HBO’s Veep, which stars Julia Louis-Dreyfus as Vice President Selina Meyer, just ended its third critically acclaimed season and was renewed for a fourth. This morning, it was nominated for seven Emmy Awards. It has been nominated for the “Outstanding Comedy Series” Emmy three times, and has won the Writers Guild of America Award for televised comedy. Julia Louis-Dreyfus has won two Emmy Awards, a Screen Actors Guild Award, and a Critics’ Choice Television Award for her role. Tony Hale won an Emmy for his role, as well. Recently, I chatted with Holy Ghost! about Christopher Meloni’s David Wain-related projects, Melissa McCarthy, and the Bridesmaids airplane scene. Oh, also Veep.

KELLY: Season three of Veep ended just a few weeks ago. I assume you guys saw the finale?
NICK: Yep.
ALEX: Of course.
KELLY: What did you think about the Selina twist — did you see it coming? There had been sort-of hints at it throughout the season, about the FLOTUS’s mental health.
NICK: Wait huh? Did I miss something?
ALEX: Is this a quiz or an interview?
KELLY: Hahah, like how she is president now? How she became president at the end in a way that was a surprise.
NICK: Now that was the second to last episode.
ALEX: Hahaha.
KELLY: Ugh, now this feels like a quiz for me.
ALEX: The student becomes the teacher. It’s funny though, I don’t really remember the plot ever from the show. It’s almost inconsequential.
KELLY: Yeah, I think there is truth to that — the takeaways are definitely more often the one-liners, or, like, Mike singing “Goober Peas.”
NICK: True. She lost the New Hampshire primary in the last episode, came in last.

KELLY: Right. “I came in third. Even the Nazis came in second.”
NICK: Wow, quoting scripture.
ALEX: In preparation for this interview, I’ve been trying to find a link to the “extra” where Jonah visits Dan in the hospital and reads him his health index. No luck. That was my favorite part of the season.
NICK: “Stomach pumped of 8 different kinds of semen.”
ALEX: :-/
NICK: Sorry I don’t know who typed that. Must have been my little brother.
KELLY: I found it in text: “Inverted nipples, abnormally high douche readings, that makes sense, cancer of the soul, traces of dog excrement found around the corners of mouth, chronic cretinism, leprosy, anal bleeding, tiny child balls.”
ALEX: BINGO!
KELLY: That was a great moment. Nick, do you have a favorite moment from this season?
NICK: That was the first thing that came to mind, also anything with Christopher Meloni was great.
ALEX: “Ray,” the personal trainer…exactly.

NICK: Most underrated comedic actor of his time.
ALEX: He was brilliant in The Came Together, too.
KELLY: He was great in that! I think people, for whatever reason, still find it odd when he does comedic roles.
NICK: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpoBor-BTWo His defining moment
KELLY: Hahah YES.
NICK: “Do you know where the powder packets are?!?!?”
KELLY: “Fondue cheddar.”
NICK: “Did you say dick cream?” “No, I said stick team. Like stick ball…” Sorry, back to Veep.
ALEX: I thought it would be cool to talk about Veep to like, you know, celebrate the rise in women in comedy, and here we are…talking about dicks, semen, and dog feces. Ugh.
KELLY: Hahah, “celebrate the rise of women in comedy.”
ALEX: Hahaha.
KELLY: What are your thoughts about the rise of women in comedy? From Christopher Hitchens to Veep.
ALEX: I think I like her – Ms. Dreyfus if you nasty – as much in Veep as in Seinfeld, she’s our finest physical comedian.
NICK: Hadn’t thought about but I would actually say that in the past 10 years most of my favorite comedic performances have been women.
ALEX: Same.
KELLY: What are some of the others?
ALEX: The airplane scene in Bridesmaids was definitely genius.
NICK: “Stove.” “What kind of name is Stove?”
ALEX: Haha.
KELLY: “I’m a man.”
NICK: Melissa McCarthy was amazing in that. Sadly she’s just replayed that same character like 7 times since with diminishing returns.
ALEX: Oh brother, Tammy…that thing looks awful. Ok, lets talk about the fall in women in comedy.
KELLY: Hahah. So tough for Melissa McCarthy that it all rests on her film choices, but that’s the decision we made as women and we have to take what comes.
NICK: “Do you feel that? That’s the heat coming from my undercarriage.” “What kind of sandwich is that?” “Meats and cheeses.”
ALEX: I feel like Veep took a while to catch on, but this season has 100 percent on rotten tomatoes and HBO bought another season.
KELLY: Thank you for bringing us back, Alex.

NICK: Yes, agreed, works well on HBO. Were they the first American network to do comedy without a laugh track? Single camera with Curb?
ALEX: Is that true? Are you cheating on Wikipedia?
NICK: Haha no. Oh wait, did Larry Sanders have a laugh track? I don’t think it did.
KELLY: It did not. But also I can’t find a definitive answer about what the first series without one was. How did you guys come to start watching Veep, were you there from the beginning?
NICK: I think I started at the very beginning. Like Alex said, we’re both big Seinfeld fans so I’ll give anything any one of them does a shot. I even tried to watch her CBS sitcom for a while.
ALEX: Same, I love her assistant, Tony Hale, from Arrested Development, so I think I was sold on him before watching.
KELLY: He is definitely one of the best parts of the series. Okay, this is my last Q before you go: Which do you think is a more accurate portrayal of DC, House of Cards or Veep?
ALEX: I think House of Cards is an accurate portrayal of Kevin Spacey’s inability to keep an accent up.
KELLY: WHOA.
ALEX: Haha, it’s all over the place!
NICK: Wait, I thought it was vehicle for his Foghorn Leghorn impression.
ALEX: LOL.
KELLY: It was a great scheme he pulled, though, creating an entire series to showcase the impression.
ALEX: Machiavellian on and off camera, a real method actor.

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Holy Ghost!’s Dynamics is out now via DFA. Catch them this summer performing at the Hudston Project Live, Bunbury, and Outside Lands.