The marvelous Kelly Bishop is returning to the fifth and final season of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, according to a report from TVLine. Bishop will reprise her role as Benedetta, a match-maker of the highest order.
This is not Bishop's first collaboration with The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel creator Amy Sherman-Palladino. Bishop previously played the indomitable Emily Gilmore on the cult-favorite series The Gilmore Girls, which ran from 2000 to 2007. Bishop's character was the matriarch of the Gilmore family, whose rocky relationship with her daughter was often rocky and ripe with comedic gold. Bishop also played in Sherman-Palladino's short-lived series Bunheads.
Bishop first appeared on The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel in the fourth season of the series. Daniel Palladino, husband to Amy Sherman-Palladino, previously described the character of Benedetta as "Emily Gilmore on steroids," according to the TVLine report. Joining Bishop in the fifth season are several fellow guest stars from the fourth season, including Alfie Fuller and Jason Ralph, who have both been added as series regulars. Reid Scott, who plays talk show host Gordon Ford has already been added on as a series regular for the fifth and final season of the show.
Also joining the fifth season cast are Peter Friedman, Chloë Kerwin, Austin Basis, Josh Grisetti, Michael Cyril Creighton, Eddie Kaye Thomas, and Lucas Kavner. Their characters have not yet been specified.
Besides her work with Sherman-Palladino, Bishop worked on film, television, and on Broadway. Bishop won a Tony for her 1975 run as Sheila on A Chorus Line. Bishop also, and iconically, played Marjorie Houseman in the iconic 1987 film Dirty Dancing. She also had a long-running TV and film career, starring in many series as a guest star.
Production for the fifth season of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel is currently underway in New York City. The fifth season will be the last for the series, which follows the unlikely comedian Miriam Maisel, played by Rachel Brosnahan, as she pursues the rough career of stand-up in the late 1950s and early 1960s. In addition to trying for laughs, Maisel will have to balance her life as a mom and newly single woman in New York City at a time when ubiquitous conformity to the nuclear family was butting against rising social movements promoting both racial and gender equality.
No premiere date has yet been set for the fifth season. However, you can currently stream the first four seasons of the series on Prime Video.