Lisa Kudrow is back, baby — and so is Valerie Cherish, Hollywood’s most painfully relatable trainwreck. After nearly 12 years (!!) since season 2, The Comeback returns for its third and final season, and Kudrow is right in the thick of it, co-writing all eight episodes.
In this exclusive chat with Betches’ Director of Entertainment Dylan Hater, she opens up about Valerie navigating AI-written sitcoms, social media, and the ever-changing entertainment world — because if anyone can survive Hollywood in 2026, it’s Val. (Maybe.)
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Dylan Hafer:
Hi Lisa, it's so nice to meet you.
Lisa Kudrow:
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Hi, nice to meet you!
Dylan:
How are you doing today? I'm so excited for The Comeback season 3.
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Lisa:
Oh, good! Yeah, me too.
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Dylan:
I think I could speak for a lot of the gay people in America when I say it was extremely exciting to hear the news that you guys were bringing Valerie back for a third season.
Lisa:
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Uh-huh, I felt it.
Dylan:
I'm curious, for you, obviously with Friends you were part of something that was such a massive, monocultural, widely appreciated thing while it was airing. Whereas with The Comeback, it's something that over 20-plus years has really only grown and become more beloved. So what is it like for you to have those two things in your life that are so different, but now I think equally as cherished?
Lisa:
It's nothing but fantastic. To be a part of something like Friends, which has meant so much to so many now generations — if a generation is every five years, let's just pretend that's a fact — but I think it will be, that's thrilling and lucky, and I'm grateful to that.
And then for everything I got to do, namely The Comeback, because I got to co-create it with Michael Patrick King and write it this season, wrote all the episodes together, and just love what it's become. We were disappointed it didn't get picked up for a [second] season. But thank God, in a way. Now I'm so grateful because every 10 years, to revisit, it's become this trilogy of a chronological look at the state of the television entertainment industry.
Dylan:
You and Richard Linklater are the only people doing it like this.
Lisa:
Hah, yeah!
Dylan:
I feel like specifically during the pandemic a few years back, there were so many people who were watching things and discovering things that maybe they wouldn't have otherwise, and it felt like maybe that was a moment where The Comeback had this new audience and new attention around it. And I'm wondering, for you, in these last few years, what was that initial spark of feeling like, okay, there might be a way to come back and do this for a third round?
Lisa:
Well, Michael Patrick King had the idea we always talk about, so what would she be doing? Well, she'd be on Broadway probably doing Chicago, Roxie Hart, maybe she would do that, but that's not enough of an event for a whole season. And then Michael just said, "Okay, she's finally offered the lead in a multi-camera show, but it's written by AI. Now what does she do?" So that was fantastic... That's a vehicle to explore for eight episodes.
Dylan:
I think one of my favorite things about The Comeback since the first season is how many different cultural things are worked in, things about the entertainment business, things about celebrity, things about reality TV and the world at large. I'm curious, working on this season and writing it and bringing this character and this world back in 2026, was there one thing that you were most excited to view through that prism of Valerie Cherish that's happened in the world?
Lisa:
Oh, yeah. The world's completely different. I mean, the shock and horror of the first season, and she's allowing cameras to follow her around. That's so undignified and humiliating. What the hell is this? To everybody now curating their own presence on social media in reality.
Everyone's got their own reality show, basically. We're all under surveillance, either by ourselves because we have security cameras in every room where we live, or depending on where you live in a city, there's surveillance. So we're always on camera, and that's not the whole like, wait, what's happening right now? There's a camera? That's not going to be enough. So there was that to discuss for us.
And then the AI, that's the next panic for TV entertainment in our industry. It's a panic for everybody, but we're just looking at our own business. And it was reality TV, which then 10 years later it was premium cable, dramedies that are gritty, and now it's streamers and everyone's worried about AI.
Dylan:
I think it's the perfect moment to dip back into that Valerie Cherish world.
Lisa:
She doesn't take too strong an opinion about any of it philosophically. She didn't about reality TV. She's just like, "What is it? What does it do? What do we do? What?"
Dylan:
I'm curious, when you look back on the first couple seasons of the show, are there any favorite moments or things that stick out to you that you weren't sure how they were going to come together and now they're that perfect moment that everyone loves on the show?
Lisa:
Yes. I'm trying to think. The double vomit in the first season. Every time we shot it, I would turn away from the camera and spit out what was in my mouth. And Michael said, "No, we are not seeing it." And I said, "Oh, all right." So I'd do it again. He's like, "You won't face the camera." And I said, "Of course I won't face the camera." He said, "But you have to. That's the point of why we wrote this!" And just every instinct in my body said, no, I don't want to subject an audience to vomiting coming out of someone's mouth.
Anyway, he was right, and I finally did it, and that one take is the one we had to use. But I was wrong. I thought, this is not going to work. You're going to see. You're not going to use it. You'll see. You're not going to use that one. Wrong, wrong, wrong.
Dylan:
That's how they get you.
Lisa:
I was wrong. I was wrong, wrong.
Dylan:
I'm curious for you, I mean, obviously the world around Valerie has changed so much in the last 20 years. Do you see her as somebody who has changed along with it or do you see her as the constant and everything is just being thrown at her in different ways?
Lisa:
It's a little of both. The world's changed, and she's trying to keep up. She has a social media person every day. She doesn't merit every day, so there's no need for that. But she's got money to spend, so it's okay. And so she's trying to keep up. She's always trying to keep up and isn't exactly sure exactly how to do it, but she's trying anyway. But she's still also changing herself. I mean, what's great is by the end of the first season, we see her get pissed. We see her confront Jane and make a solid decision on quitting the show and won't be treated like this.
Until people go, "That show was great." “Was it? All right, let's do more.” And then in season 2, we see her standing up for herself more, even though she signed on to play a vilified version of herself in a Paulie G, gritty single camera. But still, when she can, she stands up for herself and then ultimately takes care of herself by leaving The Emmys to go be with Mickey because she can't sit there knowing he's in a hospital.
Dylan:
I know this is being billed as the final season. I'm curious when you guys were working on it and writing it, how much were you conscious of giving Valerie an ending or not wanting that to take over everything else that was happening for the season? How did you balance that?
Lisa:
Well, we were very conscious of it, especially the last couple of episodes. But also there's a thread of this is the last one, but we had that for the second season too because we knew that was supposed to be just a limited series, but then discovered because it started off as a series, it wasn't allowed to be in a limited series category, so it had to be called season 2. So just as now, it has to be called season 3. Then it's a trilogy and this is the third and final nice, complete thing.
Dylan:
Well, I can't wait for everyone to see it and thank you so much for chatting with me.
Betches Staff