{"id":540419,"date":"2026-03-23T12:36:22","date_gmt":"2026-03-23T12:36:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/540419\/"},"modified":"2026-03-23T12:36:22","modified_gmt":"2026-03-23T12:36:22","slug":"how-the-comeback-handles-mickeys-season-3-absence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/540419\/","title":{"rendered":"How ‘The Comeback’ Handles Mickey’s Season 3 Absence"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tSPOILER: This post contains details about The Comeback<\/a>, Season 3 premiere episode \u2018Valerie Gets a New Chapter\u2019<\/p>\n

\n\tNine years after actor Robert Michael Morris<\/a>\u2018 death, the third and final season of The Comeback premiered this weekend, with one major absence.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn the season premiere episode \u2018Valerie Gets a New Chapter\u2019, airing Sunday, March 22 at 10:30pm ET on HBO<\/a> and streaming on HBO Max, Lisa Kudrow<\/a>\u2018s Valerie Cherish reveals what happened to her longtime hairstylist and best friend Mickey Deane (Morris) after the actor died at age 77<\/a> in 2017.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe lost Mickey. He passed away,\u201d explains Val in the episode. \u201cCovid, the first round. Covid OG, I call it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tValerie reveals the news while reminiscing about Mickey with Tommy Tomlin (Jack O\u2019Brien), who did guest actors\u2019 hair on her first sitcom, I\u2019m It, also doing Val\u2019s hair when Mickey was out. While Tommy helps Val comes to term with Mickey\u2019s death, O\u2019Brien emphasized to Deadline that he \u201cwasn\u2019t being asked to mimic\u201d Morris in his portrayal.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Season 2 finale \u2018Valerie Gets What She Wants\u2019 saw Val missing her Emmy-winning moment in order to visit Mickey in the hospital after he was diagnosed with cancer. <\/p>\n

\n\tDan Bucatinsky, Kudrow\u2019s co-producer who also plays Valerie Cherish\u2019s manager Billy, noted over Zoom, \u201cHe was ill in the shooting of all of Season 2, and we worked it into the storyline of Season 2. Him having the opportunity to shoot Season 2 was so healing for him. He found reserves of energy that he had not had in months to make Season 2. It was a huge gift, to us and to him.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tKudrow\u2019s co-creator Michael Patrick King previously told Deadline at our SXSW Studio that she \u201cdidn\u2019t even consider\u201d doing another season after Morris died. \u201cYeah, that was it. We were done,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cMickey\u2019s irreplaceable,\u201d said Kudrow. \u201cAnd we know that\u2019s how everyone would feel.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tKing, a former drama student of Morris years before the actor\u2019s onscreen debut on the HBO show, added, \u201cHe couldn\u2019t be replaced. So, we came up with the idea that maybe Valerie hasn\u2019t really felt it yet.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tMorris appeared alongside Kudrow on The Comeback since its 2005 premiere. The mockumentary reality show returned for a long overdue second season in 2014. Season 3 premieres Sunday on HBO, with a tribute episode airing April 5.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SPOILER: This post contains details about The Comeback, Season 3 premiere episode \u2018Valerie Gets a New Chapter\u2019 Nine…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":540420,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[88,1035,63328,240196,67118,92],"class_list":["post-540419","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-entertainment","tag-hbo","tag-lisa-kudrow","tag-robert-michael-morris","tag-the-comeback","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/540419","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=540419"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/540419\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/540420"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=540419"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=540419"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=540419"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}