What Can We Expect From Veep Next Season?

As we watched Selina Meyer leave office in ‘Veep’s’ season finale Inauguration after being emphatically replaced by Laura Montez (Andrea Savage) and immediately relegated to the after thoughts of historians, it was hard not to assume that this was actually the final ever episode of ‘Veep’, rather than just the culmination to its fifth season.

I mean, where else could the show possibly go? We’ve not only watched Selina Meyer go from being an underwhelming Vice President Of The United States to becoming the 45th President Of The United States, but she’s now left office without making anything close to an impact, while her predecessor is already being touted for a Nobel Peace Prize after completing the legacy-making freeing of Tibet from the Chinese government that Selina had previously brokered.

This left Selina metaphorically and literally out in the cold, as her departing helicopter broke down and left her alone in a field while the rest of the country celebrated Laura Montez’s election. Of course, Gary (Tony Hale) was still there. But that only made it worse.

The hopelessness of Selina’s plight is exactly why a sixth season was needed. After it became clear in Kissing Your Sister that Selina wouldn’t get enough votes to get elected, she even reluctantly accepted to become Vice President again under Tom James (Hugh Laurie) just so she could have a semblance of power.

That was then cruelly pulled away from her, and now we can expect to repeatedly see Selina Meyer reminded of her brief, pathetic presidency, all while Laura Montez’s stock rises higher and higher.

Speaking to The AV Club, ‘Veep’s’ showrunner David Mandel admitted that there was “zero percent” chance of Selina Meyer winning the presidency, before adding, “I started to realize that [Selina’s] worst nightmare would not be for Tom James, another white male, winning the presidency, but for some other woman to take over the iconic role of the first female elected president.”

When asked what we can all expect from the upcoming season now that Selina Meyer is out of office, Mandel then delightfully teased, “If you thought Selina Meyer dealing with the tie was funny and soul-crushing for Selina Meyer, wait until you see her dealing with irrelevancy.”

Mandel admitted that’s going to include plenty of scenes between Selina Meyer and Laura Montez, as he remarked, “I think the ex-president of the United States’ relationship with the current president of the United States is very important. I think there will be certain issues of Selina wanting to watch what she does and how she does it and being bothered by that.”

We’ll get to see exactly how irrelevant Selina Meyer is when ‘Veep’ returns next year on Sky Atlantic.

[Images via HBO]