Season 3, Episode 7: ‘Valerie Chases the Truth’
In last week’s episode of “The Comeback,” Valerie’s precarious “How’s That?!” house of cards finally started to fall down. This week, she assesses the damage, which is not quite as bad as she feared. There is only one episode remaining this season (and perhaps this series), so the creators, Michael Patrick King and Lisa Kudrow, are starting to tie off loose ends and to reflect on what it all means. And maybe, just maybe, they are setting up for a happy ending.
If so, the ride to get there is going to be a little bumpy, as it probably should be. Even though it’s easy to be on Valerie’s side whenever people are yelling at her, that does not absolve her of her sins. The people who line up outside the “How’s That?!” set to protest her are not wrong. The cantankerous crew members who say that she lied to them? Also not wrong.
Valerie faces her toughest crowd when she looks for Paulie G. at his favorite coffee shop, intending to accuse him of leaking the A.I. story to the press. As soon as she and Billy walk into the cafe, the hollering begins. And again: It isn’t undeserved.
One big question raised by this “Comeback” season is whether King and Kudrow think Valerie bears any responsibility for the “How’s That?!” A.I. fiasco. Yes, she has been pushing for human writers. But she has also been touting the benefits of A.I., and she has backed down from NuNet whenever an executive flatters her ego. How do King and Kudrow feel about that?
Judging by way this episode goes, they are willing to cut Valerie a lot of slack. Sometimes they do it by making her opposition look worse, as when Billy eviscerates a furious out-of-work screenwriter by asking why he is spending eight bucks on a latte if he is so hard up for money. (In reply, the writer tosses one latte at Billy and then another at Valerie. That’s $16 wasted.)
More often, they do it by having a friendly face take Valerie’s side. The “How’s That?!” stage manager, Bev (Stephanie Hodge), tries to calm her crew by reminding them that they are all professionals doing a job the best they can, the same as Valerie. She also notes that while a lot of their colleagues are struggling to find work, Valerie is the reason for their paychecks.
And Paulie G. — who was not the leaker and actually sent Valerie a supportive text — thanks Valerie for rekindling his love for making TV. He says he swallowed his pride and took a staff job on “a stupid zombie rom-com” for half of his quote because that was better than sitting around the coffee shop complaining. (Hear that, Latte Man?)
Valerie gets her biggest vote of confidence from her old “Room and Bored” colleague Juna (Malin Akerman), who is on the Warner Bros. lot shooting a movie. Juna goes out of her way to check on Valerie, whom she remembers as being so kind to everyone that it gave Juna a model for how to behave — which she has followed successfully for 20 years. Juna also takes a dig at the disgruntled “How’s That?!” rebels, saying it’s hard to believe that an experienced crew that works on sitcoms didn’t notice there wasn’t “a group of writers on the stage laughing at their own jokes.”
So is Valerie being let totally off the hook by her creators here? That remains to be seen. The finale will deliver the final verdict. Everything certainly seems to be trending in her direction. Even the leak about the A.I. writing turns out to be not an act of personal betrayal but rather a NuNet marketing strategy. With the show set to premiere in a few days, NuNet has made “How’s That?!” — for better or worse — a major television event.
Valerie’s biggest win in this episode, though, has nothing to do with her job. After Mark came to her rescue last week, she returns the favor, finally getting him to explain what has been bothering him and what a way forward might be.
This breakthrough happens during a taping of “Finance Dudes,” which makes for a clever bit of staging and the episode’s funniest scene. Mark, it turns out, is very bad at making reality television. He mumbles. He eats and drinks while he talks. He does not know what to do with his hands. And he has no sense of the drama the producers are pushing for, no matter how much Valerie tries to prompt him.
Then the producers throw a curveball. One of the other “F. Dudes” calls to ask about a rumor he heard that Mark got “Me Too’d.” A flustered Mark flees from the cameras, and when Valerie catches up to him, he makes a confession. He didn’t get fired from his old job only because he told a dirty joke. He had a documented history of sleeping with any female underling who flirted back with him. Valerie — always eager to push past anything painful — replies: “Now you know and you do things differently. Isn’t that the point?”
Earlier in the episode, Mark showed Valerie the large back tattoo he got at Burning Man, reading “ANYWHERE ELSE.” He explained that it was a response to his present life, with its constant feelings of personal failure and professional humiliation. After his “Finance Dudes” meltdown, Valerie agrees that his first step toward feeling better about himself is quitting this terrible show.
But she can’t overlook the tattoo, which she has called “a forever reminder that you don’t want to be here.” Similar to how Juna told Valerie not to accept any negative narratives, she tells Mark that he has to stop rejecting everything. He can’t keep saying no to his old life, old friends, old hobbies. He can’t “say no to here,” she adds, with extra urgency.
Then she delivers a few more encouraging words that are really Valerie’s whole motto, and maybe one of the ultimate messages of this series. “Be positive,” she tells Mark. “Because why not?”
To be real
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Jane returns to Valerie’s documentary project the day after Billy fired her, and she brings her own antique camera so she won’t have to use any of NuNet’s equipment. (It is the same camera she used to shoot her Oscar-winning film “The Lesbians of Treblinka.”) Billy begrudgingly accepts her back, explaining her firing was just about “protecting our business.” Jane says she understands. Her business is “protecting humanity.”
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Valerie’s constant chuckling and half-considered pronouncements often make her seem out of touch with what is going on around her. But have you noticed how well she adjusts after making an embarrassing public mistake? Paulie G. made fun of her a couple of episodes ago for not knowing his last name, so when she says goodbye to him, she adds, “Giappino.”
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I also find it revealing that when Mark blanks on the name of his ex-wife — the mother of his daughter! — Valerie is right there with “Mimi.” She says it in the tone of a stepmother who has probably handled a lot of the phone calls about child pickups and drop-offs while her husband was too busy.
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One loose end left untied in this episode: Mark’s old boss has been calling him for some as-yet-unknown reason. Will all end well for him, too?
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Valerie attends a press event for “How’s That?!” and is disappointed to find that the red carpet and the media scrum are both small. Patience explains, “It only has to be big enough to look big in the influencer’s camera.” Such is Hollywood in the 2020s.
The post ‘The Comeback’ Season 3, Episode 7 Recap: Anywhere Else appeared first on New York Times.
