Despite the series’ title, Season Four of Veep ended with former Vice President Selina Meyer as a US president up for re-election. Season Five follows her arc from there.

The two-disc Blu-ray set includes all 10 of Season Five’s episodes across two discs. The plot synopses come straight from the Blu-ray menus.

Morning After: “Selina (Julia Louis-Dreyfuss) and her team receive news of a possible road to victory.”

Hmm – a female presidential candidate who won the popular vote but got screwed by the electoral college? That could never happen!

Real-life parallels aside, “After” launches S5 on a tear. It packs a slew of laughs into its 28 minutes and provides a terrific start to the season. Even a goofy bit about Selina’s androgynous Secret Service double (Clea DuVall) zings.

Nev-AD-a: “Selina makes an important appointment and takes over Tom James’ (Hugh Laurie) Banking Task Force.”

S5 continues at a fast pace with another strong episode. A great guest turn from Martin Mull and the return of the ever-scummy Congressman Roger Furlong (Dan Bakkedahl) help turn this into a fine show.

The Eagle: “Selina sends a tweet and Mike (Matt Walsh) must deal with the consequences.”

In the age of Trump, the notion that a controversial tweet causes havoc seems fairly quaint. Despite that, “Eagle” manages to become another solid program and it moves along the season well.

Mother: “Selina rushes to the hospital while attempting to win the presidency.”

Even for a show as cynical as Veep, “Mother” threatens to go too dark. Still, a more sentimental take would be out of character for the series that I’ll take it, even though the coldness leaves this as a weaker episode than its predecessors.

Thanksgiving: “Selina celebrates Thanksgiving in her own special way while Ben (Kevin Dunn) and Kent (Gary Cole) manage a Thanksgiving Day crisis.”

Amidst the holiday shenanigans, a major twist occurs when Jonah (Timothy Simons) gets tapped to run for Congress. That adds a clever spin on another solid show.

C**tgate: “With the US on the brink of a major financial breakdown, Selina must make an important decision.”

Jonah’s campaign continues to add spark to the season and becomes the best part of the episode. The excursion into political name-calling fares less well, though, and a romantic twist connected to Selina’s daughter Catherine (Sarah Sutherland) fizzles.

Congressional Ball: “Selina looks to strengthen her allinaces a the White House Christmas party, while her team is preoccupied with the ‘Hottest DC Staggers’ list.”

While Veep always concentrated on Selina’s antics, S5 takes this to a higher level. For the most part, this seems like a good thing, as it allows Louis-Dreyfus to tear off blistering lines that never seem realistic but that amuse nonetheless.

Camp David: “Selina takes Catherine to Camp David before Christmas. Amy (Anna Chlumsky) and Dan (Reid Scott) attempt to humanize Jonah.”

This episode mixes both international and family politics with reasonable laughs, but it doesn’t become a great episode. One “mistaken identity” gag feels too Three’s Company for my liking, so the show as a whole falls below the series’ usual standards.

Kissing Your Sister: “Catherine and Marjorie have a fight. Mike prepares for his babies. Selina is interviewed.”

All season we saw Catherine shoot a documentary, and “Sister” uses that framework to show its events. That makes it an unusual way to follow Selina’s presidential fate. “Sister” becomes a little more emotional than I’d like for the series, but it still acts as a successful exploration of the material.

Inauguration: “Selina and her staff get ready for inauguration day. Mike suffers exhaustion. Catherine gets a makeover.”

S5 ends – as does Selina’s presidency. “Inauguration” feels like a series finish as well, but it doesn’t conclude Veep, so it’ll be interesting to see where matters go with Selina out of the administration.

Hopefully Season 6 will work as well as S5. Though a few shows sputter a little, the year mostly offers punchy, clever material. This has always been a good series and S5 demonstrates that it continues to fire on all cylinders.

Veep appears in an aspect ratio of approximately 1.78:1 on these Blu-ray Discs. This became an appealing batch of shows.

Sharpness looked strong, as virtually no softness ever marred the proceedings. This left the episodes with tight, concise visuals. Jagged edges and moiré effects remained absent, and I saw no signs of source flaws.

The series used a low-key palette with an emphasis on amber, and the hues worked fine within those constraints. Blacks were dark and deep, while shadows delivered nice clarity. As always, Veep boasted excellent visuals.

The series’ DTS-HD MA 5.1 also continued to subdued ways witnessed in seasons past, so don’t expect much from the low-key soundfields. Veep emphasizes dialogue above all else, and that left effects as a minor component. Those elements added some environmental material and little else.

Speech appeared natural and concise, while music and effects seemed clear and full. Nothing here stood out as memorable, but the audio suited the series.

While Season Four abandoned the usual array of audio commentaries, they come back for Season Five. We get six chats from the following array of participants:

“Morning After”: executive producer/actor Julia Louis-Dreyfuss, executive producers David Mandel, Lew Morton and Georgia Pritchett, and actor Timothy Simons.

“Mother”: Louis-Dreyfuss, Mandel, writers Alex Gregory and Peter Huyck and actor Tony Hale.

“C**tgate”: Louis-Dreyfuss, Somons, Mandel, Pritchett and director Brad Hall.

“Congressional Ball”: Simons, Mandel, Morton, writer Billy Kimball and actor Reid Scott.

“Kissing Your Sister”: Scott, Simons, Mandel, Morton and writer Erik Kenward.

“Inauguration”: Louis-Dreyfuss, Hale, Mandel, Huyck, Hall and co-executive producer Alex Gregory.

As noted, Season Four omitted audio commentaries, so I’m happy to see their return here – and better than ever! The chats that accompanied shows from Seasons One through Three tended to be pretty pedestrian, but the S5 tracks manage to become fairly informative.

Emphasis on “fairly”, as the commentaries never really excel. Still, they look at various production elements in a moderately engaging manner, especially when it comes to editing and cut/altered story material. As long as you don’t expect greatness from the commentaries, you should find some useful information here.

45 Deleted Scenes fill a total of 34 minutes. While that’s a lot of scenes for that running time, it’s actually longer per clip than usual – the prior Veep sets averaged less than 30 seconds per sequences.

One other difference comes from the content, as we get a lot more alternate lines than usual. Some new material arrives as well, but much of the footage shows multiple takes for the same scene.

Of the 10 shows, “Kissing Your Sister” offers by far the most cut footage. It throws out 19 of the 45 scenes and runs 13 minutes, 31 seconds. The faux documentary set-up allows for a lot of new material.

We don’t find much here that takes the series down new paths, though. The scenes offer amusement and occasional intrigue but they don’t give us fresh plot threads or much in the way of character development. Still, they’re fun and worth a look.

With Season Five of Veep, the series continues to chug along well. Biting and clever, we get a good collection of humor and acid-tipped satire. The Blu-rays offer excellent visuals as well as acceptable audio and a smattering of supplements. Bring on Season Six!