Michael Patrick King's Latest Season of 'The Comeback' Confronts AI as a Writing Threat
Michael Patrick King has spent decades writing about people in worlds where everything costs money. Sex and the City made him famous by exploring how identity and romance tangle with consumerism. 2 Broke Girls shifted focus to economic survival. But The Comeback, the HBO cult classic he co-created with Lisa Kudrow, may be his sharpest work.
The show follows Valerie Cherish, a washed-up sitcom actress chasing relevance. Across three seasons released roughly a decade apart, King has used the character to satirize whatever fresh humiliation Hollywood invents for itself. The original 2005 season targeted reality television. The 2014 revival mocked prestige cable auteurs. Now, in a newly completed third season, Valerie signs on to star in a sitcom written by AI-turning the entertainment industry's automation anxiety into the show's darkest joke.
AI as Displacement, Not Just a Warning
Other shows have recently tackled AI anxiety. HBO's Hacks aired an anti-LLM episode weeks ago. The Comeback takes a different approach.
King and Kudrow examine the human appetite that makes technological displacement possible in the first place, rather than simply warning viewers about rogue technology. The show explores why writers and creative professionals might accept being replaced, and what that acceptance reveals about the industry itself.
What This Means for Writers
The third season arrives as the entertainment industry grapples with real questions about generative AI and LLMs. King, now 71, has positioned The Comeback to examine how automation threatens creative work from the inside.
For AI for Writers, the show's premise cuts close to actual industry concerns. It's not speculative fiction anymore-studios are already experimenting with AI-assisted writing and production.
King told interviewers that artificial intelligence could represent an extinction event for writing. That's not hyperbole about the show's satirical bite. That's his actual assessment of what's at stake.
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