The Comeback Recap: Communication Breakdown

The Comeback
Valerie’s Home Alone
Season 3 Episode 6
Editor’s Rating ★★
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Let’s focus on the positive first: We finally get to see a clip from Mrs. Hatt, and it’s exactly as delightful as I’d hoped. Val as the titular gardener-turned-amateur sleuth, subtly accusing special guest star Paul Dooley of murder? I’d subscribe to Epix for that alone! I’m saying this now because my larger perspective on “Valerie’s Home Alone” is much less sunny. It’s the weakest episode of the season so far, and it heightens a growing feeling that The Comeback’s third outing isn’t clicking the way the first two seasons did. Maybe it’s the influence of Michael Patrick King, fresh off the brain-melting And Just Like That… Maybe the depiction of an industry circling the drain is simply too grim to bear. Whatever the reason, the jokes aren’t hitting like they once did — worse, the emotional beats aren’t either.

I say all this while also acknowledging that The Comeback remains a very good show, thanks in large part to the character of Valerie Cherish and Kudrow’s indelible performance. Even a weaker episode like this one still has its moments — and I don’t just mean the Mrs. Hatt bit. When we open, Val is prepping for a Zoom marketing meeting when Mark pops in to let her know he’s leaving for Burning Man. Her insistence that “grandfathers don’t go to Burning Man” doesn’t seem to make an impression, but she’s able to share a sweet goodbye (“don’t die, please, show’s going well”) before her meeting starts. On the call, Arbor and Ridley aren’t all that receptive to Val’s suggestion that they get Evan into the WGA or her idea for an ad campaign. (When she pitches Beth as a flag waving in the wind on the B&B roof, the NuNet team’s stony silence makes her think they’ve frozen.) Ridley shows her the actual How’s That?! ad they’re going with, an AI-generated image of Val’s head on Diane Lane’s body from Under the Tuscan Sun. “I don’t know why everyone’s so afraid of AI,” a delighted Valerie says. It’s a terrible foreshadowing of what’s to come.

But before we get there, there’s an even more pressing issue at hand: Val’s rapidly fraying relationship with Billy, who has called her in to talk about the disconnect between them. When Val steps into his office for what he says is a private chat, she’s ambushed by more reality cameras and couples therapist David Berkus, who is here to mediate. Billy is producing David’s pilot, and his conversation with Valerie is being filmed for the episode. “Couples therapy content is so hot right now,” Billy explains. (I know Couples Therapy is a Paramount show and HBO has no incentive to promote it, but I would have killed to see a Dr. Orna cameo here.) Billy continues to be so smug and self-serving that I’m not sure what there is for him and Valerie to talk about; at this point, I’m just waiting for her to kick him to the curb. In the meantime, though, she doesn’t want to hash things out for his pilot. “You do everything in front of the camera, but suddenly not when it benefits my mental health or career,” Billy says. Amid his whining, the camera zooms in on some “BS” word art behind him. Subtle! Val says she doesn’t have time for this — there’s a color timing meeting that requires the presence of an executive producer, and she’ll have to do it herself since Billy hasn’t been reading his emails or listening to his voicemails.

Val stepping up for Billy means missing rehearsal, which she apologizes to the actors for the next day. That’s not the only thing they’re upset with her about, though. “I think we can all feel that there’s something not being said about how this show is being made,” Walter says. He’s had this experience before, and it didn’t end well. What he’s actually referring to is a star trying to take over a show — an ongoing misunderstanding stemming from Val getting the showrunners and costumer fired — but Valerie can’t help herself. “There’s another AI show?” she asks. And just like that, the cast of How’s That?! discovers that they’ve been reciting lines written by AI. While there’s initial anger at being kept in the dark and concern over being associated with anything AI, the conversation quickly shifts to shitting on writers. “That’s probably why it’s been so fun here,” P.D.P. points out. “It turns out there are no writers. It’s just us.” Writers are “dicks,” he adds. “They’re just bitter people,” Walter offers. It feels a little off for the whole cast to immediately jump on the hate train — maybe it’s meant to be a reflection of actorly narcissism, but that’s less nuanced than I expect from this show. It’s also awkward to hear these remarks on a season that really could have benefited from more writers. (All of the season-three episodes are credited to Michael Patrick King and Lisa Kudrow, a change from the prior seasons.)

Everything is coming to a head in this episode. At a Cherish the Time podcast recording, Val and Billy continue to try to work through their issues with the help of David Berkus. They’re interrupted by Jane’s girlfriend, Perry (Clea DuVall), who hasn’t heard from Jane in days. Jane has also stopped working at Trader Joe’s to focus solely on the documentary. “You’re making very unhealthy life decisions,” Perry tells her, and is there anyone that isn’t true of this season? Val says that Jane needs to be direct and upfront with Perry, while Billy cautions that she can’t say anything about the AI because of the NDA she signed. That’s when Jane reveals that she never signed it. Billy is reasonably concerned about what that means for the show, but his escalation is pretty repulsive — back on the lot, he shows up in Val’s dressing room with security to escort Jane away. Billy accuses Jane of throwing Valerie under the bus like she did with The Comeback, but Jane is insistent this isn’t about Val at all. “People have a right to know that AI is coming for their jobs, not just in offices and factories,” she says. “It’s right here on this stupid sitcom.” I hope this isn’t the last we see of Jane, as much as I appreciate her parting warning that AI is a threat to our souls. Her growing respect and affection for Valerie has been one of the season’s bright spots, particularly with Mickey gone.

I’m also wondering if this is the end of the road for Tommy, whose storyline seems to conclude abruptly. Throughout the episode, we see him visibly crushing on Frank: lots of unsolicited shoulder rubs, close talking, awkward compliments. Frank asks Val to step in as executive producer, and she delicately tells Tommy to knock it off. He claims that Frank has always seemed tense, and he was just trying to de-stress him. “I have been rubbing nervous actors’ shoulders since WKRP in Cinci-fucking-nnati,” he insists. “Different times,” Val says. (That show has been off the air for 44 years, so she’s not wrong!) Tommy uses this opportunity to quit, a move I did not see coming. He tells Val that what started off as fun has become a job, and he’s too old for workplace drama. This strikes me as an inelegant way to write Tommy off the show, if that’s indeed what’s happening. Before he goes, he blows up at Frank for complaining about him. “I’m not surprised,” he sneers. “It’s always the gays that bring you down. The gays hate the gays!” As amused as I was by Tommy’s list of straight actors who didn’t mind his shoulder rubs (John Stamos, Steven Weber, Mark Linn-Baker), I found this scene to be more unpleasant than funny. It’s an unfortunate ending for a character who was never able to make much of an impression outside of not being Mickey. I did laugh in the aftermath of the tirade when Val says, “So, I told him,” to a shell-shocked Frank.

Val has now lost Jane and Tommy, and the hits keep coming. The news that How’s That?! is an AI-scripted sitcom has breached containment after an anonymous tip, and the fallout is swift. Suddenly, the internet is filled with writers blasting Val specifically. “I’m a comedy writer who can’t pay my mortgage,” one TikToker says. “Thanks, Valerie Cherish.” NuNet, of course, isn’t saying a peep, prompting Val to leave a desperate message with Arbor about how “the S has hit the F.” The Comeback is putting us in an odd position here — just how bad are we supposed to feel for Val? She’s right that she’s been trying to hire writers like Evan and Paulie G, and that she was misled about WGA approving the show. When it comes to the latter, however, I’d argue that she was being willfully ignorant, at best. Yes, Valerie is often her own worst enemy, as I noted last week, but this is really the first time I find myself not on her side. It’s fair for her to ask, “How am I the villain?” when NuNet clearly bears the most responsibility. But she is the face of this show, and she has eagerly embraced a technology that has already had devastating effects on writers’ livelihoods and on the entertainment industry at large. If The Comeback were real life, I wouldn’t be participating in the viral “I Hate Valerie” dance, but I’d probably be liking all the outraged posts — and that doesn’t make me feel great!

Much of this is surely intentional. Sometimes the shows we love make us uncomfortable on purpose, pushing us to feel conflicted about our favorite characters. In this case, though, that results in the emotional conclusion to the episode falling flat. While watching a CNN story on the AI sitcom news, Val sees Jane defending her. It was Paulie G, she surmises, who outed How’s That?! after not being hired. Regardless of where the leak came from (again, Val’s fault, sorry to say!), the damage is done. “Hollywood hates me, Mark,” Val says in a voicemail to her absent husband. “Writers are so mad. I told you AI was the villain. I knew this would happen!” I think on some level that’s true, which makes it all the more frustrating that she’s ended up here. The episode ends on a grace note: Mark, who saw the news at Burning Man, has come home early to support Valerie. He sits down next to her on the couch and holds her as he cries. This moment should hit harder than it does, but Mark has been such a consistent nightmare this season that it mostly just feels unearned. And Mark aside, there are limits to my compassion. As much as I adore Valerie Cherish and hate to see her so broken, there’s no denying the obvious. She brought this on herself.

Give Her Another Take

• I know I’ve been hard on this episode (and, to an extent, the season as a whole), but so much comes down to how the show lands this plane. At the very least, I have faith in Lisa Kudrow! 

• Like Tommy, Patience isn’t really registering as a character, but I do enjoy finding out how she’s injured herself in every episode. “I just don’t know how a bee got in my breakfast sandwich,” she says in this one. 

• There’s an amusing bit when Val is filming a scene where she’s supposed to trigger a spray of water with the line “there’s a leak.” She then says it about the AI story breaking, and gets sprayed in the face. It feels very early Comeback and offers a nice reprieve from the somber tone of the episode, though it’s admittedly a little out of place here.

• We learn that it’s not just Valerie that Mark has been pushing away — he’s not on great terms with Francesca, largely because he doesn’t approve of her husband. I hope the season ends with Mark in intensive therapy. 

• Valerie keeps ordering Mulberry Street pizza. Taste! 

• Do you think Reese Witherspoon is watching The Comeback? She might learn something.