Veep S1E1: Fundraiser
Summary
Vice President Selina Meyer and her staff – chief of staff Amy, spokesperson Mike, right-hand man Gary, and executive assistant Sue – are still finding their footing in Washington D.C. Selina decides to make the Clean Jobs Commission a pet project, but a series of missteps requires her staff to work damage control.
Key events
- Utensils are politicized since Selina’s staff writes an unflattering tweet that upsets the oil industry.
- Selina offends people by using the word “retard” in her improvised speech.
- Amy signs the condolence card on behalf of Selina for the most popular sexual predator senator who just died, but she signs the wrong name and has to get the card back.
Lines
And Senator Lucas was a maybe, but now he’s definitely a definitely.
— Amy
Repetition
No, the vice president does not have a sliver of daylight in her schedule today.
— Sue
Unusual word combination (a sliver of with daylight)
He has so many tubes in him, he looks like a set of bagpipes.
— Amy
Tone shift, expectation reversal. Simile
No, glasses make me look weak. It’s like a wheelchair for the eye.
— Selina
Attitude
What’s going on, Amy? There aren’t enough people to fill a fucking canoe in here.
— Selina
Delievery (Line spoken with a smiling face) Exaggeration
Mike, talk to me. I am in a room with three people and a fuckload of quiche.
— Selina
Attitude Analogy
She’s mediocre, really. Of all the -ocres, she’s the mediest.
— Dan
Repetition Play with words
Jesus fucking christ. All right, look, watch me, autismo. You take the little pod, put the little pod in the fucking hole, shut the fucking lid, hit the fucking button for two fucking seconds. Oh, it’s so easy.
— Dan
Attitude Delievery Physical language
Honey, what is plastics made of ? You piss of plastics, you piss off oil. And you do not want to fuck with those guys, because they fuck in a very unpleasant fashion.
— Barbara
Observational sass
Contrast of attitude ("fuck" and "unpleasant fashion" don't usually go together)
Hey, did you fire your tweet monkey yet? Because that guy is a weapons-grade retard. I think you might have been hoist by your own retard there.
— Barbara
Sass
Play with words
("Hoist with his own petard" is orginally an expression from Hamlet, meaning a bomb-maker is blown up by his own bomb)
It (the senate meeting) was like a funeral for a homeless guy.
— Amy
Simile Attitude
Jonah: You just have other areas of expertise.
Yeah. Clean jobs, Yemen, Mission to Mars.
— Selina
Rule of three (break the pattern at number 3) Tone shift, expectation reversal.
Selina: What do you think of Dan?
Amy: Oh, Dan is a shit.
Selina: You want to expand on that?
Sure. He’s a massive and total shit. When you first meet him, you think surely to God this man can’t be as big a shit as he seems, but he is. If there were a book with covers made of shit, you’d think, ‘That’s intriguing. I wonder what’s in this book that they saw fit to give it covers made of pure shit.’ And then you open it. And- Shit.
— Amy
Repetition Analogy Delievery Attitude
I don’t have time to ignore you Jonah. Gary, could you please ignore Jonah for me?
— Amy
Sass
What the fuck, Amy? I am putting out two fires in there, and I turn around to find out that you have set fire to the fucking fire truck. The level of incompetence in this office is staggering. You’re gonna get on it. You are going to shut this the fuck down, okay? Because I am busy in there apologizing to that…fucktard. God! Okay. It’s fine. Mr Burton? I’m so sorry. We are having a complicated day here.
— Selina
Attitude Delievery Physical performance Analogy Contrasting attitude
Of course your happiness is top of my agenda, right above climate control and child trafficking.
— Dan
Attitude/Sarcasm Specificity Contrast Rule of two (hit the punch at number 2)
Get a grip. It’s a date and no sex. For me, that was 12 years of marriage.
— Selina
Observational sass
Selina to Dan: Is there anything you can’t do?
Foreplay. Direct sunlight.
— Amy
Contrast of attitude Rule of two
Touch me, you lose a finger. And a ball.
— Amy
Rule of two
Key Takeaways
- Actors are really important in shaping the delivery of written lines
- Tailor jokes to your actors’ traits and range
- Establish running gags with your characters and their key personality traits
- Create uncomfortable situations for your characters, when they need to do things they don’t want to do and do it anyways. The audience loves it when the characters are suffering
- Humor is about getting to the essence of the situation and exaggerate it
- Analogies are really effective when you find the right ones
