Coming only a few hours after HBO announced that it’s renewing Silicon Valley for a fifth season, some news that’s straight out of a Silicon Valley episode: While the show will be back, co-star T.J. Miller won’t. In a statement obtained by BuzzFeed Entertainment, HBO says:
The producers of Silicon Valley and T.J. Miller have mutually agreed that T.J. will not return for season five. In Erlich Bachman, T.J. has brought to life an unforgettable character, and while his presence on the show will be missed, we appreciate his contribution and look forward to future collaborations.
That perfectly diplomatic statement doesn’t give us much insight into the circumstances that led to Bachman being kicked out of his own damn house. On the one hand, Miller has been getting a lot of movie work lately, and might simply not have time to shoot the show anymore. Twitter has heard otherwise, though, with one BuzzFeed reporter writing that Miller learned he was being let go when he read the finale script and saw his character had been written out. Miller has yet to comment, but HBO calls the decision “mutual.”