Lisa Kudrow as Valerie Cherish in The Comeback.
Erin Simkin/HBO
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Erin Simkin/HBO
Think about Valerie Cherish, the perennially desperate-to-be-seen, desperate-to-be-loved Hollywood C-lister performed by Lisa Kudrow. Valerie, bless her, reenters our collective lives as soon as each decade, just like the census.
And just like the census, her return at all times assumes the type of an appraisal, a ruthless and clear-eyed taking of inventory. In The Comeback‘s authentic 2005 season, Valerie donned a cupcake costume and pratfalled her means by way of the rise of actuality tv, starring in each a corny sitcom and its making-of documentary. In 2014, a second season discovered Valerie headlining a status HBO collection about that sitcom, auguring the fusillade of high-end, self-satisfied streaming dramedies that have been about to pummel an unsuspecting populace into submission.
On this third season, she’s nonetheless out right here hustling. Certain, she’s bought an Emmy underneath her belt, and she or he’s been booked and busy, however there are indicators of bother — she and her husband (Damian Younger) have downsized from their Brentwood mansion to a West Hollywood condominium. Her publicist-turned-manager (Dan Bucatinsky) appears much more checked out than baseline. She’s employed a social media advisor (Ella Stiller) and has even began (ominous chord, shudder) … a podcast.
As we meet her, she’s older, wiser however nonetheless primarily Valerie: Blithely optimistic, hungrily opportunistic. She’s nonetheless determined for consideration — however the exact nature of the eye she’s craving lately has subtly however considerably shifted. It is now not sufficient for Valerie to be seen; now, she needs — expects, calls for, even — to be heard.
She stays ridiculous, thank God. And Kudrow as soon as once more imbues her with the physicality that has come to outline Valerie’s important self: She’s nonetheless going by way of life nodding like a bobblehead, nonetheless punctuating nearly each sentence with a “proper?” or a “yeah?” or a “y’know?,” as a result of it is a discovered response. If the world refuses to affirm her in any means — and in some way it continues to search out endlessly novel methods to just do that — then she’ll simply affirm her personal darn self, yeah? Proper?
However one thing occurs within the first episode of the brand new season that effectively indicators how a lot has modified for Valerie. The setup is traditional The Comeback: She’s agreed to star as Roxie in Chicago on Broadway (after receiving assurances that her choreo would be the “dumbed down, Actual Housewives model”). Rehearsal is not going nice — her director and fellow dancers are imply, catty and dismissive (other than one homosexual man, whose phrases of reward Valerie seeks out like a homing missile — which checks out).
What occurs subsequent is quietly exceptional, given the Valerie Cherish we have come to like/cringe-in-sympathy-with over The Comeback‘s earlier seasons. She does not chirpily ignore their insults and blithely soldier on. She does not attempt to excuse and decrease their dangerous habits so she will be able to make the most of the chance they’re affording her. No, she calls them out, and she or he quits. (Extra precisely: She finds a prepared, contractually viable excuse to stop — identical distinction, I would argue.)
This is not the Valerie we used to know. When a possibility to star in an AI-written sitcom arises, she does not knock over furnishings to lunge on the likelihood, as she would have earlier than. She refuses (at first), she seeks assurances that precise writers will probably be concerned (they’ll, kind of), and she or he steps up because the present’s government producer as quickly because it turns into clear she’s the one one concerned who cares concerning the solid, the crew and the standard of the present itself.
There stay loads of alternatives for Kudrow to make us chuckle at Valerie, however because the season progresses, we discover ourselves rooting for her greater than ever. That is as a result of Kudrow has altered Valerie’s gas combination a bit. She’s at all times been acutely self-aware, she’s at all times identified when she’s being disrespected, however the Valerie of seasons one and two was completely content material to swallow different folks’s low opinions of her if it meant she bought a while within the highlight.
Now, that self-awareness is matched to one thing in addition to her default, pathologically sunny perseverance; it is married to defiance, and to motion.
She stands her floor towards a dressing up designer (Benito Skinner) who sees her as camp and nothing extra (one more of The Comeback‘s understanding digs at its rabid homosexual fanbase). She agrees to play good with a community government (Andrew Scott) till she, very publicly, does not. And when her dour husband begins flailing on his personal actuality present, Valerie attracts on her huge reserves of expertise on each side of the digicam to indicate him the way it’s carried out.
However a self-actualized Valerie impacts the present’s comedic chemistry, and there are occasions when the season cannot fairly handle to maintain its satiric chunk. On two events, the present’s pitched disdain for Hollywood phoniness and hole ambition falters, and one thing akin to sincerity peeks out from behind the masks. In a single, a beloved real-life Hollywood comedy legend delivers a brief monologue to Valerie about why AI can by no means exchange actual comedy writers, as a result of comedy wants damaged folks. In one other, a solid member from The Comeback‘s first season returns merely to guarantee Valerie that she is an efficient particular person, an exquisite particular person, and that she is on no account within the flawed.
On each events, seasoned viewers will probably be patiently however eagerly awaiting the flip, the rug-pull, the reveal that such abject, wet-eyed earnestness will after all get swatted down, as a result of that is The Comeback. However the flip by no means comes, the rug stays firmly in place and we’re left to grapple with the information that we have simply been uncovered to the creators’ true intent, delivered with a gravid plainness, with out something even resembling the gimlet-eyed take we have come to, effectively … cherish.
However you understand what? Nice. Who is aware of if Valerie will return in ten years’ time to as soon as once more Cassandra us all concerning the state of the leisure trade? Who is aware of, in reality, if there will be an leisure trade for her to return to? I forgave these moments of uncharacteristic ingenuousness as a result of I managed to persuade myself they felt valedictory, triumphant — just a few discordant bars inside Valerie Cherish’s swan tune.
Which, as viewers of The Comeback’s definitive, beloved, iconic Season 1 finale will keep in mind, is “I Will Survive.” As a result of it might by no means be the rest. Y’know?
This piece additionally appeared in NPR’s Pop Tradition Blissful Hour publication. Join the publication so you do not miss the subsequent one, plus get weekly suggestions about what’s making us blissful.
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