Recap / Veep S 5 E 4 Mother

Selina is forced to put her campaign on hold when her mother suffers a stroke.

Selina and co visit her mother in hospital after a stroke and find themselves facing the option of pulling the plug on her. Amy and Dan continue soldiering on in Nevada.

Tropes:

• Bait-and-Switch Comment: Selina describing her mother's resilience in the face of elderly illness:

  Selina: She’s like-

  Kent: Lazarus?

  Selina: Rasputin.

• Black Comedy: Catherine crying over her grandmother's possible death is sad, but the WAY she cries is unfortunately hilarious.
• Brick Joke: Bob shows up at the end of the episode and says “Congratulations”, clueless as ever
• The Bus Came Back: Andrew appears in this episode, having rushed to Selina's mother when she had another stroke.
• Comedic Work, Serious Scene: This episode is almost entirely a drama, as Selina struggles with what do about her mother and the origin of a lot of her adulthood angst.
• Comically Missing the Point: Selina misunderstands Ben's description of the Qataris:

  Ben: They’re wet-fingered.

  Selina: They’re into assplay?

  Ben: They have a gift for sensing prevailing political winds

• Kick the Dog:
  • Andrew enforces what a piece of shit he is by judging Selina for not being there at her mother’s stroke even though Andrew wouldn’t show up to something of his daughter’s selflessly unless there was a gun to his head.
  • Then when the question of her mother's inheritance comes up, it’s shown half the reason Andrew showed up was to sniff around for anything he could squeeze out of it. Then he tries to seduce Selina again since he knows she'll be vulnerable after a personal loss.
  • On her end, Selina pulls the plug on her mother without Catherine there. Not out of any malice, but simply because she’s too neglectful to both remember Catherine cares about "Mee-Maw" and that subsequently she might wanna be there.
  • Selina in general is pretty thoughtless about Catherine during this process, although this episode gives us a lot of insight into why she might feel that way.
• Last Words: While Granny Meyer doesn't have any last words because of her stroke, Selina ends up saying Ben's words of encouragement to her before the end - "Those you love cannot be lost, because they are always a part of you." The benefits and disadvantages of that statement are not lost on her.
• Oblivious to His Own Description: Tragically, Selina describing her mother:
  Selina: The only daughter of a pathological narcissist. All this woman ever did was criticize me or ignore me.
• Obviously Evil: Jaffar, a proxy for the Chinese government, looks as evil as a person possibly could, whispering his lines, flaring his eyebrows, and giving a quality Kubrick Stare.
• One Dialogue, Two Conversations: Right before Selina goes up to deliver her mother's eulogy she's informed that she lost the Nevada recount and that all the new O'Brien votes mean she has now lost the popular vote. Her tearful breakdown is misinterpreted as referring to her mother.
  Selina: (through tears) I'm sorry, it's just all sort of hitting me right now. I have lost... so much. I'm sorry... I can't... (breaks down sobbing) Just not fair. This is just not fair.
• Pet the Dog: Ben, normally a cynic about everything and no stranger to complicated feelings about family, gives Selina some sincere consoling advice about the passing of loved ones.
  • Kent also gives the closest he can to sympathy, saying, "I grieve with thee."
  • Tom James also consoles Selina and even hits at her hidden feelings by saying while he knows loss, he hated his father, and found it hard to be upset when he passed.
  • Despite her complicated feelings about her, Selina makes sure her mother has her nails done well before she dies, since she knows her mother would've wanted that to be the case.
  • Selina also has a moment of genuine confiding with her staff, insisting they stay when they pull the plug so she doesn't have to be alone.
• Photographic Memory: Kent recognizes Ben’s words of advice from a card Ben’s wife sent him when Kent’s cat Fibonacci passed. He mentions he found them soothing.
• Remember the New Guy?: Usman Ally makes his first appearance as the Qatari ambassador Jaffar, an allegedly important political player.
• The Reveal: We learn the name of Selina's mother, Catherine Eaton, who's gone unnamed up to this point. This also means Catherine is named after her grandmother, another way Selina tried and failed to win her mother's approval.
• Racist Grandma: Selina implies her mother was a racist when greeting the well-wishing crowds.
  Selina: There are so many friendly and diverse faces here. And I wish that Mother were alive to see this on her property.
• Ripped from the Headlines: While the Meyer election tie is based on the Bush-Gore election tie of 2000, this ends up going farther, since the recount in Bush-Gore ended up in Bush's favor. Since the recount in this episode ends with a margin too small to be legally decisive, the decision about who to vote for will now have to be decided in the House of Representatives.
• Sadistic Choice: Selina faces an interesting take on this. If she pulls the plug on her mother, she's likely to get a polling bump and finally be free of the woman who harangued her her whole life. But if she does, she'll finally lose all hope of pleasing her, something she still wants.
• Shout-Out:
  • Jonah and company are referred to as “Huey, Dewey, and Rapey”
  • Kent's "I grieve with thee" may be one to Star Trek, as it's what Vulcans say to each other after losses.
  • Amy responds to a rhetorical question with, “Did Eleanor Roosevelt eat pussy?”
• Tragic Villain: This arguably is the most sympathetic Selina ever is. The evidence indicates that her mother was a narcissistic piece of shit who never made Selina feel good about herself, even well into adulthood after she’d become a historically significant politician, and who then hoodwinked everyone else into thinking she was the saint and Selina the problem. And what’s worse, Selina has no one to share the truth with, not even her own daughter. So she’s left with no choice but to pull the plug on a mother who made her life miserable and no way to get through the mourning or even relief of it.
• Villain with Good Publicity: Selina gets an opportunity for this. Kent reveals that her mother being ill has boosted Selina's approval numbers by double digits, and they may spike again if she dies.
  • Later, Selina cries at her mother’s memorial. Not because of her mother, but because she just lost the recount vote in Nevada. But the audience don't know that, so it looks like she IS crying about her mother, boosting her numbers further. She then also lets her daughter play the song she wanted to play, which makes Selina at least LOOK like a good mother herself.
• "Well Done, Son" Guy: Selina is seen to have a major case of this with her mother, and one that was never resolved.
• What You Are in the Dark: Alone in her hospital room, Selina starts out praying for her mother, but ends up praying for her campaign, because when it comes down to it, she doesn’t care about her mother and wants the victory way more than she wants her mother to have any weight in her life.