VEEP (HBO) TV Show • Page 3

I have never really liked the needlessly operatic profanity-laden insults that are too overwritten, but the charm of the show was in showing the rotten character of national politics. Selina finally breaking down over losing Nevada at her mother's funeral and using it to feign the latter grief was something closer to earlier seasons.

 

"Dammit! Apparently our born-again surrogate is super against DNR, so when POTUS pulled the plug on MOTUS, she started having second thoughts."

"Did you explain to her that there is no scientific evidence of a higher power?"

what an exchange

 

I died.

 

This season has been pretty much uniformly excellent. The shows strength was not showing how awful politicians are, there are countless others that do that. It was and is the comedic voice and performances that are its best asset.

 

Yeah, 3/4 of the episodes have been amongst the best episodes of comedic television this year, show is firing on all cylinders right now

 

What current show does this as well?

 

House of Cards and Scandal came to mind for different reasons.

 

Yep those listed plus like, the actual news channels. Then before that there was the newsroom, the wire, the west wing...No one needs to be told that politics are bad.

 

The shows where the main character kills a guy and the show where the main character's mother is held hostage by her father? These are comparable political satires to you?

 

The news itself is not satire and the shows you listed are not currently airing. The only thing I know about the Newsroom is that awful speech that people share on social media.

It is a weird concept to make the argument that since something has been covered already that it should not be covered again. Every show or movie owes something to its predecessors; the Sopranos is not the first time that the Mafia has been covered or a criminal has been empathized with, and Mad Men is not the first time that the soullessness of capitalism has been explored.

 

you explicitly made the argument that its strength is showing the "rotten character of national politics." you didn't say it was adept at doing so because of satire, which is why i mentioned the news. I'm not saying the show shouldn't cover this ground, it's obviously fertile and they excel at working it as an environment. I'm saying that the premise is not what makes the show special or good.

 

I'd agree that Veep's strength is how funny it is and if it happens to throw some good satire in, that's just a bonus but it's not what I'm watching for.

 

you didn't ask for political satires, you asked for shows that show how awful politicians are.

 

The news protects politicians by focusing on very trivial matters. It is why things like The Daily Show and Last Week Tonight exist.

The long-winded insults are boring and do little to illuminate because they are so obviously written and not something that someone would actually say, but the show at its best has been about the weird tightrope that politicians are forced to walk.

 

You are splitting hairs. Those shows are not effective critiques of politicians because their plots are far outside of reality. Selina using her mother's death to feign emotion is something we have seen people in office do time and time again. The way Selina's team handpicks people by their race and gender is exactly the same as the way we did Florida rallies in 2012.

 

The brutal, long-winded insults are a pretty integral part of what makes the show so great, though. Like you said, the show is at its best when the necessary public civility conflicts with the private chaos of their actual lives. The episode where Selina, Catherine and Andrew all go to dinner comes to mind

 

Personally I think the show does both things well. I agree with @Morrissey that some of the dialogue seems too "written" but some of the lines they've written have been so clever/funny, that it's not been an issue at all for me.

 

It depends on the characters. The exchanges between Jonah and the main team are funny because of the antagonism, but Furlong just comes off as too clever for its own good.

 

i laugh more at this show than i do most other shows
that's all i need/care about

 

Yeah, characters like Furlong and Purcell tend to be weak links imo. They're so nasty that I usually ever end up just feeling sympathy for the people who have to put up with them.

 

Furlong is fine in small doses. Purcell is kind of meh.

 

I want Bill to come back.

 

Episode was awesome, them celebrating Nevada in the hospital room was fantastic. Also, Brian-Doyle Murray!

 

"The ice bucket challenge can suck my dick!"

"Well, it did raise a lot of awareness for whatever ALS is."

Jonah running for congress is a brilliant idea.

 

Selina's reaction to learning about Jonah running holy shit. A loss for words

Also I'm sad that they cut out this line from Richard: "I understand, ma'am. I had an uncle once named Uncle Snappy. He was actually a turtle. But one Easter he bit my sister's toe clean off."