Season 3 of “The Comeback” premiered Sunday at SXSW’s Paramount Theater to an enthusiastic audience that welcomed the show’s return after an 11-and-a-half-year hiatus and co-creators Lisa Kudrow and Michael Patrick King. Throughout the two episodes shown, the audience periodically burst out laughing and then applauding, indicating that Kudrow and King’s iconic Valerie Cherish character will be sorely missed. The show’s third (and final) season will premiere on March 22nd on HBO.
The Comeback takes a sharp focus on artificial intelligence in Season 3, when Valerie reluctantly started a podcast with her own show, Cherish the Time, after her two-season Epix mystery series Mrs. Hatt (in which she played Mrs. Hatt) was canceled (so no one knew it existed). The third season will open during the summer 2023 writers’ strike, during which Valerie was not cast as Chicago’s Roxie Hart. After a great cameo by former SAG-AFTRA president Fran Drescher, the story jumps forward three years and Valerie is offered the lead role in the first show written by an AI. The story unfolds from there, with Kudrow’s producing partner Dan Bucatinsky playing Billy Stanton (Valerie’s producing partner). Laura Silverman will reprise her role as Jane Benson, Valerie’s former and future reality TV producer. And Damian Young reappears as Mark Berman, Valerie’s loving but always irritating husband.
In a post-episode Q&A, King said he has lunch with Kudrow every few weeks and wonders what Valerie is up to. But it wasn’t until the double whammy of 2023, when the entertainment industry realized that AI was an existential threat, that they felt like they’d found the right fit for a “comeback.” “When we came up with the idea of Valerie and AI, it felt like the same energy that Valerie and reality TV had 20 years ago,” King said. “And once that happened, Lisa was like, ‘It’s over.'”
When the host asked Kudrow how quickly she could return to the role of Valerie, Kudrow said, “She’s never gone. I’ve got to stop actually telling people, ‘Didja? Oh.'”
Regarding the AI aspect, King said that when he first started writing, he was worried about having to draw grand conclusions, but realized that in reality, “their job is to report on what’s going on.”
“Everyone is panicking and desperate,” Kudlow said. “And everyone is curating their own reality show and posting it on a global platform.”
King said that when he pitched HBO Chairman Casey Bloys, who was an original executive on “The Comeback,” he immediately gave the green light for a third season and said the show needed to air on HBO immediately before any studio would approve the use of AI.
The show was filmed in Los Angeles over the summer, and Bucatinski said that when he first saw Kudrow in Valerie’s wig, he thought, “Hello, old friend.” Silverman said, “I wanted to take in everything one last time,” and “I wanted to have the best time of my life.”
A new addition to the cast is director Jack O’Brien, who won three Tony Awards for films such as “Hairspray” and “The Shores of Utopia.” O’Brien plays Tommy, a former TV hairstylist (and octogenarian) who Valerie meets by chance in the Season 3 premiere and quickly becomes part of her entourage.
“There’s someone missing here, our beloved Mickey,” O’Brien said, referring to Robert Michael Morris, who played Mickey Dean, Valerie’s hairdresser, loyal companion and cheerleader, who died in 2017. Martin Luther King cast Morris as Mickey because Morris was his acting teacher and King was one of his students. As O’Brien said, Morris “became an integral part of this organization of talented people.” Valerie needs Mickey in her corner. Tommy is currently in that role.
“I’m at a stage in my life where I want to say yes to everything,” O’Brien said.
“The Comeback” originally premiered on HBO in the summer of 2005, and although it received Emmy nominations for Best Comedy Actress for Kudrow and Best Director and Best Casting for King, it was canceled after one season, a shock to the producers who thought HBO would give it another chance. Nine years later, after the show achieved cult classic status, HBO brought back “The Comeback” for a second season in 2014, which ran for eight perfect episodes.
The Comeback then went on hiatus for another 10 years until last June, when HBO announced it would be back for a third and final season.
