Veep: Season 7

So, while one HBO mainstay about a woman hellbent on acquiring the most powerful position in the world spirals downward and suffers from an accelerated pace and shortened episode order in its final season, another one ends on a strong note. Veep has become just flat out ridiculous over the course of its run, but then again so have American politics. Here's the episode summary of the series premiere from 2012:

Vice President Selina Meyer wants to make the implementation of a Clean Jobs Commission her main legacy, but problems occur when a Tweet from a staffer annoys the plastics industry; Selina makes an offensive joke at a fundraiser, and her Chief of Staff forgetfully signs her own name on a condolence card for the wife of a senator who just died.

Back in the midst of the Obama presidency, Veep found humor in the mundane monotony of everyday Washington politics and the way any small gaffe could turn into a 24-hour media focal point. Do you guys remember when things were like that? Compare that to the lightning-fast pace and "holy shit" fervor of the latter seasons of Veep, in which Jonah Ryan runs for president on an anti-vaccination and anti-Arabic numerals platform while proudly married to his "smokin' hot" half-sister, and in which Selina Meyer colludes with the Chinese and sells out her greatest achievement - a free Tibet - in order to win a crowded Democratic Primary, and in which her entire campaign team is ecstatic to hear about a mass shooting that left 27 people dead because it means some of Selina's recent bad press will get bumped out of the news cycle. I mean, the show this show became is just so much bigger and broader and dumber than the show it used to be, but then again American politics got so big and broad and dumb that there was nothing to do but lean into it, I guess.

At the end of the day this will have to go down as one of the best comedies of the 2010s, right? What a triumph. And what an ending!