‘Veep’ cast to reunite for virtual table read

TV’s first female Vice President is bringing her crew back for another reunion. Julia Louis-Dreyfus and showrunner David Mandel have confirmed they’re bringing the Veep cast together for another table read, this time to re-enact an episode that eerily predicted Donald Trump’s recent vote-recount antics.On December 6 at 8 p.m. ET, the cast of the Emmy-winning series is gathering for a virtual table read of “Mother” that will benefit America Votes ahead of the upcoming Georgia Senate runoffs. “We’ve had some significant success with prior events, so Dave [Mandel] and I thought: Let’s do it again to get out the vote for Georgia. And, what better way to do that then with this particular episode?" Louis-Dreyfus told The Hollywood Reporter.The 2016 episode saw Selina Meyer (Louis-Dreyfus), AKA the sitting president, demand a recount in the state of Nevada. But when the votes begin to go in the direction of her opponent, Meyer demands that her staff push to stop the recount instead. In the end she loses Nevada—and the overall re-election. Given the plotline and the orders/actions by Donald Trump following the November presidential election, is it any wonder savvy viewers got the episode trending on social media earlier this month?“Over the last few weeks many brave and patriotic Americans have come forward, having witnessed similarities between our ongoing election and the TV show Veep,” Louis-Dreyfus says in a promo video on Instagram advertising the reunion. The camera then pans to her with black dye running down her forehead in a spot-on Rudy Giuliani impression.

 

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“And not just a singular example, but a pattern that repeats itself over and over, literally thousands or hundreds of thousands of cases,” she continues. “To any experienced investigator, prosecutor, this would suggest there was a plan from a centralized place specifically focused on Veep. (Have you watched Veep? Have you? It’s one of my favourites with the nice lady).”The actor then promises that the original cast of Veep, including Anna Chlumsky (Amy Brookheimer), Reid Scott (Dan Egan), Sam Richardson (Richard Splett), Tony Hale (Gary Walsh), Timothy Simons (Jonah Ryan), Clea DuVall (Marjorie Palmiotti), Matt Walsh (Mike McLintock), Gary Cole (Kent Davison) and Sarah Sutherland (Catherine Meyer), along with “some very special guests,” will stop by for the event. To participate, fans can donate as little as a dollar online.This isn’t the first time the Veep cast has reunited since the series ended in May 2019. In October the cast came together to raise money for Joe Biden’s presidential campaign. At the time they answered questions from fans and did a virtual table read of five deleted scenes (including one from the final episode), raising more than $500,000 US.As many fans have noted, Veep began as a political satire but wound up predicting more and more real-life political events over its seven-season run. “We were trying to invent a heightened reality, and then reality itself kept heightening,” Mandel told Variety after wrapping the final season in 2019. “We finished Veep at just the right time. I think we got away with it for a season, but I don’t think we’d want to be doing four more seasons in this current climate. You can’t maintain that in the same way.”Later, the showrunner confirmed those feelings in the THR reunion story. "Our best day doesn’t compare to the stuff this White House does on a regular hourly basis of incompetence and stupidity," he said. "Two years later, Veep is more relevant than ever in a funny but very frightening sort of way."[video_embed id='2084371']Before you go: Tiny owl in sad Rockefeller Christmas tree released back into the wild[/video_embed]