The penultimate episode of “Game of Thrones” airs Sunday, as will the final episode of “Veep.”
Both are rife with power dynamics and backstabbing — one figurative, the other literal.
Only one, however, elevated vulgarity, insults and vulgarity-laden insults to high art. That would be the HBO comedy that followed the up-and-mostly-down D.C. career of one Selina Catherine Meyer, former Maryland senator and first female vice president.
Over its seven seasons, the dysfunctional Selina and her equally dysfunctional staffers have endured a failed presidential campaign, an election recount and too many scandals.
They’ve also been terrible to one another.
“Politics ain’t beanbag,” the saying goes, and “Veep” has frolicked in that cruelty. Even with an audience weary of political lemons, the series’ sour tone yielded sweet success: 17 Primetime Emmys and a Peabody Award, among other honors.
Before “Veep” drops its final F-bomb Sunday night, it’s only appropriate to single out some of the things that kept this super fan tuning in. Here now are some categorized rankings. They are by no means definitive because we live in a democracy.
5 episodes most worthy of repeated viewings
“Signals” (Season 2, Episode 2): Selina used to have secret hand signals for communicating with her codependent bagman Gary (the great Tony Hale) in public. Or at least she used to: A tabloid has just decoded them, so the socially inept VP is left to improvise during a visit with “real Americans.” Choice quote: “Oh gosh, that looks like finger-licking fun.”
“C**tgate” (Season 5, Episode 6): When Politico reports that a staffer called Selina the C-word, she enlists her aide Amy (Anna Chlumsky) to root out the perpetrator. Selina also struggles to decide whether she should bail out her boyfriend’s bank. “C**tgate” is in my top five due to this classic F-bomb-laden scene in which a focus group deconstructs Jonah’s congressional campaign ad. (Editor’s note: The scene contains language that may be offensive to some viewers.)
“Clovis” (Season 3, Episode 4): Selina visits an omnipotent Silicon Valley company to fundraise and finds that the tech lords have little time for her. Tim Baltz (a co-star in HBO’s upcoming “Righteous Gemstones”) stands out as Craig, the hoodie-wearing billionaire coder who acts like a cult leader. Choice moment: Using a prototype smartwatch, Selina attempts to call up her campaign Web page and instead accesses an adult website.
“First Response” (Season 2, Episode 8): With scrutiny looming over her management of a hostage crisis, Selina welcomes journalist Janet Ryland (Allison Janney) into the vice president’s residence for what she hopes will be a puff piece. It instead turns out to be a “rough puff” that descends into chaos. One highlight is a classic Selina quote, uttered in describing No. 1 Observatory Circle: “I hate this house, to tell you the truth. It’s like living in a doll’s jail.”
“Testimony” (Season 4, Episode 9): A House Committee investigates Selina and her staff over data breaches and a secret effort to kill legislation. Watching them all squirm for the duration is good fun. But it turns classic when one congressman reads an endless internal office list of secret Jonah nicknames (e.g. “The Cloud Botherer,” “The 60-Foot Virgin”) into the record. It’s an all-time scene that will not be linked here, because holy cow does it get NSFW.
5 top characters, ranked
Top 15 insults
“Sometimes, like, in a futuristic … like a sci-fi movie, you’ll see, like, a robot that’s like the old version of the robot and you kind of feel bad.”
— Jonah, describing press secretary Mike McLintock (Matt Walsh)
“Catherine, why is that your hair?”
— Selina Catherine Meyer to her daughter, Catherine Selina Meyer (Sarah Sutherland)
“ … You sentient enema.”
— Jeff Kane (Peter MacNicol), to nephew Jonah
“You know, Dan, watching you try to be nice is like watching a baby smoke a cigarette. It’s kind of cool, but also very disturbing.”
— Mike, to Dan Egan (Reid Scott)
“Gary Walsh, you need to understand, is a 12-year-old boy trapped in the body of a 12-year-old girl.”
— One-time Meyer running mate Tom James (Hugh Laurie), on Selina’s bag man
“Roger Furlong trying to play nice is like Brando trying to play Annie.”
— Mike, on the extremely foul-mouthed congressman from Ohio (Dan Bakkedahl)
“Wasn’t it Oscar Wilde who said, ‘Dan’s a f–king terrible campaign manager’?”
— Mike
“So you’re the best the White House has to offer? Two giant children in their dads’ suits?”
— Congressman Moyes (Tom McGowan), to Richard and Jonah.
“God, that is the most grotesque country I have ever been in, and I have been all over Florida.”
— Selina, on the country of Georgia
“Every town up here is just two dirty piles of snow connected by a covered bridge …”
— Dan, on northern New England
“I don’t have time to ignore you.”
— Amy, to Jonah
“You are like an earlobe. You are just there. Just wobbling.”
— Amy, to Mike
“I don’t know what those words mean, Mike. Are you in the middle of some sort of aneurysm?”
— Selina, to Mike
“Hey, Hepatitis J!”
— Dan, to Jonah
“I’ve met some people. OK, real people. And I gotta tell ya, a lot of ’em are f–king idiots.”
— Selina, on the American electorate
