Veep’s final bow and the return of the JLD

It’s finally here! HBO has released our first glimpse of Veep’s farewell season, which promises its loveable mix of vulgarity, governmental hijinks, and Selina’s ragtag group of idiots who often stumble ass backwards into political success. 
 
This time around, Selina (the one and only Julia Louis-Dreyfus, also the show’s producer) is indeed running for president again. Why again? Well, the title character became commander-in-chief through a loophole in years past and later lost out on becoming the first elected female president due to a wacky electoral tie. Now, after a year of speeches, another book tour, and the (forgive me) erection of a vagina-shaped presidential library, she’s hell-bent on revenge against her female rival. 

Here’s my favourite exchange from the Veep season seven trailer:

Selina, dictating to her loyal bag man Gary: “I was a game-changer, I took a dump on the glass ceiling. AND! I shaved my muff in the sink of the old boys’ club!”
Gary: “You want me to read that back?”
Selina: “We can’t use any of that. I mean, it sounds like I’m shouting from a balcony in Munich.” 
Gary: “(GASP) Like in Evita!”
 
Yes Gary. Just like Evita. 
 
While Veep will only run for seven seasons compared to Seinfeld’s nine, it’s Julia’s most-decorated project and role. Critically, as Selina, she’s undefeated at the Emmys. It’s unprecedented. She scored her sixth consecutive performing Emmy win back in 2017, and we all know what happened next. As she said in her Mark Twain Prize acceptance speech last October, 12 hours later, Julia was diagnosed with breast cancer.
 
She is now in remission, and after a break in production, Veep was able to complete its run with seven new episodes, the first of which premieres on March 31.

When Julia was on Jimmy Kimmel Live! last October, she confirmed she’s cancer-free, saying, “I feel very strong, and I’ve got red lips, so what could go wrong?”
 
She also talked about stepping away from work:
 
“We had to stall Veep’s production because of my situation, so, a lot of people worked for me and I knew I couldn’t really keep it private because I knew I had to tell everybody what was going on. And then, I really sort of embraced that and I got a lot of positive feedback. I think people liked that I had a sense of humour about it, and I think it’s an important conversation to have about health and health care.”
 
That’s exactly what she did. Throughout her treatment, Julia was sharing selfies and showing her strength outside of the comedic realm. 
 
One of her takeaways? 
 
“Laughter is a basic human need, along with love, and food, and an HBO subscription.”

Preach. And by the looks of Veep’s new trailer, Julia appears to be coming for that seventh Emmy as Selina (her 12thoverall if you include her honourary Emmy). But her next chapter is just as thrilling: she’s currently in the middle of filming Downhill, the long-awaited English language remake of Force Majeure. Julia and Will Ferrell play husband and wife, who take a ski vacation with their family in the French Alps. In the original, the vacay quickly goes awry when the patriarch flees the scene of an avalanche, abandoning his family. When the avalanche turns out to not be quite an “avalanche,” the vacation continues in the cringiest of ways. In the remake though, the genders are flipped, and Julia’s the one who runs away, thereby facing most of the social consequences. Yes please.