The Thick of It

[argumentativefeminist]

Please tell me theres other people out there also still overly invested in TTOI who want to swap theories/swear a lot/discuss trivia? 🤞🤞

"Am I gonna have to run around slapping badges on people with a big tick on it, with a big cross on others so you know when to shut your gob and when to open it? Jesus Christ... Oh but that would probably confuse you as well, won't it, that'd be too confusing, you'd see the cross and go "oh, X marks the spot, better tell this little person all about the Prime Minister's fucking catastrophic erectile dysfunction".

I just find this bit so absolutely hilarious. And so realistic to politics at the moment 😂

I'd forgotten that bit Argumentative, so good! Malcolm explosions are just the best 🙂 I just love it when Ollie is explaining to Emma that he only went out with her because Malcolm told him to, and realises halfway through saying how pathetic that makes him. And then her face (and Phil's) as she realises and says "Oh! So Malcolm's been pimping you out!" So true and so funny. Although the best Ollie and Phil bit is this:

Oh, why did I watch that at work? I don't have the tears of laughter emoji on my desktop. but if I did, I would it here.

As much as I love the magnificence of a Malcolm rant, some of the "lesser" moments are just as funny. One of my favourite Ollie/Phil bits is when Ollie is breaking up with Emma and leaves the flat she shares with Phil.

Emma: Get out and leave your key! (or something like that.)
Phil: He has a key?

Just a perfect, understated line.

That is a truly glorious rant, argumentative. Fabulous. And I love how Nicola just sits there and takes it

'Its the Guardian, it's not a sanitorium for the FUCKIN DEAF!!!!!'

Is Armando teasing us......if so he's a naughty bastard
twitter.com/Aiannucci/status/1016629078047195137?s=19

allday the photo is from his remake of David Copperfield - but it does have Peter Capaldi in it!

Terri- "hello Malcolm, ooh you look a bit tired"
Malcolm "yeah you look incompetent"

Love that bit

He's just teasing me because he knows I've just watched it all again because of this thread and there is a great sweary void in my life again until the next time.

Am I the only one imagining Theresa May doing a full Nicola Murray in that episode on the train when David Davis and Bojo resigned? I see Theresa with her advisors calling every minister in sight trying to frantically negotiate their way out of the collapse with Jeremy Hunt emulating Blinky Ben, asking for Foreign Secretary and getting it.

I imagine the same, affectioninacoldclimate; I swear at times Armando must be some kind of future visionary, with how things have panned out in real life, years after he pre-satirised them.

I thought the whole Emma/Ollie break-up and then make-up (or not) in the flat were very funny scenes, especially love how Emma is straight on to Ollie's motives when he comes back to her.

"Oi, Shitehead Revisited!!"

Another vote for Malcom's crisp packet speech, absolutely spot on and where he explains to Ollie about just what doing his job entails
"You know Jackie fucking Chan about me. YOU KNOW FUCK ALL ABOUT ME! I am totally beyond the realms of your fucking tousle-haired, fucking dimwitted compre-fucking-hension! I don’t just take this fucking job home, you know. I take this job home, it fucking ties me to the bed, and it fucking fucks me from arsehole to breakfast! Then it wakes me up in the morning with a cup full of piss slung in my face, slaps me about the chops, to make sure I’m awake enough so it can kick me in the fucking bollocks! This job has taken me in every hole in my fucking body! MALCOLM IS GONE! You can't know Malcolm, because Malcolm is not here! Malcolm fucking left the building fucking years ago! This is a fucking husk, I am a fucking host for this fucking job! Do you want this job?
Ollie: Yes!
Malcolm: Yes, you do fucking want this job! Then you're gonna have to fucking swallow this whole fucking life and let it grow inside you like a parasite, getting bigger and bigger and bigger, until it fucking eats your insides alive and it stares out of your eyes and tells you what to do!"

Sorry for the big chunk of dialogue but you can't quote bits of it without losing the essence

I watched the episode yesterday where Hugh sends an email to an 8 year old who happens to also be called Glenn.

The bit when Teri is giving her apology and you just see Ollie skulking in the background is so simple but so funny. Also the tiny tree terrorists 😂

I think this tweet sums up what's going on in the cabinet at the moment rather well:

alldaysleeper I can hear the emotion in Malcolm's voice, just reading that. Can't say Ollie wasn't given fair warning of what his career goal would lead him to become eventually.

Somehow I feel like the outward first appearances of Malcolm and Ollie are a complete flip of how they eventually come across. Malcolm is intimidating, vulgar, manipulative, cruel... but I can't help but feel for him, and he has those few moments of vulnerability and humanity that really stand out. Whereas Ollie, especially at first, has that slightly bumbling out-of-his-depth thing going on, especially when he is sent to (I think) ITN to deliver a party line, and the lack of conviction in his tone is laughable, particularly when you compare it to how Malcolm goes in, guns blazing.

LionsTeeth Very apt Tweet! I love Terri, really felt for her in that episode. Loved the bit at the end where she has to remind Hugh that it was actually his fault not hers, as he'd forgotten already.

Oops, left my thought half-finished there! I meant to say that despite his bumbling beginnings, Ollie becomes more and more Malcolm-esque and ruthless, but for me at least without the redeeming Tucker features.

I've always thought that too bychoice! Ollie for me becomes distinctly unlikable by the end whereas Malcolm just becomes more and more worthy of my emotional investment 😂 I hate the way Ollie treats Emma, it's clearly supposed to be uncomfortable in a cheeky and lighthearted way but it really gets on my nerves.

@bychoiceornot
Whereas Ollie, especially at first, has that slightly bumbling out-of-his-depth thing going on, especially when he is sent to (I think) ITN to deliver a party line, and the lack of conviction in his tone is laughable, particularly when you compare it to how Malcolm goes in, guns blazing

It is ITN. And the genius touch of that scene is how skilled Malcolm is in the dark media arts, evil as they are.
There is that moment when the journo says he's going to run the story anyway and all Malcolm has is that the woman in question is a "metric martyr" but when the journo ignores his plea, you can see the cogs spinning in his head and he says that she's a member of BNP which he just made up there and then knowing they won't have time to check that before the story is due to run and that they'll go on his word based on his reputation. The journo's face falls as he knows it could play badly with that titbit and Malcolm saunters off looking quite pleased with himself for turning it around. Of course it's utterly morally wrong but you cannot help but acknowledge Malcolm's Machiavellian spin skills.

As an aside, it shows how times changed as I feel that this argument would not stop story from running in the current climate.

Yes the Ollie/Malcolm parallel is really interesting. I love that full Malcolm rant, I'd forgotten how explicitly he'd acknowledged how the job has ruined his life. At least he has the self-awareness to know that, whereas Ollie seems not to understand or, if he does, not to care. It would be interesting though to catch up with Ollie twenty years hence and see, with age and experience, whether he demonstrated any empathy for others/acknowledgement of the shallowness of his existence- or whether he'd be exactly the same! Maybe Malcolm started off exactly like Ollie? We'll never know.

I have very elaborate mind theories about what happens to Malcolm after the end of the series and how he finds health and happiness again 😂😂

I love to think that after the devastation of the ending of his career, and everything he put on hold for it, that he's eventually happy again (or happy for the first time ever!)

Jenny I was thinking the same about whether Malcolm was a timid bumbler like Ollie to begin with, and had someone to teach him to evil ways of the role.

Don't worry bychoice - he and Sam move to a gorgeous cottage in the Chilterns, and get a dog with a politically punny name. Malcolm takes up walking, and Sam runs a business from home training political PAs and secretary's. They get a holiday home in Scotland from the royalties from Malcolms diaries, and every Christmas they go up there to see Malcolms mum, and Jamie comes too. Nicola pops round occasionally, after the bad feeling between them has mellowed, to ask for advice in her new role as Education Secretary - she's still a super state educator, and sometimes they all make the trip to Terris tea room together.

LOVE. THIS.

Jenny - Can you tell I have a sideline in fandom and fanfiction? 😂

That is brilliant!

I like to think that in their lovely cottage they still have a dark den, where he and Jamie can still meet up for a good old Scottish Swear Fest.

Of course they do bychoice - I love the Malcolm/Jamie relationship. As Malcolm would say, it's borderline homoerotic 😂

Of course! Gotta love our Caledonian Mafia guys. Love Ollie's comments about needing that extra step up, as he's not a Scot.

Even when they're rowing (I mean, when aren't they??), I love how Malcolm calls on Jamie in Spinners and Losers.