A thread for Armando Iannucci's VEEP

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.

i thought dan boning amy's sister was a little dumb and then jerry gergich knowing about it was even dumber but otherwise i'm down with this season.

I buy Jerry knowing about it because it seems like something Amy and her sister would have screamed at each other about at some point

or he could have just read the situation during the dinner we didn't see, knowing what the relationship between his daughters is like

The Catherine & Margaret thing was a really broad twist. I've loved both characters this season, though, and hope to see much more of them.

http://www.avclub.com/article/hbo-actually-took-out-full-page-jonah-ryan-ad-new--237713

What the hell is going to happen with Catherine's documentary

I have a feeling it will be bad for her mother. Just a hunch.

This episode was on fire. Everything about the Jonah Ryan campaign. Dan + Jonah + Richard + Jonahs uncle. Genius.

this was maybe the funniest episode of the show ive ever seen tbh

Gary's whole Washington's 50 Hottest, too.

the take when he walks in on them fucking

the tirade to nickerson wa so good

"If I do win, I will have my administration come to your shitty little district and shake it to death like a Guatemalan nanny. And then I'm gonna have the IRS crawl so far up your husband's colon he's going to wish the only thing they find is more cancer. So, can I count on your vote, or do I need to shove a box of White House M&Ms up your stretched-out, six-baby vag?"

again, hale's take when she gets to the "more cancer" line is priceless.

the take when he walks in on them fucking

so good. had to rewind and watch again.

is this the best season? better w/o IannuccI? the humor is pitch black, but I can't remember laughing this hard, this consistently, at anything in a while