“I love Silicon Valley!” the now fully campaigning Selina Meyer says on a California tour stop on “Veep.” She might have been talking about the Mike Judge comedy accompanying it Sunday nights on HBO.
But its writers were obviously unaware of the other series when it produced this well-balanced and solid episode, which mines exactly the same rich comic possibilities, down to Siri style commands that result in the opposite of what you want (So here, a command to bring the Meet Meyer website brings up opening times at Sea World).
Like the jokey toy-strewn Hooli campus on “Silicon Valley,” the big campus they’re visiting is called Clovis, where the candidate is asked “not to use Google as a verb.” They’re meeting an impossibly young and self-centered CEO who thinks himself above politics but not above asking for massive tax breaks from his visitor.
He also doesn’t know protocol, never calling her Madam Vice President. Then again, she can never get the right intonation for his given name: Craaig.
it’s the same all over Clovis, where there are more cheers for the impending visit of an actor from Harry Potter than response for the vice president. (Yes, this is nerd land).
Before the visit, seeking campaign funds of course, Selina is blind-sided on a rope line by a woman who said she was a former supporter who is concerned about franking and is upset by Meyers’ apparent support of it now.
It is captured by the surrounding reporters and becomes the footage of the day for a minute. The toxic Jonah and his website pick up on it and turn out a TMZ style video that goes viral enough for the Clovis people considering buying the site, and Jonah thinks he’s going to become a millionaire from his brash startup, Ryantology.
There is some counter-propaganda on the way, shifting attention to potential political foe Danny Chung by Dan and top aids dropping hints about his Iraqi war misdeeds. Bad reporter that he is, Jonah runs with the rumor. “It’s Journalism 101,” he says, erroneously. “You put something out there, something comes back.”
It changes the story for an afternoon, puts pressure on Chung and shows how Jonah’s scathing website can be used to the Veep’s benefit. But ultimately he’s burned because there is no, well, evidence, and Clovis, in its parlance, “sunsetted” the notion of buying him out.
“Like!” says Amy, adding, “Oops, wrong company.”
Amy was being heavily recruited for Clovis while visiting, but they turn a little vicious when she turns them down.
At Clovis, Selina is getting a little tired of being put on hold by the callow corporate head, the perplexing cyber toilets and what she calls this whole “kindergarten for cyber brats.” When she’s hit by an errant ping pong ball, she seethes, “I’m taking these people back to dial-up.”
When they finally leave the campus at the end and she is offered one of the CEO’s grand new invention, a smart watch he calls a Smarch she declines.
After being ignored for its first decades, cyber campuses are super hot for comedies this season. in addition to the whole of “Silicon Valley,” there was pretty much the same line of satire in last week’s “Parks & Recreation” finale. Maybe it will all flare out and burn out with all the sudden attention, but for now it seems every comedy will take a bite first.