‘The Comeback’ took on Hollywood long before ‘The Studio.’ Now, Valerie Cherish will have her curtain call

(From left) Zane Philips, Brittany O’Grady, Matt Cook, Lisa Kudrow, Tim Bagley and Barry Shabaka Henley in “The Comeback” Season 3. (Erin Simkin/HBO via CNN Newsource)

“The Comeback” was by no means the first series to hold a funhouse mirror up to the entertainment industry, but the comedy starring co-creator Lisa Kudrow, which returns for its final season on Sunday, has certainly always done it in its own navel-gazing yet endearing way.

As eternally optimistic and entirely self-absorbed actress Valerie Cherish, Kudrow and executive producer Michael Patrick King struck cult classic gold with the first season in 2005, showcasing the ups and downs of the LA actor life, from working with toxic writers to making sure your hair is just right no matter where you are.

Since the show last aired in 2014 — as part of a rare-at-the-time post-cancellation resurrection — Hollywood has found itself at the centre of several other biting comedies, like awards season darlings “Hacks” and “The Studio,” from “Comeback” Season 2 guest star Seth Rogen.

Now, 21 years after “The Comeback” first premiered, there is room for all of them, even if the runaway success of Rogen’s blistering takedown of Hollywood prompted Kudrow and Co. to do a little tweaking to the final season behind the scenes.

“We were mindful of, let’s not be running around in golf carts too much,” Kudrow said at a recent press conference, referencing the many frantic golf cart rides Rogen and his cohorts take in the Apple TV series, which is filmed on the same studio lot as “The Comeback.”

King made the distinction that “The Comeback” is “more of a jab at ego than Hollywood.” See: a hilarious bit in this new season during which Kudrow’s Valerie brings her social media curator to a WGA strike and becomes nonplussed when a picketer’s sign blocks her best angle.

“I think it’s a cautionary tale, for me, to be careful about chasing the spotlight,” King said. “Hollywood’s just a great circus arena because so many people want to be in the spotlight.”

A lot has happened in the world since everyone last saw Valerie. The pandemic and the two union strikes that hobbled Hollywood in recent years are humourously addressed at the top of the new season, which largely tackles the arrival of artificial intelligence as Valerie agrees to star in a new sitcom written by AI.

Once the idea was born, it was ostensibly fast-tracked to production because the premise was seen as being in a race against reality, where it’s entirely possible that AI-written shows are not far from coming to fruition — if they haven’t already.

“It was very much as-fast-as-you-can,” King said of the approval process for Season 3. “Our goal was to get on the air before a studio admitted they were using AI.”

Kudrow said it “really had to be an idea like the AI thing” for her to return to this world after so much time had elapsed — even longer than the break between the first two seasons — and likened Valerie taking on this new technology to her “ultimate battle.”

“Just as reality TV was the almost-extinction event at the time for scripted television, it’s the same feeling about AI,” she explained, in a nod back to how the show’s first season came about during the initial aughts-era reality TV explosion, which prompted fears about the fate of scripted content.

But how do you make that funny?

King, a seasoned industry vet with “Sex and the City,” “2 Broke Girls” and much more under his belt, had a perfect and very simple answer: “The comedy comes from the fear.”