Veep - Seventh & Final Season

It's time to hit the campaign trail!

That is, for one last time in "VEEP," The Seventh and Final Season premiering on HBO. Julia Louis-Dreyfus reprises her Emmy� and Screen Actors Award-winning role as the ultra-ambitious, out-for-herself Selina Meyer, as the candidate eyes the White House once more, eager to make America quake again – with laughter. The path has often been rocky for Meyer, who has found herself embroiled in controversy after controversy, mostly of her own making.

Selina Meyer (Louis Dreyfus) is relentless on her path to reclaim the Oval Office. She'll stop at nothing and step over everyone, using every tool at her disposal, even going so far as to bolster her Q-rating, holding her mixed-race grandchild, the prodigy of her often bemused daughter Catherine (Sarah Sutherland) and her wife Marjorie (Clea DuVall), in order to get the perfect photo-op. Everyone is back, including Gary (Tony Hale) and Amy (Anna Chlumsky), determined to do whatever it takes to get Selina across the finish line and Make America hers again!

Amy has more than her hands full, while Gary is charged with stroking Selina's ego the hardest while handling all of her designer bags – though one misplaced bit of chocolate lands a local mayor of a town on the campaign trail at the vet! Didn't anyone tell Selina not to feed the dignitaries? Back to Amy, who has become pregnant with Dan's baby. Reid Scott's womanizing philanderer hasn't really changed his ways even as he busily works to get himself back into Selina's good graces after last season. But will Amy go through with the pregnancy?

That would depend on how sweet the deal is that will lead her onto the team of Selina's opponent, Jonah Ryan (Timothy Simons), who needs some help improving his image on the campaign trail. It doesn't help that he's married his sister – and that's just for starters. Selina will have to decide whether or not to play dirty, especially when she learns that one of her opponents may (or may not have) murdered their boyfriend, but it doesn't matter who stands in her way...her course is set! Selina Meyer is determined to take everyone – including America – down with her!

Our own reality ramps up for election season amidst the reality-bending dramas emanating from the current occupant of the Oval Office. If it wasn't really happening it would actually be funny, but what "VEEP" manages to continue to do is root its over-the-top antics in some reality. Although some of what happens is truly cringe-worthy, suddenly it's been taken to a whole new level of meta-mindfulness. Executive Producer David Mandel has drawn inspiration from Washington DC headlines, but not all of the credit goes to "that guy."

The season is less determined to parody our reality and more interested in reflecting it. Take, for instance, growing tribalism, extreme partisanship, and the administration's war on science: These are all focuses of the funny that the audience can expect from "VEEP" in its final, seventh season. That fans are even getting a new season is in itself a feat. It's star was battling breast cancer just as the show was preparing to go before the lens, and Julia proved as determined as her alter-ego to make a GO! of it and take another lap...

...a victory lap to the presidency? Maybe not, but another Emmy! Dreyfus and her entire campaign team have our vote.

"VEEP" The Seventh and Final Season
premieres on HBO, Sunday, March 31.
www.hbo.com