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Veep [HBO - Spoilers]

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    #272
    Boom_Bap
    Moderators, Music Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 25,730 Mod ✭✭✭✭Boom_Bap


    Shaped like a rapist!


    Amazing scene.



    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yoc9QFadb4U


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    #273
    Sudden Valley
    Registered Users Posts: 3,899 ✭✭✭Sudden Valley


    Thought it was quite a sad end for a comedy. Only kent seemed happy everyone else was miserable. I think the show became overly cartoonish in the last few seasons especially this one.


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    #274
    heebusjeebus
    Registered Users Posts: 3,783 ✭✭✭heebusjeebus


    Sudden Valley wrote: »
    Thought it was quite a sad end for a comedy. Only kent seemed happy everyone else was miserable. I think the show became overly cartoonish in the last few seasons especially this one.

    Look at season 1 again. It's not a comedy compared on the current political climate. They needed to push the ridiculousness for it to still be a comedy.
    It's definitely lost it's edge but it's still damn funny!

    https://www.theringer.com/tv/2019/5/13/18618001/veep-transitioned-along-with-the-times-from-finesse-to-force


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    #275
    Sudden Valley
    Registered Users Posts: 3,899 ✭✭✭Sudden Valley


    Selina became so nasty at the end it only became watchable for the Jonah scenes. I think season 4 was the shows high point


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    #276
    bnt
    Registered Users Posts: 12,957 ✭✭✭✭bnt


    Selina has always been horrible. Remember her reaction when the President was taken seriously ill? :o

    From out there on the moon, international politics look so petty. You want to grab a politician by the scruff of the neck and drag him a quarter of a million miles out and say, ‘Look at that, you son of a bitch’.

    — Edgar Mitchell, Apollo 14 Astronaut



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    #277
    Tabnabs
    Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Sports Moderators Posts: 15,692 Mod ✭✭✭✭Tabnabs


    She's a power mad bitch and it's politics. She is also a narcissistic and irredeemable person, there's nothing to love or admire about her character, the comedy only distracts you from that fact.

    The scene with Gary being taken away was horrible, like a faithful family pet being sent "to the farm". It fitted perfectly with her finale.

    A great end and unlike that other HBO series, no one will call for the final series to be rewritten.


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    #278
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 0 ✭ [Deleted User]


    Continued from another thread...
    Yermande wrote: »
    I'm glad you enjoyed it. I personally found the overall quality dropped from season 6 onward but I can see why people got a kick out of the change of approach.

    A big problem for me was the number of characters that spoke the same barbed language. Don't get me wrong, I bloody love how raw and direct it is, but if you listed out a series of quotes right now I couldn't tell who said what. Allowing everyone to run riot actually lessened its impact. Kent actually became one of my favourite characters as a result of that because his profanity-free dialogue made him unique.

    Anyone that thinks Veep is a watered down version of The Thick of It (I've often heard it said) needs to watch it from start to finish. It takes a lot to shock me but sweet Jesus there's some seriously evil put-downs in it!

    Anyway, a fantastic series despite my own few reservations.

    That's a great point, by the end everyone was talking like the caustic Roger Furlong, when the show certainly didn't start out that way. Almost everyone became Roger Furlong or The Thick Of It's Malcolm Tucker, and you're right, there was no unique source for this level of humour/dialogue by the final season. It was just one big melting pot of it.

    Kent and Richard Splett were my own favourite characters, I loved Kent's cool and calm demeanor in the midst of chaos and his general outlook. He might not have become as barbed as the rest, but he still had some good putdowns of his own. He could insult you in such a way that you wouldn't even realise you'd just been burned. I also liked that he took a stand against some serious bullshít in the finale.

    As I said in that other thread, once I came to terms with the show going a bit wild in its final season and doing their own version of Trump and US election interference, I enjoyed the ride. It's a show which I love, but have absolutely no to little emotional investment in most of the characters. It's a different viewing experience from GoT in that respect, so I wasn't as focused on how our characters resolved by the end of Veep - They were all basically beyond salvation when we first met them in the show anyway.

    For example, I got a laugh that Katherine ended up a slightly deranged alcoholic and was passed out on the couch at home for her mother's funeral. In something a bit heavier than Veep, you wouldn't be laughing at such an outcome. I loved that Selina got upstaged even on the day of her funeral, the fact that they actually produced a fully serious Tom Hanks obituary for the scene killed me.

    Finally - I agree that Veep isn't a watered-down The Thick Of It with its language and shock moments, but as much as I love Veep, it can't hold a candle for me overall to TTOI. In Veep, the characters are fairly one dimensional, what you see is what you get. I found them to be a lot more complex and real in TTOI, even Malcolm had layers, plus I found the themes and stories to be far more real and relatable than the occurrences in Veep. By the end of Veep, you had Jonah's wife being his sister, and his aide being chemically castrated by court order as a punchline to a joke from an earlier season. TTOI never went to that level of absurdity for its laughs and remained true to its original tone until the end. At some point late on, Veep said 'Fúck it, let's go wild' and although I enjoyed the ride and it is a great show, it's not in the realm of The Thick Of It for me. But then, TTOI is one of my genuine favourites.

    Have you watched 'The Death of Stalin' by Armando Ianucci yet? Anyone reading this thread who has never seen it, I think it would be worth your time. It's something which seems quite absurd, but apparently the absurdity is very close to source material. It's both a hilarious and harrowing watch in parts, but sharp as a blade just like Veep and TTOI.


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    #279
    Yermande
    Closed Accounts Posts: 115 ✭✭Yermande


    Deleted User wrote: »
    I came to terms with the show going a bit wild in its final season and doing their own version of Trump and US election interference, I enjoyed the ride.

    Yeah I could see what they were going for but I guess that, unlike you, I never really went with it. I was too harsh in the other thread though. It wasn't a crap finale. It was just too much for me personally. I think part of my problem comes from having blasted through seasons 2 to 7 in about 4 weeks. Going from the end of season 4 to season 7 over the course of about 10 days made for some seriously disjointed viewing.

    Veep, right from the very beginning, was like being hit by a sledgehammer, but the final episodes make the opening seasons appear almost subtle in their delivery. Jonah, in particular, practically turns into a spoof comedy character. I think the 'created by Armando Iannucci' credit was as hollow as it sounds come the very end because it didn't feel like his show. Still, I'm genuinely pleased to hear that it worked for you.
    Deleted User wrote: »
    I loved that Selina got upstaged even on the day of her funeral, the fact that they actually produced a fully serious Tom Hanks obituary for the scene killed me.

    That was hilarious. "The star of Philadelphia 2". Selina only got half of what she deserved. She was a weapon from day 1 but as the series progressed she turned into a cruel monster. By the end I was hoping for a blackly comic assassination scene. The only other times I turned against a character to that degree was with Walter White in Breaking Bad and Michael Corleone in The Godfather Part II. They might be odd reference points for a comedy but I simply cannot overstate how much I loathed her character.
    Deleted User wrote: »
    ...as much as I love Veep, it can't hold a candle for me overall to TTOI.

    I feel the exact same. There were moments when I tentatively allowed myself to think that it might be a better show, but it's just not. The Thick of It has the sinister thread of real life running through it and that makes it all the more resonant.

    I'm not a complete Thick of It fanboy though. I was slightly cooler on the final season than most and I don't think it ever managed to replace Chris Langham, who of course left the show as a disgraced sex offender. However it's top tier comedy and somewhere amongst my favourite shows of all time.
    Deleted User wrote: »
    Have you watched 'The Death of Stalin' by Armando Ianucci yet?

    Yes. I thought it was superb. It's not as easily accessible as some of his other work but I wouldn't be surprised if some people end up looking back on it as his masterpiece. I personally think it's his most vital creation, especially in 2019 as the ugly gears of totalitarian rule are beginning to grind again.

    If you ever get the chance check out Miloš Forman's (director of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest) 1967 Czech movie The Firemen's Ball. I thought about it a lot when I was watching The Death of Stalin. It's not as dark, but it's a similarly hilarious look at the sheer incompetence of communist rule, this time played out in allegory amidst a local charitable function. I can't recommend it enough. I'm sure you'd pick it up as a cheeky download but if you're feeling adventurous the remastered version is also available in a dual Blu-ray/DVD version.

    Finally, we haven't mentioned In the Loop. Can I assume you've seen it? I find it's always worth mentioning when discussing The Thick of It because it seems that many fans of the show never even heard of it (I only hit upon it accidentally myself).


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