A thread for Armando Iannucci's VEEP

yea Jonah & Richard are amazing

I lol'd that they really had Jonah w/ a Nissan cube after making that reference a few seasons ago

also lol'd so much @ jld can u guys just pick up all this shit tomorrow and fuck u america

chlumsky's kiss-off speech coupla eps ago was weirdly unsatisfying, maybe her character is too uptight to properly deliver it i dunno. it reminded me of ben stiller's equally damp rant to the stewardess at the end of meet the parents, you're supposed to identify with what they're saying, this voicing of long suppressed irritation, but when they've done you're just kinda eh is that all you got?

Richard is definitely the star turn. His low-key introduction last series was a turning point.

Hard not to see the inquiry that will close this season as anything other than a rerun of S4 TToI though.

well it won't be called an inquiry, so that's different..

I was always worried they'd put in a Malcolm and so happy they haven't. They've really impressed with finding new types of characters who fit in oddly well. Ben was early on and always delivers gold of course, but Richard is a whole new thing. Dude's face is amazing.

re: chlumsky rage, i think part of that stems from the show having such disdain for literally everyone that it's not even going to give that character the big fuck-you/truth to power moment, in part because im not sure chlumsky's character actually hates what she does for this completely inept/undeserving candidate - just hates not being listened to when her ideas are always relatively practical

The introduction of Selina's friend that led to Amy's ragequit was, I assumed, AI's take on the Carole Caplin saga.

also lol'd so much @ jld can u guys just pick up all this shit tomorrow and fuck u america

― johnny crunch, Tuesday, June 2, 2015 8:29 AM (36 minutes ago)

this was so great

this ep was all time, this show is all time, everything abt veep is just the best

http://33.media.tumblr.com/eb073abb06432a3d3fb7ebb3ee79b560/tumblr_molvosSNMS1s7gnr1o1_400.gif

"sure, i love money. but i also love a little lady called the united states of america"

amazing ep imo, i was loling throughout

"crouch cream

"easy cream? it's, um, it's searchable"

Knee-Z!

when she asks richard where the abuse happened and he responds "on the two spheres" i lost it. richard definitely all-time

i started cackling the moment i saw him, before he'd said a word

this is one of the show's best episodes ever

I stand by my point that literally every gary behavior beggars belief - which doesn't mean it isn't funny. it is.

the list of jonah insults had me dying

"benedict come in his own hand." "supercalifragilisticexpialidickcheese."

actually I take back my gary point for this episode, but this is one of the only times he's been believable and human

Fuck yes

scrotum pole
One erection
Wadzilla
Transgenderformer
Jonah Ono

"cloud botherer"

I've been a few weeks behind this season but managed to get up to this week's episode today, and so glad to see the acclaim for Richard itt - I've been marvelling at how he's grown so quickly and well to be the funniest guy in the show this year

i started cackling the moment i saw him, before he'd said a word

gotta rewatch to see if they framed him out in the first couple of Jonah / lobbyists scenes for this very purpose

great episode. Ben is such an unflappable asshole.

"Are you going to keep answering questions with one word answers?"
"No. (long pause) I am not."

I died at Richard raising his left hand instead of his right. "Oh sorry... I was practicing in the mirror."

richard was the only part of this episode i enjoyed.

lolled at Ben's perfect delivery of "If I had kids... which, actually, I do... this bill would be my baby”

CONTINUITY with CHANGE

What a great season.

one of the greatest things this year was everyone in Selina's machine becoming increasingly furious at Tom for being apparently decent and evidently competent - hope whichever writers remain have initial plans to work some more amusement and tension out of the situation under the Ianucci-less regime

i am, frankly, wary of life without armando

agreed on that count, i worry they might lean more on the cringe-comedy tactics that are more a staple of hbo prestige comedy

xp - yeah, it's an interesting conflict because they're not used to a politician with actual interest in, well, doing things, because selina's staff members either have no interest in doing things (ben) possess zero self-awareness (kent, to some extent amy and sue) or are mentally unstable (gary)

i was loling so hard at the panicky google search for what happens in an electoral tie

"the 22nd amendment negates the 12th amendment"
"why so many amendments!?!? get it right the first time, people!!"

god, julia louis-dreyfus is amazing.

I didn't know Iannuci was leaving after this season, hope the team after will be able to keep the quality up.

Just binge-watched this. It's gotten so good. otm re Richard, he's a delight

I had forgotten how many characters this thing has until last night's premiere, when they kept showing up. So funny.

There's a bunch of really good characters on this, but honestly I'm mainly watching for Richard T. Splett at this point. And he didn't disappoint!

lol I don't know why I said T, my middle name is John.

can we get a strikethrough in the thread title

Robert Slattery is great. Martin Mull is great. But the best addition to the roster this season is Clea DuVall. It's never not funny to have her hovering in the background. Along with Catherine and her camera. They've been on point with sightgags this season, behind Amy in the election office was a posters saying 'Meyer for President' and 'Latinos for Selina', which I found cynically funny.

i don't like this show any more? based on 1st ep of new season? am i crazy?

I was getting similar vibes, sometimes the unrelenting zings start to seem a bit stale. You are probably wrong or crazy if I'm agreeing with you, I also went the same way with the original series at the last season.

1st ep was so stilted that I was poised to bail - really felt like the new American writers struggling to capture the style of the show, but with zings that you could see coming two lines away instead of twisting and startling you.

Second one was really good and third one is okay though - it's not as good as with the S1-4/Thick Of It writers, but it's still a funny show in this cynical, fast paced* style. Or it might suck hard for the rest of the season, who knows.

An oddity, given that the new guy only kept a couple of minor (as these things go**) writers on as consultants, is that Chris Addison has directed every episode so far.

*Was the scene of Lennon Parham coming out of the campaign jet the longest single shot in the series' history?

** Georg1a Pr1tchett, who joined TTOI for one ep seven years after it started and joined Veep in its third year, and Wi11 Smith, who started writing on TTOI years after he started acting on it. Not to diminish their contributions to either show, but it looks like Curb/Clerks The Animated Series blokey didn't want to use any of the, lets say, foundational writers.

huh, turns out he moved production from Maryland to LA, too, with one week's location shoot in MA/DC for some exteriors.

I'm enjoying this season, which has a real "No Exit" vibe to it. No one gets fired, everyone comes back, they all hate each other, they hate the people they are working for, they hate the ideas they are working for, they hate the goal they are working for, they're just so cynical and jaded they can't even do much more than insult each other anymore. Even the great Tom James has gone sour. But not Richard Splett, whose guileless optimism is such a contrast.

Ooh didnt realise this was a new series

"This is like that famous scene from the movie Heat. You know, DeNiro and Brenneman."

lol yes

ok that was the most deeply weird and dark and uncomfortable thing

like it made me feel the way i felt when i watched funny games