The Come-Back (2005)

HBO produced 12 shows in this 2005 series starring Lisa Kudrow.   The series is available On-Demand, revived to complement the ongoing 2014 HBO series of the same name and format.  Both programs are exceptional and absurdly addictive.  Fame and celebrity are subjects of importance in their own right.  It seems that there have always been beautiful people famous for being famous -- the Kardashians occupy this niche of ineffable, inexplicable celebrity today.  When I was a child, I recall people like Bennett Cerf, Orson Bean, and Kitty Carlisle who appeared on game shows and were, seemingly, famous merely for being famous.  And, perhaps, you recall Pia Zadora, a habitué of late night talk shows, and, later, the unfortunate and grotesque Anna Nicole Smith.  These people represent celebrity in its purest form, celebrity as a matter of publicity without anything really to publicize, the idea of celebrity as a Ding-an-sich.  It is difficult to understand the fascination of this subject -- perhaps, it has something to do with the ancient Greek concept of "Thumos" -- that is, "spiritedness" and the desire that each of us has to be recognized for our own individual excellence.  Curiously, even people who are afraid to speak in public, who have stage-fright crossing a crowded room, seem to recognize the impulse toward self-aggrandizement, the drive toward achieving recognition even at the cost of other more humane values.  In essence, I suppose, the notion of celebrity and fame is inextricably connected with the desire that each of us has to be loved.  Most people are satisfied by being loved and admired by a small coterie of people close to them:  celebrities differ in that they have a need to be loved and admired by everyone -- and this impulse is simultaneously grandiose and profoundly pathetic:  it is a tragic impulse because it desires a state of affairs that is mostly inaccessible, certainly unsustainable, and, probably, toxic if achieved.  In The Come-Back, Lisa Kudrow plays a has-been actress named Valerie Cherish who desperately seizes upon the opportunity to perform as a minor character in a vulgar sit-com.  She seems to be happily married, is radiantly beautiful and obviously not only intelligent, but very hard-working -- we see her laboring on the sit-com until two or three at night.  She doesn't have friends, only admirers and it's apparent that her life is meaningless unless she occupies the public-eye.  Although she is monstrously egotistical and self-absorbed, she has many fine qualities as well and inspires slavish devotion in her homosexual hairdresser, Mickey, a remarkable character in his own right -- he is playing a variant of the curmudgeonly but loyal old man, something like a gay version of Walter Brennan bespangled with rings and without the shot-gun.  The 12 episodes aired in 2005 have a satisfying dramatic arc and, indeed, a sort of satirical profundity.  Valerie's nemesis is Pauly G., the writer on her show and a demented, sadistic heroin addict.  Pauly's hatred for Valerie inspires him to construct as many ways to humiliate and insult her as possible in the context of the lame sit-com that he is writing with his partner -- the two men are Tv stars in their own right having earned an Emmy for an episode of The Simpson's that they co-wrote.  Pauly is a character like Iago -- he embodies motiveless malignancy; certainly, his loathing for Valerie goes beyond all reasonable bounds and is inexplicable.  But great art always has an irrational core and Pauly G's hatred for Valerie has a metaphysical dimension.  Kudrow's performance is impeccable:  she is annoying, chipper, pert, witty, and generous but periodically the mask slips and we see that she is panicked about her age and on the verge of some sort of break-down.  We discover that she suffered from scoliosis as a child, was humiliated by her peers, and, now, compensates by basking in adulation of the public.  Pauly G. makes her wear unflattering costumes, climaxing with a routine in which Valerie has to fall down repeatedly, risking injury to her back and dressed in a giant and hideous cupcake suit.  The sequence is a reprise of a famous moment in Billy Wilder's Sunset Blvd, a scene in which Cecil B. DeMille praises the aging and hysterical prima donna played by Gloria Swanson for her courage in performing painful slapstick routines thirty years earlier when she was a Mack Sennett bathing beauty.  Valerie throws herself at the floor with desperate abandon, apparently willing to savage herself to get a laugh.  When Pauly G. insults her she punches him on-camera (a reality TV show is filming her every move) with horrible and grotesque results -- he vomits and, then, she vomits.  This seems to be the ultimate humiliation and when the incident is broadcast as part of Valerie's reality show, and cut in a way to make her look foolish and vain and cruel, she is horrified.  But, of course, the public is astonished and thrilled.  The reality TV show is a  hit and Valerie is invited back on The Tonight Show, even allowed to smoke in the Green Room.  Like Anna Nicole Smith or the Kardashians, she has become famous once more, and, even, it seems beloved by making a complete fool of herself.  The show's ending is simultaneously happy and horrifying.  Ultimately, celebrities are people that we love because we despise them.