Lisa Kudrow\u2019s brilliant, tragic, indefatigable sitcom-actress character, Valerie Cherish<\/a>, last graced our screen in the second season of HBO\u2019s dark Hollywood satire The Comeback. But according to Kudrow and series co-creator Michael Patrick King (also an original writer on Sex and the City), Valerie was never gone, just waiting out her next move.<\/p>\n\u201cLisa and I would meet every couple of weeks for lunch \u2014\u00a0quote, unquote \u2014\u00a0and then we\u2019d get around to, \u2018What do you think Valerie would be doing right now?\u2019\u201d King said at SXSW, where the first two episodes of the third and final season of what they\u2019re now calling \u201ca trilogy\u201d screened to a rapt audience of The Comeback die-hards. (It starts airing March 22.)<\/p>\n
Season one had seen Valerie, the desperate, cluelessly self-absorbed former star of a B-list sitcom called I\u2019m It!, flailing as she tries to reignite her career as the cougar character amid a young cast on an even more terrible sitcom, Room & Board, while also documenting her comeback for a reality series. In season two, Valerie makes another run at relevance, playing a fictionalized version of herself on a gritty HBO dramedy about a sitcom writer and his contentious relationship with his annoying and very Valerie-like star \u2014 for which she improbably wins an Emmy.<\/p>\n
King said that during their lunches, he and Kudrow would come up with funny ideas: Valerie at a yoga camp, Valerie on Broadway (which does happen in the new season). But nothing seemed to be a big enough \u201cmachine,\u201d he said, for her to actually come back. Then one day, Kudrow lamented that it was too bad Valerie hadn\u2019t been around for the SAG and writers\u2019 strikes, because she would have been so funny in that mess. King came up with the idea of starting in the past with the strike and then moving forward to the present \u2014\u00a0three years later \u2014\u00a0which is when everyone predicted the unions would have to negotiate again because of AI.<\/p>\n
As for the hook that sold Kudrow? Valerie would star in the first sitcom written by AI.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt felt like the same energy as Valerie and reality TV 20 years ago, even though it\u2019s a bit more scary,\u201d said King. \u201cSo that was the machine. And once that happened, Lisa was like, \u2018That\u2019s it.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cShe\u2019s tough,\u201d he continued. \u201cShe has to have a bigger idea in order to want to come back. And thank God she has great taste.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Comeback has always seemed timely, if not prophetic. The first season explored the desperation of B- and D-list celebrities appearing on reality shows. \u201cNobody understood what we were doing \u2026 Well, some of you did. Thank you,\u201d said Kudrow, to big laughs. And now, she added, \u201cEverybody is panicked and desperate, and everybody is curating their own reality show and posting it on a worldwide platform.\u201d<\/p>\n
When they took the idea to Casey Bloys, the head of HBO and Max content, he gave them an immediate \u201cyes,\u201d but also said they needed to film as soon as possible. \u201cHe said, \u2018It has to happen soon because it\u2019s happening so fast, and we are going to get on the air before any studio admits they\u2019re using [AI], which was exciting and sometimes terrifying,\u201d said King.<\/p>\n
Kudrow said, though, that they were mainly sticking with the subject of television writers being replaced by AI. \u201cSo, you know, that feels like, It\u2019ll be a while before anyone says, \u2018Yeah, we\u2019re using it.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
The new season opens with Valerie joining the cast of Chicago as Roxie, in an ill-fated run that never gets past the first rehearsal. The crowd in the SXSW theater burst out laughing at the incredibly bad wig Valerie wears in the poster, and again at the other awful wig she wears during the rehearsal.<\/p>\n
Other laughs come from Valerie trying to stay apolitical, only to get pulled into it by then-SAG-AFTRA president Fran Drescher, in a great cameo, and Jane Fonda, whom she meets while out to a fancy dinner and tries to film for her social media.<\/p>\n
Damian Young is back as Valerie\u2019s husband, Mark, who is now on a reality show called Finance Dudes. Dan Bucatinsky returns as her manager, Billy, always trying to get a piece of Valerie\u2019s pie for himself. Robert Michael Morris, who played Valerie\u2019s beloved hairdresser, Mickey, sadly passed away in 2017. She\u2019s instead tended to by Tommy (renowned Broadway director Jack O\u2019Brien), Mickey\u2019s fill-in on I\u2019m It!, who\u2019s now 85 and living in the filming location of an indie movie that takes place at a nursing home.<\/p>\n
The new season also brings in Andrew Scott as the network president who insists on meeting Valerie and Billy on Zoom even though he\u2019s in the next room, and Abbi Jacobson and John Early as the writers about to get replaced by AI. Ella Stiller (Ben Stiller\u2019s daughter) is perfect as Valerie\u2019s 23 year-old social-media manager, Patience.<\/p>\n
King said that someone asked them what message they were trying to impart about AI, \u201cand I panicked for two days, until we finally said, \u2018It\u2019s not our job. Our job is just to report: Right now, what\u2019s happening?\u2019\u201d That includes the way work in Hollywood is now harder to find. Case in point: Valerie\u2019s long-suffering documentarian, Jane (Laura Silverman, also back), who quit during her Broadway fiasco and gets roped back in \u2014 in between shifts working the cash register at Trader Joe\u2019s.<\/p>\n
Silverman said that she always believed there would be a third season, but knew it wouldn\u2019t happen unless King and Kudrow had an idea they loved. When she got the call to come back, she didn\u2019t tell anyone, not even her manager. (\u201cI was like, He\u2019ll find out when he needs to know, months later.\u201d) She told the SXSW crowd that she just didn\u2019t want to jinx this rare and amazing opportunity, because she knew that there would be no more comebacks after this one \u2014 although this is Valerie Cherish, so never say never.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was like, \u2018I\u2019m in. I\u2019m going to get to hang out with these people who I love so much, and I\u2019m going to just, like, be in the background, get hit in the head with the camera, say an occasional dry thing, and just soak it in for one last time,\u201d Silverman said. \u201cI had the best time of my entire life.\u201d<\/p>\n
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