Since production on How’s That?! got underway, The Comeback has been circling its thesis about why Rome is burning; and it points back to problems Valerie’s been facing her entire career, one she’s been guilty of in the past. Rather than working to make the product as good as possible, the main players on Room And Bored, Seeing Red, and, now, How’s That?! only concern themselves with their specific contribution, not the greater whole. Like last week’s retread of season one’s table read and costume fittings, this latest episode, “Valerie Does It All,” reflects episodes we’ve seen in the past. This isn’t Valerie’s, nor the audience’s, first pilot taping, but unlike last time, Valerie isn’t the one holding things up. Josh, whom I wrongly pegged as the more genial and accommodating writer in episode two, has become fiercely protective of the few jokes he gets on air. It’s a microcosm of the attitudes the show accuses of dominating and dooming Hollywood for decades. Instead of showing some humility and respect for the collective, defensive creatives like Josh dig in their heels. What choice does NuNet have but to turn to a computer program that won’t complain?
As in previous seasons, “Valerie Does It All” positions sitcoms as a battlefield between writers and actors. Thankfully, the show also has a true-blue, sitcom genius in James “Jimmy” Burrows to moderate all perspectives. Al may be able to scrape a joke together from its memory bank of other people’s work, but that’s not going to elicit a new joke that connects people to the show. It wrote a “pretty good” heartfelt scene last week, which only worked because Valerie put some English on lines like “He died because his heart was too big and filled with love.” This is no different. The magic is in the people and the experiences they bring to the work. As Burrows says, it’s the collection of people who, by bringing their unique perspectives, find truth in comedy.
“Valerie Does It All” shows two versions of sitcom production: one where the television machine runs smoothly and another where it grinds to a halt. We open on a familiar scene: Valerie practicing her lines in front of the refrigerator. Repeating AI-generated tongue twisters, like “Boone & Beth’s Bed & Breakfast—B&B’s B&B,” can make a girl hungry for brie. But while that tosses a softball toward the show’s oldest and most trustworthy bit, it’s also indicative of AI’s limitations. Al doesn’t know what it feels like to say words and, therefore, struggles to write words for humans to speak naturally. The scene plants the seed for later troubleshooting, but at this point, it’s not a major concern. The pilot is good enough to shoot, and with Burrows directing, there’s no reason to think it won’t work. On set, Valerie’s getting laughs, the effects hit their marks, and Mark brought his new friend and spectacular addition to the show, his doorman, Fernando (Federico Dordei). All told, the only hiccups are the warm-up comedian forgetting Mrs. Hatt and a line in the cold open.
There’s nothing we can do about society’s shameful lack of respect for Mrs. Hatt, but a new punchline shouldn’t be a problem. But human writers aren’t as amenable as Al. After seeing his best joke tossed in the gutter like so many Mianus U T-shirts, Josh won’t watch another of his darlings murdered. He believes his punchline is structurally sound and thematically resonant and refuses to budge. With nowhere else to turn, Jimmy and Valerie allow Al to generate a list of good-enough jokes that fill the space without draining the scene’s energy.
Unfortunately, as all actors-turned-executive-producers learn, TV production is one problem after another. After the episode wraps, Jimmy breaks the news to Valerie that he won’t be back for more because working with a joke generator isn’t how he wants to spend the rest of his life. It’s a sign of things to come. Once How’s That?! lost its key moderators, production quickly goes off the rails. Al hallucinates the second episode, and it’s the crossover Comeback fans have been dying for: Valerie’s character, Beth, is inexplicably sent to prison with Nathan Drake from the Uncharted video-game series.
Years of being on the other side of such problems have prepared Valerie for this moment. Either the actors have received the scripts in the wrong order (an easy fix) or the writers need to come up with a new episode two. But diagnosing the problem is one thing; solving it is another. Valerie gets a crash course in executive producing as she bounces from inexperienced directors to insecure co-stars as she attempts to locate her writers. Outside the soundstage, she finds her producing partner, Billy, who is suicidal for some solo press, preparing for Variety’s “50 Over 50” photoshoot. Useless Billy’s mind is a thousand miles away, so Valerie hops in a golf cart and hightails it across the Warner Bros. lot to the writers’ camp.
Things don’t get much easier after finding Josh and Mary. They’ve moved their many children, executive assistant, personal trainer, and Basset Hound, Ms. Lady, into a house on the lot. Disgusted by Josh’s workout shorts, Valerie locates Mary, who is out back smoking (blech) and channeling her inner Paulie G. as she chain-smokes her way through pages of Inside Out 6: Riley Loses Her Virginity. Mary admits to Valerie that the show is nothing more than a paycheck to her, an opportunity for a life of residuals that could provide her and her family with stress-free income as Hollywood crumbles around her. However, despite her intentions, her passivity is building the scaffolding for her demise. How’s That?! will never be a syndicated hit if they can’t get episode two done. Either Mary underestimates how hard it is to create a hit sitcom (even I’m It, Valerie’s biggest success, only made 94 episodes, six shy of the historically necessary number for syndication), or she overestimates Al’s abilities. It doesn’t matter because Valerie knows that this isn’t going to work and vows to call the studio.
But Valerie’s not going to tell the studio herself. That’s a job for Billy. Failing in his duties as Valerie’s human shield, he records her complaining in a voice memo and sends them off to NuNet, enraging Valerie, who has no choice but to tell Billy that he’s let her down. This was a long time coming. People have been ignoring Valerie’s requests her entire career, but now she’s the boss, and she needs them to do their jobs. And Billy’s most important job is keeping Valerie’s relationship with her bosses cordial. He’s the one who is supposed to be breaking bad news to them and telling them what she needs. Instead, Billy delivers bad news to Valerie: They want to fire Mark from Finance Dudes. It’s enough to shift Valerie’s focus and get her to agree to yet another TV show. Old habits die hard.
Valerie’s evolution continues as she’s tasked with pulling herself out of her malaise and flexing what power she has. It’s often uncomfortable, but it’s been rewarding to watch Valerie, a character Kudrow has been building for more than 20 years, finally show some backbone.
Stray observations
- • Fernando’s reaction to the warm-up comic touching his shoulder absolutely destroyed me.
- • This better not be the only time we see Fernando this season. What a ray of Mayan sunshine.
- • “No one listens to voicemails anymore. You should send a voice memo.” “Note taken.”
- • “I feel like I’m 50 again! Got any blow?”
- • “Of all the dudes in the apartment, Fernando says I’m the only one he’d hang out with.”
- • We’re getting closer to seeing some Finance Dudes. I can feel it.
Matt Schimkowitz is a staff writer at The A.V. Club.
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