The Comeback Recap: Nothing New

The Comeback
Valerie Has a Secret
Season 3 Episode 2
Editor’s Rating ★★★
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“Dramedies are easy,” Valerie says when responding to praise for her performance in Seeing Red, the show she was making — and won an Emmy for — in season two of The Comeback. Like much of what comes out of Val’s mouth, it’s not a sentiment I can fully co-sign, but there is one notable advantage to the genre: A dramedy doesn’t have to make you laugh. That’s something I was thinking about throughout “Valerie Has a Secret,” which is more plot-driven and less laugh-out-loud funny than last week’s season premiere. While calling The Comeback a dramedy may be a stretch, the series has moved away from the broader humor of its inaugural season and evolved into something richer and more emotionally resonant. It’s okay for the show to sometimes lean more toward character and story than jokes! At the same time, this episode is so weighed down with table-setting for what’s to come that it’s tough to appreciate as a meal unto itself.

We pick up with the NuNet meeting that Val decided to take at the end of last week’s episode. As she tells Billy, she’s still not entirely sure about doing an AI-scripted sitcom, which might not even be legal. “Please do not bring up the legality of AI,” Billy warns her. “It’s so not sexy.” At the meeting — confusingly held over Zoom, despite Val and Billy trekking to the Comspot Communications offices — network head Brandon Wollack (Andrew Scott) explains that his goal is to create free content, a word that should make us all shudder, especially in the context of television. “What’s exciting is we have come up with a way to mitigate the cost of content with breaks in the programming to advertise product,” he says. “Commercials,” Val notes. It’s a clever nod to the way the once-innovative streaming model has slowly morphed into a more expensive version of what we had before. NuNet research and development head Egypt O’Connor shares that viewers are tired of the “complicated confusing story lines of all these dark streaming shows.” That’s where Val’s new multi-cam sitcom comes in. She’s been chosen by AI because she’s the woman of a certain age that audiences want to see. (Val bristles at the descriptor until she’s told it means “TV 60, which is 50,” at which point she sings, “If I Could Turn Back Time.”) Brandon also assures her that there are two human head writers working alongside the AI, so no guild rules are being broken. I have doubts, but that’s enough for Valerie, who signs on immediately. Billy’s only stipulation is that he and Val both get to be executive producers, a new title that further swells his rapidly inflating ego. 

Because AI has “bad branding,” Brandon asks Val to keep it a secret until they’ve aired the first six episodes as a proof of concept. She’s already told Mark, though, so there’s no sense in trying to keep him in the dark. The two go to dinner at Soho House to celebrate the new series. Mark is wearing trendy glasses with thicker frames that earn an instant compliment from the waiter. “That oversize thing is what’s happening now,” Val says. “No, I am what’s happening now,” Mark replies, and I experience full-body cringe. The more we see of season-three Mark, the less I like him, and that’s without hearing whatever off-color comment he made that got him fired from his old firm. (“You told a joke at work at a time when jokes were illegal,” Val says after Mark spots his former colleague. “No one cares now.” Grim stuff!) When Valerie sees casting director Sharon (Marla Garlin) dining with Jane Fonda, she can’t resist going over to say hello — and to ask if she can get Jane for her socials. Val thinking that Jane Fonda, decked out in a “RESIST” shirt, would be comforted by her saying “I don’t do anything political” did make me laugh, as did Val’s flailing attempt to defend herself when pressed on why: “Well, where do you start?” Of course, she completely ignores Sharon through the entire encounter, but this is an opportunity that the out-of-work casting director can’t pass up. In her desperation to ask Val for a job on the new sitcom, Sharon falls and injures herself. It’s an intriguing shift in their power dynamic, and it reminded me of Val’s run-in with Gigi last season (minus the lazy fatphobia). No one in this industry is really thriving, and that’s truer now than ever.

Speaking of grocery-store encounters and Janes, we next see Valerie at Trader Joe’s filming fake spon-con for the Green Olive Flats crackers. (When Patience asks if this is for a collab with TJ’s or with the crackers, Val explains, “It’s a potential collab for both. That’s the beauty, right?”) When she goes to check out, she bumps into Jane Benson, who is now a Trader Joe’s cashier (or “crew member,” in proper TJ’s parlance). They haven’t seen each other since Jane abruptly fled the Ambassador Theatre back in 2023. In the years since, Jane has been focused on paying back all the people she owed money to, which she’s done by getting a real job (her words, not mine). Seeing Jane not looking miserable for once — and yes, part of that may be her Trader Joe’s training! — you sort of hope she won’t get sucked back into Valerie’s orbit, but there’s an inevitability to her return. When Val says she’s doing a new multi-cam, Jane can’t hide her disappointment, even if she’s certain it will be a success. “I mean, that’s really what people want, right?” Jane says. “Nothing challenging, nothing they don’t want to know about, just comfort food, nothing new.” Valerie, who has always been more perceptive to slights than those around her seem to realize, can’t resist countering Jane’s assessment. The show is written by AI and is probably the first of its kind. Spotting another potential collab, she asks, “Now, wouldn’t that make a good doc?” 

So naturally, when Val arrives to the set of the new series, Jane is there with her cameras. The show is called How’s That?, and that’s also the catchphrase of Val’s character, Beth, who is running a charming New England bed-and-breakfast with her hunky nephew, Beau. Saying that something “sounds like AI” has already become trite criticism, but in this case, I mean it favorably: How’s That? sounds like AI, a credit to The Comeback’s non-AI writers. Speaking of non-AI writers, Val meets How’s That? husband-and-wife writing team Josh and Mary Abrams, played by John Early and Abbi Jacobson. Awkwardly, the first joke Val compliments them on turns out to have been written by Al, short for Al Assist. (That is a lowercase L in Al Assist, not an uppercase I, and the confusion is both the point and very irritating.) But even if he has to redirect Val’s praise, Josh is excited to be working on the show. “I’m just honored to have the opportunity to be the voice of another vibrant and vital woman of a certain age, such as yourself, for all those ladies online to love,” he gushes. Mary, meanwhile, offers our first hint that these writers aren’t as enthused about playing second fiddle to a robot as Brandon would have Valerie believe. When Mary finds out that Josh has been adding his own jokes into Al’s script, she hits him with a sarcastic, “Great, keep teaching it.” Aside from again being called a “woman of a certain age,” the only real disappointment of Val’s first day is learning that Jimmy Burrows, the acclaimed TV director who worked on I’m It! and Room and Bored, has turned down the pilot of How’s That?

Val isn’t ready to take “no” for an answer, especially from Jimmy, who has been something of a security blanket for her in the past. She shows up at the palatial Bel Air estate he’s renting and finds him at the pool with his grandkids. I was worried he wouldn’t welcome her graciously — Val didn’t get an invite so much as tell the housekeeper she was on her way — but Jimmy seems happy to see her. He’s even kind about How’s That?, saying it’s a good part for her and comparing it to classic comedies Newhart and Fawlty Towers. But Jimmy’s done a million sitcoms. “There’s nothing new in it for me,” he says. We see the look on Val’s face and know what’s coming next. Cut to a thumbs-up to Jane’s cameras from a triumphant Valerie: Jimmy will direct the pilot after all. In the car, Jane asks if Val told him the show was written by AI. “I did, yeah,” she admits. “But, Jane, it’s a secret.” Now that she’s being filmed again, Valerie is once again performing, though it’s not clear if she’s trying to convince a theoretical audience or herself when she dismisses AI fears as “bad branding,” borrowing Brandon’s explanation for the secret. “Everybody everywhere is worrying about AI, right?” Val says. “I, for one, am excited to let go and see what AI is all about.” In one of The Comeback’s least subtle jokes, she then proceeds to ignore the car’s GPS as it repeatedly tells her to turn. Sure, the algorithm thinks it knows the fastest route, but it’s no match for human experience. With a familiar lack of self-awareness, Val adds, “I know better.”

Give Her Another Take

• Before anyone calls me out on it, I recognize the irony of complaining about a lack of laughs in an episode that goes very meta about this particular genre of television. As Egypt notes, “When people want to laugh, a moody single-camera comedy isn’t much of a fun break.” 

• I wouldn’t call The Comeback moody, but there was a certain unpleasantness to this episode. I’d pin most of the blame for that on Billy and Mark, who both seem to have transformed into the worst versions of themselves since last season. I found myself really missing Mickey. Val needs a true ally, and no, Jane doesn’t count.

• To be fair, there were a handful of lines and moments that got me. When Mark says that Soho House has a seven and a 9:30 reservation, Val answers, “9:30? Come on, are we in Spain?” 

• The funniest bit may have been the reveal that Valerie was on The Traitors, where she was picked to be a Traitor and promptly banished in the second episode. It kills me that we only get a brief clip of her unconvincingly proclaiming her Faithful status to Trixie Mattel. I need to see Val melt down at a round table!

• I would also really like to see an episode of the Epix series Mrs. Hatt. We learn in this episode that the title character is a part-time gardener who solves crimes.

• And while I’m being greedy, can we also see Fetch, the last show that Josh and Mary worked on? At least the episode where Judith Light’s Delia has to confront her solitude after putting down her beloved Cavapoo.

• One joke I didn’t love: Valerie listing Jimmy’s credits and very nearly saying Friends before being cut off. Yes, The Comeback is meta, but that just felt a little cheap. On the other hand, I’m curious to know who starred on Friends in this universe. Imagine a world where Kathy Griffin played Phoebe Buffay.

The original version of this recap contained a misspelled name; it has been corrected.