Season 3 of “The Comeback” premiered at SXSW on Sunday to an adoring audience at the Paramount Theatre, who welcomed the show — and co-creators Lisa Kudrow and Michael Patrick King — back after its 11 1/2-year absence. Throughout the two episodes shown, the crowd regularly burst into laughter and then applause, indicating that the character of Valerie Cherish, Kudrow and King’s iconic creation, has been sorely missed: The show’s third (and final) season will premiere on HBO on March 22.
“The Comeback” has set its penetrating sights on artificial intelligence for Season 3, as Valerie, who’s grudgingly taken up podcasting with her show “Cherish the Time” after the cancellation of her two-season mystery series “Mrs. Hat” (on which she played Mrs. Hat), which aired on Epix (and therefore, no one knew it existed). The third season opens during Valerie’s never-launched stint as Roxie Hart in “Chicago” during summer 2023’s Writers Strike. After an incredible cameo from former SAG-AFTRA president Fran Drescher, the story jumps forward three years, as Valerie is offered a starring role on the first show ever to be written by AI. The story unfolds from there, with Kudrow’s producing partner, Dan Bucatinsky, playing Billy Stanton (Valerie’s producing partner); Laura Silverman reprising her role as Jane Benson, the producer of Valerie’s once and future reality show; and Damian Young returning as Valerie’s loving, ever-frustrated husband, Mark Berman.
In the Q&A after the episodes, King said that he and Kudrow would have lunch every few weeks and wonder what Valerie was up to. But it wasn’t until the dual strikes of 2023, when the entertainment industry recognized that AI is an existential threat, that they felt like they’d found something worthy of “The Comeback” coming back. “Once we came up with the idea of Valerie and AI, it felt like the same energy as Valerie and reality TV 20 years ago,” King said. “And once that happened, Lisa was like, ‘That’s it.’”
When the moderator asked Kudrow how quickly she can slip back into the role of Valerie, Kudrow said: “She’s never gone. I have to stop myself from actually saying to people, ‘Didja? Aw.’”
As for the AI of it all, King said they were worried when they first started writing that they needed to come up with a grand conclusion, but then realized that actually their “job is to report right now what’s happening.”
“Everybody is panicked and desperate,” Kudrow said. “And everybody is curating their own reality show, and posting it on the worldwide platform.”
King said that when they pitched Casey Bloys, HBO’s chairman — who was their original executive on “The Comeback” — he greenlit the third season right away, saying they needed to get the show on immediately before any of the studios admit they are using AI.
The show filmed in Los Angeles over the summer, and Bucatinsky said that when he first saw Kudrow in Valerie’s wig, he thought, “Hi, old friend.” Silverman said she wanted to “soak it all in one last time,” and “had the best time of my entire life.”
New to the cast is Jack O’Brien, the three-time Tony award-winning director of such plays as “Hairspray” and “The Coast of Utopia.” O’Brien plays Tommy, a former TV hair stylist (and an octogenarian) who Valerie runs into in the Season 3 premiere, and quickly becomes part of her entourage.
“There is a person missing here: the beloved Mickey,” O’Brien said, referring to Robert Michael Morris, who played Mickey Deane, Valerie’s hair stylist/loyal companion/cheerleader, and who died in 2017. King cast Morris as Mickey because Morris had been an acting teacher, and King was one of his students. As O’Brien put it, Morris then “became an integral part of this knitting of these talented people.” Valerie needs a Mickey in her corner and Tommy now serves that role.
“I’m at the stage in my life when I just want to say yes to everything,” O’Brien said.
“The Comeback” originally made its debut on HBO in summer 2005, and, though it received Emmy nominations — for comedy actress for Kudrow, directing for King and casting — it was canceled after one season, which was a shock to the creators, who assumed HBO would give it another chance. Nine years later, after the show had ascended to cult-classic status, the network did: HBO revived “The Comeback” for a second season in 2014, when it ran for eight perfect episodes.
Then “The Comeback” lay fallow for another decade-plus, until last June when HBO announced that it would return for a third — and final — season.
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