Lisa Kudrow’s “The Comeback” Returns for Final Season — 20 Years Later
Valerie Cherish is finally getting the last word in HBO’s biting, beloved industry satire.
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Los Angeles, June 27 EST: After years of fans whispering (okay, screaming) for more, HBO is officially bringing back The Comeback for a third and final season, 20 years after Lisa Kudrow’s delusionally lovable redhead first walked into that confessional chair in a Juicy Couture tracksuit.
The new season is set to film in summer 2025 and will premiere sometime in 2026 on HBO and Max. That’ll make it 10 years since Season 2 and two full decades since the show debuted, flopped, then rose from the dead — just like its protagonist would.
The Cult Hit That Wouldn’t Die
Created by Kudrow and Michael Patrick King (Sex and the City), The Comeback started in 2005 as a biting, too-real satire of reality TV and actress insecurity. It got canned after one season. Then — in the most Valerie move ever — it clawed its way back in 2014 with a second season that was darker, sharper, and somehow even more meta.
Season 3 picks up with Valerie still trying to stay relevant, this time cooking up a new show within the show called How’s That? — a title so pitch-perfect for disaster you can almost hear her smiling through the flop sweat.
And yes, she’s still being followed around by a documentary crew. Some things never change.
Who’s Back (Besides Valerie)?
Kudrow returns, of course, along with Dan Bucatinsky as her agitated publicist Billy, Laura Silverman as ever-patient producer Jane, and Damian Young as Mark, the husband we all admire for his saint-level tolerance.
Michael Patrick King is back in the writer’s chair, which means the voice of the show — biting, brilliant, and painfully aware of how the entertainment sausage gets made — is intact.
“I Don’t Want to See That”… But We Do
If you know, you know. Valerie Cherish wasn’t just early — she was first. Before we had a thousand streaming shows about aging starlets and viral meltdowns, Valerie gave us the original unfiltered, mismanaged mid-life reinvention arc.
Back in 2014, critics finally caught up. Season 2 scored Emmy nominations and a flood of praise for its pitch-black take on fame and ego in the Instagram age. A decade later, Kudrow says it all feels even more relevant now.
“In 2005 we were ahead of it,” Kudrow told Entertainment Weekly. “Now we’re swimming in it.”
HBO Says Valerie Still Has Something to Say
“No matter what the industry throws at her, Valerie Cherish is a survivor,” said Amy Gravitt, HBO’s EVP of Comedy, in the network’s release. “And we can’t wait to see that.”
The fans never stopped waiting, either. Bucatinsky, for one, has been openly rooting for a return. “We talk about it all the time,” he told The Daily Beast. “We all would love it.”
The announcement taps into more than just nostalgia. It hits the sweet spot of TV’s current obsession with meta-reboots and revisiting the messiness of fame. Between Hacks, Beef, and Curb, there’s clearly room for one last cringe-laced descent into Valerie’s world.
And if we’re being honest — nobody does spiral with quite so much lipstick-smudged commitment.
Long Live the Queen of Desperation
The Comeback isn’t just back. It’s arriving right on time.
Right when the industry is reeling from streaming chaos, generational divides, and a post-#MeToo reckoning, Valerie Cherish struts back in with a bucket of frozen yogurt and a delusional dream.
Because she still doesn’t get it — and that’s why we still need her.
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