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safflowerseason · 5 years ago

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veep rewatch - 2.05

Season Two, Episode Five - Helsinki

aka - The One Where Selina Smokes

“Look at you in your jammies!”

Mike: It’s like a math prison. They rape you with numbers. Mike’s colleague: What’s your voter registration ETA?” Mike: Imminent..al.

“If Mike were here he would have spent the entire flight scratching Lotto tickets and going Oh, so close…” A glimpse of Reid Scott’s truly psychopathic imitation skills.

“This isn’t a choice like my diet, it’s a necessity like my drinking.”

“Don’t make any jokes, okay, Dan, because with your face and your attempt to be charming, it really does come off as…as evil.” Maybe this is why Dan never runs for office.

“Hel-synchronized.”

Kent: Your idea of crisis management is to scream We’re fucked, bury me! Ben: We’re fucked! Bury me!

I should probably out myself as a Minna-stan. I love Minna. I’m also a giant international politics nerd, so I love whenever she makes an appearance and I love whenever Veep ventures out of the domestic and onto the global stage. Sally Phillips is divinely hilarious and I could watch her and JLD play off each other for days. And I love how they satirize Finland and its in-between place between Scandinavia and Russia (speaking as someone with dual citizenship with the US and a Scandinavian country.) This is a Minna fan-blog now. Nothing but love for Minna here.

Selina: We hope that when you come to our country, you will go fishing. Minna: …because no one will feed me?

Why is everyone pronouncing Sauron incorrectly? Soor-on? Are they Canadian?

“Christ, I hate knowledge.”

“How lovely. That hasn’t happened in Washington since 1835.” Selina, in response to Osmo kissing her hand.

Selina: So that song, unlike your career as Communications Director, will not die. So now you must go apologize for the apology. Dan: Yes, ma’am. Selina: Why are you still standing right here?

“We should keep this causing offense and then apology cycle going….You could step on my dress, I could sneeze in your drink…it’s funny.” Sally Phillips is a treasure.

Danteeksi.

Kent to Sue: “Please accept the necessity of this as brute fact.”

Dan whining to Amy about his ill-fated career as Communications Director. It’s almost not quite believable how terrible he is at it, but fundamentally, I think it highlights his professional “boredom” that Amy mentioned in the previous episode…Dan’s slowly checking out of Selina’s office. He doesn’t really try to get back on the offensive with the multiple apologies thing, which seems singularly out of character. He doesn’t try to permanently become Selina’s new Mike. He’s a lot more concerned about how he looks this episode than how Selina looks, an indication that he no longer sees her image as VP and his professional reputation as intertwined, the way he used to. He’s getting ready to jump ship.

I’m sure it’s been said on Tumblr before, but Selina’s horrified reaction to Osmo groping her totally belies her completely blasé attitude to sexual harassment and assault in S7. I understand what they were trying to do with the concept of Selina-the-ultimate-misogynist more broadly, but...I think this approach so much more compelling. JLD absolutely slays with her performance. It’s not that she’s unaware or dismissive of sexual assault in politics…it’s that she thought she was safe from that kind of violence now as VP of the United States. She thought that bullshit was behind her.

Gary’s reaction to the grope is hilariously touching. “Okay…I’m going to go mess him up!”

Dan: Jesus, Gary, you look leukemic. Gary: I always do, that’s my look.

Dan: POTUS groped you?! Selina: No, POTUS wouldn’t have the balls to grope me. FWIW, Dan also grasps immediately the awful significance of Selina getting groped by the husband of the Finnish Prime Minister. Both things—POTUS lying about the spy and Selina getting groped—provoke equally dismayed reactions.

The scene of everyone talking over each other in the kitchen is really well done. I wonder how long they rehearsed it.

Gary: We need to rain down the full might of our nuclear arsenal on Finland. Selina: Oh yeah, that’s the other thing I forgot to tell you, Amy…we’re going to blow up Finland.

Doyle: I’m telling you, this is not just a crisis, this is…like ten years worth of Oliver Stone movies. Furlong: Yeah, and not the good ones, not Platoon.

Love that little beat of JLD taking a second glance at the giant blue painting of a female torso.

Amy: It’s not like we can go public about the grope, I mean, it would define you. Your tit being fondled by a Finn…it’d be all you’re remembered for! You can’t build a statue on that. Selina: Yeah, nobody can know about this. Especially Kent, and why is that? Because he’s going to use it against me. Grope matrix. *pause* Because he’s a man. Because, this is a man’s world that we live in. Because of the axis of dick.

This is an iconic speech. I quote it all the time.

It’s so significant that of the four people in the room, Amy and Selina immediately understand why they can never tell anyone what happened to her. As a woman, their conversation just resonates. In rewatching, I was thinking about of all the indignities women can never share with their male colleagues, for precisely the reasons Amy alludes…this episode really gets at the nuances of the issue, in a way that Selina gloating over how she used to be groped all the time does not.

Anna Chlumsky’s formal styling is just A+ here…the dress, the hair, the makeup…everything. I wish they put her hair up more, but obviously her signature straight hair is a central part of Amy’s iconography.

“It is a container…a testicle container?”

Amy leaning right into Dan to tell him about Kent’s polling data going viral. Like obviously she has to keep her voice down and make sure he hears her…but her cheek is practically touching his shoulder. I am just pointing out the visual facts, y’all.

Dan being all cute with his international fan club.

Look how sweet Selina is with Gary in the credits scene! Of course, when she puts a hand on Gary’s shoulder, it immediately prompts Amy to ask if she’s okay.

#veep #veep rewatch #2.05 #helsinki #the axis of dick #a testicle container #danteeksi #selina meyer #amy brookheimer #dan egan #mike mcclintock #jonah ryan #ben cafferty #kent davison

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apollostowel · 10 years ago

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Veep Selina Meyer: Tervetuloa Helsinkiin

Watching s2 of VEEP, can’t believe they came here. Or if they didn’t, they sure found some exterior shots and stock footage that looked really good, and the police uniforms were authentic.

Best Finnish Accent Award: Dave Foley. 50 Helens agree, that was REALLY good. The average Finnish woman woulda punched Osmo.

Worst Finnish Language Award: The prime minister. That was terrible, sorry. I’ll give the raskasmaa thing a pass though, because it means heavy, close enough to hefty, and you can imagine how they would have easily used the wrong word for rakasmaa. It was just the rest that was really hard to understand, and I’m including my Finnish husband in that. He was as WTF as I was.

Worst Intentionally Bad Finnish Award: Gary - Heva Suomi?

Runner-up Finnish wordplay: kassi doesn’t mean ballsack in and of itself. It just means bag. That would make Gary a kassimies, but that would likely make Finns go huh? Then again it makes English-speakers go huh? too. So Gary would be just calling himself a bag. Except that he’s a guy calling himself a bag, so he may as well have said he’s a ballsack. It’s not a usual insult, but it works. Thanks to this word play, we had a 5 minute conversation about the word kassi.

Best Finnish wordplay: Danteeksi.

And why will no one Helsync their time zones with me?

(The Helens - if you don’t get this, go watch Kids in the Hall RFN)

Edit - of course raskasmaa doesn't mean heavy or hefty. I'm referring to the raskas part. But most of this post assumes you saw the episode. And let's stand in awe that they included Finnish wordplay in a show intended for Americans?

#VEEP #Selina Meyer #Veep s2 ep5 #Veep Helsinki #danteeksi

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