“Hello, hello, hello,” Valerie Cherish says as she opens double doors in the opening moment of a new trailer for The Comeback. “Welcome to my new chapter.”
It’s actually the third and final chapter of the HBO Max comedy series starring and co-created by Lisa Kudrow, which returns March 22. From Kudrow and Michael Patrick King, the eight-episode season once again focuses a lens (and reality TV cameras) on Cherish as she mounts yet another comeback, this time on a new television show titled How’s That?!
“Sitcoms are back,” Cherish declares. “How’s That?! That’s the name of the show. Such a good hook, too. You know? Because you can say it so many different ways. How’s That?! How’s That?!”
The hook for The Comeback’s new season finds Cherish, now an executive producer of her show within the show, figuring out that the sitcom is written by AI. “You’re not going to have to deal with any asshole writers,” Dan Bucatinsky’s Billy Stanton says in nod to the first season as Cherish regularly clashed with a head writer. “It’s being written by AI.” To which Cherish says, “Uh-huh. Wow. That’s new.”
It is and yet another sign of how The Comeback has reflected the current culture landscape from the beginning, like how Season 1 dropped in 2005 at a time when reality TV was in its early stages before setting a stranglehold on Hollywood. For the latest installment, The Comeback recruited stars of the moment, too, by adding Andrew Scott, Abbi Jacobson and John Early to star alongside Laura Silverman, Damian Young, Tim Bagley, Matt Cook, Jack O’Brien, Ella Stiller, Barry Shabaka Henley, Tony Macht, Brittany O’Grady, Zane Phillips and Kudrow’s son in his major acting debut Julian Stern.
King and Kudrow executive produce alongside John Melfi and Dan Bucatinsky. Following weekly episode drops, which continue through the series finale on May 10, Kudrow and King will sit down with host Evan Ross Katz for an official companion video podcast on HBO Max. The podcast will also feature special guests from the cast and beyond.
