‘Veep’ Season 5, Episode 4: The Death Bump

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/15/arts/television/veep-season-5-episode-4-recap.html

Version 0 of 1.

When Selina Meyer learns she’s been thrust into the role of President of the United States in Season 3’s “Crate,” she responds by having a laughing fit on a bathroom floor while Gary, equally excited by the news, tries to prevent his nose from gushing blood. That scene — perhaps the greatest scene of the entire series? — occurs mere minutes after Selina meets with a struggling Syrian immigrant couple and can barely hold back her tears, not because of their plight, but because she thinks she’s lost the primary.

Both of those moments come to mind while watching Sunday’s episode, “Mother,” which sends Selina yo-yoing along a spectrum of emotions as she copes with her mother’s death and a Nevada recount in which the tallied ballots don’t add up in her favor. Once again, elation and sadness smack into each other in uncomfortable ways, turning Selina into a bundle of uncontrollable, hysterical feeling. We’re only four episodes into Season 5, but given her performance in this episode, it feels like Julia Louis-Dreyfus has locked up another acting Emmy.

There are two big scenes this week that echo those aforementioned ones in “Crate.” The first happens when Selina hugs a grieving Catherine in her mother’s hospital room, while giggling like a maniac on nitrous oxide because she’s also just learned that the newly discovered ballots in Nevada will be counted.

What Ms. Louis-Dreyfus does here is even more magical than that Season 3 restroom crackup because Selina is working through so many layers. She’s genuinely happy about the recount news — the way she celebrates just seconds after her mother dies makes it clear that politics always comes first — but she’s also shoving down her feelings of loss with every deranged giggle. It’s what politicians do every day: They put on a happy face during campaign speeches or news conferences no matter what feelings lie beneath. That skill — or, if you prefer, psychosis — is so ingrained in Selina that she has no idea how to strip away the facade and deal with her real sadness. As a result, the scene is funny, squirm-inducing — so squirm-inducing that even Gary is itching to get away from Selina — and heartbreaking all at once.

“Veep” wouldn’t be “Veep” if Selina responded to her mother’s imminent demise without a.) being flippant and b.) doing a bit of political calculus. When Kent informs her that if her mother passes, she may benefit from a “death bump” in her approval ratings, it’s hard to tell whether Selina decides to remove her mother’s intubation tube for the sake of the bump or her mother’s benefit. Yet, the writers Alex Gregory and Peter Huyck, as well as this episode’s director, Dale Stern, take care to avoid making Selina seem like a complete monster. There’s a moment, when she tucks her mother’s hand (nails freshly polished) underneath the bedsheet, that’s one of the more tender things that’s ever happened on this show. I may even have teared up a little.

Of course, tender doesn’t stick around for long on “Veep,” which brings us to the second key sequence that calls back to “Crate”: the eulogy Selina delivers at her mother’s funeral. This time, bad professional news — Selina’s not only lost Nevada but, thanks to the newly counted ballots, also the popular vote — causes her to behave in a manner that actually suits the occasion. She gets up to the dais, prepared to read a speech that slams her mother for not allowing a young Selina to practice at the better of the family’s two pianos. But instead, she breaks down. “I have lost so much,” she blurts out through her tears. Even though she mostly means the votes, she’s still managed to save herself from sounding like the biggest ingrate in the history of speakers at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception.

The shots of Ben and Gary in the front pews, openly bawling, are a nice touch. They clearly feel for their boss … or, probably, are already mourning the potential loss of their jobs.

One could argue that this episode is a little too predictable. When Ben gets that cellphone call right before Selina stands up to deliver the eulogy, for example, it’s pretty obvious it’s going to be bad news and that it’s going to make Selina cry, the same way she cried in front of that Syrian couple two seasons ago. But even when this show recycles certain elements, it does so in such a different context and with such hilarious detail that it doesn’t feel problematic. What might feel repetitive on another show just feels like “Veep” playing to its strengths.

There are a lot of strengths here, too. There’s the moment when Selina’s ex-husband, Andrew, introduces his significant other and Gary — so accustomed to whispering intel into the president’s ear — leans forward to unhelpfully say, “I don’t know her.” There’s Selina’s attempt to pray in the hospital by saying “lift me up,” not to God but to Gary, so he’ll help her off the floor. There’s the attempt by Mike and his wife, Wendy, to endear themselves to the ideal surrogate mother by claiming they’re Christian and members at “Our Lady of the Holy Womb of Jesus.” (This episode is filled with religious references that highlight that nothing is sacred on “Veep.” ) There’s also the great, emotionally fragile performance that Sarah Sutherland delivers as Catherine, the one person in her family who is heartbroken for the right reasons.

And then there’s Tom James, again proving that he’s the guy who always knows exactly what to say. At the funeral, he summarizes Selina’s state of mind about her mother’s death and the congressional fight she’s facing with the perfect expression of sympathy: “I hated my father. To Congress we go.”

Sure, maybe it’s true that, as Kent says, “those you love cannot be lost because they are always a part of you.” But Tom and Selina both know that the votes you didn’t get, those are gone forever.