage belongs to a stellar performance by a lead who somehow still exceeds expectations.

Reviewed while listening to Zack Hemsey, on a surprisingly warm Chicago day.

Julia Louis-Dreyfus has won the Emmy for Best Actress in a Comedy every year that she has played the titular Veep. Whatever value you put in such high profile awards handed out by what Bernie Sanders or Russell Brand would call the ‘Establishment,’ a four-year consecutive run goes beyond favoritism. No one can really claim that Dreyfus hasn’t earned it each and every shot of her as potty-mouth Selina Meyer. She is our Overlorde (see what I did there?), and her achievement stems from absolute merit. She is the best.

And she may have just staked a solid claim for a fifth.

The edge Dreyfus gives Selina as both President and ‘grieving’ daughter in ‘Mother’ is so finely cut just right, conveying an effort in the character to find the love and pain she feels as she pulls the plug on her mother. The effort is there. It’s just wrapped up under layers of a callous narcissism that seems to just be a part of Selina’s lifeblood. She can’t help it. It’s her nature. And if she’s to believed (and admittedly she might be an unreliable narrator), she learned it all from the very same mother who’s dying. Who may or may not have placed all her own narcissism in bright nail polish. It would explain a lot, after all. I mean, what kind of parent is capable of raising someone who is so myopically focused on herself that she believes all of her reactions, and how she treats her own daughter, are right and normal. The difference between Selina’s mother criticizing or ignoring her and Selina criticizing or ignoring Catherine is that Selina is the one doing it. That’s what makes it better. The first Woman President is always right.

It’s an understatement to call the task of balancing narcissism with effectively feigned but possibly kinda-real grief difficult. But Dreyfus owns the craft. When she chastises Kent for coming to her 'at such a terrible time' to tell her how she’s polling well because of public sympathy, Dreyfus puts the perfect weight into assuring you that her chastisement is not sincere. She’s not grieving, and she wants the info Kent is giving her. She just knows it would look bad if she appeared more worried about polls than grieving for her dying mother. And that façade still crumbles the moment she hears ‘double-digits.’ Kent calls it the Death Bump. And suddenly Selina has moved on from her mother. She can go into that room, where her unconscious but brightly nailed mother awaits, and pull the plug. But when the moment comes, Dreyfus’ face is awash in complete lack of understanding. Her character is facing the woman who raised her, for better or worse. In too many ways, unfortunately for Catherine, Selina sits over her mother’s body and is looking at herself, years down the line, at the liminal point between life and death, where all the vapid and selfish pursuits amount to a net zero. Whether Selina becomes president or not, she’s just going to wind up on a hospital bed, braindead and left in the hands of a spiteful daughter.

One cannot really tell how much of Selina’s silence here is legitimate grief and how much is a clairvoyant fear of her own future. Dreyfus leaves room for interpretation, because Selina, as I will argue to the end of time, is one of the most complex comedic characters of all time. There’s a conscience within her somewhere, to do good with the power she has. There’s a love for her daughter and desire to defend her (at least from the media). There’s a relatable humanity to Selina Meyer. She just can’t find the roadmap to reach it. She can’t even pull the plug on her own mother with all her advisors and their constantly buzzing blackberries- ahem, I mean smartphones- in the room with her. That’s her space. That’s her world. A bunch of important white men in a semi-circle who submit their power to her. It’s not in her element to grieve for her mother’s passing. It’s in her element find the most utilitarian value of said passing for her ambition. That’s what she cares about, and that’s why she sobs during her eulogy at the funeral. She lost Nevada and now also the popular vote. For all of her bravado and endless deprecating insults, Selina is now a step back from what she wants. And she’ll just die the same way. Once again, Dreyfus lays it all out in the funeral scene. Every look, every turn, every minute twitch is measured to give us the perfect Selina Meyer, some part of her desperately trying to find perspective beyond her own experience, and hopelessly cast aside by an overwhelming flood of ‘Where are we on Nevada.’

To be fair, it’s not just Dreyfus who had a good day ta the office. Sarah Sutherlands’s Catherine gives a masterful indignant mourning performance, part rage and incredulity at her own mother, and part genuine pain for the loss of the one person who seems to have noticed her. (Mima maybe outlived her narcissism and treated her granddaughter better). And Kevin Dunn knows how to give Ben the nice dumb awkwardness expected when faced with somber moments. No one had a bad episode. But ‘Mother’ well and truly belongs to Dreyfus, even more so than usual. She gets an A for effort. Dreyfus gets an A for being unreal. And ‘Mother’ gets an A for being a brilliantly written platform for Dreyfus to shine.

Grade: A

When I got sidetracked

-Is Andrew running a Ponzi scheme? Just for kicks?

-It's nice to have someone finally notice Gary. John Slattery is the one standard looking white businessman you think you can relate to. He's just so dreamy.

-Lennon Parham's Karen would be an amazing filibusterer. 'We could argue that the sky is blue.'

-Most polite Selina moment: 'You are good people, Sue.'

#TV #Review #Veep