'Veep' Season 5 News, Spoilers: New Showrunner David Mandel Talks 'Very Me' Season 5 Episode
After four seasons with Armando Iannucci as showrunner, HBO's Emmy-winning political satire comedy "Veep" returned for its fifth run with a new boss running the show. New showrunner David Mandel, who also executive produces the popular comedy, was tasked with picking up from where the season 4 finale left off on a cliffhanger and for maintaining the show's level of comedic genius and irreverence.
Mandel's new role as showrunner on "Veep" marks a reunion with the show's star, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, who was one of the leads in the long-running sitcom "Seinfeld," for which Mandel was a writer. Mandel's TV credits also include "Curb Your Enthusiasm" and "Saturday Night Live."
Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, the new "Veep" showrunner said that he gave a "quick yes" to the role as he had been a fan of the show before he even began working on it. He also compared the responsibility of taking over from Iannucci to solving a complicated math problem.
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Mandel spoke about an upcoming episode of "Veep," a character-driven one in which Selina (Louis-Dreyfus) visits her sick mother at the hospital, and said that its taste and feel are unlike what "Veep" fans have gotten used to. It is also one, he said, that Iannucci may not have done.
"That episode is very me," he said about the new season's fourth episode. "That's an episode that I really wanted to do. I'm really thrilled we did it. It has a different taste and a different feel to it."
According to Mandel, the episode will explore Selina's relationship with her mother and will offer an explanation as to why Selina herself isn't exactly the best mom.
"There is a scene where she gets very bad news and very good news at the same moment, and the emotions that go across her face from kind of sadness to joy to almost hysteria, it's like, what is that?" Mandel said. "I can't even write it."
In the next episode of "Veep," titled "Nev-ah-da," Selina meets a Wall Street billionaire while Amy (Anna Chlumsky), Dan (Reid Scott), Richard (Sam Richardson), and Jonah (Timothy Simons) try to win the election for their boss.
"Veep" airs Sundays at 10:30 p.m. ET on HBO.
