New Hampshire

New Hampshire
Season 3, Episode 10
Vital statistics
Air date	June 8, 2014
Written by	Armando Iannucci Simon Blackwell Tony Roche
Directed by	Chris Addison
Episode guide
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Crate	Joint Session

New Hampshire is the tenth episode of the third season of the HBO original series Veep. It originally aired on June 8, 2014. It received 0.95 million viewers.

Synopsis

While Selina balances her unexpected Presidency with the New Hampshire primary, Dan pushes Jonah to take the blame for a catastrophic media revelation.

Plot

En route to D.C., the staff celebrates Selina’s impending presidential transition. Amy reminds Selina that she still also has to campaign for her election, though it falls on deaf ears. Instead, Selina is delighted to receive a congratulatory voicemail from Beyoncé, calling her a “single lady.”

Selina returns to her offices and is greeted by an excited mob. Sue informs her of her swearing in ceremony the following day and notes that, afterwards, Selina will acquire the nuclear codes. “Goodbye, China,” Ben mutters. As her first order of business, Selina tells Kent to get rid of Leslie Carr. Kent questions specifics about the particular name, but she blows him off. Selina takes Ben aside and asks him to be her acting chief of staff. He begs her to spare him, claiming he was “bulimic the whole first year but didn’t even lose any weight.” She threatens to bring back Prohibition if he doesn’t agree to continue in his role.

Kent calls for a meeting with Dan in a storage closet and informs him that the Washington Post has traced the Danny Chung torture rumor back to its source -- aka, “the river Dan.” Dan begs for 24 hours to find a solution, and Kent agrees to six hours. “I’ll see you then,” Kent says. “Alternatively, goodbye forever.” Dan rushes to find Ben, but the chief of staff denies ever telling him the story. “The f*ck stops here, Dan.” Dan meets with Jonah, who tells him he’s done in D.C. and has plans to head to Africa “to help install sewage systems in poor communities or go to Wall Street -- one of the two.” Dan tells him that’s too bad, since they have a position for him in the White House, on the condition that he deny to the press that the Chung torture rumor came from the Veep’s office.

Out of deference to the former First Lady, Selina is sworn into office in a White House state room with no pomp or circumstance. While she recites the oath, Mike bumps into a lamp, interrupting her recitation. Jonah finds Dan to complain that he’s buried so far in the West Wing that he’s “practically in Pyongyang.” He’s receiving massive amounts of hate from the internet community after blaming the web for the Chung torture story, which includes a meme of him having sex with a chicken while dressed as Bin Laden. Jonah adds: “And it’s really well done so it legitimately looks like I’m engaging in bestiality while insulting 9/11 victims.”

Gary presents Selina with a pair of “special shoes” she told him she wanted to wear if she ever became president. Selina pretends to be touched by the gesture, despite being thoroughly creeped out. As Selina approaches the podium to give her first address as president, she realizes that the “perfect shoes” squeak. Ben, Dan, Gary, and Mike watch on in horror as Twitter explodes with the headline “President squeaks to the nation.”

Following her address, Selina threatens her staff that “any f*ck-up from now on is not just a f*ck-up, it’s my legacy.” Adding insult to injury, Kent informs her that her decision to remove Leslie Kerr from State has freaked out the Iranians. Selina tells him she didn’t mean Leslie Kerr, she meant Leslie Carr, “that bitch from Energy.” Kent explains that she meant Leanne Carr. Selina freaks out, and asks if she could just say it was an error, but Ben warns her that it would be terrible public relations. “You might as well drive a suicide clown car into the f*ckin’ Lincoln Memorial.” Selina orders Kent to New Hampshire to “attach some electrodes to the corpse” of her campaign.

Kent and Amy discuss campaign tactics after watching a new advertisement from Joe Thornhill blasting Selina. Kent admits they need the support of Jonah’s uncle, Jeff Kane, now that Maddox has backed out of the race. Amy orders Dan to talk to Jonah, who remains miffed about his new position in the White House. He’ll only help if Dan hires him an assistant, as well as gets him West Exec parking and mess hall privileges. “You want a Jonah?” Dan asks. “Yeah,” Jonah says. “And henceforth, they will no longer be known as Jonahs. They’ll be known as Jimmys or Pepes or Sarahs or whatever the f*ck that person’s name turns out to be. And you can’t hire anyone named Jonah!”

Dan and Ben tell Selina that Maddox and Pierce have publically endorsed Chung. She decides they need to head to New Hampshire to do a photo op among the people, as long as it’s not at a hospice. “I can’t risk some f*cker flat-lining right next to me,” she mutters.

Selina heads to a factory that manufactures protective gear for firefighters and the employees love her. Amy delights over the fact that Selina is “so good at making people believe she’s good with people.”

Ben interrupts Selina’s tour to tell her that she’s not actually the President. She messed up the oath when Mike bumped into the lamp and now the Speaker is demanding she be sworn in properly. Selina refuses to head back to D.C. and demands that they find a local federal justice to swear her in at the factory. “It could be really great for us,” Amy agrees. “Play up to New Hampshire’s already inflated sense of self-importance.”

Selina returns to the tour only to be interrupted by Ben, yet again. He’s gotten word that Iran is “officially pissed” about her decision to fire Leslie Kerr. “Apparently, they like the guy. It must be the beard.” He warns that their statement could spook the markets and spike gas prices, so she needs to reinstate Kerr despite it being a PR disaster.

The night of the New Hampshire Primary, the staff watches the polls dejectedly as Danny Chung is confirmed as the winner, and they wait to learn whether or not Selina comes in second. The final blow comes when CNN confirms Joe Thornhill beat her by 1 percent of the vote, placing her in third. “It’s 1 percent, that’s nothing,” Gary reassures her. “You’re basically second. You’re second in our eyes, I’ll tell you that much.”

Quotes

Jonah: Dan! What the fuck is this?

Dan: What are you talking about?

Jonah: You've got me buried so far into the West Wing, I'm practically in Pyongyang.

Dan: Jonah, you have a job in the White House, all right? That was the deal.

Jonah: I publically denounced the Internet, Dan, okay? Those are my people! I'm getting so much online hate. There are memes of me being burned alive.

Dan: Ooh, wow.

Jonah: There's one of me fuckin' a chicken while dressed as bin Laden.

Dan: The chicken is dressed as bin Laden or you're dressed as bin Laden?

Jonah: No, I'm dressed as bin Laden, Dan! And it's really well done. So it legitimately looks like I am engaging in bestiality while insulting 9/11 victims.

Starring

Main cast

• Julia Louis-Dreyfus as Selina Meyer
• Anna Chlumsky as Amy Brookheimer
• Tony Hale as Gary Walsh
• Matt Walsh as Mike McLintock
• Reid Scott as Dan Egan
• Timothy Simons as Jonah Ryan
• Sufe Bradshaw as Sue Wilson

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