Veep 1.3 - Catherine

The Veep's daughter, Catherine (Sarah Sutherland, daughter of Kiefer), is in town and the Veep is preparing to celebrate her twentieth year in Washington D.C. but a story about her being a diva is doing the rounds. Combined with stories that she and the First Lady don't get along, the Veep decides to deflect some of the negative press by getting a dog and also doing away with the massive cardboard cut-outs of her that were planned for her party. Anna is relieved as she was worried the cut-outs made the Veep look like Stalin although Dan insists they have more of an Eva Braun look to them. Mike, meanwhile, is working on announcing Chuck Furnam, a former oil man, to the Veep's clean jobs task force. Looking for a perfect moment to announce, he decides that they should do it at Senator "Rapey" Reeves' dedication ceremony. To compound things, the Veep finds out that Selina is on the list for names for hurricanes that year. Worried that it might bring more bad press, she gets her staff to change it.

At the dedication for Senator Reeves' memorial recreation centre, Senator Doyle (Phil Reeves) tells Mike that Chuck Furnam would be unacceptable on the clean jobs task force. Meanwhile, oil lobbyist Sidney Purcell (Peter Grosz) and Senator Hallowes (Kate Burton) tell Anna and Dan respectively that Furnam would be unacceptable to the oil lobby. Unfortunately, the Veep lets slip to Furnam (Eddie Jones) that he will be named to the task force. Forced to deal with a "catch 44", the Veep cancels her lunch with Catherine and pushes up the announcement of her new dog. At her party that evening, Jonah flirts with Catherine and Dan works out a solution to the Chuck Furnam problem: keep Furnam on but tell Sidney Purcell that he will have special access to the Veep and tell Senator Doyle that oil want Purcell on the task force, forcing him to back down and insist that chuck Furnam join the task force. Catherine finds out about the re-naming of the hurricane and ends up having a conversation with her mother about how she is too much of a politician in a room full of cardboard cut-outs and massive posters of her. Everything seems to be back on track when Jonah finds out about the Veep's new dog and tells her that the First Lady is also getting a new dog, forcing her to "kill" the new dog, much to Catherine's chagrin.

Veep is finding its feet and getting better with each episode. Once again, everything comes spectacularly unstuck for the Veep. Particular highlights from this episode was her telling her daughter that she's not a diva in front of Stalin/Eva Braun style posters of her and Mike's fake dog. The last scene, with her greeting a seemingly endless line of party guests was also very good.

7 out of 10.