#veep what ifs

[safflowerseason]

Those West Wing photos make me long for a Veep reunion special. It’s too bad that if they do one, everyone will be separated again. Dan and Amy don’t see each other for 24 years. I want a scene where Dan sees Amy, but she doesn’t see him. But knowing Mandel, Amy would shoot him longing looks because she's forever in love with him even after the way he treated her, while he’s hitting on two young girls at the same time.

Hi Anon - thanks so much for writing in. All things considered, I think we’re comparatively lucky that the finale flashforward did not include Amy making longing looks at Dan…I’d put it more to Anna Chlumsky than David Mandel that Amy ever developed any kind of closure where Dan was concerned. Certainly the fact that she was even speaking to him is a pretty big concession, lol (and speaks to the general illogic that defines their S7 storyline). My conspiracy theory is that a pre-Trump Dan/Amy ending (the one where they actually follow through with the baby) would have consisted of Dan accidentally hitting on his own adult daughter at Selina’s funeral. Some kind of super cliché daddy joke that would also underscore Dan’s completely absence from and lack of interest in Amy's life seems like a plausible place for Mandel to take Dan. (And we know that Mandel likes jokes about incest). 

I’m not sure if you saw my earlier post with thoughts about what a “special new episode” reunion might look like—there are some pretty obvious ways to get around how all the characters scattered to the winds. And Dan and Amy are the only characters where we’re given a firm clue that they have not seen one another in many years (I think? Truly the finale is such a blur to me). However, I think it’s also worth pointing out that Amy’s comment about not seeing Dan since his third wife was born is clearly a joke, a bit intended more for the audience than for Dan himself. It doesn’t make sense as something she would actually say to him. (how would Amy even know when Dan’s third wife was born?) So to me, the implied 24-year time gap is not something that would be super hard to get around if they wanted to. I absolutely do believe that the joke is supposed to communicate to the audience that Dan and Amy are not involved in each other’s lives to any degree and they have not seen each for many years. Absolutely. But also...Veep is a comedy and it’s a joke, and jokes are inherently flexible, so I doubt anyone on the creative team would be a huge stickler for the 24 years timeline. (But who knows, I could be way off). 

Ialso don’t think a revival under Mandel would deliver much on the Dan/Amy front, even if they did share some scenes together. They’re not a defining element of the show for him, and both Reid Scott and Anna Chlumsky seem very invested in the S7 endings of their characters. I could see them wanting to play off one another for old time’s sake, but hardly to the degree where it’s revealed to us that Dan is suddenly more interested in Amy than he is in having sex with much younger women who fit Mandel’s idea of femininity. It’s not like we’d see Dan get into a jealous snit over Amy’s marriage to Bill Ericsson. Mandel-era Dan isn’t wired that way. 

What The West Wing is doing is a staged performance of an episode from S3, and I would absolutely kill for a staged performance of a Veep episode from S1-S4. I am 100% in favor of this type of reunion special. But I doubt it’s ever going to happen, since Mandel would be in charge and would naturally want to do something from the era of the show he was responsible for. I could maybe see them doing an S1 episode with him at the helm, since he seemed to draw a lot of inspiration from that season. It seems like something the cast would love to do as well, since they speak so fondly of the active rehearsal process from the Iannucci years of the show, and their backgrounds are all in live theater/comedy anyway. It was so cool to see them act in the reunion special last Sunday, even via Zoom...watching Anna Chlumsky get her Amy face on was so delightful and interesting, I would pay *a lot* of money to watch a filmed version of a staged Veep episode. 

But in truth, I suspect what we saw last Sunday is going to be the only Veep reunion special for quite some time. Once the pandemic is over (or even before it’s over…Timothy Simons has been quarantining in Canada for the past two weeks, presumably for a project), the cast is all going to have new things to work on and I think there’s simply not an appetite for a reunion yet when so little time has passed since the show went off the air.

[safflowerseason]

God I need Dan/Amy/Cassie fluff now more than ever !! 😂😂

Hi Anon - I’m not sure if this is fluff, but it’s a little scene I’ve had chasing itself in my brain the last few days. You guys know I love hearing from BMTL readers about literally anything, so please don’t hesitate to reach out during this insane time, with prompts, asks, or even if you want to rant about the challenges of social isolation 💛

Scene: if the pandemic were happening in 2040, not 2020. (I’d also maybe like to write a drabble if Selina’s campaign had to face a similar crisis…like Dan, Amy, and a five month old Cassie on the campaign trail…)

Amy comes out of the office, clutching her phone and biting her lip. “That was the guy from the CDC, and I think…I think we should get Cassie home now.”

Dan’s watching the tv with an uncommonly serious expression in place. “Fine with me.”

He doesn’t say anything else, and Amy snorts a little. “Okay, well do you want to call her and tell her she has to come home? She’s been in Mexico for approximately 24 hours, she’s going to be furious.” 

“I don’t give a fuck.” Dan shrugs. “She can sulk in her room for two weeks in the name of public health.”

Amy grumbles to herself while she pulls up Cassie’s number. A few rings, then Cassie’s sleepy voice comes in over speakerphone. “Mom, hello, what…why are you calling so early?”

“Cassie, it’s 10am in Mexico. It’s not early.”

“I’m on vacation.” her daughter grumbles, and Amy smiles in spite of herself.

“Can you…can you go somewhere where you can talk, please?”

There’s a brief pause on the other end of the line—Cassie processing her mother’s words—and then a sigh. “Uh, yeah, hang on, I’ll go out on the balcony.” A rustle of bedsheets in the background, a crinkling gush of sound through the speaker, as if she’s quickly chugging some water. By the time she speaks again, she sounds more energized. “Mom, it’s so nice, here, you can’t imagine, our suite is right by the water, I can literally, like, feel the waves right now…” 

Dan rolls his eyes and makes a gesture for Amy to hurry it up.

“Uh, yeah, that’s great.” Amy says, hurriedly. “Listen, I have some news, and you’re not going to like it.”

A quick catch of breath on the other end of the line. “Is something wrong? Is Dad okay?”

“No, he’s fine, everyone’s fine, it’s just…we need you to come home.”

“What?! Mom!”

“Cassie, this virus that’s been spreading…it’s going to get really, really bad. We need you to come home before air travel becomes too dangerous.”

“What the fuck?! They aren’t even talking about…they’re on TV saying it’s primarily older adults who are at risk. I’ll be fine.”

“Well, they’re fucking wrong.” Amy snaps, her exasperation getting the better of her. “You can use the card, or we can buy the flight from here, but we want you on a plane by the end of the day.” 

“But my clothes, my books…it’s all back at school…”

“I just talked to someone the CDC who says it’s likely that most universities are going to close within the week. You won’t be able to go back. And…” She can’t help but say it, because Cassie is being a brat and, like her father, has multiple closets of clothes at their various residences all over the East Coast, “you have plenty of clothes here.”

“I don’t fucking care, at least let me have this one week with my friends before I have to go home and spend the next whatever fucking eternity at home watching you and Dad obsess over how this will affect voter turnout in whatever bumfuck county in Pennsylvania…”

Amy winces. “Cassie…”

Dan reaches for the phone. Amy hands it over to him, exasperated. 

“Cassie,” he says, and his voice is stone-cold, drained of all warmth. On his face, there’s an almost dangerous expression, one Amy has only seen a handful of times. “Come the fuck home right now.” 

There’s a minute of silence on the other end of the line.

“Fine.” Cassie mumbles. “I’ll come home.”

And she hangs up. Dan tosses the phone back to Amy and goes back to staring grimly at the TV. It’s March 10. The world has already changed. 

[safflowerseason]

Dan and Amy: what might have come next

In response to some questions by @wecouldstillbegreat…

the spouses 

Amy and Bill: Bill Ericsson is the guy who normally gets dumped in romantic comedies. And for the most part, that guy is a great guy and you can have a happy, fulfilling life with him. It’s a different kind of love and no less valid of a choice. I do subscribe to Anna Chlumsky’s view, that Amy and Dan are the closest they ever came to the kind of undeniable magnetism and fundamental, unexplainable connection that characterizes romantic love in its purest form…the sense of having found your other half, of knowing without a doubt that you fit together, that you fundamentally stand on the same ground. But that kind of love isn’t necessarily always sustainable, and you have to want to make it work and you have to choose it over and over again. Dan obviously did not want something even approximating that. 

Dan and his rotating wives: S7 Dan does not enjoy any kind of serious, deep relationship with any of his wives (duh, we know this). By the time he’s sixty-four, he and his twenty-something third wife probably barely interact. She’s an empty vessel to him, a body whose sole purpose is to flatter his ego emotionally and physically. I suppose Dan might be able to fake enough humanity to enjoy some semblance of a relationship with an intelligent woman his age, like Leyla, but what on earth does he talk about with a woman forty years his junior besides…himself? Vomit forever.

after the funeral 

However, since Dan is more recognizably human in the flash-forward sequence than at any point in the season except for those flashes in 7.01 and 7.03, I don’t think it’s completely out of the blue to think that they could have reconnected after the funeral in some small way, like maybe they start texting very occasionally or Dan sends Amy some email with a link to a political story or whatever and they talk every once in a while. It would be Dan initiating the contact, obviously, having finally worked through whatever off-screen internal crisis caused his absolute personality transplant in S7. I like to think that Amy is secure enough in her relationship and her life choices that she could allow Dan back in her life in some small way, if she wanted it and if he remained human enough (those are both big ifs.)

I don’t think S7-Dan is particularly interested in winning Amy back in any sense, but his ego might demand to know that she still held some kind of regard for him (although that seems a bit more like S6 Dan...). She doesn’t pose an existential threat to him the same way she did during season seven…she’s married and too old to have a child, so maybe after twenty-four years and all the hatchets are buried, he thinks he could just finally have her as his “buddy.” (Obviously this does not track with S1-S6 Dan, who torpedos Amy’s engagement on live television just because he can.) And maybe Amy would be okay with that. Or maybe not—she would certainly be justified in continuing to not see him or speak to him or think about him ever again. 

There’s zero canonical evidence for any of this, but if I’m thinking about what any post-funeral contact might look like, I think this seems like a realistic possibility within the S7 canon. Sadly (or...not), I don’t see S7 Dan flying to Amy’s side if she had a heart attack, or declining to get married a fifth time so he can spend the last ten years of his life with a newly widowed Amy. Why would Amy want him like that? S7 Dan Egan is horrifying, and a poorly written character at that. All the canonical S7 fanfiction so far—including mine—endows him with more humanity than he ever displayed in the final season, because how can you even write a compelling, satisfying story with such a grotesque, one-note facsimile of a man? (Reid Scott, if you ever read this, I still think you’re extremely talented and unrealistically handsome and it was totally okay for you to embrace how awful Dan was during the final season.)

[safflowerseason]

HB: So there are alternate universe Dan Egans that we've never seen?RS: Oh, the Dan Egan multi-verse is thick. There are so many bizarre-o Dans that could have been. We actually talked about hiring a writer's assistant just to keep track of all the story lines that didn't make it and do a movie with it someday because there has been so much amazing material that just didn't fit with the plot - from a harpers bazaar interview

(cont) HB: What's one of the unrealized story lines you wanted to keep in the show?RS: Dan was sort of obsessed with Gary Cole's character, [Kent], and this true bromance between the two guys was going to happen. We made some really funny stuff—like Gary Cole's character and Matt Walsh's character, [Mike], connect over sailing, and at one point Dan was going to get a boat as well and try to meet up with the guys. He was going to dress in this sort of sailor outfit and everything.

This is hilarious, especially knowing they later gave Dan terrible seasickness. Thank you so much for sending this tidbit in! It’s so fascinating to think about the “multiverse” for each secondary character on Veep (also love that RS even knows the word “multiverse”), all the what-ifs and head-canons from the writing team that never made it onto the show. Nevertheless, those multiverses influence the writing in subtle ways. Compared to Amy and Mike, Dan definitely got the short shrift a bit in terms of having a life beyond politics...but at the same time, it’s very fitting for power-hungry, soulless Dan. It’s kind of telling that when they thought about fleshing out the character, the writers were thinking of ways to deepen his relationship with the non-Amy members of the ensemble, the members he genuinely perceives as having more power than he does. But I would have loved more of “Dan being social in DC with other politicos”, which the show only gestures very occasionally. Truly, the poker game is one of my favorite Dan moments in the whole series.

And of course, even more depressing that the bizarro-Dan Mandel went with was the gross sexist Trumpian non-political version. My bizarro-version of Dan is that he has a kid with Amy and spends the rest of his life receiving his comeuppance in the form of a daughter. #JusticeforDan