When most people think of Lisa Kudrow’s TV career, their minds likely go to her ten seasons on NBC as Phoebe Buffay on Friends. But the 2026 TV schedule brought back an underrated gem that has delivered plenty of laughs despite far fewer episodes. HBO’s The Comeback was her first post-Friends TV gig, and it has gone on an unlikely run of three seasons over the past 21 years. Now that the third and final season has debuted (with the premiere now available streaming with an HBO Max subscription), co-creator Michael Patrick King opened up about the “enormous magic” she brings to the comedy.
Lisa Kudrow returns as actress Valerie Cherish for the first time since Season 2 in 2014, and a lot has changed over the past twelve years. Valerie's new sitcom is written by AI, and the premiere wasted no time going after a beloved reality franchise: Real Housewives. Only one installment of the eight-episode final season has released so far to deliver the kind of cringe-worthy laughs that are hard to find anywhere else on TV.
When I spoke with creator Michael Patrick King at SCAD TVfest about Kudrow being so well known for Phoebe on Friends even before The Comeback launched in 2005, he had plenty of good things to say about her:
Article continues belowIt is certainly thrilling that people know that Lisa is both Valerie Cherish and Phoebe, but it is a benefit that something has such a strong foundation that people are, let's say, waiting for it, because a lot of television is trying to get people to even look at it. So the idea that there is already a strong base for The Comeback is exciting, and that Lisa has demonstrated her enormous magic by playing Valerie. That it's a one-of-a-kind character makes it very, very special.
As anybody who checked out The Comeback at any point over the last 21 years knows, Valerie definitely isn’t just Phoebe 2.0, and Lisa Kudrow didn’t move from Friends to another similar project a la Matt LeBlanc and Joey. As King noted, this meant The Comeback was able to… well, come back with a strong foundation in 2026 despite being off the air for a decade.
Of course, there’s a reason why the show has only released three seasons over 21 years, and it’s not all down to creative decisions by Michael Patrick King, who is also the showrunner, and star/co-creator/executive producer Lisa Kudrow. Looking back at the beginning to where The Comeback is now for a third and final season, King told me:
Our journey has always been the combination of waiting for the right story and sort of the stars to align. We got cancelled the first season. Ten years later, HBO said, 'Guess what? We made a mistake. Will you come back to The Comeback?' And we came back, and then now, eleven years later, Lisa and I finally... We always had an open invitation, but we didn't want to come back until we had the story. The stars were there. Lisa was ready, but when we finally came up with this season's hook, we realized we wanted to come back again for the final time.
It may have taken longer for The Comeback stars to align than it did for the Friends cast to reunite for an HBO special, but the time didn’t feel right to accept HBO’s “open invitation” for many years. At this point, I’m curious as to why they decided to make it official that Season 3 will be the last since hiatuses of 10+ years haven’t been a problem in the past, but answers may lie in the finale when it airs in May. For now, if you haven’t checked the comedy out just yet, take a look at the trailer to see Lisa Kudrow in action:
Lisa Kudrow was joined by fellow returning series regulars Dan Bucatinsky, Laura Silverman, and Damian Young, while new cast members include Tim Bagley, Matt Cook, Jack O’Brien, Ella Stiller, John Early, Barry Shabaka Henley, Abbi Jacobson, Tony Macht, Brittany O’Grady, Zane Phillips, Julian Stern, and Andrew Scott. You can find new episodes of The Comeback on Sundays at 10:30 p.m. ET on HBO, or stream them via HBO Max.
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