“Why am I always defending people who don’t have my best interests?” It’s a question that rings throughout The Comeback‘s latest episode, which sees Valerie in the shit, executive-producing and starring in a sitcom while running cover for a studio that doesn’t have her best interests in mind. The Comeback often resides in the realm of “I know writers who use subtext, and they’re all cowards,” but characters saying how they feel amid the varying levels of performance helps clarify the open heart at the center of what could be a very cynical show. Valerie has spent her career finessing conversations and talking out of both sides of her mouth, agitating situations through passive aggression and lies through omission rather than simply being honest with people. Sure, we’d all like to be in the back of Waymo with time to learn our lines, but when the going gets tough, Valerie can retreat into fear. She’s a bit like Marco’s roommates, whispering when she should be screaming. But Frank, who asks Valerie the aforementioned question, hit the nail on the head at the end of tonight’s episode. Valerie is always defending her abusers, especially when she perceives them as more powerful than her (or, at the very least, someone she believes she needs): Brandon, Josh, Mary, and—tonight—Paulie G.
Valerie might’ve been a little too good at executive producing last week. After Billy sent her voice note to the studio, How’s That?! endures a total upheaval. Brandon arrives on set to tell Valerie that he’s fired Josh and Mary, and the show’s writer’s assistant, Marco, is now the showrunner. Andrew Scott is masterfully understated as the NuNet executive Brandon, whose dumb, undeserved confidence in Al Assist does little to assuage Valerie’s concerns. But Valerie knows you can’t replace everyone on set with an algorithm, especially the showrunner. The pilot may have tested great, but Kudrow adds a foundation of fear to her performance when her character learns that she knows more about sitcoms than anyone at NuNet. This is not what she wants to hear. Still, How’s That?! is causing Brandon the least trouble of all the shows on NuNet, and she likes that.
It falls on Valerie to break it to the cast that How’s That?! has lost its co-creators, writing staff, and showrunner. Marco’s taking over. Oh, and also, they don’t know the show is totally written by AI. “You know what not to tell them,” Brandon advises Valerie, and so the ever conflict-averse Cherish attempts to omit the inconvenient truths over a disastrous lunch-table conversation that fails to lower the temperature. While Dean was missing his workout, the cast learns that Josh and Mary are gone, Marco’s the showrunner, and there’s a remote writer named Al who hates driving, hates L.A., and hates himself. In hindsight, this is probably the moment Valerie decides she’s going to contact Paulie G.
Regardless of the changes, How’s That?! is in the swing of things now. Marco supplied the show with a good-enough episode—though Al tends to go overboard on the alts. More importantly, Valerie is seeing the limits of her control and the power of her words. By complaining about Josh and Mary, she may have doomed the show because, unlike a Waymo, the perception of a human at the wheel is almost more important than there being one, and this captainless ship is headed for an iceberg. The actors Marco hired are too quiet. Marco is threatened by his writer’s assistant (played by Lisa Kudrow’s son, Julian Murray Stern), who has more of a knack for TV writing than Marco. Worst of all, Valerie doesn’t have someone to do her dirty work, placing the responsibilities of firing Marco’s roommates on someone more desperate than her: Sharon, her casting director, who does a bang-up job.
Valerie can see things are collapsing. How’s That?! might be Brandon’s least troublesome show, but it’s still a shit show. After asserting herself last week, it’s clear that she only wants the credit for positive changes, not messy ones. She’s happy that NuNet hired someone new, just not who it hired. She’s happy that Mark is making new midlife-crisis friends, just not the one he chose. She wants Marco to cut the glut of jokes, but doesn’t want to face PDP about why his jokes were cut. She wants things to change, but only wants credit for the positive aspects of the change. This all serves to make her decision to hire Paulie G. seem like a real boneheaded one. When he arrives on set, he’s the same old awful, self-deprecating, sexist Paulie G., albeit with a tinge more self-awareness. But Valerie regards Paulie as something of a genius. And while we’ve never been privy to that genius, he did win her an Emmy. (“You won you an Emmy,” Jane replies.)
Though distasteful and miserable, Paulie does know what a successful sitcom should look like. This might be the guy who wrote that cupcake bit for Valerie, but he can tell that the audience doesn’t want to see someone yelling at her. Paulie brings experienced juice to the set because he knows what he’s doing and quickly clocks that the show is written by AI from nothing other than the fact that the series is bad and clearly wasn’t written for humans to perform. Unlike Al, he can also offer insights beyond the lines, like how the scene should be cast, blocked, and staged. It’s honestly invigorating to see Paulie back in his element. He’s rightfully freaked out by the technology, which took a job away from him, and his apology to Valerie was a long time coming.
Despite the changes in Hollywood, some things never do. There aren’t enough jobs, and the people who have them live in fear of losing them. Even though it often seems like things are spiraling out of control, a lot of television is just getting through the day. And Valerie got the show through this one. Her hiring of Paulie panned out, the episode got shot, and even Frank is facing the fact that maybe he doesn’t love himself as much as he thinks he does. But Paulie’s an artist and, therefore, a volatile person, one Valerie doesn’t have a candle for. Valerie is in the enviable position in which she can’t be fired. But if the show fails, she’ll be back at the Coffee Bean with the rest of the Emmy winners.
Stray observations
- • Walter will have any kind of muffin, except banana, blueberry, or bran.
- • Mrs. Hatt’s tagline: “What will she dig up?”
- • Okay, maybe Billy isn’t completely useless. Can Fernando be on Finance Dudes? Mister, he was born for it.
- • “Even Zeke’s not laughing and he laughs at the lunch menu.”
- • “The Spoonman,” Mike Mitchell, is doing some incredible work as a laughing moron this season.
- • To that end, Billy has another one-scene scorcher and an outfit to match. Just incredible use of this character this season.
- • “Even if they hate actors, which I can understand, they wrote some pretty good stuff for my character.”
- • “Really, that kid? I mean, good for him, I guess. I really wish he was dead.”
“Well, he’s nice. Just wants to buy a house.”
- • “You’re a good showrunner, Charlie Brown.”
Matt Schimkowitz is a staff writer at The A.V. Club.
Keep scrolling for more great stories.