The HBO series Veep ran for seven season and racked up a ton of awards. When it finally ended in 2019, star Julia Louis-Dreyfus joked that they had to end the show because it couldn’t compete with #45. And while it was funny, chat show banter, it really was dangerously close to the truth. So close, that fans are now claiming the show predicated the critical recount coming down to the state of Nevada.
A case of life imitating art has emerged after fans noticed that the ongoing US election drama was “predicted” by an episode of political satire show Veep.
As Donald Trump supporters gather outside ballot-counting stations in Arizona, several people on Twitter recalled plot points from Veep’s fifth season, which originally aired in 2016.
In the “Nev-AD-a” episode of Veep, Julia Louis-Dreyfus’s presidential candidate Selina Meyer – who has won the popular vote but needs Nevada’s electoral votes – demands a recount in the belief it will help her swing the election.
Over the next two episodes, protesters planted by Meyer’s team alternatively chant “count every vote” or “stop counting the votes” depending on the latest information, and according to which option best suits them.
When we look back on the great seers in history, we’ll have Nostradamus, The Simpsons and Veep. In case the description doesn’t give you goosebumps, here’s a clip. Warning: language and completely insensitive content – the point of this show was to paint Selena Meyer (Julia) as a soulless political parasite:
For those who didn’t watch the show, Selena is president in that clip, but she’d taken the office over when the elected president stepped down. So this is her reelection bid. She’s a sitting president breaking her own laws in an attempt to steal the election because she cannot win fairly. The saddest part is that show wasn’t trying to predict anything. It was trying to find the most absurd scenario so it could present political satire as entertainment. Let’s just sit with that a minute – some of the best minds in Hollywood, an industry that knows degeneracy, comes up with the most corrupt scenarios possible, only to be eclipsed by the government.
Needless to say, none of this was lost on the actual Veep minds themselves:
Really. https://t.co/TjTRWmStha
— Julia Louis-Dreyfus (@OfficialJLD) November 5, 2020
we wrote this on @VeepHBO…and they just…tweeted it out… https://t.co/yWsYbjDmzZ
— Alexis Wilkinson (@OhGodItsAlexis) November 5, 2020
It was like we were running from the giant boulder in Raiders that was the Trump administration. https://t.co/2OpDNXC0n8
— David Mandel (@DavidHMandel) November 5, 2020
Photo credit: YouTube, Twitter and Instagram
That’s amazing.
Ha, that’s great. Never watched the show but one of these days. If there’s anything this nightmare of an era has proven it’s that life is stranger and more horrifying than any fiction writer could conjure up. Hopefully these glimmers of light we see will grow stronger.
Loving the last picture of the VP’s
The picture is from a great video they did for the correspondents dinner
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=da5tjfpKyac
Veep is one of my favourite shows that I binge watch at least once a year. Driving to work this morning, I kept thinking about this particular episode. Re-watched the series right before the election and some of the story lines were eery in relation to what’s actually happening/happened in the States. It’s a hilarious show and I do recommend watching.
From Canada, hoping the best for you! Most people in my circle are closely watching what’s going on down there.
One of the funniest things I’ve ever seen is still that bathroom scene between her character and the assistant.
Haha! John Oliver definitely predicted all of this on one of his episodes too
No. They based it on what happened in Florida in 2000.
Veep has been my go to during this election season. I heard some political pundits talking about shows that come close to depicting Washington (West wing, Veep, madam secretary) and they all said VEEP was closest to reality…. GARY!!