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“The Comeback” recap (2.2): Valerie Tries to Get Yesterday Back

This show is killing me so softly. Lisa Kudrow and Michael Patrick King are writing an incredible season so far. Val is more fame hungry than ever, and it is so fun to watch. PLUS… They are giving us a huge treat by making long time fan favorite, Jane (Laura Silverman), an Oscar-winning Jewish lesbian!

This episode of The Comeback starts out in Val’s bathroom on her selfie camera. Valerie Cherish lights up whenever she gets to speak to us directly. It’s fun to see her experience a rare moment of control as she explains to us that she has officially been cast in a new HBO show. She attempts an impression of a character, though she is unable to remember the actress’ name who played the role (the first of many times she forgets a name). Her husband, Mark, enters the bathroom interrupting her. He is visibly annoyed, and they argue about Val’s decision to take the role modeled after herself on Pauly G’s new show, Seeing Red. Mark thinks it is a desperate demeaning choice, and Val sees it as the ultimate opportunity to revive her career and that HBO is the most legitimate place she could ever do it. This starts us of on a very long series of winks to the network. Just so many winks.

Next, Val has a meeting at the HBO, and of course she brings her young, bumbling crew along. As she walks down the corridor featuring posters of past HBO hits, she has a few more chances to misremember names and prove just how behind the times she has become. The folks at The Comeback are really blasting us with the fact that Val is a relic of sorts. She is from another time, even more removed than the last time we met her nine years ago.

In the office with the team (in a meeting that Val set up, though she wanted us to think they had called her in) we get a ton of info. Val is informed that shooting for Seeing Red will begin next week. We find out they cast her for the part because she looks “real” (read: old/less attractive). And that HBO will use the footage for the web/social media, but she has to hire a union crew and that she should get Jane, the producer from the first season of The Comeback, to head up this project. Val rushes out of the office trying to hide her phone call to plastic surgeon. As she tries to make as appointment, a man from the HBO team runs after Val to inform her that she is invited to the Golden Globes as a guest of HBO.

The crew is now lost in the desert, looking for Jane’s house, with a bewildered Valerie trying to stay positive. They know for sure she lives out here because Mickey’s Christmas newsletter to her wasn’t returned (Mickey, you are a dream). As they pull up to Jane’s beautiful home surrounded by flowers and stables, Mickey points out a horse with its ankle wrapped, to which Val responds, “Don’t they shoot those?” This is in line with many of her accidentally off-color jokes, but a little meaner of a tone than she typically takes. Her nerves are getting the best of her, and understandably so. Her last interaction with Jane on season one was Valerie’s emotional breaking point. She was angry at how she was portrayed, and felt betrayed by Jane whom she had grown to trust throughout the course of the first season of The Comeback. This will be their first meeting since Val showed up at Jane’s house so long ago, throwing her microphone at her.

In Jane’s house, Jane reveals that she has won an Oscar for her short documentary about lesbians in the holocaust (I wanna see that!) that she made with her ex-girlfriend. Jane has never exposed any of her personal life before, so this is a real treat. When Val shows surprise at this revelation saying she didn’t know, to which Jane says, “What? That I was Jewish or that I’m a lesbian?” (I guess Jane is my type). Val pleads with Jane to come work on her project following her on Seeing Red. Jane seems particularly downtrodden. She doesn’t see the point in anything and has a documentary about Taiwanese Boat Women sitting unfinished in her garage. Val pushes her hard in every way she can think of, but Jane feels that Val working with Pauly G isn’t a great choice for Val. Jane gives Mickey some goat butter, and Mickey asks if she has anything in a pump or a spray which does nothing for the plot but really tickles me. Val needles Jane, continuing to push this job on her for the sake of her rescue horses and her passion projects.

Next we see Mark eating breakfast through a window. He greets Jane! She said yes! Val tells Mark that they are going to the Golden Globes, when she gets a phone call. It’s the plastic surgeon and Mark is upset, as apparently Val’s last foray in fillers didn’t turn out too well. Val tells him she’s going to get some surgery because it’s safer. Then they are off to celebrity stylist, Brad Goreski, to find her dress for the Golden Globes.

Brad, who is filming a separate reality show that will only air in China, is very sweet to Val but has her try on a dress that she hates. She refuses to come out from behind the curtain, but is eventually convinced by Brad because they just need to see it for the cameras. Mickey naps while they continue their search for the perfect dress.

Valerie descends the stairs looking beautiful, as Mickey and her publicist, Billy, arrive at her home. Jane asks how the crew will get in, which apparently hadn’t occurred to Val. Mickey and Billy make the terrible realization that they won’t be attending the Golden Globes: Them tickets be going to the crew!

At the venue, Val and Mark are led to a “viewing suite.” They won’t be in the room watching the ceremony, much to their dismay. Upon entering the room filled with what Val and Mark deem to be Russian prostitutes, they see Pauly G. Val approaches him and congratulates him on his beautiful script. He seems like he’s going to be cordial, until Val promises to do “her best” and Pauly says, “I hope you can do better than that.” Val runs back to Mark. As Pauly walks back to over Val, he looks so vulnerable and sad. He says that he’s not upset with her, he just feels lied to because of the viewing suite situation. This could have been the perfect opportunity for Val to solidify their future working relationship, but of course she just mocks his alcoholism. Some people are just not meant to be friends. This doesn’t bode well for their time together on the set of Seeing Red.

Things are shaping up to be really exciting. I hope we get to see some of Jane’s documentary The Hidden Women of Treblinka in future episodes! Also, who is her ex, Joan? Also what is a boat woman? Tell us, Jane!

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