Nearly a decade after leaving the air, HBO’s “The Comeback” shocked audiences with a comeback of its own when the network announced that it would be returning for a second season. The show is presented as raw footage from former sitcom star Valerie Chrish’s (Lisa Kudrow, best known for playing Phoebe on “Friends”) reality show. The reality show-within-the-show documents Valerie’s return to the television world as she co-stars in the mediocre comedy “Room & Bored.” Here’s the main joke: Valerie, who is a decent if extremely vain person, does not get reality television at all. She spends most of the show attempting to portray herself in a positive light as she is placed in increasingly ridiculous situations by her ratings-pandering network.
A trenchant, ahead-of-its-time cringe comedy in its first season (reality television would not become huge until a few years later), the show allowed itself to transform completely in its second season. While previously the show would only tap into its bleaker elements occasionally, its second season presented itself as a darkly comedic study of Hollywood’s treatment of women. Valerie, now nearly a decade older, yet no wiser, is cast in an HBO comedy about the experience of her “Room & Bored” writer, Pauly G (Lance Barber), while he wrote the show during his deep heroin addiction. Since Pauly G writes and directs the show, Valerie’s role in it lends additional credence to the events it portrays. For example, it is demeaning for Valerie when the writer of the show-within-the-show portrays her character as a shrill, demanding actress who has oral sex with the writer.
The question becomes: how much will Valerie give up to achieve her dreams of fame? In its answer, the show becomes increasingly bleak, as Valerie quietly begins to destroy her relationships with her husband and best friend/stylist. Valerie’s caring yet manipulative producer (an excellent Laura Silverman) of the documentary crew who has been filming Valerie throughout the season astutely titles her documentary, “The Assassination of Valerie Cherish.” Just when the show seems unable to get any darker, it doesn’t. In its wonderful, singular finale, Valerie makes a surprising, deeply cathartic choice that allows her to be seen in the light she has always wanted. Kudrow is stunning as the narcissistic, complex Valerie, finding sympathy and pathos in what could easily be a one-dimensional character: it’s one of the best performances on television. Equal parts funny, wrenching and inspirational, “The Comeback” finally becomes what Valerie cluelessly describes her reality show to be in the pilot episode: “A woman’s journey back to herself.”
The Comeback is available on HBOGo and Amazon Prime.
Abrams is a member of the class of 2018.
