Review: The Comeback, “Valerie Does It All” | Season 3, Episode 4

You know, we’ve never really seen Valerie Cherish in charge. Yes, she’s famous, and she wielded some degree of power throughout the first two seasons as the face of The Comeback (the documentary) and the key supporting player in Seeing Red. (She had less agency on Room and Bored, but she was able to break out of her doormat tendencies even there.) But people outside the film industry often have a skewed idea of how much leverage actors really have in the industry, especially the ones who can’t reliably pull in huge viewership numbers. Even when a studio makes Valerie feel wanted, she knows she’s ultimately at their whim.

When Billy insisted on securing executive producer credit on How’s That?!, it felt like an honorific title that wouldn’t necessarily lead to Valerie in any real control. But in “Valerie Does It All,” Val is…well, doing it all. It tracks with the new and improved version of our protagonist that we’ve seen this season: Yes, Val still has the same general mannerisms, and she’s still often socially unaware, but there’s also a new sense of confidence and self-worth. This isn’t the desperate Val of seasons one and two, an antihero of sorts who wanted attention more than anything. The appeal of taking the role of Beth is clear: it’s a rare lead role for a “woman of a certain age” in Hollywood, and one where she isn’t the butt of the joke. But it’s not necessarily something Val needs anymore, something she’d risk her marriage over.

There’s a risk in shifting the stakes in this way, in slightly softening the tone so that watching this series is no longer a profoundly feel-bad experience. It’s true that with Valerie calling the shots and showing more self-awareness than ever, season three feels quite distinct from the first two. But sometimes a show must change to stay the same, and that’s the case here. This week’s episode actually feels the most like classic The Comeback, and it manages that by covering new ground and presenting a new vision—not by relying on amusing but shallow “what would Valerie Cherish be like in 2026?” hypotheticals.