Hump: Dan (Reid Scott) on Veep. The ex-My Boys star (people don’t forget) is now playing the type-A, so-politically-driven-he’s-already-sold-his-soul-to-fifty-different-people-trying-to-climb-Capitol-Hill straight man on Julia Louis-Dreyfus’ future Emmy-winning (yeah, I’m calling it) HBO comedy.
In the first episode, Dan is described as a “total sh*t” by Amy (Anna Chlumsky), who makes no attempt to sugarcoat it when asked to describe her ex-boyfriend (though they only dated for a week). Despite this far-from-kind referral from her Chief of Staff, VPOTUS Julia Louis-Dreyfus has already offered him a position on her staff by the end of episode one. By episode two, he’s gunning for Amy’s Chief of Staff position. Other egregious Dan offenses include making charts of “good” and “bad” fro-yo flavors the veep can order while she’s out “normalizing” with regular citizens, and saying emasculating things to the delicate Gary (played by Buster Bluth Tony Hale).
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Despite the many, many overwhelming indications that he is a horrible person, there’s just something about this guy that makes me wonder how someone becomes such a completely awful human being. Must bone to find out!
Marry: I must confess, there was not a single character on television this week who I could see myself wanting to wed. I wanted it to be Jack Porter, the hunky bartender who still holds a candle for his childhood friend, Amanda Clarke (now masquerading as Emily Thorne), on Revenge. Week after week, however, Jack just stands behind that bar or goes out questing for the fake Amanda. Also something about a bloody hoodie? I choose not to pay too close attention to actual plot details.
What I’m saying is this: Be a man of action, Jack! At the very least, be a more gregarious bartender. People are going to stop coming to your bar. Then, they’re going to start talking about the weird guy who owns the empty bar. Finally, that whole you-possibly-being-present-for-Tyler’s-murder thing could rear its ugly head. You and I both know you’re way too pretty for that.
Kill: First of all, did Community unofficially sign off this week? What was with that cheesetacular final shot of the group sitting at the table in Troy, Abed, and Annie’s apartment (alluding to the Remedial Chaos Theory episode from earlier in the season), happily eating pizza and toasting one another despite having just been expelled from Greendale? IMDB says no, but I worry for the Community’s future.
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The show has gone off the rails this season, but I think if we carefully examine the focus of that deviation from reality, we will find one Señor (now Officer) Chang. His character arc — if it can be called that — is best summed up on this week’s episode, when Jeff (Joel McHale) calls him a “psychopathic warlord with an army of prepubescent thugs.” Does that sound like the type of character you’d want to see on an oddball sitcom about an eclectic study group at a community college?
If the writers didn’t need to incorporate the Chang character into storylines, he could just go away. Then, we could all erase season three of Community from our memories, the way we do with the whole Tyra/Landry murder story arc on season two of Friday Night Lights (once again, people don’t forget).
Photo: Courtesy of HBO; Photo: Courtesy of Colleen Hayes/ABC; Photo: Courtesy of Justin Lubin/NBC