Veep Episode review: S03E01 Some New Beginnings

Source

"Some New Beginnings" features a lot of beginnings for everyone on the show in season 3. Selina begins her journey to woo voters at her Iowa book signing. Her communications officer, Mike, is marrying his girlfriend, a reporter named Wendy. And Dan and Amy officially start their competition on who should be their boss's campaign manager.

Back to Selina, the book tour takes its toll, eventually becoming an unfulfilling day for Selina. Signing and giving copies of a book she did not write that has a confusing title "Some New Beginnings: Our Next American Journey".  She hires a substitute personal aide for the tour who seems new to the job and can't even make up some legit-sounding reasons for Selina to slip out from the book signing or a mediocre conversation with a constituent. Selina is too vapid to realize that she should be at her subordinate's wedding rather than start her brain-dead book tour to impress Iowan caucus. This episode gives little to help us forget that she is just a selfish power-hungry politician.

Source

The episode features a lot of funny scenes. For example, Selina's bagman, Gary, is sincerely missing her at the wedding. He showed some Selina withdrawals by having Wendy as his "Selina substitute", feeding her lines on what she should say to the VEEP on the phone and at some point, carrying her purse at the reception. The biggest laugh comes from no other than the White House liaison to the Vice President, Jonah Ryan.

Jonah secretly runs a gossip blog called the "West-Wing Man". While at the wedding which he crashed because he gave a guest a ride there, he snaps a photo of the Vice Presidential staff panickily reaching for their phones after getting the news that Secretary of Defense, George Maddox, is about to announce his presidential run. He posts the photo which resulted from his firing by the Presidential Senior Strategist, Kent Davison. The strategist explained that the picture makes it look like everyone in the White House is making Maddox a big deal and they don't want the public to know that. This has also forced the president to announce that he will certainly not be running for another term again.

Source

Jonah's firing is not only good news for the whole Veep staff but everyone in the White House.

The episode was a great season opener. Once again showing some great subtle comedy, realistic situations and does not contain desperate comedy.

MY DEMANDS FOR THE UPCOMING "ARE YOU AFRAID OF THE DARK" MOVIE

When Sony and Columbia decided to make a movie adaptation of Goosebumps, the fans who loved the books and TV shows were celebrating. Because I have never read even one book, and I have only watched one episode as a child, I didn't care much about it. But now, when Hollywood is doing the same thing on Are You Afraid of the Dark, another horror pop culture in my childhood, it's a huge deal! It's such a huge deal in my life right now that I am writing this article instead of working.

My Childhood Crew

As a child, I always watch this right after I got home from school. As an adult, I have some favorite episodes that I rewatch countless times on Youtube. However, I'm frightened by how Hollywood can ruin childhood favorites by adding something to the canon.

So Hollywood, especially Paramount Players and writer Gary Dauberman, here are my demands -er- suggestions for the Are You Afraid of the Dark Movie. Number five is the most important.

 1.  LIFE LESSONS.
Are You Afraid of the Dark was a kids show in the 90s, thus it had to meet with the standards that all youth-oriented shows have to offer moral lessons and model characters. With all of these big movies catering to youths and having themes like friendships, love, faith, and the defeat of evil, then it won't be a problem to realize this.

2. DIVERSITY. From harmless ghosts needing help to malicious clowns that just want to scare kids, the human characters in the show are as diverse as their supernatural counterparts. As Gary said in the first episode, The Midnight Society consisted of kids that are different from each other. Geeks, tomboys, punks, girly-girls, and outsiders share tales with each other and are tolerant of one another, if not really close friends. And in their stories, there was an array of races and cultures portrayed.

With the status of Hollywood films and TV today, this demand can be realized.

3. NO BIG NAMES. I know how Hollywood gets but please resist hiring too familiar faces. AYAOTD definitely didn't hire famous actors to play their characters to garner viewership. It was all about creeping kids with stories and their wild imaginations, no matter who they hired to portray. So I don't want any Hollywood A-lister to play some villain or some adult character in the cast. It takes away the mystery of it. It didn't really work for me when Goosebumps hired the overrated Jack Black as R.L. Stine.

4. CAMEOS OR APPEARANCES BY THE ORIGINAL CAST. I'm thinking that Gary's lineage continues on in the movie. Make the main character of the movie either one of Gary or his little brother Tucker's kids (which makes sense since their grandfather did start the society). That means an appearance of at least one of them. Considering interviews from the major cast members, I'm sure they'd appreciate being called back to play their roles. 

Plus, fans would definitely like appearances or callbacks to memorable characters such as Sardo (the store owner of a magic shop), the malicious Dr. Vink, Zeebo the Clown, and the Ghastly Grinner.

Also, I think  D.J. MacHale, the brainchild of the show should have something to do with the adaptation's development. If I can't be there to consult, at least have D.J. I'm sure he'd be happy to take a break from novel writing.

5. AND MOST IMPORTANT OF ALL, DON'T DEPEND ON CGI. I know how you guys love your CGI so here's my demand, please don't depend so much on CGI. The animation is not as frightening as the real thing. Like the TV show, the movie should be mostly old-school with creepy music,  dim lights, smokes, shadows, make-up, costumes, and etc. NO OR LESS JUMP SCARES. In AYAOTD, it was all about scaring kids with creepy atmosphere, build-up suspense, and running kids' wild imaginations.

The show was never horrifying for kids. None of them resulted in nightmares (at least in my part). It was the kids' imaginations thinking of something scary that will come out that made them hug their pillows or hide under their blankets. Matter of fact, make a movie that teaches viewers that old-school scary movie tactics still work. Not these nonsense about CGI and jump scares. Let the viewers imaginations run.

My Top 10 fave movies because of only a part of the movie.

1. HappyThankYouMorePlease - the movie is a cliche sundance Josh Radnor's attempt to make the recycled. It's a movie about commitments but as a viewer, I am not committed to the central story or even the B -story. However, I am drawn and committed to the C-story which is about the hopeful romantic Sam #2 

Gary and Selina of Veep Will Never Hook Up and Why I am (finally) Okay With That

Source

Veep Season 7 is here and  I can't help but make my predictions of what will happen to my favorite one-true-pairing from the TV show: Selina and Gary.

Selina is the vice president of the US and Gary is her personal assistant. Selina does not love Gary the way the latter loves her. However, there is a closeness between them even though it reeks abuse and co-dependency in Selina's side. And obsessiveness and unreciprocated love in Gary's. Their relationship is clearly toxic. But because it is a comedy TV show and one of them is happy to be with his abuser, as viewers and fans, we can't help but hope that the abuser will change so that they will become a decent couple.  Even though in real life, we would much prefer to break them up.

In other pairings on the show, there is sex. But with Gary and Selina, there is none.  However, in Veep, sex is seen as something other than beautiful.

Sex leads to problems. For example, when Amy and Dan hook up, the former gets pregnant which worries her. Selina also got a pregnancy scare in the earlier seasons which is a PR problem for her because as vice president, she can't have an abortion or have a swelling belly when she isn't married. She forces her secret boyfriend to marry her which he disagrees with, so she decided to break off with him. Eventually, Selina's pregnancy became a miscarriage. But the events that transpired affected her negatively.

Sex is desperation. Dan has sex with Amy's sister because he thinks he'll get a job on CBS. This C-story ends with Dan finding out that Amy's sister works for CVS and not CBS.

Sex is a weapon. In one episode, Selina has angry sex with her ex-boyfriend and nemesis, Tom James. While in their lovemaking, Selina was the dominant one and it was a power play to her.

And finally, corporating sex in your personality to be more favorable and popular, usually backfires. Especially if you are running to be a congressman. I am talking about Jonah Ryan.

Interestingly in the show, when the characters want to use sex for a good purpose, it does not deliver. For example, with Mike and Wendy, they wanted to have a biological child but sex does not deliver. They had to use a surrogate and adoption.

 Of course, Gary wants to have sex with Selina. And unlike with most of the characters on the show, it's because he truly loves her and he wants to do it consensually. 

But after watching Season 7: Episode 4, it looks like it is not going into that direction. In one episode, Selina misses Gary but is so dependent on him even though he is trying to recover from a heart attack at the hospital.

No, it has been clear for a long time that Gary and Selina will never be a couple.  However, the co-dependency will still continue because the producers say that Gary will definitely never leave Selina.  If this is real life and for Gary's sake, I hope he will someday.  But I have a feeling if the impossible happens, that Gary will leave her, I have a feeling that these two non-married "married" couples will be back together before the season is over.

I can easily picture Selina growing old with Gary still serving her. Kind of like the old pathetic actress and her loyal butler in Sunset Boulevard, but hopefully not as bleak. In season 5, Gary recounts the days when he and Selina used to travel to many exotic places. As a fan, I hope that would happen when Selina decides to finally retire from public life.  And maybe during that time, Selina can finally confess that she truly loves him, even at least on her deathbed. And Gary may finally be confident to say that he already knows that. That's love even without even giving a passionate kiss.

Source