A thread for Armando Iannucci's VEEP

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

The most recent episode was an all-time classic.

Gary's face when he learns what the c-word actually is...

Jonah on the campaign trail is so great I want the series to leave Washington and just follow the Splett / Ryan / Peter McNicol axis for the rest of the year

I've found it encouraging that lately my wife has been more interested in watching Veep than catching up on Game of Thrones.

noticed this ep was directed by JLD's husband - first one not by Chris Addison this year?

https://www.jonahryanforcongress.com

https://www.jonahryanforcongress.com/app/uploads/2016/05/TeenageJonah-uai-516x516.jpeg

Man that is hilarious. I love how all the helpful links are about New Hampshire, except for a link to Tom Petty.

This show has held up better than I expected without Iannucci at the helm.

In a way it is broadening really quickly and becoming more sitcommy by the episode. But the world is so deep and welldrawn that it holds up beautifully, and is in fact pretty amazing. I can see a lot of the characters becoming caricatures of themselves pretty quickly if it goes on like this. But that's a problem for a later day.

my one complaint is that it seems out of step w/ the current political moment in the US. genius jl-d is doing incredible work but the election plotline itself feels more like a 2000 electoral tie retread than this actual moment w/ the buffoonery and clusterfuckedness of american politics disappearing into the psychotic screaming void. aka real life much stranger + funnier (and also scarier) than the world of veep. but show is still wonderful don't get me wrong.

they said at the outset in the press that they are actively avoiding trump topix; i think that's wise considering how unpredictable the primary process became.

probably the more prudent choice but the alternative that grappled w/ this moment obv much higher stakes + potential resonance / payoff.

They couldn't be addressing what's happening in May 2016 with a show that was shot in December 2015 though, it's not Drop The Dead Donkey

Been watching this and House of Cards almost simultaneously, and it's funny how much the plots overlap. A good exercise for a TV writing class would be to show scenes side by side with the same situation and completely different tone (e.g., the President meeting with his/her ousted, ineffectual Vice President).

lol it got to the point for me where i couldn't remember which characters/plot details happened on which show

also sometimes i daydream abt like one of those corny awards show pretaped sketch segments where like Claire and Selena hang out

with Olivia Pope of course

highlights of the season so far imo: jonah campaign ad and learning that kent davison's cat is named fibonacci

I love that Jonah's opponent isn't just a second grade teacher, but was in fact Jonah's second grade teacher.

i was interleaving Veep and Borgen for awhile. good times

Focus group bit I was slightly confusing with similar in an ep of Silicon Valley

Any comment on the Catherine & Margaret plot twist? Seemed very "stunty" but I still lolled at "I can't stop grinning" and "I'm giddy" from Margaret.