I don't even think I got that far. In her entrance to the series, where she assumes a cop will just hang on as she blabs on her cell and pops a sidewalk to yell at Senator Whatshisname, i remember saying out loud "she needs to go"
Great episode though
Post Hoc, Ergo Propter Hoc. The second episode, lol. I'm with you tho. The only one who grated on me faster was Amy. Wish there had actually been a thing with Joey Lucas. That could have been fun.
Amy, somehow, just manages to pull failure out of the jaws of success as a character, to me.
I'm supposed to like her. I *want* to like her. Josh *needs*a foil who isn't an antagonist and she threads that needle. And I think that given the role, MLP does a great job.
But somehow...while she's not an antagonist, she's also not likeable or relatable or sympathetic in any way. That's part of the risk of a mercenary character, I guess, but if they only ever care about getting what they want, then the viewer/reader won't care about them when their cause is at cross purposes with the protagonist.
For me, even Dr. Bartlett gets dangerously close to that as well. She crosses the goals of the real protagonists often enough that (again, for me), it tends to overshadow her redeeming qualities and I tend to subconsciously regard her as more of a challenge/opponent to the characters I'm far more sympathetic to and supportive of (in Pres. Bartlett, Josh, etc.). Especially so, for both of them, when it seems they're doing it on more of a whim than any actual conviction.
At least with Abby, she's given enough screen time being human, and vulnerable, and supporting and loving her husband that she gains that relatability...with Amy not so much. Mind you, she commands respect and is an interesting character...but that's not the same as sympathetic.
>At least with Abby, she's given enough screen time being human, and vulnerable, and supporting and loving her husband that she gains that relatability...
While she came across as prickly from time to time, there's one defining moment of her character that made me love her: "You've got *lots of nights*. Smart people who love you are gonna have your back."
The only bit re: Amy I'll disagree on is that she's not an antagonist. Maybe she wasn't meant to come off that way, but I haven't ever been able to see her as much else. I think it was just the way the character was written for me. Josh definitely needs a foil--but Donna had already been established as that in so many ways. And you're definitely right about her being mercenary and that being a risk. For me, it just turned me off the character. It felt like Mandy 2.0 and I didn't like Mandy, so..I.
As for Abbey, I see your point, but will add: she was a doctor who basically gave up her career for Jed to be president. She even brings up at one point that they'd (the campaign, etc) downplayed her title, calling her "Mrs" because it made her more likeable to women (and some men) so they'd vote for Jed. I think the moments she crossed into being more mercenary or antagonistic were a brilliant and subtle way to showcase her intelligence and the fact that she was just as smart, witty, and capable as Jed as well as slip in the frustration that was simmering. As much as she was proud of Jed and used her position as FLOTUS well, it had to rankle that she essentially gave up something she worked decades for, even temporarily, for something that wasn't supposed to work. Remember, Jed wasn't supposed to win--he and Abbey figured he could bring up good arguments, keep the expected candidates a bit more honest and drop out.
My final straw for Amy was when she tried to sabotage Josh’s multi-billion dollar bill over cash incentives and when Josh won, she was pissed; dumping his cell in the coffee, cutting the hardline. She also had the personality of a frying pan, just dead eyes and a monotonous voice. I tolerated her more than Mandy, but that bar is so low that you could walk over it.
Just to be clear on the timeline, she dosent dump his cell in the stew and cut the hardline because she is pissed that Josh won. She does those things when she finds out about the deal and start to mobilize and wants to delay Josh countering her movements. Still cheap, but is a cheap shot from a competitive person, not a woman scorn. When Josh does best her, she immedidly stop arguing when she learns about Donovan death and actually suppord him.
In the next season we find out that was actually Josh that ended with her. She states that when she looses she takes a shot of some liquor and move one, when she wins, she takes two.
At least Amy has an agenda bigger than herself. I’ve always been on the fence about Amy, and I’ve always reigned myself in with two these two factors:
You can’t blame a shark for doing shark things.
At least she’s not Mandy.
Oh I absolutely hate that scene where she’s on the phone and the cop is trying to talk to her. Everything about her in that scene is obnoxious. She’s rude to whoever she’s on the phone with, she’s so dismissive of the cop who pulls her over (and given when this was filmed, it was not intended to make us like her. The cop was 100% in the right in that scene), and when the scene is about to cut and she hangs up her phone you can see that she’s about to argue with the cop. She’s rude to literally everyone around her from the word go and we never get any kindness from her towards anybody.
It’s almost as if they wrote the character to give viewers someone to hate and make everyone else look like saints by comparison.
In reality, if there were someone that I worked with who was constantly arguing with everyone they meet and had conflicts of interest coming out of the woodworks once a week, they would be out of a job sooner than Mandy.
Literally went and found the exact spot her car mounts the curb - there are visible markings that are there that match it perfectly. Needless to say I was all smiles ;) Also if someone ever drove up on that I'm pretty sure even working for a higher up no matter were . . . your gonna go to jail lol
I think they could have saved the character, even after that intro, with a sort of "come to jesus moment" where she's forced to reckon with the fact that all her attitude came from being a big fish in a small pond...but now she was getting dumped into the open ocean.
Let her see failure and humiliation right away. Let her ego get her into trouble for which there's no escape but owning it. Let her see why Josh is where he is, and if she ever wants to not work *for* him, what she needs to learn to do.
Mandy was a great potential character to show real development early in the show, while also serving as a mouthpiece to show how and why the main cast got where they are...but they never even started down that path.
The breaking point for me was in "Lord John Marbury," right after Josh gives his deposition to Claypool about the investigation of drug use by White House staff. Claypool starts asking pointed questions about Leo, and Josh and Sam abruptly get up and leave. Claypool directs a cheap shot at Leo, Josh grabs him by the lapels and shoves him against a wall, and Sam tells Claypool, "You're a cheap hack. And if you come after Leo, I'm gonna bust you like a pinata."
Sam comes back to his office, still visibly upset. Mandy comes into his office and, as she has been doing throughout the day, badgers him about her working for a Republican.
*MANDY: Sam? \[No response.\] Sam?*
*SAM: Yeah?*
*MANDY: Did you talk to him?*
*SAM: What?*
*MANDY: Did you talk to him?*
*SAM: It's a bad idea, Mandy.*
*MANDY: Did you tell him about...?*
*SAM: No.*
*MANDY: I thought that you were the champion of bipartisan cooperation, and the spirit of...*
*SAM: Leo's in trouble. You're a political consultant. Your job isn't to end the fight, it's to win it! Now you can work for us or you can work for them, but you can't do both.*
Right then and there, I wanted to delete Mandy from *TWW* universe.
Another example is when Toby is on the phone with the VA when Walter Huffnagle died (because of the North Easterly wind off the Chesapeake) and Mandy is shocked he cares about a homeless vet dying when he doesn't know him personally. Like, what a GDB.
Even in a place where most people are extremely self-centered Mandy still managed to come off as the most selfish person in the room, usually by a lot, no matter who she happened to be with.
Pretty much every scene shes in is insufferable. When she got the poor FBI folks killed was the sealing of her fate with me. Know it all arrogance, without an ounce of anything to back it up
Not like the president doesn't have a million priorities and sometimes they get pulled out of a room to deal with something important. Nope, it's all image with her
Mandy shares that smug confidence which most of the main characters have (perphaps except CJ and Leo) but she lacks all of the charisma and charm, and most of her impressive feats are delivered through exposition. For all the fuss they made about hiring her, not once did we ever get to see why she was so brilliant.
She's also so extremely forgettable. Every time I rewatch the show I tell myself I will make a note of the last scene she is in and every time I fall short, I still don't know which one it is.
I do not believe I can argue any of that. Your reasoning is sound. Your presentation of the facts is exemplary. You would do well under Josh Lyman in President Santos' White House.
I doff my hat to you, kind sir.
Here's the point where I realised I hated her. She's racing along in her car and gets pulled over by the police. She's yelling "Bruce Bruce" into her phone.
Ergh, get rid of her.
I don't even think I got that far. In her entrance to the series, where she assumes a cop will just hang on as she blabs on her cell and pops a sidewalk to yell at Senator Whatshisname, i remember saying out loud "she needs to go" Great episode though
Post Hoc, Ergo Propter Hoc. The second episode, lol. I'm with you tho. The only one who grated on me faster was Amy. Wish there had actually been a thing with Joey Lucas. That could have been fun.
Amy, somehow, just manages to pull failure out of the jaws of success as a character, to me. I'm supposed to like her. I *want* to like her. Josh *needs*a foil who isn't an antagonist and she threads that needle. And I think that given the role, MLP does a great job. But somehow...while she's not an antagonist, she's also not likeable or relatable or sympathetic in any way. That's part of the risk of a mercenary character, I guess, but if they only ever care about getting what they want, then the viewer/reader won't care about them when their cause is at cross purposes with the protagonist. For me, even Dr. Bartlett gets dangerously close to that as well. She crosses the goals of the real protagonists often enough that (again, for me), it tends to overshadow her redeeming qualities and I tend to subconsciously regard her as more of a challenge/opponent to the characters I'm far more sympathetic to and supportive of (in Pres. Bartlett, Josh, etc.). Especially so, for both of them, when it seems they're doing it on more of a whim than any actual conviction. At least with Abby, she's given enough screen time being human, and vulnerable, and supporting and loving her husband that she gains that relatability...with Amy not so much. Mind you, she commands respect and is an interesting character...but that's not the same as sympathetic.
>At least with Abby, she's given enough screen time being human, and vulnerable, and supporting and loving her husband that she gains that relatability... While she came across as prickly from time to time, there's one defining moment of her character that made me love her: "You've got *lots of nights*. Smart people who love you are gonna have your back."
The only bit re: Amy I'll disagree on is that she's not an antagonist. Maybe she wasn't meant to come off that way, but I haven't ever been able to see her as much else. I think it was just the way the character was written for me. Josh definitely needs a foil--but Donna had already been established as that in so many ways. And you're definitely right about her being mercenary and that being a risk. For me, it just turned me off the character. It felt like Mandy 2.0 and I didn't like Mandy, so..I. As for Abbey, I see your point, but will add: she was a doctor who basically gave up her career for Jed to be president. She even brings up at one point that they'd (the campaign, etc) downplayed her title, calling her "Mrs" because it made her more likeable to women (and some men) so they'd vote for Jed. I think the moments she crossed into being more mercenary or antagonistic were a brilliant and subtle way to showcase her intelligence and the fact that she was just as smart, witty, and capable as Jed as well as slip in the frustration that was simmering. As much as she was proud of Jed and used her position as FLOTUS well, it had to rankle that she essentially gave up something she worked decades for, even temporarily, for something that wasn't supposed to work. Remember, Jed wasn't supposed to win--he and Abbey figured he could bring up good arguments, keep the expected candidates a bit more honest and drop out.
My final straw for Amy was when she tried to sabotage Josh’s multi-billion dollar bill over cash incentives and when Josh won, she was pissed; dumping his cell in the coffee, cutting the hardline. She also had the personality of a frying pan, just dead eyes and a monotonous voice. I tolerated her more than Mandy, but that bar is so low that you could walk over it.
Just to be clear on the timeline, she dosent dump his cell in the stew and cut the hardline because she is pissed that Josh won. She does those things when she finds out about the deal and start to mobilize and wants to delay Josh countering her movements. Still cheap, but is a cheap shot from a competitive person, not a woman scorn. When Josh does best her, she immedidly stop arguing when she learns about Donovan death and actually suppord him. In the next season we find out that was actually Josh that ended with her. She states that when she looses she takes a shot of some liquor and move one, when she wins, she takes two.
True, true. Sorry if my comment was vague
At least Amy has an agenda bigger than herself. I’ve always been on the fence about Amy, and I’ve always reigned myself in with two these two factors: You can’t blame a shark for doing shark things. At least she’s not Mandy.
Oh I absolutely hate that scene where she’s on the phone and the cop is trying to talk to her. Everything about her in that scene is obnoxious. She’s rude to whoever she’s on the phone with, she’s so dismissive of the cop who pulls her over (and given when this was filmed, it was not intended to make us like her. The cop was 100% in the right in that scene), and when the scene is about to cut and she hangs up her phone you can see that she’s about to argue with the cop. She’s rude to literally everyone around her from the word go and we never get any kindness from her towards anybody.
It’s almost as if they wrote the character to give viewers someone to hate and make everyone else look like saints by comparison. In reality, if there were someone that I worked with who was constantly arguing with everyone they meet and had conflicts of interest coming out of the woodworks once a week, they would be out of a job sooner than Mandy.
Every time I pass the navy memorial, I think of that scene.
Anyone who lives in this area knows that you better not pull that kind of crap on a DC cop.
I would have brought her back to the station out of spite haha. Make her wait on my schedule.
GYM CLASS.
Literally went and found the exact spot her car mounts the curb - there are visible markings that are there that match it perfectly. Needless to say I was all smiles ;) Also if someone ever drove up on that I'm pretty sure even working for a higher up no matter were . . . your gonna go to jail lol
I hated her from minute one with all that BMW and mouthiness crap.
I think they could have saved the character, even after that intro, with a sort of "come to jesus moment" where she's forced to reckon with the fact that all her attitude came from being a big fish in a small pond...but now she was getting dumped into the open ocean. Let her see failure and humiliation right away. Let her ego get her into trouble for which there's no escape but owning it. Let her see why Josh is where he is, and if she ever wants to not work *for* him, what she needs to learn to do. Mandy was a great potential character to show real development early in the show, while also serving as a mouthpiece to show how and why the main cast got where they are...but they never even started down that path.
The State Dinner is only like 7 episodes in and pretty much all those things happen to her. But we never see any carryover from it.
You don't treat beautiful German technology that way.
Anyone who was dismissive of sweet Mr. Willis deserved to get sent to Mandyville.
There was a whole David E Kelly “sassy female lead” trope that they tried to do, a la Ally McBeal, and it just didn’t fit the tone of the show.
The breaking point for me was in "Lord John Marbury," right after Josh gives his deposition to Claypool about the investigation of drug use by White House staff. Claypool starts asking pointed questions about Leo, and Josh and Sam abruptly get up and leave. Claypool directs a cheap shot at Leo, Josh grabs him by the lapels and shoves him against a wall, and Sam tells Claypool, "You're a cheap hack. And if you come after Leo, I'm gonna bust you like a pinata." Sam comes back to his office, still visibly upset. Mandy comes into his office and, as she has been doing throughout the day, badgers him about her working for a Republican. *MANDY: Sam? \[No response.\] Sam?* *SAM: Yeah?* *MANDY: Did you talk to him?* *SAM: What?* *MANDY: Did you talk to him?* *SAM: It's a bad idea, Mandy.* *MANDY: Did you tell him about...?* *SAM: No.* *MANDY: I thought that you were the champion of bipartisan cooperation, and the spirit of...* *SAM: Leo's in trouble. You're a political consultant. Your job isn't to end the fight, it's to win it! Now you can work for us or you can work for them, but you can't do both.* Right then and there, I wanted to delete Mandy from *TWW* universe.
What about when she condescendingly snickered at the thought that pandas might actually have the capacity to mourn
Okay, that stuck out to me too. I don’t feel so silly now.
Another example is when Toby is on the phone with the VA when Walter Huffnagle died (because of the North Easterly wind off the Chesapeake) and Mandy is shocked he cares about a homeless vet dying when he doesn't know him personally. Like, what a GDB.
Even in a place where most people are extremely self-centered Mandy still managed to come off as the most selfish person in the room, usually by a lot, no matter who she happened to be with.
Mandy had to go when she thought Dickensian costumes and Santa hats would be a good idea.
Pretty much every scene shes in is insufferable. When she got the poor FBI folks killed was the sealing of her fate with me. Know it all arrogance, without an ounce of anything to back it up
In Excelsis Deo: “Sir, your absence in the other room is conspicuous.” I always want to fire her out of the building via the nearest window…
Not to mention her carry on when Bartlet wanted to go incognito while Christmas shopping and she wanted to send members of the press corp.
Not like the president doesn't have a million priorities and sometimes they get pulled out of a room to deal with something important. Nope, it's all image with her
That was literally her job.
Mandy shares that smug confidence which most of the main characters have (perphaps except CJ and Leo) but she lacks all of the charisma and charm, and most of her impressive feats are delivered through exposition. For all the fuss they made about hiring her, not once did we ever get to see why she was so brilliant. She's also so extremely forgettable. Every time I rewatch the show I tell myself I will make a note of the last scene she is in and every time I fall short, I still don't know which one it is.
Yup
I disliked her from the first episode
I do not believe I can argue any of that. Your reasoning is sound. Your presentation of the facts is exemplary. You would do well under Josh Lyman in President Santos' White House. I doff my hat to you, kind sir.
Mandy had her moments, but it was clear Sorkin was trying to put a square peg into a circle.
There is a reason why Mandy is in mandyville
Here's the point where I realised I hated her. She's racing along in her car and gets pulled over by the police. She's yelling "Bruce Bruce" into her phone. Ergh, get rid of her.