There is little doubt (unless you are a member of the sceptics society in which case it’s pretty much all you have) that Julia Louis-Dreyfus is one of the most gifted comedians on TV at the moment.
Her preternatural gift for delivering just the right inflection or facial expression just when it’s most needed was one of the many reasons people turned in to watch Seinfeld and The New Adventures of Old Christine.
And now it is back in full, glorious comedic flight in her Emmy Award-winning role as much-overlooked Vice President Selina Meyer – is there any other kind? – on Veep which returns to US screens with its biting political satire on Sunday April 14.
To remind us what we’ve missing – unless like me you have been repeatedly re-watching all the season 1 episodes just because you can – along comes this hilarious trailer from HBO which in a perfectly constructed one-minute mini-film encapsulates the desperately optimistic (and largely ill-founded) self-confidence that powers the woman occupying the supposedly most second-powerful position in the US, and the half-glass-full emptying deflation that accompanies any actual contact with real power.
Accompanied by a gutsy, amped-up song from The Sheepdogs, “The Way It Is”, which matches her brief moment of self-important hallway striding to a tee, this is one of those promos you will want to play over and over till you risk breaking YouTube (you can’t do that right? I mean, can you?).
Yes ma’am, Veep is back!
Will power prove any less elusive the second time around?
I think we all know the answer to that.
Veep returns 10pm/9C on Sunday 14 April on HBO.
* You can read a great interview Julia Louis-Dreyfus did in August 2012 with Huffington Post here.