---
title: "Veep"
year: 2012
kind: "series"
canonical: "https://film.one/tv/veep"
fi1m_score: 82
critics_score: 75
critics_reviews: 6
published: "2026-09-17T02:08:07.129741+00:00"
updated: "2026-09-17T02:08:07.624058+00:00"
region: "US"
licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL."
---

# Veep (2012)

Created by Armando Iannucci · MPA TV-MA · Comedy, War & Politics

**Fi1m score: 82** · Critics 75 from 6 reviews

*In a sentence:* Seven seasons of the second most powerful woman in the world asking whether the President has called; he has not

> Armando Iannucci brings his contempt for politicians across the Atlantic and Julia Louis-Dreyfus gives it a face. The first season is a warm-up and the last is too loud, but the five in between are as funny as television about power gets.

## Synopsis

Selina Meyer (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) is Vice-President of the United States, which means she has a suite of offices across the road from the White House and nothing whatever to do. Her chief of staff Amy Brookheimer (Anna Chlumsky) tries to keep a clean-jobs initiative alive against the plastics lobby; her bag man Gary Walsh (Tony Hale) follows her everywhere whispering names and carrying hand sanitiser; Dan Egan (Reid Scott) is angling for a job; Mike McLintock (Matt Walsh), her spokesman, has stopped trying. Jonah Ryan (Timothy Simons), a liaison from the West Wing, arrives daily with messages nobody wants. Selina wants to matter. Every episode she asks her assistant Sue Wilson (Sufe Bradshaw) whether the President has called. He has not.

## Review

Armando Iannucci made [*The Thick of It*](https://film.one/tv/the-thick-of-it) about British ministers who could not control anything, then went to Washington and made a comedy about a woman who is not allowed to. Selina Meyer is Vice-President of the United States: a motorcade, a staff, a photograph with everyone who matters, and no say in anything. *Veep* ran for seven seasons and 65 episodes, from 22 April 2012 to 2019. It is excellent for most of that length, thin at the start and coarse at the end, and we recommend it to anyone who can bear to hear their worst thoughts said out loud by professionals.

The first season is eight episodes and plays like a rehearsal. The writers Iannucci brought with him, Simon Blackwell, Jesse Armstrong, Tony Roche, Ian Martin, Will Smith and Roger Drew, have the insults ready but not yet the people to hang them on, and the plots are small even by the show’s standards: a clean-jobs initiative, an offended lobby, a condolence card signed wrong. Most critics greeted it warmly and no more, and on those eight episodes we would have agreed. The show they were reviewing had not arrived yet.

Julia Louis-Dreyfus is the reason it did. Selina is vain, quick, foul-mouthed and principled about nothing, and Louis-Dreyfus plays her as a woman who knows all this for about half a second at a time before ambition papers over it. Watch her at a photocall: the smile holds while the eyes go off to check who is standing nearer the President. She came to this from [*Seinfeld*](https://film.one/tv/seinfeld), and nothing there prepared us for how ugly she was willing to be. She never once asks to be liked.

The staff around her are built to be kicked. Tony Hale’s Gary Walsh carries the bag, whispers the names of donors into her ear and lives on her approval, which she hands out about once a season. Anna Chlumsky’s Amy Brookheimer is the competent one, and it gets her nothing. Reid Scott’s Dan Egan is ambition in a good suit; Matt Walsh’s Mike McLintock is a press secretary who gave up some time before we met him; Timothy Simons’s Jonah Ryan, the White House liaison, is built like a lamppost and addressed like one. Kevin Dunn’s Ben Cafferty and Gary Cole’s Kent Davison arrive later as the grown-ups, and Sam Richardson’s Richard Splett as the one decent man in the building, whose decency the show treats as a mild disability. Richardson made us laugh harder than anyone, and then we felt slightly ashamed, because the joke is that kindness is ridiculous in that room and we had gone along with it.

Jimmy Lindsey and Jay Feather shoot it handheld in offices too small for the number of people shouting in them, and Clayton Hartley and Laura Ballinger’s production design gives the Vice-President a suite that looks like a regional insurance firm with a flag. Ernesto Martinez puts Selina in bright fitted dresses and the men in suits that fit according to rank. Billy Sneddon cuts on the insult rather than after it, so the next one is arriving before you have taken in the last, and more than once we had to go back because we had laughed through three lines. Directors including Chris Addison, Chris Morris, Tristram Shapeero and Becky Martin keep the camera hunting for the flinch.

Iannucci left after the fourth season and David Mandel took over. The later years are still funny and they are different: the set-pieces get bigger and the people get smaller. Episodes are built towards a humiliation rather than letting one happen, and the show starts to enjoy its cruelty where before it had seemed only to report it. The seventh season, at seven episodes, reaches for a shape we will not describe. And there is the complaint, made early and never answered, that nobody in *Veep* believes anything. Over 65 episodes that stops looking like observation and starts looking like a way of never having to write a scene in which somebody means it.

Set against *The Thick of It*, this is the gentler show, which is a strange thing to say about anything this foul-mouthed, but Selina is allowed to be a person and that is what lets it run so long. Watch it two episodes at a time. Any more and the insults start to sound alike, and you will find yourself feeling sorry for the furniture.

*Fi1m score 82, published 17 September 2026.*

## What the critics say

Most critics take to Veep, and the praise gathers almost entirely around Julia Louis-Dreyfus. Even the reviews with doubts about the series credit her vice-president, stumbling from one public embarrassment to the next, as the reason to watch. Beyond her, the approving notices single out Armando Iannucci’s quick, overlapping dialogue and an ensemble that delivers it at speed, and several find the satire of Washington vanity sharper than the farce first suggests, with a sobering edge under the jokes.

The reservations cluster around bite. The Telegraph, measuring it directly against Iannucci’s The Thick of It, finds the American version tamer and less vicious than the original. Variety goes further, seeing a pallid comedy of awkward indignities with little to say about politics or policy, and stands as the lone negative. The spread is wide, then, from warm enthusiasm to outright dismissal, but the middle ground is sparse: reviewers either buy into the pace or find too little underneath it.

### Reviews we read (6)

- **The AV Club**, Meredith Blake (A-): The critic praises the show's dense, funny, and politically astute satire on the absurdities of DC politics and power dynamics, highlighting Julia Louis-Dreyfus's performance and the efficient humor, while noting it requires active viewing and improves with familiarity. [Read](https://www.avclub.com/veep-fundraiser-1798172503)
- **The Hollywood Reporter**, Tim Goodman (90/100, inferred): The critic calls it a raw, fast-paced gem and an Emmy-worthy showcase for Julia Louis-Dreyfus in her best post-Seinfeld role, tapping Armando Iannucci's genius for vicious political comedy. It singles out the ensemble cast's sharp delivery and the brisk, naturalistic pacing for praise. [Read](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-reviews/veep-review-hbo-311573/)
- **Vulture**, Michael Schapira (85/100, inferred): The critic lauds Veep as a brilliant satire capturing the dysfunctional, narcissistic political culture through absurd situations and strong performances, noting how it balances comedy with sobering insights into vanity in politics. [Read](https://www.vulture.com/2012/04/veep-and-the-absurdities-of-power.html)
- **The Telegraph**, Chris Harvey (65/100, inferred): The critic is excited by the prospect of Armando Iannucci's US version of The Thick of It but finds it lacks the feral energy and vicious wit of the original. Julia Louis-Dreyfus gives a cracking central performance as the vice-president who stumbles from one PR disaster to the next. [Read](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/9338579/Veep-Sky-Atlantic-review.html)
- **Variety**, Brian Lowry (40/100, inferred): The critic views the series as a limp, pallid version of Curb Your Enthusiasm set in D.C., with Julia Louis-Dreyfus gamely performing but yielding only modest returns and resulting in second-tier TV. It singles out the lack of policy or political bite for complaint while noting the show's focus on awkward indignities. [Read](https://variety.com/2012/tv/reviews/veep-1117947412/)
- **Collider**, Ethan Anderton (80/100, inferred): The critic praises the fast-paced dialogue, strong ensemble chemistry, and Julia Louis-Dreyfus's charismatic performance as the bumbling vice president, comparing the show favorably to Arrested Development meets The West Wing. It is recommended as a smart, effortless political comedy that should have staying power. [Read](https://collider.com/veep-series-premiere-review/)

## Details

- **Created by:** Armando Iannucci
- **Creator:** Armando Iannucci
- **Director:** Becky Martin, Chris Addison, Armando Iannucci, David Mandel, Chris Morris, Tim Kirkby, Dale Stern, Beth McCarthy-Miller, Brad Hall, Morgan Sackett, Stephanie Laing, Tristram Shapeero, Craig Zisk, Maurice Marable
- **Writer:** Armando Iannucci, Rachel Axler, Erik Kenward, Billy Kimball, David Mandel, Peter Huyck, Lewis Morton, Alex Gregory, Simon Blackwell, Tony Roche, Will Smith, Georgia Pritchett, Jennifer Crittenden, Gabrielle Allan, Steve Hely, Ian Maxtone-Graham, Ted Cohen, Sean Gray, Jim Margolis, Dan Mintz, Dan O'Keefe, Steve Koren
- **Story:** Armando Iannucci, Simon Blackwell, Tony Roche, Sean Gray, Will Smith, Roger Drew, Ian Martin, Jesse Armstrong
- **Teleplay:** Simon Blackwell, Tony Roche, Sean Gray, Will Smith, Roger Drew, Ian Martin, Georgia Pritchett, Andy Riley, Kevin Cecil, David Quantick, Armando Iannucci, Jesse Armstrong, Neil Gibbons, Rob Gibbons
- **Cinematography:** Jay Feather, Jimmy Lindsey
- **Editor:** Billy Sneddon
- **Production design:** Laura Ballinger, Clayton Hartley
- **Costume design:** Ernesto Martinez
- **Producer:** Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Stephanie Laing, David Hyman
- **Cast:** Julia Louis-Dreyfus as Selina Meyer; Anna Chlumsky as Amy Brookheimer; Tony Hale as Gary Walsh; Reid Scott as Dan Egan; Timothy Simons as Jonah Ryan; Matt Walsh as Mike McLintock; Kevin Dunn as Ben Cafferty; Sufe Bradshaw as Sue Wilson
- **Certificate (MPA):** TV-MA
- **Release (the US):** 22 April 2012
- **Genres:** Comedy, War & Politics
- **Trailer:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--Mo61W9e-8

## Where to watch in the US

- HBO Max: streaming
- Amazon Prime Video: add-on
- The Roku Channel: add-on, hd
- Hulu: add-on, hd
- Amazon Prime Video: buy, hd

*Checked 2026-09-17.*

Also available in: AR, AT, AU, BE, BG, BR, CA, CH, CL, CO, CZ, DE, DK, EC, EE, ES, FI, FR, GB, HK, HR, HU, ID, IE, IL, IS, IT, LT, MX, MY, NL, NO, PA, PE, PH, PL, PT, RO, RS, SE, SG, SI, TH, TR, US. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country.

## If you liked this

- *The Thick of It* (2005), Fi1m 89: Iannucci’s British original: fewer episodes, more swearing, and no one is allowed a feeling. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/tv/the-thick-of-it.md)
- *Yes Minister* (1980): The polite ancestor, where the civil servants win every week and nobody raises a voice.
- *Borgen* (2010): Danish coalition politics played straight, for when you want the deals without the abuse.
- *Succession* (2018): Jesse Armstrong takes the same cruelty into a family firm and lets it wound.
- *Dr. Strangelove* (1964), Fi1m 93: Kubrick’s war room: the same frightened men, with the world rather than a bill at stake. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/dr-strangelove-or-how-i-learned-to-stop-worrying-and-love-the-bomb.md)

---
© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/tv/veep