The Lisa Kudrow multiverse opened wide during The Comeback Season 3, episode 2, as Kudrow’s fictional sitcom star Valerie Cherish made a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it reference to Friends.
The reference comes during a production meeting for How’s That?!, Valerie’s new, AI-written multi-cam sitcom. She wants to bring legendary TV director Jimmy Burrows (playing a fictionalized version of himself) on for How’s That?!, having worked with him on Room and Bored back in Season 1.
According to How’s That?! showrunners Mary and Josh (Abbi Jacobson and John Early), they heard from Jimmy’s agent that he passed on the project.
“Agents say ‘no’ to everything,” Valerie says. “If it were up to his agent, Jimmy wouldn’t have done Cheers. Or Will & Grace. Or Frasier. Or Fri—”
Mary cuts Valerie off before she can say Friends, resulting in a fun wink to the audience about other sitcoms of Kudrow’s past.
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This quick moment is the first time The Comeback has ever made any kind of Friends reference, but it’s not just some throwaway fan service. Series co-creators Kudrow and Michael Patrick King decided that this season had to include at least some nods to Friends because How’s That?! is shooting on Stage 24 on the Warner Bros. lot: the very same stage where Friends was shot.
“Couldn’t help it,” Kudrow said of the references at a Los Angeles press conference. “We were shooting on the Friends stage.”
Of the brief episode 2 reference, King added: “We were mostly interested in how close we could get to Valerie actually saying the word Friends… That was the third rail we were touching.”
So now that we know Valerie Cherish is aware of Friends‘ existence, is it too much to ask for a Lisa Kudrow and Valerie Cherish Actors on Actors parody?
New episodes of The Comeback Season 3 premiere Sundays at 10:30 p.m. ET on HBO and HBO Max.
