Veep: 10 Characters Ranked By Intelligence

HBO’s award-winning comedy Veep was a hilarious and entertaining loom at the world of Washington politics and the political career of Selina Myers. Often times it was not a particularly dignified look at the kinds of people that run the country, and it certainly showed that high intelligence is not always a requirement for politics.

The show featured a lot of people who were hilariously and sometimes dangerously underqualified for their positions as well as a few people who could really be putting their minds to more useful things. Here are the characters on Veep ranked most intelligent to least intelligent.

10 Amy Brookheimer

Amy Brookheimer is one of Selina Myer’s most loyal and hard-working employees. She loves the world of politics even though it drives her mad and turns her into a pretty awful person. But time and time again, she has proven that Selina could never have won without her.

Amy is often the one that comes up with the ideas that save the campaign and the solutions that help avoid catastrophe. However, she is often totally ignored and the credit goes elsewhere.

9 Kent Davison

Part of what makes Kent Davison such an astute and brilliant political mind is that he seems to think more like a machine than a man. Kent is someone who is consumed with data and numbers which seem to control his entire life and personality.

While he is not the kind of person that will provide emotional support or an inspirational boost, he is a rational thinker which is sometimes exactly what Selina needs. He doesn’t always have the right decision but it is often the most logical one.

8 Ben Cafferty

Ben is a veteran of the political game and has maybe been playing a bit too long. With all his years of experience, Ben is an invaluable member of Selina’s team and a gifted political strategist. He might be a lot more intelligent if he was willing to put in more effort.

He has a certain determination to him that he wants to win and he enjoys being in the center of all the madness of Washington, but he’s also lazy. He can be brilliant up until a point but then he loses the will to put in more effort.

7 Selina Myer

Selina Myer has held some huge positions of power throughout the show which is impressive considering her intelligence level is only slightly above average. She certainly has a lot more knowledge of the political scene than a regular person but one would hope of an elected official such as herself would have a wider scope of knowledge.

Selina can play the political game as much as anyone and knows what it takes to win, but she doesn’t seem at all qualified to run a country.

6 Dan Egan

As far as young political players in Washington go, Dan Egan is certainly one of the most determined. All he cares about is reaching the next level of power by any ruthless means necessary. However, he is also someone who is much less intelligent than he thinks he is.

Dan sees himself as the ultimate political player who can make moves and deals better than anyone. But that only gets him so far before he reaches a level that is out of his league and he finds himself getting played.

5 Catherine Myer

Catherine is Selina’s well-meaning and much-ignored only child. Perhaps because she is not as self-centered as her mother, Catherine is able to open her mind up to a lot of other ideas and issues that she becomes passionate about.

As much as she can be the moral compass in the Myer family, Catherine is also extremely naïve and can be taken advantage of very easily. While she might believe in noble causes, she doesn’t seem to put a lot of actual thought into these beliefs.

4 Richard Splett

While the show is filled with people who are mostly horrible human beings, Richard is someone that is easy to like. He is a friendly and helpful person who seems to act out of the kindness of his heart. However, he is also quite clueless.

Though there are some areas in which Richard’s knowledge is very impressive, he seems quite oblivious in the midst of the real world. He is like a friendly alien who has come to Earth and cannot quite seem to get a handle on human behavior.

3 Gary Walsh

Gary is Selina’s bagman and most loyal member of her team. He is always there with whatever she needs. In terms of his intelligence, it can be hard to gauge because he never really has opinions of his own.

Like a good sycophant, Gary just accepts everything Selina says or does as the right answer. He hardly seems to have a mind of his own. However, he has shown to be somewhat intelligent in his ability to know Selina’s every need.

2 Mike McLintock

Mike McLintock is a perfect example of someone who fails upwards. Mike has held a number of important titles and positions over the course of the series and he has been wildly unqualified for all of them.

Mike starts out as Selina’s communications man who only seems to have the most basic grasp on politics and never seems to know about a story until it’s way too late. Somehow, over time, he becomes a political news pundit who cannot even figure out which camera to look at when he’s on television.

1 Jonah Ryan

Jonah Ryan is a nightmare scenario of a politician. He is someone who thinks he is god’s gift to the world despite being incredibly off-putting in every conceivable way. His inability to understand social cues and how to act around people is only the tip of his stupidity.

Jonah is a child trapped in a man’s body. He seems unable to grasp the basic concepts of the real world and attacks them when he can’t understand them. Whenever he speaks in front of a crowd he makes a fool of himself yet he still gets elected.

About The Author

Colin McCormick
(2030 Articles Published)

Colin McCormick is a Senior Writer with Screen Rant and has been a proud member of the team since 2019. In addition to his work as Screen Rant, Colin is also a writer of News, Feature and Review pieces at Game Rant. Colin has had a long passion and obsession with movies going back to the first time he saw The Lion King in theaters. Along with movies, Colin stays up-to-date on the latest must-see TV shows. While he loves to find interesting projects in any kind of genre, he has a special movie of crime stories that are infused with a little dark humor much like the work of his favorite author, Elmore Leonard.

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