A thread for Armando Iannucci's VEEP

Oh yeah Sue ! What happened to her again ?

she's the secretary to the president, and selina stopped being president, so she wasn't on the show anymore.

Oh yeah right, thanks !

She’s arguably the only NORMAL person in there.

Poor Gary
When you listen to rumour you 'rue' 'more'...

Some articles have pointed out that the Tom Hanks thing in the last episode is a callback to a joke in the first episode, where Mike wonders if a big news story like Tom Hanks dying might be a good distraction from a Selina gaffe. Also, I love that they used a movie excerpt from "The Money Pit" (alongside "A League of Their Own" "Forrest Gump") in the tribute..."Bachelor Party" would have been too ridiculous.

Someone mentioned the Michael Corleone vibe, with which I totally agree. It also reminded me of the devastating ending of "The Grifters."

I'm rewatching the last season, and a few things earlier in the season are made apparent after knowing what happens in the finale:
* Selina makes a list of all the people she doesn't want to be at her funeral, and they ALL end up attending.
* Selina selling Gary out is foreshadowed:
Minna: Selina, if you go to prison, you will not have your Gary to clean up after you.
Gary: No, I'll be there.

The whole finale was pretty solid, but in particular I loved:
* When both Kent and Marjorie break their stone-faces and lose their shit on separate occasions over Jonah being the VP pick

* "No such place, ma'am. The concept of hell is a cultural memory of pre-Mosaic child sacrifice among proto-Judean peoples." And Kent mentioning Euler's number! (And of course, pronouncing "Euler" correctly.)

* "They say experience is the best teacher, and although my own daughter never learned to ride well..."

I haven’t been funny since 1986

So Iannucci is doing Veep in space starring Tom James M.D.?

I've only started watching the show a few weeks ago and it'll be a while until I get through the finale so my thread reading is going to be delayed, buuuuut..

I love the running gag of occasional episodes where the shtick is "oh no, Veep is horny again"

(regardless of her position I mentally refer to Selina, the title character, as "Veep")

*points to screen and whispers* “that’s Veep”

of course Toby Huss shows up on the southern birthday episode

it takes a real Iowan to play a fake southerner

i thought this last season was hilarious. just finished it ten minutes ago and i'm sad already that it's over.

i laughed so many times

“i abhor violence of any type but i have seen plenty of blow him up looks”

andy daly was quietly hilarious.

I've been rewatching the final season because I wasn't satisfied and thought I might have missed something and it actually is better than the first time around.
I guess I was just expecting too much.
I still think it's less funny than the previous seasons but I enjoy more the darker/ott nihilist tone now and consider it was certainly the best way to end this show.
That Beyonce line is all time.

I'm with Mordy. Thought this season was much funnier than the couple that preceded it.

There were some great moments in this season and a great way to end it but nothing quite beats Richard Splet at the fertility clinic.

Richard is a top character for sure

love splett, not sure he'd be the greatest president, but i guess a well-meaning simpleton is better than any of the vicious and corrupt alternatives

I wish he was the real Iowa lieutenant governor or governor

lol

Maybe there could be a dog president.

couldn't be worse than etc etc

If you think Richard's a simpleton you haven't been paying enough attention - isn't it established he has two Yale doctorates? One of them is definitely veterinary medicine.

Also there's a reason why Catherine and Marjorie want his genes.

he has some skills, but he also is kinda incapable of processing things happening directly in front of his face.

isn't it established he has two Yale doctorates?

I always thought that was part of the joke, the same way Ed Helms on The Office is always held up as a business wiz because he went to Cornell.

Yeah I’m not sure he’s done anything that required skills throughout the series !

he can chop wood!

Eheh the campaign tv spot with jonah chopping wood (with some editing).

it's an established plot point that splett wrote his doctorate on election recount procedures in the west: he demonstrates the knowledge in an episode. it's also not meant to be a joke that he has a veterinary science doctorate. the interesting thing with the splett character is that he is that qualified but is very happy to be the underling fetching things, but then also is comfortable with the mantle of power when it arrives

A favorite Splett line is: “I feel like that classic scene in Heat with Robert De Niro and Amy Brenneman.”

*like I’m in

it's an established plot point that splett wrote his doctorate on election recount procedures in the west: he demonstrates the knowledge in an episode. it's also not meant to be a joke that he has a veterinary science doctorate. the interesting thing with the splett character is that he is that qualified but is very happy to be the underling fetching things, but then also is comfortable with the mantle of power when it arrives

― findom haddie (jim in vancouver), Friday, June 14, 2019 11:09 AM (six minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

the joke is that those are two wildly different and wildly specific doctorates that seem useless, but because fortune favors the splett, they both came in handy

fortune favors the splett

Hah, yeah.

the thing about splett isn't that he's dumb or even incapable of processing things imo, it's that he's extremely straight-forward and guileless. that can sometimes mean that he doesn't notice (or does and chooses to ignore) devious underhanded behavior from the other characters which could be read as naive.

Although sometimes it becomes clear that he was clocking that behavior all along, but is still just happy to be there.

like he didn't rat out the entire bribery machinery bc he "forest gumped" his way into it i don't think - like dan tries to smooth it over when the reporter asks him but splett says "no this is a fair question" (or something like that). i think he's just really honest + a good person and in DC that scans as stupid but it shouldn't.

Him supporting Jonah was as odd a development as Amy's sudden heel turn, but I just went with it.

jonah is an old friend of his it didn't seem out of character to me at all

splett is a candide character; his intelligence/guile is mostly beside the point

Splett's intelligent but hilariously naive in a way that makes him more open-minded than every other character

it's referenced a few times about how his family was religious and somewhat controlling but it doesn't seem to have stuck. the entire artificial insemination subplot starts with him saying something about masturbation being a horrible sin and how his mother (maybe grandmother?) told him there'd be terrible consequences but when he's told it's actually fine he's on board as a sperm donor

then when the pregnancy actually happens he says something like "well, I guess I don't have to do that ever again"

"self-husbandry"

oh god, I forgot the moment where he has the epiphany that his aunt is actually his mother and has almost no reaction, in his trademark "oh, that makes sense" way

Jonah is an old friend, but to be naive even to the point of looking past his old friend's extreme racism, islamophobia, etc. etc, just because he is an old friend, transcends naive. Admittedly, in the service of comedy!

splett is a candide character

yes otm

then when the pregnancy actually happens he says something like "well, I guess I don't have to do that ever again"

goddammit I am NOT going to go back and watch the season and a half of American episodes that I dipped out on, and there is no Splettnet supercut for that year

someone should make a splett reel for the good of humanity

I watched season 1 when it came out but wasn't really into it, though now I've been catching up -- just started season 5, and whoo boy DOCTOR Splett is a thing!

The studious lack of partisanship is weird, though, for what I'd assume would be satire; instead the underlying message is more in line with "everyone is bad and/or self-serving."

which, in a way, is a much more honest take than a certain Sorkin show

Ok a Jonah/ Splett ticket would be one that I’d commit voter fraud for, I’m not even kidding.

Jonah immediately going off script to be belligerent and the entire wife/sister thing is so good