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Taking Selina out of the White House is a wise move on showrunner David Mandels part, though perhaps as disappointing to some viewers as it is to Selina herself. When Veep premiered in 2012, critics hailed it as a mordant satire that was, if anything, just a bit too broad and nihilistic to adequately reflect the complexity of American politics. Along with shows like House of Cards, its appeal lay in identifying the Washington archetypes of our time, however crudely sketched. Veep, Carina Chocano wrote in The New York Times, captured our post-Reagan, post-Clinton, post-Bush, 24-hour tabloid news and internet-haterade dystopia.

Like its creator Armando Iannuccis previous comedies The Thick of It and In the Loop, Veep painted a grim world where no one ever accomplished anything, where all power was illusory, where every promise of progress was used cynically to manipulate voters or (worse) was rendered impossible to execute by a hopeless political system. We all know the White House would work so much better if there wasnt a president, Ben Cafferty (Kevin Dunn), the White House chief of staff, wearily reminds Selina in season two. But there is, so we work around that.

While this sensibility proved a rich seam for satire in the Obama years, White House politics as usual have now yielded to something altogether more chaotic. With the real-world targets of Veeps first five seasons ushered off the stage, the show reckons with the disappointed personal ambitions of those who surrounded Meyer. Her staffers are all dramatically worse off than they were when we saw them last, forced to weather the kind of disorder and humiliation that generates the most riveting character drama. Amy (Anna Chlumsky) is managing a gubernatorial campaign for her Nevadan fianc, for whom she exhibits almost as much open contempt as she does for his constituents; Dan (Reid Scott) is co-hosting a CBS morning show, limited to terrorizing his rivals through puff pieces instead of attack ads; Ben is hired, then quickly ousted, by the millennials at Uber. But there is good news for the Jonah Ryan (Timothy Simons) fans out there: Jonah, who began the series as a powerless underling, is now a freshman congressmanthe sole political survivor of the Meyer era.

In the year since she left office, Selina herself has spent some time at the spa (a Meyerism for a psychiatric facility), launched an obligatory foundation, and started work on her memoir. Only her body man, Gary (Tony Hale), and former Ryan staffer Richard Splett (Sam Richardson) remain by her sidethe two Fools left to care for their exiled Lear. They do their best, which doesnt count for much, because all Selina really wants is to be president again. Before the season premiere is over, she announces her plans for another run, then scraps them just as quickly. One thing seems certain as we embark on Veeps sixth season: Selina Meyer will remain, at least for now, a private citizen.

Which leaves us to confront what is, by now, the only reason for watching the show: not to spy on the imagined (and authentically filthy) inner workings of our nations capital, but to follow the characters and relationships we already know so well. In this shift, Veep reminds us that it has always been about the human fears and anxieties and desires that are the smallest but most recognizable unit of any political system. Relieved of its original, insidery focus, Veep feels not like it has drifted away from its center, but as though it has stripped away everything but its core.

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Selina Meyer, Hillary Clinton, and Life After Political Defeat - New Republic