Quick takes: I fail to see why random tweets confirm the Genoa story. The guy smelled crazy right through the television, and it’s not like it’s hard to make fake Twitter accounts, though after you’ve been at it a hundred days any sign of life might as well be God himself telling you the story’s true.
Called Nina sleeping with Will, because she seems to hate herself just that much. I occasionally find things Will says attractive. Jeff Daniels does zilch for me in the looks department. Nothing. Nada.
Reese Lansing is a prick’s prick, and he even looks like JJ from Sports Night, who was also a prick’s prick without anyone like Leona to rein him in.
CHARLIE. I cannot even. “We ride!”
SLOAN, also. “If you ever drag me by the hand through that newsroom again I’ll take out each one of your knuckles with a ball peen hammer.” I love her so much. I hope we get to see more of Zane because her interactions with him remind me of Don and Elliott, and Mack and Will.
And for all the haters complaining that only women are made to look foolish on this show, I give you Don Keefer, the worst handyman in the world.
Mack, tonight, was my fucking homegirl, with the $100 bill. She said at the outset of the show that Maggie was her from years ago, which makes me want to know who first gave Mack that $100 idea. I bet it was Charlie, or someone just like him. And she looked good, and played it just right with Neal, pushing and pushing and pushing until he was JUST about to break, and then giving him what he wanted.
And good on Neal for making the point I was screaming about last week, about how if all you can talk about is the punch line, you’re proving their point for them, and you only think it makes you cleverer than they are. You can tell any story about anything that you want, so stop blaming the story for your being stupid about it. We tell the stories we want to tell, no more, no less. Anybody who tells you different is not only kidding himself, he’s poisoning the well, and you should run as far away from him as you can.
Speaking of that, Jim on the bus. I’m sure plenty of self-righteous campaign-bus bitches tomorrow will be complaining that the show doesn’t understand how this kind of “reporting” works. Bullshit. The show understands it just fine, and thinks it fucking sucks. Jim isn’t grandstanding and he isn’t slumming and he isn’t being unprofessional. You could argue, and I would, that he shouldn’t be on the bus, but NOBODY SHOULD BE ON THE BUS.
Think about it. You wanna cover a campaign, the fuck you need the bus for anymore? You need the sandwiches? Motherfucker, call your readers, they will send you money for sandwiches. You follow that shit around like the Grateful Dead, scrounging couches to sleep on and doing your standups wherever and whenever, and you are beholden to NO ONE. If you get nothing out of it, why are you continuing to put something in? What possible purpose does it give you in life?
And so nobody else besides Hallie and the Sandwich Guy wanted to get off with Jim. So what? If you’re in this, you’re in it for the stories you want to tell, and what everybody else is doing can go fuck itself. That gets lonely, by the side of the road in the dark, but the warmth of the bus is not more important than your immortal soul, and we’ve been shouting about that in blogtopia for years, so here’s a hey-yo for finally seeing it on TV.
I hope that Hallie and Jim and What’s His Name the Sammich Thief form their own little news conglomerate, buy a beater car for $700 and have the time of their goddamn lives chasing the Romney campaign across America. That’s a news broadcast I’d interrupt dinner for, that there.
A.
Oh, Athenae, let ’em do the Shatner summer theatre quarters 1970:
a secondhand pickup truck with a foldout camper in the back.
It’ll cost $1500 but they’ll have a place to sleep, eat and change clothes.
Just watched this. All I wanted to do was come here and read Athenae’s comments. One of the problems I have with this show (and all of Sorkin’s work) is the way everyone sounds the same. At times I like it, a lot, and it works. But it is like a Mamet play or movie. The stylised speech and pace get old. Not everyone can deliver it correctly but some do. I works for Wil and Mack, but when everyone is doing it the artificiality is just too much.
The other thing, and I’m ashamed to admit it, is that it makes me feel stupid. And anxious. I watch that and think, “these people are sooo smart, I could never work in that environment.” I felt the same way about the West Wing. And I believed everyone was a smart as the characters there. The reason I felt that is because of COURSE if you work in the White House you are going to be brilliant and know stuff and talk quickly about really complex subjects as you walk through hallways. This is the PRESIDENCY!
Then I read about people who worked in the White House. They said, “We don’t talk that fast, the things that they cover in one hour happens over weeks. Okay. And then I read from Sorkin something like, ” I’m not as smart as my characters, but I know how to write smart.” and that makes me feel a bit better.
One of the things that I wish I had was a group of people who I work with to go and have drinks with after working so we could tell stories and bitch. I miss that. I never really had it, but I miss it.
Is it just me or do you think that Maggie needs some eyebrows? And maybe some eye make up. She looks 12. I think that might help.
I like Sloan. Hate Don. Don is the exactly the kind of person that Mamet would pick to deliver his lines. “Don’t act, just say the words.” My question is, are the words what make him a jerk and hateable or is there some acting that he is doing that makes me hate him?
When Will was at the Police Station I found him an insufferable smart ass jerk. That’s fine, but I also wasn’t following what he was saying, he was talking too fast.
I can see why you would fall in love with Mack. I can see why with Sloan, but I can’t see it with Maggie.