What to Watch: HBO's 'The Comeback' Returns for One Final Act
- 20 hours ago
- 5 min read
Reel Perspectives
March 23, 2026
A decade later, Valerie Cherish steps back into the spotlight - just as Hollywood starts to look exactly like the world she warned us about.
We Learn Valerie Cherish Never Left… Hollywood Just Caught Up
The Comeback Season 1 (2005) introduced us to Valerie Cherish (Lisa Kudrow), a faded sitcom star desperate to claw her way back into the spotlight. Her big return comes through Room and Bored, but there’s a catch: she agrees to document the whole thing on a humiliating reality series, turning her attempt at a comeback into must-watch secondhand embarrassment.
Now, 20 years later, the HBO comedy from Michael Patrick King and Lisa Kudrow is back for one final act. Season 3 premiered on March 22 and will carry eight episodes with weekly rollouts through the series finale on May 10. Returning familiar faces include Billy Stanton (Dan Bucatinsky), Valerie’s overwhelmed publicist; Jane Benson (Laura Silverman), the producer helping shape Valerie’s image; and Paulie G. (Lance Barber), the Room and Bored creator who made Valerie’s first comeback so miserable.
And honestly, the timing feels perfect. What started as a sharp satire of fame, aging, and performance now feels almost prophetic. Long before everybody was curating their lives online as personal reality shows, The Comeback understood exactly where celebrity culture was headed. As Kudrow and King put it:
“Valerie Cherish has found her way back to the current television landscape. Neither of us are surprised she did.”
But in a world that now looks a lot like The Comeback… does Valerie finally win?
Let’s be real, if your memory of Season 1 is a little fuzzy, that’s not on you. It premiered all the way back in 2005, before the social media machine, before reality TV fully took over, and long before Valerie Cherish became the blueprint for this very specific kind of fame-hungry chaos.
Season 1
“To have a comeback, you have to have a setback.” — Valerie
Season 1 introduces us to Valerie Cherish (Lisa Kudrow), a once-recognizable sitcom actress from I’m It! (1989–1993) who’s been out of the spotlight for over a decade and is desperate—and I mean desperate—to get back in. Her shot? A supporting role as Aunt Sassy on the painfully mid Room and Bored, with one major catch: she agrees to film a reality show documenting her “comeback”… also called The Comeback. And from there? It’s humiliation after humiliation—cameras in her face 24/7, producers undermining her, and younger co-stars getting all the shine while Valerie is treated like an afterthought.
But Valerie doesn’t quit. Even while being edited into a punchline on her own show, she keeps pushing—doing the most, chasing validation, and refusing to fade into the background. And somehow, it pays off: Room and Bored becomes a hit, and she lands an Emmy nomination. But in a rare moment of clarity, Valerie skips the awards to be with her hairdresser Mickey during a health scare—choosing real life over the spotlight. Messy, uncomfortable, and a little too real, Season 1 is a sharp satire of Hollywood ageism and reality TV—but more importantly, it shows us exactly who Valerie Cherish is at her core.
Season 2
“More street! Kick some ass.” — Valerie
Nearly a decade later, Season 2 finds Valerie trying to run it back - this time with a little more control. She initially sets her sights on producing a new reality show with Andy Cohen (because of course she does), but pivots when she’s cast in HBO’s Seeing Red - a scripted series based on her very messy history with Paulie G. Yes… the same man who made her life hell in Season 1. Growth? Debatable. Opportunity? Absolutely.
But this time, Valerie isn’t the joke, she’s the moment. Her performance earns real critical acclaim, finally giving her the legitimacy she’s been chasing. And yet, when it matters most, she makes the same choice but it hits differently now. On the night of her Emmy nomination, Valerie walks away from the spotlight again to be with Mickey, choosing a real connection over performance. In that final shift from shaky reality cam to cinematic stillness we see it clearly: Valerie Cherish is no longer playing a version of herself for the world… she’s finally just being her.
Season 3
Season 3 of The Comeback doesn’t just return. We open in 2023, right in the middle of industry chaos, strikes shaking Hollywood to its core, and Valerie doing what she always does - surviving… but baby, barely.
“Welcome to my new chapter! Come on in... are you coming or, oh, taking it all in? Okay?” — Valerie
Her Broadway era as Roxie Hart? Oh, that lasted about five minutes. She quits before previews, because let’s be real - the theater girls were not about to coddle her the way Hollywood does. Valerie chose delusion over critique… and honestly? That tracks.
Then boom - plot twist energy. The show jumps forward into a version of the present that feels a little too close for comfort. The guilds didn’t win. AI is running the game. And Valerie? She’s the lead of a multi-cam sitcom called How’s That?… written by a chatbot. Yes. A chatbot. With a couple of very human (and very tired) creatives acting as the face to make it all look legit.
“You’re not going to have to deal with any asshole writers. It’s being written by A.I.” — Billy Stanton
…Oh, you felt that, right? Yeah. Writers everywhere just screamed into the void.
Season 3 leans all the way into the satire - dragging an industry that’s slowly (and not so quietly) replacing real artistry with algorithms. But in the middle of all that mess? Valerie Cherish is still THAT girl. Desperate, delusional, attention seeking… but undeniably human in a world that’s starting to feel anything but.
And that’s where the magic hits. The show wants to hype her up, almost turn her into a legend but it works best when it just lets Valerie be. Messy. Thirsty for validation. Accidentally brilliant when she’s not overthinking it. That tension? That’s what makes this season land.
By the end, The Comeback starts to feel like a farewell, not just to Valerie, but to a whole era of Hollywood. One built on personality, hustle, and a little bit of “fake it till you make it.” The kind of industry that’s slowly disappearing right in front of us. And the show knows it.
Because at its core, The Comeback has always been a fantasy, but not the glossy, perfect kind. The kind where someone like Valerie Cherish, against all odds, still gets to stand in the spotlight and say…
“How’s that?”
…and somehow, after everything, you realize she might’ve been asking us that question the whole time.
Why This Is a Must-Watch
If there was ever a time for The Comeback to return, it’s right now. What once felt like exaggerated satire now hits a little too close to home. Between AI creeping into creative spaces, the pressure to constantly perform for an audience, and an industry still obsessed with relevance, Valerie Cherish’s story feels more real than ever.
“Actors... they’re a lot.” - Valerie
But beyond the commentary, it’s Lisa Kudrow delivering a fantastic performance - funny, uncomfortable, and quietly devastating. This final season isn’t just about a comeback, it’s about legacy, survival, and whether someone like Valerie can finally get the ending she’s been chasing all along.
Watch the official trailer below:
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