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about the latest and greatest in movies, TV, music, and more. And if you're a pop culture junkie who's not following the show yet, we are recommending you fix that right now by following Pop Culture Happy Hour on your favorite podcast app. And now, onto the show. The cold favorite satire, the comeback has returned for a third and final season,
and we definitely needed to see this. Once again, the great Lisa Coudreau is Valerie Cherish,
the resilient sitcom star who's always finding new ways to re-inventor career
within the fickle entertainment industry.
“It's been more than a decade since we last checked in, so where is Valerie now?”
Well, the present is bleak. The new show she's starring in is being written by AI, but if we know anything about ballots, that she'll always seize an opportunity. Setbacks be damned. I'm Glenn Weldon. And I'm Ayisha Harris, and today we're talking about the comeback on Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR. Joining us today is freelance music and cultural journalist Riana Cruz.
Welcome back, Riana. Happy to be here. How's that? How's that?
That's great. I love it. So in the comeback Lisa Coudreau plays Valerie Cherish, a 90-sick com star who's gone through many career ups and downs over the years. Season 1 aired in 2005 and was a mockumentary inspired by the emerging reality TV craze. A camera crew followed Valerie around as she returned to TV, starring in a network comedy series called Room and Board. Nine years later, season 2 followed Valerie's role playing a fictionalized version of herself
on an HBO drama inspired by Room and Boards to multiverse behind the scenes production. Meta, meta, so so so so meta. Now in season 3, Valerie's career is on the downswing again, especially now that she's a woman of a certain age. Those are not my words. That is the show words. I'm just going to clarify that right now. Her newest gig is as the star of House That, a multi-cam sitcom where she plays a single woman of a certain age, running a bed and breakfast
with her nephew. As at, such a good hook. You know, you can say it's so many different ways, right? How's that? How's that? How's that? Right? Oh, so good. But here's the catch. The network producing the show is secretly relying upon an AI app to write the script. Despite her reservations about this, Valerie commits to the part and even signs on as an executive producer and puts her reputation and career on the line. This season season is a return of a lot of
familiar faces including Damian Young as Val's weary but supportive husband Mark. Laura Silverman, as Jane, Val's steadfast documentarian, and Dan Buchatinsky as Billy, Val's rude publicist turned manager. Plus there are some new additions like Andrew Scott as the network head and John early in Abbey Jacobson as a sitcom's human writers. They've been hired as cover to keep the public from knowing about the AI script. The final season of the comeback is airing on HBO and streaming
“on HBO Max. And Reanna, we're going to start with you. Are you happy that the comeback is back?”
Absolutely. I mean I love the comeback. I think Valerie Cherish is an icon. I see the comeback as perhaps the greatest comedic character study of the 21st century in my opinion. It's used as a
prism to understand Hollywood. And I think the first season was about forging who Valerie Cherish was.
The Valerie Cherish persona. The second season for me was cracking. That Vassage, you know, you watch her kind of short circuit. And in this season we see who Valerie Cherish is picking up the pieces and rebuilding herself after the past decade. And I thought the season was really funny. I think there's a lot of elements to it that called that to the first two seasons, particularly the first seasons use of chaos. You know, there's a lot of shots in this season that
they have a lot going on. There's a couple moments in this season where I felt like it was very uncut gems coated. You know, like people talking over each other. You're trying to listen a three different conversations at the same time. There's so many issues at once. But it really
“leans into the drama de aspects that I think the second season nailed. The third season, again,”
it's funny. I have some weird tonal whiplash with the issues that they do in this season. There's conflicting messaging at times. I think it suffers at points from the Michael Patrick King problem, where it was kind of giving in just like that. To me at times, our characters were having strange motivations and plots kind of appear and disappear. But that's okay. I don't come
To the come back to save the world.
Michael Patrick King is known for the and just like that, sex and city world, but he also co-created this show with Lisa Cudro. And there's a lot of like a little bit of overlap there in
“terms of how they think about women and women of a certain age. But I think the show handles”
it a lot better than in just like that. But we're not talking about that. Glenn, I know you are a huge fan of this show. Are you happy that this has come back? Oh, so happy. Look, a new season of the come back is something of note in the wider world in the gay community. It's an event. I've said it before. Yeah. The Tony's are the gay Oscars. The Oscars are the gay Super Bowl. Eurovision is the gay Olympics. I'm going to add to that and say that a season of the come back is the gay
series. Something we tune into. We follow over success of nights. We invest in it deeply. Now that metaphor doesn't hold up, of course, because the come back only comes back once every 10
years. Like the census and like the census, it kind of always finds a way to kind of sit you
in us, right? It's like the census. It's always an appraisal, a taking of stock. And it always comes at a crossroads in the entertainment industry. Now admittedly, I have never been a sex in the city gay. I've always been a come back gay, and I don't judge sex in the city gays,
“except in the sense that I very much do. I mean, I think there are androleid Weber gays in”
there are sometimes gay and and androleid Weber is hugely popular. He's left a much bigger cultural footprint than sometime ever will. Sound time is just better. I think that kind of extends here. And because of just like that, I imagine having to watch this show, the way people watch that show, hate watching this show, hooting at it with the reason I didn't want to do that.
But this is perfect. It's not the same show that it was in the first two seasons, because we've
changed and Valerie has changed in ways I hope we're going to talk about. I just think it's richer. I think the satire hasn't gotten soft, but it has grown. It has adapted, but we still get jokes about real housewives in Chicago and jokes about people watching epics on rope who has your question. Yes, and please, I'm also mostly relieved. Yes, yes. I love the so much shade thrown to the streaming epics. I love that. I'm going to show my hand here and also admit something
embarrassing, which is to say that I was not a comeback fan before this new season was announced. And that's not because I had had seen it and decided it was not for me. It just slipped me by. I was in college in 2005 when the first season dropped. So like I was not on HBO. Like that was not my world. I could not afford it. And that just wasn't something I was paying attention to. And then you know, in 2014, I felt it came in once and I didn't tap in then. And so to prepare myself for this,
I binged the first two seasons ahead of watching the third season. And my goodness, a show that was
meant for me and it took me this long to find it. And knew it, it told you what the hell? What the hell? Like, this is my cat nap and Lisa Cudro, she is just so brilliant. And everything you've said about the way the show has built upon itself and really kind of just become more rich with each season. I think it's absolutely true. What I find interesting about this is, you know, I've written in the past about, you know, something I've called, "high-eightous brain," which is like shows that come and
then go way too long in between, you know, I'm thinking of your better call sauce, your Atlanta. You're like, shows that kind of to some extent depend upon you being able to follow them regularly because there's too much stuff that gets forgotten. And then when they go away for two, three,
“sometimes even longer years, you have to pick back up and it takes a long time to get there.”
And I admit I did not have that experience with the show because I binged it all at once. But I think this show absolutely actually is like the rare piece of work that actually benefits from having so much time and between, even if that wasn't the creator's choice. Because having this season be about AI, first, of course, it's inevitable. What else would you really do about that? Michael Patrick King has talked about how the first thought was like this made it into the
first episode of this season. It focusing on her Valerie having the natural progression for an actress of a certain age who also is like in her like kind of be-listy, Cusp-a-list territory, being in a production of Chicago. Of course she would be the next person to step into the lead of Chicago. The dumb-down version as they call it. Yeah, that was version. Yes, of course that is what it is. But that can't be the focus. They
recognize that that Chicago would not sustain itself. And I think the AI of it all really really works. I mean, what I will say though is there is a tweak in the format of this season because the first few seasons they commit completely to the mockumentary style. The comeback, the first season, it is, you know, you are seeing the raw footage of that show and that is how you view it. And so
There's a lot of moving around, moving parts and like people who are like, wh...
you have to sign a waiver. Like there's all those moments. And in season two, you know, it's kind of a similar thing. Here we have the tweak because of the setup where we instead get sort of a single camera comedy, like a straightforward comedy. And then it brings back in the mockumentary style. But it keeps jumping back and forth. So like what do you make of that tweak here? Like do you think it still works? No, absolutely. I noticed immediately because there's a lot of weird shots of
like the iPhone, you know, and it's like somebody holding the iPhone and the shot is the screen of the iPhone. I'm of two minds on the cameras. I don't know if I like the look of them. It feels a little strange to me. But I do like what they do. And I think the implementation of diagetic camera versus removed cameras showcases the distance that bowel keeps between her
public and private personas, which is something that they started to get to at the second season.
And here you've fully see that distance and that divide. And I do like that move in what the cameras represent. And you could see Lisa Cudro flip a switch on in Valerie when she's being filmed versus when she's not being filmed. And I think it's a very subtle character move that I appreciate and it's something that we haven't seen before, except for the end of the second season.
“Right. And that's why I think it's a natural progression, narrative and character progression because”
in that, the last few scenes of the season two finale, we grow from Shikikam to, you know, ostensibly filmed reality like an actual objective reality. And that's a stepping into Oz kind of moment. That's like a big breakthrough moment. And it seems like that's a continuation of the way Valerie's change because this performance as Valerie, I don't think it can be overstated.
It's so layered. It's so nuanced. It always has been. But in a way that especially in that first season,
you might have been tempted to dismiss it as camp. And I understand that impulse because, you know, at the center of the show is a woman of a certain age who is desperate. And that's the formula for camp. That's drag. There's so much more going on because the physicality of Valerie remains funny. She goes through life nodding like a bubble head at everyone and everything. And you heard it in that clip we played every sentence out of her mouth is punctuated at the end
with a, yeah, or, you know, or right. And that's learned behavior, right? Because that's such a great character thing because we know that Valerie has learned the world's not going to affirm me in any way. It's going to find new ways to dismiss me. I'm just going to affirm myself, like a habit, like a vocal tick. But what Kudra was doing in this season is different, she has tweaked the
feel mixture a bit. And look, Valerie has never stupid. She was never obtuse. She was always
been self-aware. She's always been aware of when she's being slided and self-adjusted dismissed by people. She has just historically refused to acknowledge that. She swallows it. She rolls with it. She refuses to be humiliated. And that's what we love about her. But in this season, it's like she is slightly foregrounding the self-awareness in a different way. And it's kind of matched action. So she stands up herself in ways that she never did before. We can imagine her doing
before. And that's, you know, on this stage with the dancers in Chicago, with a costume designer, a little bit later in the season with network executives, that is such a smart progression. She's still funny. She's still starved for attention. But it's just that the nature of it, the attention she's craving is slightly changed because before all she wanted was to be seen. And now she wants and expects and even demands to be heard. And that's why it's not better. It's just richer.
“And that's why I think it works so well. Yeah, I mean, that's the thing, right?”
That's what comes with, I mean, something I'm slowly learning and something I've learned from the women who in my life who are older than me by a decade or two, the older you get, the less insert work here you give. And to be able to see that progression of where she's at now. And the fact that she is like insistent, you know, this is another aspect of this season is her and Billy, her public says, being the executive producers on this show. Now does she understand what that means?
No, is she ready to step up to that challenge? Not exactly. And it plays out in very interesting ways this season. The way that she has to juggle both being a star and being the executive producer, which comes with more responsibilities than she is actually prepared for. But the way she handles it, it's handled in a way that you would expect her to handle it. But she's also learning and growing and getting better at it as it goes on. And it's just nice to see a character who, I mean,
“I've seen her described as delusional. And I think to some extent that might be true, but not in”
the way that we often think about it, not in the like, disparaging way, but just in a way like,
She is orphan Annie to some extent.
and see things as good as she can because that's all she has. All she has is herself. And of course, she has marked to her husband. You know, she has people in her corner. But there are moments where,
“you know, she is not perfect. She's also kind of not mean, but she can be stern. And I think the”
way this show handles how Holly would from what I, you know, have been able to glean from the outside. It really does a good job of showing that everyone is on a different journey and everyone has different ways of interpreting this industry. There's a version of Valerie that could be awful and horrible and horrific. Look, she's had moments in the past. Like, season two was like fueled by an incident that happened on the set of room in board with Polygee, played by Lance Barber. And Polygee,
of course, was one of the writers on room in board. She was not her best self. I like the fact that like, everyone has their moments where they're not their best self and not necessarily their greatest, but also the show overall has a sort of optimism and matter of fact way of approaching just like what it means to be someone working in the industry. And not just actors too. We hear from writers and directors. Like, I, what did you think of the new characters, especially, you know, we have Andrew Scott,
as we mentioned as the network executive, but then we also have Abby Jacobson and John Early
“playing. I think I married couple, which I find hilarious. They mentioned that they're married a”
couple times and I'm like, oh, sure. But like, do you think they're kind of integrated in a way that works the season? I don't know. I don't really think they're integrated very well. I think some characters work better than others. I particularly love Valerie's social media manager, Patience,
who's a Jen Zier, who always has some medical problem. Yes. She gets stung by Abby. She has COVID.
Her leg is in a boot. Like, these things I think are funny and contribute to the comedic energy of the show. I think the other characters that aren't Valerie and Mark and Billy her manager and executive producing partner, they all kind of exist to serve the show's messaging. I don't really think they exist as characters. Yeah. The new characters got you got you. Yeah. I think I'm picking up on something that Reanna mentioned because I think Valerie's still funny, but there's something about a self-actualized
Valerie that changes the comedic chemistry the show. I can think of two occasions when the show descends into what I can only call abject sincerity. Because when occasion there's this beloved
kind of Hollywood legend who gets a monologue to explain to Valerie how AI will never write good
comedy because good comedy needs broken people whether or not you agree with that. I happen to agree with that, but like we're just getting it flatly asserted. And on another occasion much later in the season, a character from the first season shows up to it seems to me to do one only one thing, which is to just reassure Valerie that she's a good person. She's a wonderful person. She's completely in the right. I know this show, right? I love this show and I'm watching those scenes and I keep waiting
for the reveal, the turn, the rug pull and it never comes and I'm like, well there's no way this show would let the mask kind of slip like that. I would just let the creators true and tent kind of come through, especially in a way that's so like basic plane direct. Yeah. I was kind of stunned that we're not getting statements like that or approaches like that at an angle because this show is all angle. But then I remembered something you mentioned at the top I show which
this is the final season. Yeah. Kudo has said this is the final season. If it is, those moments they still stick out. They're a victory lap. They're the curtain call when the creator step out
“from behind the curtain and take a bow. Yeah. That's kind of the way I felt. I mean I think about Jane”
Laura Silverman's character as the director who's kind of always served as especially season two
on. She kind of becomes the person who's always questioning like, Valerie why are you doing like you are being humiliated. What are you doing here? Like I want better for you. I want better for me and to see the arc of that sort of relationship come around and also just to see again we learn like she's one and Oscar, right? But like she's working at Trader Joe's now. It's like this is the reality of being in Hollywood at not being ALUS and not being the top one
person of Hollywood. This is the reality. I really appreciated those moments where we get to see all these people wrestling with that. Well, also wrestling with like the doom that is already at our doorstep of AI just kind of taking over. I also just think Ender Scott. He's doing that Ripley thing again where he's just like kind of dead behind the eyes and it works. Oh, those black eyes. Yes, those jet black eyes. The shark's eyes. I enjoyed it a bit. Well,
the Andrew Scott character gets at something for me that wasn't present in the first two seasons
It's this bleak energy to everything and I think it's because you know they'r...
a mirror to what's going on in Hollywood right now. I think of the conversation in episode two where Jane and Valerie at Trader Joe's are talking about how they were affected by fires. And then the fires happen by the craziness. Yeah, just I thought about you guys. Oh, yeah. Well, we almost had to evacuate. So yeah, if your house is good, no, our whole canyon burned because we didn't
“pay off the right fired apartment. It's a weird conversation. It's played for laughs and I think it”
should be. But it kind of underscores this tone difference where they're trying to address these
issues. Sometimes it comes off as flipping in the sake would be like funny, which is fine. Never before
have I left a season of the comeback feeling weirdly hopeless, right? Like I think at the end of each season, I come out of it feeling perhaps I don't want to say hopeful, but you know, feeling a little bit better about the state of Hollywood at the time. When this show ends, I like was sad. I have this empty feeling. It is because it reflects Hollywood right now and things are not good. But that's an interesting thing that the show is trying to do. And I don't know if it's intentional or not,
but the way that Michael Patrick King is weaving these issues into the show. It's inherently political. And when you contrast it with Val's apolitic, it's strange to me. I can definitely
see that if you think about the way this show has really been able to help make sense of different
moments, different inflection points in Hollywood and in culture. I wonder, Rianna, if you're like, "Whoa, how are you going to help us kind of parse out wherever we are in 10, 9, 10 years or now?" Like, who knows if we're going to be 9, 10 years or now? We might not even have HBO and 9 years or now. I don't want that, but you know how these things are going. I do wonder how much of that. I don't want to put anything on your Rianna. But like, at least to me, that's kind of how I felt.
Totally. I do kind of want to keep revisiting this every five or 10 years. And like, there's just so much to say. And knowing that this could be the final, it just kind of like, well, who will help us explain everything? It's bleak, but also I do think as this season progresses, it does a good job of not kind of falling necessarily on one side or the other, at least presenting different ideas and really sort of capturing a sense I get of what people in Hollywood might be
feeling about AI and it's not all the same. People can understand the way things work and change is happening and some are more ready to adapt to it than others. And I liked that.
“I think it was important to show that because I have been very anti-AI for many reasons,”
but I also understand that there are different versions of AI and we see use them. So I'm trying to be open-minded. And I think this show just too. I also think this show's relationship to its rapid gay fan base is pleasantly complicated because there's other moments in this show where in a little bit later in the season, Benito Skinner plays a costume designer who wants to
reduce Valerie's character to a camp icon. And she pushes back on that in a way that she would never
have done in season one. And in that scene in the first episode where she's on stage in Chicago, one of the dancers is totally in her corner, yes, diva sleigh. There's another who is just bitchy, just Joan Crawford in the women. And there we go. There's the totality of gay men and straight women, right there. Yeah, I mean, I feel weird ending this episode without even mentioning the fact that Robert Michael Morris, who played Mickey her hairdresser, who was just such a lovely
“character over those two seasons and has since passed away passed away in 2017. But I think the”
show does a good job of acknowledging that in ways that feel real. And also, again, that relationship was, yes, there's Mark, but also there was Mickey and Mickey brought out so much of the best of Valerie in ways. And I think this season does a good job of both honoring his memory and also reminding us that Valerie is, yes, she could be all about herself. But she also cared about the people who really, really rode for her in love to her. And it's very sweet and pleasant, I think.
I agree. I think the absence of Mickey also highlights Valerie's character change, you know, because if nobody's there to advocate for her, she has to advocate for herself. It's a great point. Oh, Mickey, we love you. The comeback loved you. What a fun show. Well, that brings us to the end of our show, Brianna Cruz. Glenn Weldon, thanks so much for being there. How's that? I think
It was great.
by Hubsa Fathina and my Catsiv and edited by our show, run our Jessica Readie. Hello,
“come in provides our theme music and thank you for listening to PopGlitter Happy Hour,”
fun, and PR. If you're not already following the show, do that right now. I'm Aisha Harris.
We'll see you all next time.
