The Thick of It - "Series Two"

[Banana Banana]

The Thick of It - "Series Two"

Chib is a chisel. But more generally something you stab people with.

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/chib

[Ray de Galles]

The Thick of It - "Series Two"

Ah, I've obviously merged 'chib' & 'shiv' in my mind. Either way , it's not a chiff.

It's wierd about the switch to calling it Series Three because right up until the launch of the show and prior the BBC and Ianucci called it the second.

[Jon]

The Thick of It - "Series Two"

Wikipedia sheds some light on the series 2/3 conundrum.

"The first run of three episodes screened on BBC Four from 19 May 2005. A further three episodes were transmitted 20 October - 3 November 2005. The six episodes were repeated on BBC Two in early 2006, and later on BBC America together as a single series. Officially, the two runs are separate series; however, the DVD release calls them together The Complete First Series."

[Mumpo]

The Thick of It - "Series Two"

Fantastic stuff. An hilarious pageant of ineptitude, confusion, anger, frustration and bewildering incompetence.

Ah no, hang on, I was watching Fulham-Liverpool.

[Mumpo]

The Thick of It - "Series Two"

But The Thick Of It wasn't bad either.

[RobW]

The Thick of It - "Series Two"

'I wouldn't piss on you if you were allergic to piss'.

Tucker on fine form last night.

[Spearmint Rhino]

The Thick of It - "Series Two"

"I'm all fucking ears here, I'm Andrew fucking Marr", "Montessori fucking rocking horses", the whole preamble about violent sexual imagery... yeah, Malcolm was on blinding form.

[Ray de Galles]

The Thick of It - "Series Two"

Am I alone in wanting more Glen and Ollie? The little three-handers (?) they used to have with Hugh were one of my favourite parts of the old show.

Malcolm is such a great character but sometimes you feel the writing team's need to have him in nearly every scene stops them having the less frantic stuff that used to contrast so well with his arrival.

I don't want less Malcolm, of course. Maybe just a longer show?

[Purves Grundy]

The Thick of It - "Series Two"

I am determined to make "What's occurring, Herman Goering?" my default greeting from now on.

[wingco]

The Thick of It - "Series Two"

I do admire the way Rebecca Front and her character have fitted into the show and the way in which this hasn't inhibited the brio of Tucker's invective. I always found in Mr Agreeable mould that it was harder to do the whole sweary thing at women - some ingrained gallantry, or the conjoining of "abuse" and "women" - always felt funnier and easier when it was a bloke. But both the writing and Front's playing are spot on.

They don't fall into the easy trap of making her too strong and empowered a woman to be affected by his tirades, but she does have a way of riding it out - not least because she is "smug" and "grumpy" and two or three other words . . .

[E10 Rifle]

The Thick of It - "Series Two"

Yeah they've done a great job with that character. It would've been really easy to have just constructed a Harriet Harman-a-like caricature, but she's definitely not that - neither airhead nor ballbreaker. But definitely recognisable.

Loved Sunday's episode, not least because its pivotal cameo character was a freelance shifter for a well-known national newspaper.

[Ray de Galles]

The Thick of It - "Series Two"

Played by the wonderful Zoe Telford (Teachers/Absolute Power) as well.

[Spearmint Rhino]

The Thick of It - "Series Two"

So, a relatively weak episode of The Thick Of It this week, I thought. The whole point of Malcolm's character is that everyone's terrified of what he might do. Now he's actually gone and punched someone, that's ruined forever.

Still, a handful of good moments

Malcolm comparing meeting the 'applause monkey' to meeting Mandela
"Richard fucking Stilgoe, you jazzy cunt"
Rebecca Front punching the cushion
"It's an honour to meet you. Well, honour is pushing it..."

Does anyone know what Rebecca Front kept glancing at in whatshisname's bathroom?

[Felicity, I guess so]

The Thick of It - "Series Two"

I wondered that, but couldn't be bothered to pause it and in the end decided it must just be the order and neatness of it all

[Ginger Yellow]

The Thick of It - "Series Two"

I was weirded out by how much Miles Jupp's character looked like Mark Steyn.

Duggan:



Steyn:

[Duncan Gardner]

The Thick of It - "Series Two"

I'm new to the show and enjoying it- although the Malcolm chaaracter's a bit OTT. I was hoping someone- the fat civil servant maybe- would sit on him.

[ian.64]

The Thick of It - "Series Two"

I was a bit bemused when Tucker whacked the hapless Glen - it felt a bit like what would happen if Lynne glassed Alan Partridge in the face and shouted 'cunt!' at him as he lay on the floor waiting for medical help. You knew she'd want to do something like that, but the fascination and fun lay in the simmering thought that such impulses lay beneath the surface of the woman instead of being realised.

Tucker whacks Glen and something's lost a bit. And if the programme had any pretense to realism that it had admirably kept up for so long, then a sequence of Tucker being bailed out of the local copshop would've been included. Surely Glen isn't that spineless enough not to call the fuzz.

But, the programme is still funnier than some around right now even at its most uneven and Rebecca Front is terrific, and what concerns I had about Armando Iannucci using her as a quickly convenient casting job (on account of her long association with him) have been blown away.

Best bit: when Melanie Hill's character mentions that she 'sweats a bit for a fat lass', Miles Jupp's character seated behind her - who's just stood through an earlier discussion about addressing obesity - suddenly has this 500-watt smile on his face.

Anyway, Roger Allam's Peter Mannion character returns next week. Hooray!

[Nico Rijnders]

The Thick of It - "Series Two"

ian.64 wrote:

And if the programme had any pretense to realism that it had admirably kept up for so long, then a sequence of Tucker being bailed out of the local copshop would've been included. Surely Glen isn't that spineless enough not to call the fuzz.

In consideration of what Glenn's job actually is and everything we've seen of his character and loyalty to ministers and the government, I thought that was much more plausible than Glenn involving the police. Bringing it into the public domain would be effectively a nuclear option and have much greater effect than a run of the mill workplace bust up.

I had the same initial reaction as SR, but on reflection if there was a terrorising figure like that in your workplace, I think it's the case that you'd actually be less in awe of them if you heard that they'd actually punched someone. And got away with it. It'd add to the myth, if anything. It'll be interesting to see if they refer back to it, though.

Also, surely there's only so long that characters like Malcolm and Jamie (where is Jamie??) could threaten and allude to violence, and often appear to be on the very brink of it, without it spilling over. Almost inadvertently, in this case.

[Nico Rijnders]

The Thick of It - "Series Two"

I meant to add, in view of the obvious, er, similarities, between Tucker and Alastair Campbell is it not likely that this is a reference to his punch up with Michael White?

[TMA]

The Thick of It - "Series Two"

Jamie's not due to appear in this series, unfortunately.

Surely Glen isn't that spineless enough not to call the fuzz.

My take was that the punch was about two things.

First of all, an illustration of just how desperate Glenn is not to lose his job, and how much shit he'll actually put up with. There've been other hints so far this series, but the one moment he shows some balls in confronting Malcolm, he gets punched and then actually ends up having to laugh it off and pretend nothing happened.

But also maybe a sign that Malcolm's losing it a bit now that the party are on the way out. His confrontation with the freelance journalist in epsiode two showed him looking vulnerable, as well.

[ian.64]

The Thick of It - "Series Two"

Yep, fair comments, and it is fiction, but I would guess that in a fictional world that had pretense to realistic detail, even in the recreation of the take-no-prisoners, venal corridors of power, if your fellow colleague punched you in the chops then it'd be a talk with the cops down at the station with the fellow concerned wouldn't it?

Oh, dear. I'm beginning to sound like Kathy Bates in Misery - "HE DIDN'T GET OUT OF THE COCK - A - DOODIE CAR!"

[Ray de Galles]

The Thick of It - "Series Two"

Only just seen Saturday's episode, it did seem that Malcolm was actually distressed and pissed off with himself for punching Glen and, as has been mentioned above, it seemed to weaken him.

I'm glad we had more of the Ollie & Glen & Minister show that I had been missing as well.

[Ray de Galles]

The Thick of It - "Series Two"

Ginger Yellow wrote:

I was weirded out by how much Miles Jupp's character looked like Mark Steyn.

Not as weirded out as I was by Balamory's Archie the Inventor turning up in 'The Thick of It'.

[Ray de Galles]

The Thick of It - "Series Two"

Nico Rijnders wrote:

I meant to add, in view of the obvious, er, similarities, between Tucker and Alastair Campbell is it not likely that this is a reference to his punch up with Michael White?

I was surprised that Malcolm had to have Tweets and Twitter explained to him but then I remembered Campbell's poor grasp of IT and his blackberry disasters.

[Spearmint Rhino]

The Thick of It - "Series Two"

A really well-rounded episode, this week. It wasn't so much about the big one-liners this time. A few moments did stand out - Malcolm issuing threats to "Shitehead Revisited" about how he was going to wear his skin to his own mother's birthday party, and Terri rushing over to babble "Olly did it! I don't want to fellate you!" - but this was an episode in which we got to see a different side to some of the major characters.

The scene with Malcolm and Nicola together, talking about "the fight" and so on, cuts to the core of the principles vs pragmatism trade-off which has defined Nu-Lab since the early 90s (not that it doesn't have wider relevance too, of course).