Veep Season 5 Episode Guide
5.01 "The Morning After" - Review
5.02 "Nev-AD-a" - Review
5.03 "The Eagle" - Review
5.04 "Mother" - Review
5.05 "Thanksgiving" - Review!
5.06. "C**tgate" - Airs May 29 2016
5.07. "Congressional Ball" - Airs June 5 2016
5.08. "Camp David" - Airs June 12 2016
5.09. "Kissing Your Sister" - Airs June 19 2016
5.10. "Inauguration" - Airs June 26 2016
Veep 5.05 "Thanksgiving" - Review
Directed by Chris Addison, Written by Sean Gray, Georgia Pritchett & Will Smith
We're already five episodes into Veep's fifth season and it feels like we're only just getting started, and it's crazy to think that there's just another batch of five to go. Veep has consistently proven itself to be the best comedy on television so far this season and Thanksgiving has continued that form again with another excellent episode. It's starting to get a bit repetitive having nothing but praise for Veep each week, but if any show was deserving of it, it's this one. Everything is just too good.
We bring back Amy, Dan, Richard and Jonah back from Nevada as we get a bit of a breather for Meyer and her team this time out with plenty of new developments in the cast as Jonah makes an unlikely step for Congress even if it's something that he's only getting to do because of his powerful Uncle. It was great to finally meet his Uncle in person after hearing him mentioned plenty of times before, and Peter MacNicol delivered a good impression here, and we get to see what Jeff is capable of when he threatens Jonah if he should ever cross him in the future.
This episode adopted a different tactic from last week's phenomenal Mother by showing us a wide range of characters as opposed to focusing on a single one, with Selina taking the back seat for this half an hour. As well as with the focus on Jonah we also spent some time with Dan and Amy - Dan became horrified when he realised that he was simply now just Tom James' Gary whilst he discovered Tom's link to Sidney Purcell. And on the Amy front we are also introduced to her parents in this episode. It was great to see the show bringing Parks and Recreation's Jim O'Heir show up on this series as Amy's dad, and it was fantastic to see him here even if it was just in a limited role, displaying a pretty blatant dislike towards Dan, and hopefully this means that O'Heir will show up in an increased capacity in the future, as it's great to see more Parks and Recreation actors in pretty much any other show now. Hopefully Veep can get a few more.
Oh, and it turns out that Sue is married. The revelations like these that keep coming are great and the fact that she invited 250 people to her wedding and not one of them was from work was great, and true, whilst it was a minor revelation in terms of the plot it was a pretty nice character reveal. Sue was not the only one with news this episode, as Mike also god some good ones in terms of adoption when they were able to convince their surrogate that they are actually good people, which will probably go a long way in their favour. And we also got to see another awkward moment between Selina and Catherine this episode as we saw Selina make her daughter speak to her in front of the entire staff when Catherine specifically requested that they speak alone.
It's clear that this episode is largely set-up for the rest of the season but then there were some great sequences that worked really well regardless. Indeed, The whole Turkey sequence was terrific with the turkey pardon scene being played out very well indeed. We also learnt that potentially Chinese hackers have 'leaked' Catherine's recorded footage which ultimately means trouble for Selina, and really worked within the context of an excellent half hour. As usual for this show it's rare to see a weak episode and Thanksgiving may not have been able to top Mother but at the same time, it was still really good entertainment. Be sure to let me know what you thought of the episode in the comments section below, and remember check out the next episode on HBO this Sunday at 10:30pm.
Overall Episode Verdict:: A
+Turkey Pardon.
+Amy's parents & Jim O'Heir
+Jonah running for Congress thanks to the influence of Jeff.
