A thread for Armando Iannucci's VEEP

also he was replacing mike!

loved the finale but felt the rest of the series often missed the mark. hard to pin down but few bits felt hammy and cartoonlike, esp jonah in the early few episodes - far-fetched scene of him shaving his head in the mirror. this is the first season where armando's absence was notable, lost his light touch, went more sitcommy. no one else think this?

I thought it during the previous season. There are enough good jokes that I still enjoy it tho - I liked the reveal of the one senator's home life just as I'd been getting tired of his routine with his assistant (and I know a big part of the gag is how rote & stale this has become)

I thought the finale felt like an overlong in case you missed it for an episode we never saw... much preferred the run of episodes

Unlike many I wasn't that into a lot of the flashbacks but I did like the ellipses in the main storyline - I think it was a really well conceived & structured episode

Gary is bad tbh (character and performance) this is consistent

yeah gary this season didn't feel right. they really tried to play up the angle of him being in love with selina, where it was never really about that previously. some weird nod to his arrested development character maybe

plus i know it's always been a bombardment of gags but it felt muddled and almost exhausting at times, so much dialogue done so quickly, im sure i missed a shit ton of jokes.

I meant Gary was always bad - bad idea - they shouldn't have done it

we've all seen a Smithers before this was just terribly conceived and executed from the beginning

no way Gary is great dude was born to play sycophants

loved the finale but felt the rest of the series often missed the mark. hard to pin down but few bits felt hammy and cartoonlike, esp jonah in the early few episodes - far-fetched scene of him shaving his head in the mirror. this is the first season where armando's absence was notable, lost his light touch, went more sitcommy. no one else think this?

No, I tapped out 3 or 4 episodes in, because the tone of the LA version was this year so different to what I used to get out of the show – all the political satire was drained away, with nothing left but the characters abusing each other. Except without the abuse being motivated by them being either unpleasant or reasonable people with no reason to like each other, forced together by common goals (whether or not those clash with their own regard). And without it being written by the people who developed that style of abuse.

Was the finale really so worthwhile that I should bother checking back in for it?

I haven't seen any of the post-Iannucci material and nothing I've heard has tempted me

Well their goals this season were : the library and the memoir + mainly trying to find a job to rebound after the crash of the previous campaign.
That's a pretty good motivation imo ! I mean I can totally understand having to cope with assholes for a job...
As for Gary, his reaction was so great when Selina announced she wanted to run for president again at the beginning of the season.
other favorites were the running jokes : "it was a spa" and "daylight savings time".
As many people said already, the finale was lots of fun in a "previously" wtf way.

This series got wayyyy better after the first 3-4 episodes imo

the ep with the elections in georgia was great !

I keep re-checking for a Death Of Stalin release date, nothing yet. I think Iannucci is a complete dick, but there is no way this movie is not going to great.

I haven't seen anything to suggest AI is a dick (other than his characters' ornate insults)?

I think they did the best they could with a central character who was out of office and unemployed.

xp

on a recent post-election appearance on a BBC panel he came across like a right slimy Blairite apologist.

idk I think his constantly imploring his millions of 18-year-old followers to vote made a real difference to the election

I mean he does criticise Blair's legacy, but not near enough for my liking.

grime4corbyn >>> Iannucci

lol wins!

the nooch has a new pilot for hbo. comedy set in space.

http://deadline.com/2017/09/hbo-armando-iannucci-space-comedy-pilot-veep-1202176361/

Premiere was pretty solid. So many comedians in this. Maybe my favorite insult was when Patton Oswalt's character referred to tall Jonah (who surely is going to get elected president) as a "skyraper."

The cartoonishness of the post-Iannucci era continues to get exaggerated but it was not bad. I liked ‘blue is the most annoying color’.

This Aspen episode, holy moly.

Yeah, properly great.

I had suspected that Mike wasn't back and interfering just out of laziness with the character.

I legitimately fantasise about being able to deliver bad news in the manner of Richard Splett. It would just be an astonishing life skill.

The whole phone upside down routi e this week was great.

sharia math!

I haven't seen the most recent episode but the one before that I thought was hilarious. "I don't see vagina color," and so on. Just lots of great insults and throw-away gags, like the cat mayor or the total plausibility of Jonah's boxing ring ad.

sharia math was amazing

Jonah has been Homer Simpson-ed, in that he is now too stupid to actually breathe, but lol anyway

Ha, just caught up. "No more math!!""

"Algebra? More like Al Jazeera!"

this series is maybe even more incredible than the previous ones. so many amazing character arcs. amy's especially. god fuck america!

Sic you mean flanderized

Oh but specifically like homer aka dumb I gotcha now

given trump and republicans in general i don’t think it’s too off

i love how you're like 'jonah is trump!' but then they're all trump

except the one who's aoc haha

I thought this last episode was really funny and this season the first time it seems to be riffing directly off of current politics and news.

Haven't seen the new one, but for some reason (gee hmm) I'm having a lot harder time with the full-on nihilism & misanthropy on this season.

i can't believe there are only two episodes left

Richard's going to end up as president, isn't he.

I managed to get to her being Jonah's actual sister before anyone in that kitchen did, having thought up till then that the joke was going to be that he's Canadian and so couldn't be president anyway.

Half sister!

Making that distinction to try and justify it was the icing on the cake.

yes, the Canada thing was a good red herring

also predicting Splett to fail upwards even faster

I don't think there's an AOC in this

given trump and republicans in general i don’t think it’s too off

it is absolutely believable that someone so horrendous and stupid could be a successful politician in America! Jonah just used to be at least smart enough to be cunning

yeah but his ego took over and he got rewarded with applause for acting out. it’s like... textbook awful dude behavior!

I am going to miss this show so much. I finally caught up on the first three episodes last night. I love the full on nihilism.