When HBO’s “The Comeback” debuted in 2005, Lisa Kudrow’s Valerie Cherish — a former sitcom star willing to endure any indignity for one more turn in the spotlight — seemed like a Hollywood cautionary tale.
When the show returned in 2014, she looked like a prophet.
Now, as “The Comeback” is airing its third and presumably final season, Valerie Cherish has become something more unsettling: a mirror held up to American political life.
The timing is almost too perfect. As Valerie returns to navigate an entertainment industry convulsed by artificial intelligence, desperation and the relentless performance of relevance, American politics is experiencing its own comeback wave.
Former members of Congress want their own comebacks
Credit: Handout
Credit: Handout
Sherrod Brown, defeated in Ohio’s 2024 U.S. Senate race, is running again. Cori Bush is trying to reclaim the Missouri congressional seat she lost in a primary less than two years ago.
On the Republican side, Mike Rogers is making another bid in Michigan after narrowly losing a Senate race in 2024, and John Fleming challenged an incumbent senator in Louisiana and made the primary runoff (Sen. Bill Cassidy came in third place).
Former members of Congress from both parties are lining up for another shot — with some ousted a year ago, others absent for more than a decade.
What unites them is not ideology but instinct, and it is the same instinct that has powered Valerie Cherish across three iterations over two decades: the conviction that being seen is the same as being valued, and that persistence in the frame is its own form of legitimacy.
Show is no longer just about one character’s pathology
Co-creator Michael Patrick King has described the show as “a cautionary tale about chasing the spotlight,” with Hollywood serving as “a great circus arena because so many people want to be in the spotlight.”
But the arena has expanded far beyond “Sunset Boulevard.” In 2026, the political stage operates on the same logic that “The Comeback” has always satirized — the logic of self-produced narrative, compulsive self-documentation and the reframing of every setback as a setup for the next act.
What makes Season 3 so resonant is its recognition that this is no longer one character’s pathology. As the show broadens its lens, the message crystallizes: In today’s Hollywood, everyone is Valerie Cherish, scrambling to stay relevant as the ground shifts beneath them.
The same can be said of today’s political class. When Valerie’s husband loses his job and joins a TV cast to fill his days, when her publicist commissions a vanity project to feed his own ego, the parallels to legislators-turned-podcasters and ex-officials positioning for their next campaign are impossible to miss.
Valerie’s genius, which reflects Kudrow’s genius in real life, has always been the seamless blending of performance and sincerity until neither she nor the audience can tell them apart. She narrates her own story in real time, reframes humiliation as opportunity, and genuinely believes that this time will be different.
This is not a partisan phenomenon, but rather a bipartisan operating system of American public life that reflects the shared framing running beneath the surface of comeback candidacies on both sides of the aisle.
AI is reshaping show business and politics
In 2005, “The Comeback” arrived alongside the reality television explosion that threatened to replace scripted entertainment with something cheaper and louder. In 2026, the existential threat is artificial intelligence. In the show, Valerie takes the lead in a sitcom written by AI. As one character warns her, “This is an extinction event.”
The threats that Valerie faces as a performer are the same threats that political leaders claim to be fighting, even as they adopt the very tools and tactics that fuel the crisis.
Canadian philosopher Marshall McLuhan argued that we shape our media tools and then our media tools shape us. “The Comeback” has understood this from the beginning. Reality TV reshaped Valerie; now AI is reshaping her again. In politics, social media and the attention economy have reshaped what it means to lead. The comeback itself has become the content — not a chapter in a career, but the career itself.
The rest of us, as voters, citizens, and viewers, might ask a question the show has posed for over 20 years: When everyone is desperate to stay in the frame, who is paying attention to what is being filmed?
Stuart N. Brotman is digital media laureate and distinguished senior fellow at The Media Institute, and the former president and CEO of The Museum of Television & Radio (now The Paley Center for Media). His most recent book is “Free Expression Under Fire: Defending Free Speech and Free Press Across the Political Spectrum.”
Send letters to the editor of 250 words or fewer with your name, city or town and contact information to letters@ajc.com.
About the Author
Keep Reading
The Latest
Featured
