30 Best Veep Episodes Ranked

A long, long time ago, politics seemed mature and stately. No matter their affiliation, many people pictured an inherent dignity and gravity behind the work — an idea sometimes fostered by the media, like best episodes of "The West Wing" or the movie "Lincoln." As the years have gone on, digital media and increasingly rapid news cycle have shattered whatever illusions we had. Politicians are as fallible as any of the rest of us and have myriad opportunities to be caught in embarrassing mistakes and unfolding scandals on a daily basis. In a roundabout way, this makes "Veep" the most realistic political show we've got.

For seven terrific seasons, "Veep" — an American adaptation of Armando Iannucci's BBC comedy "The Thick of It" — charted the rise and fall Selina Meyer, a vain, egocentric child of wealth who feels entitled to power. It's only through the performance of the legendary comedic actress Julia Louis-Dreyfus that we can stand to watch the character at all. Every single episode sees Selina and her team scrambling to deal with one crisis, only to inadvertently cause another, more serious one. It reflects the chaotic, amnesiac nature of our actual political news cycle, and is laced with viciously dark humor delivered at one of the fastest joke-per-minute speeds in comedy history. These are the best 20 episodes of "Veep," ranked.

"Veep" is one of the rare shows that changed showrunners amicably (instead of someone getting fired) and didn't lose quality. The first four seasons, from "In the Loop" director Armando Iannucci, are more grounded in the day-to-day humiliations of Selina et alia. The last three seasons from showrunner David Mandel hit the gas pedal and deal with more absurd and rapidly shifting fortunes of high-stakes presidential campaigns.

"Super Tuesday," just two episodes before the series finale, finds "Veep" in its highest madcap gear. Selina is campaigning so frequently that she doesn't know what state she's in and ducking questions about her (ex) husband's embezzlement from the Meyer Fund non-profit as well as a Washington Post story about foreign election interference. Both subplots are thinly veiled references to real-life, contemporary scandals. Meanwhile, the "dangerously unskilled" Jonah (Timothy Simons) has vaulted into third place in the polls and actually earned himself a Secret Service detail. 

"B/ill" really drives home that the demands of being the president never stop: despite being bedridden with the flu, Selina has to deal with the impending passage of the Families First bill — legislation she once championed but now wants to fail so it doesn't sabotage her campaign for reelection. Through sniffles, she dispatches Gary to secretly hire Dan and Amy to lobby against the bill, although any amount of secrecy sends Gary into full-blown panic.

To be safe, Selina also sends the most incompetent members of her administration to lobby for the bill and ensure its downfall: Jonah Ryan and Richard Splett (Sam Richardson, in one of the funniest line-by-line performances in TV history). When the two teams slip up and visit the same congress members accidentally — even presenting them with the same data — it sets off a congressional investigation in the next episodes that will have far-reaching implications.

After spending most of Season 6 trying to varnish her middling legacy, Selina seems on the verge of failure by the end. Its penultimate installment, "A Woman First," makes it seem like all hope is lost for Selina to come back as a public figure after her brief presidency. After Mike's diary of his entire time in the Meyer administration ends up in the hands of journalist Leon West (Brian Huskey), a damning series of exposés on every scandal of the previous several years forces Selina to cancel an appearance on "The Tonight Show" to promote her new memoir.

But the tide turns quickly on "Veep": the revelation that it was Selina, and not her successor, Laura Montez (Andrea Savage), that freed Tibet, drowns out the countless other scandals and gets everything back on track again. As Selina exclaims, "God bless the media and their fly-hitting-a-windshield attention span!" She's back on television in no time plugging her hilariously titled book, "A Woman First: First Woman."

After winning the New Hampshire primary, Selina heads to South Carolina to attempt the impossible task of being everything to everyone. Somehow she needs to court the Black vote — even though there's actually "race in the race" in the form of Kemi Talbot — without alienating South Carolina's white population. Her staff members have a hilarious debate about how to sound a racist dog whistle or "dog leaf blower" and express support for the police while giving a speech at a Black church.

In the end, Selina chickens out and hedges her bets entirely by sending a coded message to the Chinese for their interference in the primary. She spontaneously mentions the need to recognize that the Diaoyu Islands are under Chinese sovereignty to a supremely confused congregation. On the evening of the vote, thousands of voters are mysteriously turned away, and sudden rolling blackouts depress turnout just enough for an improbable Selina victory. As the end of the series draws closer, Selina is well on her way to super-villainy.

"New Hampshire" might be the happiest episode of the entire run of "Veep," at least for the first half. After president Hughes resigns, Selina is elevated to the presidency and her entire team basks in the sudden glow of national attention. Amy has new zeal managing the campaign in New Hampshire, and Mike enjoys a sense of celebrity as the new White House Press Secretary. Everyone fights over who gets the closest office to the Oval, and prepares for a new, much grander chapter of their lives.

But the bloom is more or less immediately off the rose. The first acts of the Meyer administration involve Selina wearing unfortunately squeaky shoes for her first Presidential address, accidentally firing the wrong official from the State Department, and enraging the nation of Iran. Mike also bumps into a candelabra and messes up Selina's oath of office, forcing her to have to take it again. The wheel of chaos on "Veep" restores bumbling disorder rather quickly.

Season 5 begins with a hangover from the presidential election that resulted in a tie in a bizarre quirk of the Electoral College, which, as Selina tells the nation, is "a somewhat arcane institution that many scholars say we should do away with." With no clear winner and the country in a strange purgatory, Selina tries to assure the nation that she stands in "bare-faced awe" at the power of democracy, but the giant stress pimple on her face says otherwise.

The pimple ends up with its own parody Twitter account and becomes partially responsible for the stock market cratering in the midst of all the uncertainty. As a hail Mary to look presidential, the team puts together a "symposium on race" that unfortunately is composed of entirely white academics. "Morning After" also sees the introduction of Selina's new body double Marjorie, played by the hilariously deadpan Clea DuVall.

"Veep" often swaps characters' roles and jobs to reveal hidden and surprising depths. In Season 2's "Helsinki," Dan struggles in his new role of communications director and comes to realize that Mike's groveling, aw-shucks bumbling persona actually gave him a natural talent for ingratiating himself to the press corps. Selina points out to Dan that he's too handsome to crack jokes: "It really comes off as evil."

"Helsinki" also features the introduction of one of the show's best recurring characters in Finnish Prime Minister Minna (veteran English comedienne Sally Phillips), a deadpan and humorless foil for Selina who recurs until the end of the series. In a superb bit of physical comedy, Selina has to make remarks while holding an absurdly large clock with an "Angry Bird" on it, a gift from Minna that's so garish it plays like a veiled insult.

Season 2's "Running" is a series highlight for physical comedy. While surreptitiously attending a donor brunch to gauge her prospects for another presidential run in six years, Selina walks through a glass door and gets covered in several minor cuts. As Dan succinctly puts it, "the woman's become a living metaphor for her own career." Ben and Kent in POTUS' office pressure Selina to give a statement denying she's the rumored "traitor" in the party intending to run against Hughes in two years.

Unfortunately, Selina can't give a statement for several hours because Gary gave her St. John's wort, which is interacting with the antidepressants her doctor doesn't know she's on. Julia Louis-Dreyfus finally gets a chance to show an affectionate, softer side of Selina while she's totally hopped up as a result, joking around with Mike and even inviting herself to Gary's parents' wedding anniversary. She ultimately tells the press she "fully intends to run," but she means a charity 10K, not the presidency. 

The more things change on "Veep," the more they stay the same. Season 7 opens with the team confusing Cedar Falls and Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and hiring the wrong Keith Quinn (Andy Daly) as campaign manager. Selina has Amy prepare a thorough "autopsy" of what went wrong with her previous campaign, but doesn't want to hear that most of the problems started with the candidate herself. An old unpaid bill sabotages the plan to announce her candidacy from Susan B. Anthony's birthplace, but a mass shooting in the news gives them an excuse to postpone. Phew.

Throughout the episode, Selina can't even articulate to new speechwriter Leon why she wants to be president in the first place. She ends up cribbing the words of a local contractor railing against out-of-touch elites who have no regard for the working class in her announcement, even though she's exactly the kind of rich person he was talking about. 

"Debate" is a hilarious installment of "Veep" that spotlights the way that political debates — especially the free-for-all debates during presidential primaries — are just contests to see who embarrasses themselves the least. Selina comes off decently, although she forgets the third "R" in her immigration platform and replaces "Renew" with "Repel" on the spot, winning over hard-liners but abandoning her own policy platform. In an unexpected win, her twitchy eye distracts General Maddox (Isiah Whitlock, Jr.) and causes him to spiral and talk about "holes" for a full minute.

"Debate" also provides running commentary from Selina's staff and the other candidates' teams behind the scenes, wincing with every gaffe and trading barbs with one another. In a highlight of the episode, Dan has returned from his panic attack with a new Zen attitude that gets worn back into his usual aggressive and acerbic demeanor within three days.

"Crate" sees the perennially out-of-touch Selina trying to appeal to the common man, this time by literally stumping from a wooden crate that Kent had specially reinforced with titanium so it doesn't collapse. Besides being so heavy that it injures Gary, the crate causes a minor crisis when a reporter discovers it cost $1,200 to make. Trying to give an in-depth interview to kill the story, Selina's whole staff badmouths their own campaign's donors while the reporter's phone is still recording. The resulting exposé seemingly kills Selina's hopes for the presidency entirely.

But, this being "Veep," the world immediately turns on its axis: Kent arrives to tell her that Hughes is resigning from office, elevating Selina to the job. Every series regular shows the stunning effect the news has on them in turn, but the scene when Selina tells Gary in a bathroom is one of the best moments of the whole show. Gary gets a nosebleed from excitement, Selina starts rummaging through his bag for tissues, and both Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Tony Hale depict the waves of excitement and elation the two are feeling as they collapse in hysterics onto the floor.

"Congressional Ball" finds Selina at her most ruthless, as she attempts to whip representatives from the House into shape ahead of the upcoming vote to decide the presidency. She memorably threatens one congresswoman by saying, "I'm gonna have the IRS crawl so far up your husband's colon, he's gonna wish the only thing they find is more cancer," more than successfully whipping her back into the fold. When she discovers Tom James is trying to sabotage the vote for his own gain, a confrontation brimming with romantic tension boils over in a rare moment of passion for "Veep."

In an unusual bit of focus, the only other location in the episode is Jonah's New Hampshire campaign headquarters, where he has trouble gaining any ground with an elderly widow in the polls. Richard nearly captures key footage that will help the "Jon H. Ryan" ticket, only to accidentally hit the record button too many times, each time.

"Testimony" is a brilliant episode of "Veep" that cuts between either deposition footage or live congressional testimony from all the main characters, as a special committee attempts to get to the heart of the illicit lobbying in "B/ill." Kent, Sue, and Ben all toe the line; Dan and Amy play innocent; and characters like Gary, Richard, and Jonah are completely in over their heads. Before long, deep, dark secrets from months before come to light, chiefly the illegal use of child mortality data to send out mailers.

The highlight of the episode is the reading of "The Jonad Files," a list of nicknames Selina's staff maintains for Jonah that's read into the congressional record to prove they don't respect him like they claim to. Most of them are too profane to repeat, although Jonah meekly offers that his college friends called him "Tall McCartney" as an alternative. 

Julia Louis-Dreyfus does some of her best acting in "Mother," as Selina deals with her mother's severe stroke and impending death as well as the failed effort to overturn the results in Nevada and win the presidency. After a lifetime of distance and coldness from her mother, Selina has to be convinced to stop campaigning in the first place to rush to her side, and basks in the glow of well-wishers (a nice change from protestors) who arrive to show their support.

The episode is a particular highlight for Selina's daughter Catherine (Sarah Sutherland), who had a much closer relationship with "Mee-maw" and openly grieves her grandmother. In a perfect bit of timing, Selina learns that she lost both Nevada and the popular vote right before delivering her mother's eulogy, and breaks down in tears that conveniently endear her back to her own daughter and any eligible voters present. "Mother" provides a fascinating glimpse into Selina's psyche, even though she never really breaks "character."

The best episode of "Veep" is its comprehensive and action-packed finale. Unyielding and completely brutal, it at first finds Selina losing her grip on her party's nomination during a brokered convention. As delegates slip away, chaos reigns and Ben ends up in the hospital with yet another heart attack. In a surprisingly tender scene, he tells Selina he's out of the game, but that she knows exactly what she has to do. In no time, Selina sabotages Tom James, sells out gay marriage to win an endorsement, and, to everyone's eternal horror, offers Jonah the Vice Presidency to ensure the nomination for herself. 

In a final and stunning move, she sets up Gary as the fall guy for the investigation into the Meyer Fund, and eventually ascends to the presidency with an entirely new staff, looking hollow and isolated. "Veep" then flashes to the far future and Selina's funeral, giving fun looks at where everyone ended up. In a final callback to the series' first episode, live coverage of Selina's burial is interrupted when Tom Hanks dies.