‘The Comeback’ Season 3 review: Lisa Kudrow warns us of an AI apocalypse

Lisa Kudrow and Michael Patrick King’s cult comedy gem Coming back it has always been a horrifying parody of Hollywood.

Season 1, which aired in 2005, was ahead of its time in revealing the sly tricks that power reality TV. Season 2, which came nearly a decade later in 2014, poked fun at popular antihero games. Now, Coming back makes its second (and supposedly final) return for a third season about Hollywood’s hottest topic: AI.

That focus on AI lends itself Coming back Season 3’s urgency sets it apart from its previous two outings. Yes, it’s still fun, funny, and an amazing performance by Kudrow in his best role. But on top of all that, it’s also about something else: a warning.

What Coming back Season 3 about?

The warning signs start early, as Coming back Season 3 continues during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes.

“AI is coming after all of us,” said former SAG-AFTRA president Fran Drescher (in one of their Coming back‘s many celebrity cameo) he tells a crowd of actors and writers on strike.

Coming backSitcom star Valerie Cherish (Kudrow) nods, but in true Valerie fashion, she’s more focused on the appearance of her presence on the strike than the strike itself. Now trying to perfect the social media game to stay relevant, she’s busy guiding her Gen Z social media manager Patience (Ella Stiller) to really take on the situation. (Kudrow is already watching Emmy watch Valerie talk about the pickaxe sign to herself.)

Flash forward to 2026: Valerie struggles to find a podcast (Appreciate the Time) outside, and plays small roles in very low-budget films. But his luck will change when he is offered the lead in a new multi-cam sitcom How is that?!. It’s everything he’s ever wanted, with one big catch: It’s written entirely by AI.

Coming back Season 3 explores the role of AI in show business.

John Early and Abbi Jacobson in The Comeback.
Credit: Erin Simkin / HBO

on paper, How is that?!The producers of the show are two people, Mary and Josh (Abbi Jacobson and John Early). But in reality, their only job is to keep the AI ​​system that is extracting the show’s scripts, sending them both down.

Part of that comes from the fact that Coming back initially considers AI writing to be somehow competent. It spits out dozens of lines before Mary and Josh think of another one. Its jokes are loud How is that?!A live studio audience has a gag or two that Mary and Josh manage to sneak in. In terms of speed and sheer volume of writing, it’s amazing, and Valerie seems to really agree. The fact that he has to deal less with tougher types of writers like his former antagonist Paulie G. (Lance Barber) also seems to seal the deal.

However, as Season 3 progresses, How is that?!A shiny new tool begins to lose its luster. The AI’s hallucinations turn the scripts into incomprehensible, and the program’s rapidly generated alts prove to be unremarkable and dull. Of course they can – they just skim the work of other writers for inspiration.

That’s it Coming back Season 3 hammers home. AI can spit out script after script, but it’s completely soulless. It has no idea what will really resonate with the audience. That, Coming back he says, it can only come from writers who throw the production cart, grinding it until they get one perfect line.

In accordance with How is that?!The CEO of the network (fantastically played by Andrew Scott), the use of AI will help reduce costs and improve the program for more viewers. (Or really, throwing it in the background.) Ironically, he’s asking Valerie to keep the cast and crew a secret, a process that requires more effort than simply bringing more human writers on board.

Valerie has never been good at keeping things to herself, so she gives in How is that?!AI uses slip to go Coming back writer Jane (Laura Silverman). The slip brings Jane back into the fold for a new documentary project: exploring the making of the first ever AI-written show.

It’s clear from the start that Jane understands the threat AI poses to the entertainment industry. Things are already bad for most of the workers in this sector. Now an Academy Award winner, Jane’s main job is not acting, but instead working as a cashier at Trader Joe’s. Group members are open How is that?! have worked on films whose production has been significantly shortened due to AI, depriving them of more than 10 weeks of pay. Elsewhere, Coming back it fills every coffee shop with talented writers who have to turn away because the industry is a mess. As one writer noted on the show, the adaptation of AI to TV won’t just be an evolution of the form, it will be an “extinction event.”

In some ways, though, Valerie is a rare example of someone in the entertainment industry benefiting from AI. It’s given him the career of a lifetime, and in his mind, he’s willing to put aside many of his doubts for a lead role and a shiny top producer credit. But really, Valerie is a frog in a pot of boiling water. He doesn’t see that danger will come to him too, just like that Coming back works its way towards a Black Mirror– esque ending.

Coming back Season 3 isn’t all AI doom and gloom, though. It’s full of great running gags, including Valerie’s obsession with her little-watched show Mrs. Hatt. (No one watched it because it was on Epix, a cutting jab at a large number of broadcast shows.) It also offers a touching send-off to Valerie’s hairdresser and best friend Mickey, whose actor Robert Michael Morris died in 2017. Trust Coming back to make me feel sick to my stomach and laugh just once.

Kudrow’s performance remains a comedic masterpiece, managing to make even Valerie’s selfish moments endearing. That Coming back playing loosely with its documentary format helps here, too: We often see Valerie through Jane’s camera, Patience’s phone, or the security footage of her apartment with Mark (Damian Young). However, usually Coming back Season 3 allows us to see parts of Valerie’s life that the cameras don’t capture, a trick that capped off her emotional Season 2 finale. To keep it that way, Season 3 offers the most humanized view of Valerie yet, and Kudrow is amazing through every high and low.

Of course, most of this is down around AI. Coming back occasionally they can be treated harshly for this matter, but then again, in a world where entertainment giants like Disney are investing in OpenAI, it’s not bad to raise the alarm about something that could completely destroy the industry.

In Coming backvisually, bringing AI to TV will result in nothing but “content” of a very low standard, and that’s about as far from a show’s sharp duck song as you can get.

Coming back Season 3 premieres March 22 at 10:30 pm ET on HBO and HBO Max.