Lisa Kudrow's ‘The Comeback' is finally coming back
Two decades after 'The Comeback' premiered on HBO, the Lisa Kudrow-led comedy is returning for one last season.
The mockumentary show, created by Kudrow and 'Sex and the City' executive producer Michael Patrick King, debuted in 2005 to lukewarm reception. Though the series was canceled after its initial 13-week run, it returned again in 2014 for a surprise second season. It's since gained a cult-like following and critical acclaim.
Now, 'The Comeback' is staging another comeback, with the third and final season expected in 2026.
'The Comeback' follows washed-up sitcom star Valerie Cherish (Kudrow) as she documents her return to the spotlight on a reality show aptly called 'The Comeback.' While little has been revealed about the upcoming season, the teaser video suggests Cherish is working on another 'new show' — one she doesn't seem too excited about.
'Valerie Cherish has found her way back to the current television landscape,' King and Kudrow said in a joint statement. 'Neither of us are surprised she did.'
'No matter what the industry throws at her, Valerie Cherish is a survivor,' said Amy Gravitt, executive vice president of comedy programming at HBO and Max. 'On the 20th Anniversary of her debut, Michael Patrick King and Lisa Kudrow have brilliantly scripted her return to HBO and we can't wait to see that.'
Kudrow's potrayal of Cherish has earned her two Emmy nominations for lead actress in a comedy series. Earlier this year, the 'Friends' star also made Variety's list of the best television performances of the 21st century, coming in at No. 4.
Alongside Kudrow, Dan Bucatinsky, Laura Silverman and Damian Young will be returning to the series. Notably absent is Robert Michael Morris, who played Cherish's hairdresser, Mickey Deane, and died in 2017.
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Cosmopolitan
2 hours ago
- Cosmopolitan
10 Iconic Sex Scenes From ‘Sex and the City'
For a show with 'sex' right there in the title, I think it's fair to say that Sex and the City isn't really all that sexy in the sense of being, like, sexually arousing. Don't get me wrong, there's plenty of sex happening—but it often tends to be happening more as a plot point to give the gals something to chat about at brunch in the next scene than to make the viewers reach for our vibrators. And while we do hear about Carrie, Miranda, Charlotte, and (especially) Samantha having great sex, a lot of the the sex we actually see on screen usually feels more comedic than erotic, like when Samantha blows the guy with the 'funky spunk,' Miranda tries to dodge a man's incredibly unsubtle invitation to eat his ass, or some guy literally falls asleep during sex with Charlotte. Basically, I'd argue that Sex and the City is a show that's less about actually having sex than it is about rehashing the dirty and/or unhinged details with your friends (or in your column). Which is to say that, while SATC boasts a fair amount of nudity (a kind of shocking amount, even, if you, like me, grew up watching the heavily censored reruns on cable and have only recently been exposed to the full-fledged level of tits and ass on display now that the show's in its streaming era), it's no Bridgerton in terms of actual steaminess. In other words, I'm pretty sure no one's watching Sex and the City for the sex scenes themselves. But while most of Sex and the City's sex scenes may not be all that horny, many of them are—like the show itself—iconic. Below, a roundup of some of the most memorable sex scenes to grace the series. (And by the series I mean the original six season run, because I refuse to acknowledge the humiliation ritual that is And Just Like That…, thank you very much). Known, of course, as 'the sex swing episode,' this season 3 gem features Samantha bumping into her male counterpart—a man known throughout the city for his prolific sex life. Back at his place, he asks Samantha if she 'swings,' revealing his very own in-home sex swing. But before they can get to it, he asks Samantha another important pre-sex question: 'When were you last tested?' So for the sake of the swing, Samantha gets her very first STI exam, and the episode ends with a very acrobatic sex sesh in the swing—which looks to me like something that requires more core strength than I'm personally looking to deploy during sex, but they seem to be having a good time! Honestly, shoutout to this episode for raising awareness re: the importance of regular STI screening and having open conversations about it with sexual partners, no matter how casual. And on a completely unrelated note, I also feel compelled to give this episode another shoutout for being the one where Miranda falls in love with a sandwich. A truly unhinged masterpiece. In what I believe is the show's only instance of rim job representation, Miranda hooks up with a hot guy from her run club (SATC, eternally ahead of its time, knew run clubs were the new dating apps before dating apps existed) and is surprised when he licks her asshole during a sweaty post-run sex sesh. Recapping the event over lunch with the crew, Miranda remains confused but curious, Carrie is weirdly scandalized, Samantha is predictably here for it, and we find out Charlotte is secretly a big-time rim job queen—which, love that for her. Aside from Charlotte, however, the consensus seems to be that while it's fine to receive a little rimming, they'd never toss a man's salad in return (one of the show's many paradoxically prudish takes that haven't aged particularly well). The next time Miranda hooks up with her marathon man, she offers him a post-sex massage, which he seems to interpret as an opportunity to get a rim job of his own. In an image that is permanently burned into my brain, he proceeds to not at all subtly raise his butt, wiggling it in Miranda's face until she screams, 'I don't wanna do that!' He replies, 'Well, why didn't you just say you weren't interested?' Which, fair point. But frankly, I think there were some pretty big communication failures involved in this one all around. The lesson is, if you want to lick someone's ass (or want them to lick yours), you should always ask first! Use your words, friends! Charlotte is having tasteful missionary sex with her latest fling when, mid-orgasm, he yells, 'You fucking bitch, you fucking whore,' before collapsing on top of her in a post-coital heap. Naturally, this disturbs Charlotte, who attempts to bring it up delicately on their next date, only to find that her otherwise seemingly perfect gentleman of a lover has no recollection of his outburst. She decides to move past it, but that night during sex, he breaks into the same mid-orgasm refrain. While there's nothing wrong with a little consensual degradation during dirty talk, this is…not that. Carrie is forced to spend time with Aidan, her boyfriend who she obviously doesn't like, at his country cabin upstate, which she likes even less. She makes Samantha go with her to share in her misery, I guess, and for some reason Samantha agrees. Naturally, Sam hates it too, but she finds a perfect way to pass the time: fucking the hot farmer next door. After some suggestive cow-milking foreplay that ends with Samantha getting a milk facial, the two go for a literal roll in the hay, featuring an enthusiastic (and loud) performance by Samantha on top. Threesomes do not fare well in this show, but that doesn't stop these gals from trying! First up, surprisingly enough, is Charlotte. After the man she's dating floats the idea of sex with a third, Charlotte has a steamy sex dream where she joins her man and another woman in bed. Unfortunately, the reality does not live up to her fantasy. At a party, Charlotte and her fling slip away to hook up in an upstairs bedroom, where a woman they'd made eyes at downstairs joins them. Unfortunately, Charlotte is swiftly nudged out of her own threesome and ends up leaving while her date—the one who wanted to have a threesome in the first place!—hooks up with this random woman alone. In the show's next attempt at a threeway, Samantha's gay friends decide they'd like to have a threesome with a woman and think Samantha is the perfect one for the job. She enthusiastically accepts, but shortly after they all climb into bed together and the foreplay commences, her queer almost-lovers decide they just can't go through with it. C'est la vie! The next time Samantha attempts a threesome, it's with her boss turned cheating boyfriend, Richard. For his birthday, he asks for a threesome with the hot, much younger waitress at one of their favorite restaurants, and Samantha agrees for one of the worst possible reasons you can agree to have a threesome: because she's afraid Richard will cheat on her otherwise. Hate this for her! Anyway, Samantha organizes the threesome, which naturally turns into a tense situation where she and the waitress are basically fighting for Richard's attention the entire time. Being a sleazeball, Richard naturally loves the ego boost of two naked women fighting over him in bed, but things take a turn when the guest star calls him 'Daddy,' which he apparently finds so offensive he tells Samantha to, 'get rid of her.' Samantha obliges by literally pushing this woman out of bed and onto the floor, all of which is actually so insane. Obviously, we're meant to be rooting for Samantha in this situation, but she invited this poor woman to have a threesome with her boyfriend and then they both treated her terribly. Not cool! The first night Samantha bones the man she later renames Smith Jerod, she waits out a horde of other horny women at the restaurant where he waits tables for the prize of bringing him home. (I am a little concerned that this man was being sexually pursued so aggressively in his place of work, but I guess he was fine with it?) She wins and they enjoy a marathon sex sesh, featuring sex in multiple positions and on multiple surfaces! Thanks to an infamous no-nudity clause in Sarah Jessica Parker's contract, Carrie's sex scenes tend to be pretty demure. While this one is no exception in terms of actual explicitness, I'd argue it's one of the most emotionally intense sex scenes of the entire series. Carrie gets a room at a nearby hotel to avoid Aidan (her boyfriend who, once again, she obviously doesn't like) and Big, desperate to get back together with her even though he's married, follows her there. She attempts to get rid of him, only for him to follow her into the elevator, push her against the wall and make out with her. After initially protesting, Carrie gives in and whispers, 'fuck me' in his ear. Cut to the two of them upstairs under the sheets, where they share a postcoital cigarette in a seductive manner. Listen, I'm not here to condone cheating or smoking, but I'm afraid this is the hottest sex scene in the show and it's literally my job to call it like I see it. Again, Carrie's sex scenes are pretty tame, but I still have to give a shoutout to this season one encounter that set the tone for the whole series. Carrie decides to 'have sex like a man,' by which she means casually, selfishly, and with no strings. She decides to try it out on an ex-boyfriend she meets up with for a midday hookup. He goes down on her and, rather than reciprocate, she just takes her orgasm and leaves—like a man! While I don't know that being an intentionally selfish lover is the flex the show makes it out to be, this was peak feminism for the time!
Time Magazine
2 hours ago
- Time Magazine
Jamie Lee Curtis on Her Big Moment in 'The Bear' Season 4
Jamie Lee Curtis manifested her role on The Bear. She remembers watching the show's first episode—specifically a scene between Carmen 'Carmy' and Natalie, when the chef doesn't have enough money for his restaurant's food supply, so his sister brings him his jacket to sell. Before she leaves, she asks him a question. 'Have you called mom?' He hasn't. 'You should,' she tells him. At that moment, sitting at home inside what she calls her 'witness protection cabin,' Curtis began envisioning what their mother might be like. 'Oh, I think I'm going to be her,' she thought. It didn't take long. In 'Fishes,' the sixth episode of the second season, she debuted as Donna Berzatto, embodying Carmy and Natalie's mother whose alcoholism and mania has turned her home—and large family gatherings—into a mental trauma zone. Though very different from her character, Curtis could relate to Donna's substance abuse issues and mothering challenges, and leaned into her most toxic traits. By the end of the electric and overwhelming episode, for which Curtis won an Emmy, Donna has drunkenly left the Christmas dinner table and crashed a car into her house, effectively fracturing her relationship with her son. But in Season 4, Donna gets a chance to make amends. About five years after the disastrous holiday, she spends the majority of the ninth episode, 'Tonnato,' sharing her regrets with Carmy inside her home. While looking at old family photos together, Donna admits she's been sober a year and then reads an apology letter, acknowledging the pain she's caused and explaining the reasons for her poor choices. Carmy eventually reciprocates, sharing his guilt for leaving the family and expressing his love for her. It's a powerful, emotional exchange that crystallizes the season's redemptive, healing themes. Then, as an act of reconciliation, Carmy prepares for his mother a chicken dinner that he learned to make while training as a chef at The French Laundry. Here, Curtis unpacks that emotionally charged sequence as she talks about the experience of playing Donna, and how her own life informed parts of the character. I'll be honest, I get anxiety every time your character appears on the show—and I think it's mostly because we've only really seen you through Carmy's perspective. What was genius from the beginning was you don't meet Donna for 16 episodes. The anxiety is built up through hearing about her from other people and the amount of anxiety Carmen carries. She's designed to create instability. What I found beautiful is that in episode 10 of Season 2, when they're opening the restaurant and Donna's out front chain smoking—I said to [creator Chris Storer], 'I think [Donna] is sober four months. She has enough self knowledge now to know that she has an effect on people, particularly when she's drinking. And so the pacing in front of the restaurant is the 'Do I? Don't I?' push and pull of addiction, which, when you're newly sober, you're very fragile. You show up in a couple episodes this season, specifically for Episode 9's conversation with Carmen. How does it feel for you to parachute in and out of Donna's headspace every year? We shot Season 3 and 4 simultaneously. So the truth is, I did the scene with Sugar in the hospital, which was an entire episode. And two days later, I did my part at the wedding. And then the next day, my scene with Jeremy at the house. So it was a lot of Donna, which was not dissimilar to the Christmas episode where I came in for like a three-day bombardment and then was gone. I've been an actress since I was 19. I've done a lot of different work. Some of it good, some of it great, some of it awful—much of it awful. Everybody works differently. I also didn't know how Chris worked before we met on the Christmas episode. Our entire relationship was a text relationship where he said, 'So excited you're coming!' And I said, 'How do you want her hair to look?' And he sent me a picture of Monica Vitti. And then I said, 'What about her nails?' And he sent me a picture of the desperate housewives of New York and that was the entirety of the background that I got from him before I walked in the kitchen the day we shot 'Fishes.' I got a sense that he understood that I was going to show up fully-loaded ready to shoot. That gave me a lot of confidence and a lot of freedom because I knew, having seen the level of intensity, what the show was like. What was your initial impression when you read this scene between Donna and Carmy, and how did you want to approach it? People forget that she hasn't seen Carmen since Christmas five years earlier. It's not like there's a chyron that's under the screen that reminds the audience at the wedding. And obviously she has seen the rest of the family. She attended the birth of her granddaughter. She goes to family birthdays. She sees Lee. She sees Jimmy. So there's an indication that she is a part of this interesting melting pot family, but she hasn't seen Carmen. So that moment when she sees him at the wedding—and the way all his friends come around him and are like, 'Hey, they need you in the kitchen right now.' Donna knows what's going on. She's very smart so she understands that this is a big moment for both of them. And then she has that lovely scene with Sydney and then she gets the f-ck out, because she understands. In recovery, there's a phrase, 'We suit up and show up.' So Donna is suiting up and showing up. And of course who does she run into? Michelle. And Michelle says, 'Are you good?' And we all know that question is Donna's fire starter. Right. That is the fire starter, one of those clicking flame things that we all have in our houses to light matches. It's that click. And her response, which is, 'I'm good.' And then get the f-ck out. I'm not going to play Michelle. I'm going to go. And so we've teed it up beautifully. Yep. I'm sober. I've been sober a long time. I talk to a lot of sober people. Part of being sober is acknowledging the past. There is a process within being a sober alcoholic or sober drug addict that in order to move freely into the future, you have to acknowledge the past. I don't think Donna wanted to acknowledge it with him for a long time. I think she's been working on that for the better part of a year. She's had that little piece of paper in her desk drawer, and when he comes over, I think the intention was to see him and keep it light and polite—another phrase we use in recovery. And I think that was her plan until she started going through the pictures and saw Mikey. Yeah, I wondering if you wrote that letter yourself. It was from the script, but of course I did! Was that a cathartic experience—thinking about what that symbolizes generally for a mother to a son, but then also specifically for Donna to Carmy? Very much cathartic. We both knew what we're doing. The script is beautiful. I learned that having a kid who you don't know how to help is one of the most powerless experiences as a parent. I personally have a child with special needs. I have a child who has a learning difference. And the powerlessness you feel when you can't actually help them—you can find people who can help them, but you can't. So the part of that scene that gets me every time is when she talks about Mike. Because clearly Mike had that problem since he was a little boy. And being a parent and not being able to help your kid and not knowing what to do to help them—and finding that alcohol just made it all more palatable and easy—to play a woman who has struggled with that, and then to have the beautiful writing that articulates that exact powerlessness and turmoil, and resulting shame and self-hatred, and then the addiction on top of it—I just thought it was a beautifully constructed. The line that hits me the hardest throughout your interplay is when you tell Carmy, 'I don't know you, and you don't know me, and I did that.' Was there a line or a moment in this conversation that impacted you the most? Oh yeah—what I just said about Mike. I did that as a statement of fact. I have to live with that. She also says it to Sugar in the hospital when Sugar says, 'You scared me and I don't want my baby to feel scared.' I said, 'I scared you?' Hearing that you have that effect on a human being's life is powerful. And so I can totally accept that we're operating as strangers in this family. That is when she really is showing the pain and suffering of her own childhood, her marriage, her being a mother to three. That is when Carmen really softens and says, 'I'm sorry, I wasn't there for you.' What does Leonard Cohen say? "There has to be cracks because that's where the light comes in." That's the moment when you understand that Carmen is now understanding the multitude of Donna and what she has struggled with. What was it like working with Jeremy that day? I feel very motherly toward all three of these kids. I've stayed a little in contact with them in the most cursory way. I'm not pretending we're buddies, but I also reach out occasionally. So he and I have that. Again, not with any supposition that it's more than it is. He's just a beautiful performer. We use the term scene partner a lot in actor talk, but he's a scene partner. We don't rehearse it. We don't talk about it. We stay away from each other until it begins, and then it begins. And he has beautiful eyes, and they are expressive and soulful and sorrowful and very alive at times and very emotional at times. And I think you see all of that in this whole season, but in that scene in particular. And then the coup de grace, which is him cooking for her. I really love that he goes back to his time at French Laundry where he learned to make roast chicken. Do you feel like a meal is one of the kindest gifts you can give somebody? For sure. I'm not a foodie. I was raised by a very skinny woman. Food was not a friend in a generation of women in her industry who starved themselves under the tutelage of the studio system. My mother was incredibly beautiful and she held it all the way through her life. While many of her other friends succumbed to middle age, she starved it away. So I was raised around cereal and a grilled cheese sandwich, which would be like gold for me. But apparently I make really good penne with butter, garlic salt and a little parmesan cheese and my elder daughter, Annie, was talking with her friends about memories in their high school years of having me make that penne. Hearing that that is a memory for my daughter is something comforting. I'm kind of embarrassed by it because it's not a French Laundry chicken. And yet the act of making it and the act of receiving it as something special is very moving to me. Of course Carmy is going to truss and baste and bake and broil a beautiful chicken for his mother. It's a wordless moment and, needless to say, very moving. It's very clear that there's a path forward through that act that is him basically saying, 'I'm sorry that I didn't kind of meet you, that I stayed away from you and that I didn't face this.' It's pretty powerful to end a series on a full-circle moment. He also tells you not to wash chicken in the sink. Yeah, because, of course! What he's saying is that the salmonella goes all over the place. You think it's just going down the drain, but in fact, you're polluting your sink. This season felt very redemptive and healing in a lot of ways. What it was like to have a moment of reconciliation with Donna, as opposed to playing such a vicious antagonist? I'm the child of alcoholics. I'm a sober drug addict and alcoholic. I have lost so many friends to alcoholism and drug addiction. My baby brother died at 21 of an accidental heroin overdose. We're also living in a world that doesn't feel redemptive. When you talk about an antagonist, it feels like there are antagonists running the world right now. So from a spiritual place, if we're not healing, we're dying. And I didn't know if Donna was going to heal or get a chance to. I saw it in Season 3, but as I said to you, I already knew that Season 4 was coming. I don't know the origin stories necessarily, but if we're not healing, what are we doing? And so I'm beyond grateful that Chris gave everybody a moment of grace—every single person's story! The end of Season 3, Carmen says that in his vision for the restaurant, 'to make it good, you have to filter out the bad.' And I think this whole season was in line with that mission statement. It's just gorgeous work. The grace note at the end—you know those sandwich shops are going to be successful. We know what the numbers are going to be. They're going to blow the place up. But Carmen also knows he has to step away from this and let these people do it. And the fact that that's the gift that he's giving everybody, and that he'll now go figure out who Carmen is. And he'll be able to do it with a mother in his life now. Yeah, and Donna is sober now. Can Donna stay sober? I hope so. I've stayed sober. What was wack to me—the same day that this season of the show dropped, I woke up in the morning and a friend of mine in Los Angeles sent me a picture of a billboard on Sunset Boulevard. It's the Foundation for a Better Life, a program they run called 'Pass It On.' Inspirational people and ideas. And there's a billboard with my picture that says, 'My Bravest Thing? Getting Sober. Recovery. Pass it On.' And for Jamie and Donna, who had different stories but the same disease, to have that happen simultaneously was kind of another grace note. This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity
Yahoo
3 hours ago
- Yahoo
'Friends' Star Lisa Kudrow Would Consider Role on ‘The White Lotus.' But There's 1 Problem
Lisa Kudrow says she'd consider a role on The White Lotus—but she has one big reservation. In an interview for Variety with Parker Posey, the Friends star was asked if she would ever enter "The White Lotus world," and she gave a two-part answer. 'Work with Mike White? Yes,' Kudrow, 61, said, referencing the showrunner of the HBO hit. 'I love Mike White. I've hung out with him at a party. He's social. And Brad's Status was my favorite movie that year. I emailed him to let him know, because I had to — it was so good, I had to. I don't do that a lot.' The first three seasons of The White Lotus has featured an eclectic cast of female characters played by Jennifer Coolidge, Connie Britton, Sydney Sweeney, and, most recently, Posey. But Kudrow, who's best known for playing wacky Phoebe Buffay on Friends, admitted to Variety that she may not be White's 'cup of tea.' She added of the HBO anthology drama series, 'I do get nervous about inhabiting things that are too dark; I try to avoid that.' While The White Lotus is one of the buzziest shows today, it would be hard for Kudrow to top her 10-season run on Friends. The actress starred on the show for 10 seasons between 1994 and 2004 with David Schwimmer, Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Matthew Perry, and Matt LeBlanc. In 1998, Kudrow won an Emmy Award for her work on the NBC sitcom. 'We loved each other,' Kudrow told in December. 'Going to work every day was heaven. It was too good to be true, but it really was. I won a lottery being on Friends. Anything else I got to do was icing.''Friends' Star Lisa Kudrow Would Consider Role on 'The White Lotus.' But There's 1 Problem first appeared on Men's Journal on Jun 7, 2025
