Think back to April 2012, when Veep first aired: We were still less than one full term into the Obama administration, Rick "Yes, That Guy!" Santorum was a frontrunner for the GOP presidential nomination, and the first (!) Avengers movie hadn't even come out yet. It was, to put it another way, an optimistic time. A time in which examining the seedy underbelly of DC politics in some kind of heightened reality where everyone was incompetent, evil, and out for themselves, might have sounded like quite a bit of fun, rather than what we now do on Twitter every day.

Veep retroactively posits this kind of downbeat chaos was going on regardless of who was president, of who had the “codes.” Not once in U.S. history has our political system been populated by anyone but the most joyless and opportunistic careerists who will never know happiness, people who will only ever be on the hunt for "more." It doesn't matter if they don't know what that "more" is. It's in the thrill of the chase, the playing of the fucked-up game. It doesn't change.

Nor, for that matter, does Veep's central cast. It's hard to make a sitcom in which each member of its core unit is so opposed to growth or empathy, but by the sheer charisma of its players and blade-sharp writing, it never really mattered much that we don't necessarily like any of them. It's fun to watch Selina (Julia Louis-Dreyfus, as great as ever) and bag-man Gary (Tony Hale) grumble at each other like it's some kind of secret language. It's funny to watch her fail. It's funny, among other things, to watch her behave manipulatively and even abusively towards her daughter. It shouldn't be, but it is.

Season 7 (which begins airing on HBO on Sunday night), the last we'll get to spend with the show, doesn't so much double down on its ethos as it does relax within it, content that its audience is watching to spend a few more hours with its favorite irredeemable assholes rather than expect much of a narrative thrust. Nothing changes for long, Veep reminds us: Selina is once again campaigning for President, Amy (Anna Chlumsky) and Dan (Reid Scott) are still circling her campaign, and Jonah Ryan is still a monster who is now also running for president. The third episode, in which he says the word "retarded" to a BuzzFeed reporter and is then forced to undergo sensitivity training ahead of a TV debate (which, obviously, doesn't go well), belongs to him.

Even in the face of growth and change, Veep fakes us out more than it embraces those philosophies. Dan and Amy's offscreen dalliance has borne a pregnancy, which almost hilariously changes nothing about the toxic dynamic between the two, nor Amy's ruthless ambition. Mike (Matt Walsh), finally fired from Selina's cadre, is now a blogger. A shockingly competent one, to both Selina's—and his own—occasional surprise.

Veep has forever operated within being a "naughty" show. It is quite obviously not politically correct, but it also invites us to deconstruct the meaning of that phrase, with particular regard to the first half. For a while, it was a reminder that the "ruling class" is a myth engineered entirely by those within it: That those in charge are, through opportunity, uglier and pettier than we could ever dream of being. Now, we're reminded of that every day, and Veep isn't so much obsolete as it is proven right in everything it told us from the very beginning. This is a victory lap; Season 7 is a brilliant, brutal show as ever, but its satire no longer belongs. That's not a bad thing: We've had eight years of Veep, and, as we know from history, even the greatest reigns are better off ending there.