Michael Patrick King, who co-created the HBO series with the “Friends” alum, details what to expect from the “final season” of their prolific — and prophetic — comedy.

The Comeback’s comeback: Exclusive look at season 3 and Lisa Kudrow’s return as Valerie Cherish after 11 years

Michael Patrick King, who co-created the HBO series with the "Friends" alum, details what to expect from the "final season" of their prolific — and prophetic — comedy.

By Patrick Gomez

Patrick Gomez is an Executive Editor at . Formerly at People magazine and The A.V. Club, the Critics Choice and Television Critics Association member has appeared on 'Today,' 'Extra!,' 'Access Hollywood,' 'E! News,' 'CNN,' and 'Nightline,' and can be seen frequently on 'Good Morning America.' Follow the Texas Native at @PatrickGomezLA wherever your media is social for all things 'For All Mankind' 'Top Chef,' and puppy related.

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December 22, 2025 10:00 a.m. ET

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Exclusive image of Lisa Kudrow and Dan Bucatinsky on 'The Comeback' season 3. Credit:

Erin Simkin/HBO

- Twenty years after the first season, and 11 years after the second, Lisa Kudrow and Michael Patrick King's *The Comeback* will return in March for season 3.

- The comedy will center on Kudrow's Valerie Cherish booking the lead on a new sitcom written by AI.

- EW has exclusive images of the new season, featuring Abbi Jacobson, Dan Bucatinsky, and more.

When *The Comeback* premiered in 2005, we were still two years away from keeping up with the Kardashians.

"Twenty years ago, Valerie Cherish was obsessed with how she looked on camera and how her life was coming across. And here we are 21 years later and everybody else is obsessed with how they look on camera and how their lives are coming across," Michael Patrick King marvels to ** of the dimming sitcom star he and Lisa Kudrow co-created for their HBO mocku-series.

"I mean, is it possible that everybody turned into Valerie Cherish — curating their lives on camera for social media?" King continues. "What was then considered cringe or needy is now an everyday occurrence. How do I look? Which filter? Which version of my day do I put on? Valerie really was the beginning of that."

*The Comeback* season 1 followed Kudrow's Valerie as she staged a return to sitcoms, the format that made her a star. But to book the role — not a fun, sexy lead, but the dotty old Aunt Sassy (Valerie was, *gasp*, 40 after all!) — she also had to sign on to a reality show produced by Jane (Laura Silverman) documenting her life at work with her castmates (played by then-newcomers Malin Akerman and Kellan Lutz) as well as at home with husband Mark (Damian Young).

Lisa Kudrow on 'The Comeback'.

Season 1 garnered Kudrow an Emmy nomination, and "we thought it would get picked up and it didn't, so that was a surprise," King says. "We had a whole second season going through our mind that never happened."

But 10 years later, they finally got their chance, yet again tackling the zeitgeist just at the precipice of major change. Season 2 covered the pivot to premium and streaming and the fusion of genres into dramedies. It concluded with Valerie winning an Emmy for her work in a prestige TV project that was far from the three-camera sitcom that'd made her a star decades earlier.

And then, again, years passed without more *Comeback*.

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"Lisa and I would get together over the years and we'd bat around ideas at lunch," says King. "We'd always make something up that was funny, but it's not enough just to have a one-joke idea. Then we came upon the idea of looking at where the television business is right now. And it's very much like the Wild West — where it was 20 years ago with reality TV. Everybody was really concerned that reality TV was going to destroy television as we know it. Then it was streaming. And here we are now, and everybody's, maybe more than ever, in a panicked state about what's coming next: AI."

Exclusive image of Lisa Kudrow on 'The Comeback' season 3.

Erin Simkin/HBO

"So it's really an interesting time for Valerie to show up," he continues of the upcoming third season (set to debut in March). "Someone who represents so many waves of television, all the way back to her it-girl sitcom called *I'm It*. She goes way back. It'll be interesting to find where Valerie is currently — and how she, one of the most human characters ever created, deals with a machine."

King is keeping at least some of those answers close to the vest, saying that finding out what the actress has been up to the past decade "will be a very big part of the beginning of the show."

But he's more forthcoming about what's next for her: the lead of a new sitcom, *How's That?!*, which is written by AI.

Exclusive image of Lisa Kudrow and the 'Comeback' season 3 cast.

Erin Simkin/HBO

So what does Valerie, who hasn't always been the quickest to adapt to new technology, think of computers running the writers room — a place she finds sacred?

"She knows what writers think about it, and that's the first step," explains King. "If Valerie knows that writers who are responsible for television don't like AI and think it's the villain, then that's probably something she should pay attention to."

"But the thing we didn't want to do is the obvious joke that AI is bad. That's all been done," he continues. "The scary thing about AI is that maybe it's learning really fast, and what does that do to our business? What does that do to our perception of what television is and what writing is and what being an actor is? The most fun thing about Valerie in AI is all her drama has been with writers. And now what will her drama be if there are no writers?"

Exclusive image of Ella Stiller and Laura Silverman on 'The Comeback' season 3.

Erin Simkin/HBO

Well, maybe not *no* writers. *The Comeback* season 3 photos exclusive to EW feature Abbi Jacobson and John Early, who King says will play a married couple on the *How's That?! *writing staff. Dan Bucatinsky is back as Valerie's publicist, Billy, while Andrew Scott joins as a studio head alongside fellow season 3 additions Tim Bagley, Matt Cook, Jack O’Brien, Ella Stiller, Barry Shabaka Henley, Tony Macht, Brittany O’Grady, Zane Phillips, and Julian Stern.

Exclusive image of John Early and Abbi Jacobson on 'The Comeback' season 3.

Erin Simkin/HBO

Fans of the series will remember that season 2 ended with Valerie choosing to leave the Emmys before her category was announced so she could support her longtime hair stylist Mickey (the late Robert Michael Morris). It was a moment that broke convention, abandoning the hand-held camera, reality-show aesthetic for a more traditional, cinematic look.

"We wanted to remember that we'd already gone through the looking glass with Valerie, into the real world versus the television-camera world," King teases of how season 3 might visually differ from past seasons.

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King says the series will also reveal the state of Valerie's relationship with Mark — and with social media.

Exclusive image of Lisa Kudrow and Damian Young on 'The Comeback' season 3.

Erin Simkin/HBO

"Every actress I know is trying to get a collab or trying to get more followers. It's a business more than it's ever been, and you're kind of on your own," he says. "And so Valerie is also trying to stay current. That feels really fun to me: what celebrities she can get to join her on her little social media page, what products she can try to get a collab with."

Maybe a Lincoln Navigator? We hear it has a great sound system.

Original Article on Source

Source: “EW Comedy”