One could argue that Lisa Kudrow has never been funnier than the moment she appears on Hot Ones as Valerie Cherish in the new season of The Comeback. Oblivious to the (real-life) interview show format of answering questions while eating increasingly spicy chicken wings, Cherish’s desperation, perplexity and physical pain is a comic masterpiece. It’s almost a gag on the side – the scene literally plays over the credits of a late episode – but proves: When Kudrow throws herself into a number, it’s hard to beat.
That’s important because over its two decades, The Comeback hasn’t always been discussed as a straight comedy. Instead, the series is receiving well-deserved recognition for its prophetic criticism of the television industry. While it follows Valerie, an aging, self-absorbed sitcom star struggling for professional survival, The Comeback also exposes the medium’s larger problems.
Season one, which aired in 2005, focused on the slow rise of reality TV, while season two, from 2014, looked at the rise of streamers and prestige TV. Both seasons were painfully funny – often just painful – but the humor sometimes faded into the background because even the most outlandish ideas turned out to be shockingly accurate in retrospect. There’s a moment in the season two premiere where Valerie seemingly runs into reality TV great Andy Cohen. After previously blowing her chance at a spot on “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” because she wasn’t ready to really freak out in front of the camera, she leans in and whispers, “I get it now, okay? I took myself too seriously.” Yes. That sounds plausible.
AI on the rise
Only time will tell whether season three, dedicated to the looming AI revolution, is as clear-eyed – but if so, the robot invasion won’t be any fun. The premiere brings us back to Valerie, twelve years after she won an Emmy and now occupies a slightly higher caste in the Hollywood ecosystem. Her marriage to Mark (Damien Young) is going well. Her appearance on The Traitors spawned a viral meme. To stay in the conversation, she has a producer for her “Socials,” a useless celebrity podcast called “Cherish the Time,” and is about to begin work on a new multicamera sitcom about a “woman of a certain age” for the NuNet Network – not to be confused with the Net Network, which, as her manager explains, renamed itself when “Comspot Communications bought her and her entire library, now they’re the NuNet.”
Valerie’s new show “How’s That?!” celebrates their back-to-basics concept with a live audience, catchphrases and harmless jokes. Even sitcom legend James Burrows, who worked with Kudrow on Friends and appeared as himself in every season of The Comeback, is on board to film the pilot. What about “How’s That?!” missing are authors. Instead, an AI program spits out shallow scripts in hours — not weeks — because NuNet wants to create a show that’s just engaging enough for people to “run while they’re doing… something,” as one network official puts it. The goal is not to make something great, but rather to make something “good enough.”
That’s a compelling premise from creators Kudrow and Michael Patrick King (“And Just Like That…”). At the same time, the season strives to deepen the stories of beloved characters and introduce new ones. Time is invested in Mark’s midlife crisis, Val’s manager Billy’s (Dan Bucatinsky) journey of self-discovery, the loss of her beloved hairdresser Mickey (played by the late Robert Michael Morris, who died in 2017 and gets a fitting farewell in episode three), and her reunion with reality producer Jane (Laura Silverman), perhaps the most tragic character in the series – an idealist who keeps selling herself out. Ella Stiller comes as Patience, Valerie’s social media guru; Jack O’Brien warmly plays her new hairdresser; and Andrew Scott, who is doing everything he can to erase the last vestiges of the Hot Priest image, embodies a thoroughly smarmy NuNet executive. That’s a lot for just eight episodes – oh yes, streamers and their short seasons.
Showrunners and saboteurs
In an already star-studded ensemble, John Early and Abbi Jacobson steal a scene or two as showrunner duo Josh and Mary – they were hired to lead the AI, nicknamed “AL”, on “How’s That?!” to look after, a task that neither of them really devotes themselves to. Underscoring that new technology doesn’t change bad behavior, Josh exhibits many of the same degrading and destructive traits as showrunner Paulie G (Lance Barber), the antagonist from seasons one and two. Like Paulie, Josh’s ego cannot cope with the loss of control. This becomes a problem because AL – in service of the network’s “good enough” mandate – has the final say.
Commendably, the debate in “The Comeback” over the merits of great versus good enough is a two-way street. Television, after all, is a business that employs thousands of people, and a mediocre show can employ just as many people – minus a few writers – as an Emmy winner. Still, King, Kudrow and company show their cards by putting the heroic monologue in defense of writers in the mouth of Burrows, the most trusted and respected member of the cast. Reluctantly impressed by AL’s efficiency in delivering jokes that work, he explains why that’s not enough: “I saw every one of those jokes coming, and so did you,” he tells Valerie. “‘Surprising’ only comes from a group of writers huddled in a corner, racking their brains trying to find the better joke. It’s the fat guy who drinks in secret. The gay guy who, despite all the work he’s done on himself, still hates a little bit of himself. Or the funny woman who’s been invisible for far too long. They turn all that pain into a joke. And Val, those beautiful, broken souls are what makes something great.”
Playing on the cliché that only pain creates great comedy is a shrewd decision, while also arguing what’s wrong with an AI program that relies on clichés. But the real point remains: the need for humanity in the creative process. For all its pessimism about AI – what one author calls an “extinction event” – “The Comeback” cannot hide its true colors. Across three seasons, as much as the series hints at the demise of scripted TV, it best showcases the deeply human pillars of the industry that keep it afloat. The good (talent, competence, collaboration) and the bad (ageism, sexism, stupidity). With each season, Valerie shines at the former, while being continually thwarted by the latter.
Power in a vacuum
Season three takes this idea and takes it to the extreme. When problems arise around AL’s work – and even more dramatically: around the behavior of everyone involved towards AL – the show gradually loses its staff. It turns out that Valerie is one of the few who actually knows how to make a sitcom. With an executive producer credit on “How’s That?!” Originally intended as an honorary title, the role soon took on a life of its own. Power loves a vacuum, and Valerie competently steps in, working with other professionals and guiding the process to a solid, if not great, result.
It’s no coincidence that Valerie, a woman of a certain age, only seizes power after everything has fallen apart. Significantly, twenty years after the start of The Comeback, the decision makers with ultimate control over Valerie’s career are still men, and her need to please and submit remains unchanged. Perhaps the most striking example of this comes in a scene in which Valerie is summoned to a Godfather-style meeting in a darkened office with a series of Dick Wolf-esque male showrunners who have dominated the industry for decades (embodied, a little too convincingly, by Bradley Whitford, Adam Scott and Justin Theroux). These men who never hired Valerie – and probably never saw her as their equal – need her help now. And yet they express their request with a mixture of threats and macho jokes. Valerie has the power in the room, but no one – not even herself – can go beyond the assigned roles and acknowledge that; she always wants to please. As her sitcom co-star (played by the always wonderful Tim Bagley) puts it: “Why do I always defend people who don’t mean well for me?”
Does this all sound fun? Scene for scene perhaps not quite as laugh-out-loud as previous seasons, but when the opportunities arise, everyone pulls out their best stops. Kudrow remains terrific, and the (real) writers fill each episode with little jokes and offhand digs – a hit show called “She-R” (about female emergency room doctors, of course); a network Zoom call full of Gen Z employees named Lowen, Egypt, Arbor and Ridley; Valerie struggling through the recording of “Hot Ones.” As Burrows explains at one point about his contract: “I have a fun clause. If I don’t have fun anymore, I’m gone.” He would stay with “The Comeback.”
