Veep, aka, You're Not Even Your Mom's Favorite Jonah

We’re at DEFCON FUCK.

“And what were you bobble heads doing while I was just getting ear fucked by Father Time?”

Yeh, awesome!

“No, I’m dressed as bin Laden, Dan. And it’s really well done so it legitimately looks like I’m engaging in bestiality while insulting 9/11 victims.”

Also, that scene in the bathroom with Julia and Tony Hale was amazeballs.

This link belongs here and not in the Breaking Bad thread:

Also, is it just me, or is Aaron Paul even worse at comedy than he is at non-comedy? Hoo boy.

-Tom

Yeah but fortunately Bryan Cranston is pretty much awesome at everything he does.

Season 4 is coming, and there’s a new face on Veep!
http://youtu.be/u9qBDFmbkZg

Not only is this show still funny but that the quality of the acting is also outstanding. Take the most recent episode - obviously the showcase was the hilarious but still very real showdown between the President and Gary. But Sarah Sutherland, who plays the President’s daughter, also knocked it out of the park with her reactions to the polling data and the uncanny way she channeled the President during the Girl Scouts scene at the end.

I just started watching this after hopping on HBO Now, and it truly is a delight and the main reason is the excellent cast.

I also just started watching! Season 1 , I think I have 3 episodes left. Overall the cast is great, the first three episodes were a little iffy, but now its full steam ahead good times. Really enjoyed the dog episode, and the FLOTUS / FDOTUS bits.

This has become my replacement for Parks and Rec now that its over. Veep is just a different / meaner / more sarcastic comedy.

I watched season 1 about a year ago, and then just caught up with the rest in the past few weeks. Just joining the “This is awesome!” crowd.

Probably the most painful thing to watch in the entire show so far was Jonah doing his British accent/gibberish.

I’m mostly through Season 3 right now after adding HBO for Game of Thrones. I watched Season 1 back when it first came out and forgot how great this show is overall. So many good series to get through on HBO Go…

The good news: season 4 got greenlit

The bad: Armando Iannucci has decided to move on, which means a new show runner

We’re on season 4 now.

“I took Noticing in high school.”

The last episode was a direct re-do of the finale of Thick of It, which was just footage of the characters at a Parliament hearing, or whatever they’re called where the Queen of England is in charge. Really brave stuff in a traditional sitcom format.

And I’m simply amazed at how good this season has been in terms of humor, character development, and pacing. Each episode has just been better than the last. As I posted in the Silicon Valley thread, HBO’s Sunday night shows are all having amazing seasons. This, Silicon Valley, and Game of Thrones. But I would easily say it’s Veep that’s hitting its stride best.

-Tom

I like that the plots are no longer just Selina sticks her foot in her mouth and her staff has to bail out. The new stuff is all about how misunderstandings arise out of the habitual mushroom management. No one knows what they need to, but they’re flying off at maximum velocity. Nobody is incompetent – they’re just being set up to fail.

I am still loving the hell out of this show, but to be honest Selina’s character is veering way off into caricature at this point. I think Julia Louis-Dreyfuss is doing a hell of a job, just seems like the writers are more interested in making her a punchline, to the point that I have to wonder how she could have ever seemed qualified for office. I’m really digging what the other characters are doing this season, especially Amy and Ben. Though they’ve always been my favorites so I’m probably biased.

That’s an interesting point, Pogue, but the way I see it, the show is being increasingly ruthless towards exactly that fact. She’s clearly NOT qualified for the Presidency. Furthermore, it’s making her an increasingly unpleasant person, unaware of her own incompetence, or at least unwilling to accept it. And it’s destroying everyone around her, even if they’re already deeply cynical, and even if they’re competent at what they do (as baren noted in his post). As we know from In The Loop and The Thick of It, Iannuci is more than happy to ruin everyone equally, qualified or otherwise, after running them through the meatgrinder of government service.

My guess is that part of the inspiration for Veep’s concept in general, and this season in particular, is “What if Sarah Palin ended up as President by inheriting the office through the largely ceremonial role of Vice President?” I suspect after all of Ianucci’s skewering of the absurdity of British politics, he realized that the US leads the rest of the world in yet another category.

-Tom

The last episode was a direct re-do of the finale of Thick of It, which was just footage of the characters at a Parliament hearing, or whatever they’re called where the Queen of England is in charge. Really brave stuff in a traditional sitcom format.

[pedant]Technically that was a judicial inquiry, not a parliamentary hearing.[/pedant] It was riffing off the Leveson inquiry.