After having celebrated its 20th anniversary on June 5, “The Comeback” — the beloved comedy co-created by Lisa Kudrow and Michael Patrick King that stars Kudrow as actress Valerie Cherish — has been renewed at HBO for Season 3. The announcement also says “final season,” but when a show has been on once in 2005, a second time in 2014, and will be again in 2026 (after beginning production this summer, per the release) the word “final” feels meaningless, and we reject it.
Kudrow returns as Valerie, of course, alongside Dan Bucatinsky (who plays Val’s publicist), Laura Silverman (reality show producer, Jane) and Damian Young (Mark, Valerie’s husband). Missing from the ensemble is the late Robert Michael Morris, who died in 2017, and played Valerie’s best friend and hair stylist, Mickey. No other cast is listed, but the show’s 2014 iteration was loaded with guest stars, including Seth Rogen (as himself, playing Valerie’s former tormentor, Paulie G.) and Malin Åkerman, appearing as her character from Season 1.
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In the announcement, HBO shared a statement from Kudrow and King: “Valerie Cherish has found her way back to the current television landscape. Neither of us are surprised she did.”
Season 1 of “The Comeback” introduced Valerie as mid-range sitcom actor whose return to a (bad) network comedy called “Room and Board” was being chronicled by a reality show called “The Comeback.” Valerie was seen only through the reality show’s lens, which captured every moment of her humiliation — and there were many.
The show was mostly rejected by critics, who found it to be too dark and painful. At the time, Kudrow had recently finished 10 years on “Friends,” and King had completed overseeing “Sex and the City” for years. Whatever critics (and the audience) had been expecting, “The Comeback,” with its incisive eye toward how Hollywood works and how women are treated within it, was not it, and the show was canceled. (Kudrow was nominated for a comedy lead actress Emmy, though — and was again for the show’s 2014 iteration — and King was also nominated for directing.)
Shortly after its cancellation, “The Comeback” entered the pantheon of brilliant-but-canceled shows, and Valerie became the perfect meme. “Well, I’ve got it!” and “I don’t want to see that!” and “hello, hello, hello” — among others — are now part of the culture. HBO brought back the show for a second season in 2014. Earlier this year, Variety placed Kudrow at No. 4 in the greatest TV performances of the 21st century.
When viewers last saw Valerie — at the conclusion of its eight-episode second season in December 2014 — she left the Emmys (though she was destined to win) to be by Mickey’s side at the hospital, after he’d collapsed. After having subjected herself (and being subjected) to more humilations, playing a twisted, fictional version of herself in a dark HBO dramedy created by Paulie G. called “Seeing Red,” Valerie had finally gotten the career acclaim she’d always wanted. But it had come at a great cost to Mickey and to her marriage to Mark. Her leaving the Emmys revealed — shockingly! — that Valerie had grown.
Along with the announcement, Amy Gravitt, the EVP of HBO and Max comedy, said: “No matter what the industry throws at her, Valerie Cherish is a survivor. On the 20th Anniversary of her debut, Michael Patrick King and Lisa Kudrow have brilliantly scripted her return to HBO and we can’t wait to see that.”
King and Kudrow, John Melfi and Dan Bucatinsky are executive producers.
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The post ‘The Comeback’ Returns! Lisa Kudrow Set for Season 3 of HBO Comedy Series appeared first on Variety.
