The Comeback returned to TV this spring for one last critique of the Hollywood machine. After focusing on the comedic ire toward reality TV; the ebbs, flows and drama spilling out of writers rooms; and the broader landscape of network television, co-creators Michael Patrick King and Lisa Kudrow, who also stars, turned their attention to the threat of AI in season three. “One of the main thrusts of why we came back was because Valerie’s character [Kudrow] has always had problems, in the other two seasons, with the writer,” King says. “So the idea of coming back for the third season with a writer that isn’t human was really interesting.”
In this scene in episode four of what will be the final season of the HBO comedy, Valerie has just wrapped filming on the pilot of her new show, How’s That?! Ever the optimist, she’s blindsided when the director Jimmy, played by iconic real-life TV director James Burrows, tells her the show will never truly be great as long as it’s written by AI, illustrating the main tension emanating throughout the season and Hollywood at large.
Courtesy of HBO
This scene works for Kudrow, she says, because it shows just how determined her character is. Explains King: “It also shows the two types of characters. One person who doesn’t need anything from the industry anymore, Jimmy — he’s had it all, and he doesn’t need it, it doesn’t look fun to him — and Valerie, who, no matter how fun it isn’t, still needs to make a show great. She has to work, but she also has to strive.”
