The Comeback Brings Us The Producer And Star Reunion We've Waited Ten Years For

I liked the first episode of The Comeback's long-awaited second season just fine. Valerie was still scrambling, and still pulling out wins almost despite herself. The industry was still ignoring her until she forced it to take notice. Mark was still disgusted by all of it and hoping in vain that Valerie would find a way to be, if not happy, at least normal. But while all those pieces were still in place, one was missing. And this week, that piece came back to us. Thank God for you, Jane Benson.

I don't usually read spoilers and had no idea what was planned for the season, so getting to see Jane in Episode 2 came as a surprise and a thrill. Though The Comeback is a show that is perceived to be campy and broad, we forget how sneakily subtle it can be, and the best part of Val's reunion with Jane, other than that Jane is there, is how economical it is in delivering a significant amount of both exposition on the time that's passed, and picking up Jane and Val's relationship pretty much exactly where it left off.

Jane has rearranged her life in a way that jams Val (not just our Val but all the Vals of the world) out of it. She's moved far out of L.A. She's left reality TV for documentary filmmaking and also animal rescue (and I won't say the latter vocation is because she's a lesbian, but...you know). When Val has approached her, at the HBO executives' direction, to return to shooting a behind-the-scenes show about Valerie working on a Paulie G. project, she's declined via email -- and politely, which given the events of The Comeback's first season, one wouldn't necessarily assume. The one last thing Jane could have done to prevent this meeting with Val is not to have given Val her address -- though given how remote her place is, she might have just counted on the very good possibility that Val wouldn't be able to find it and just turn around and go home. But then, one of the first things she says when she sees Val for the first time in, we presume, years, is "You never give up." Some part of her must have always known this day would come.

When Jane lets Valerie into the kitchen, it's basically just one perfect moment after another. As Jane is in the process of telling Val she's not interested in producing Seeing Red, she can't stop herself from correcting Val's inexperienced camera operator/nephew.

Jane offhandedly mentions her documentary, which did get distributed, and then some.

Valerie practically has an orgasm over the Oscar -- of course -- and makes Mickey take an unseemly number of photos of her holding it.

And on her way out the door, Valerie makes one last-ditch guilt attempt, pointing at Jane's rescued animals and musing about how many more she could save if she made a fat stack producing Seeing Red, and is PRETTY SURE she's nailed it.

Jane does relent when Valerie finally uses her unfinished documentary against her. You don't spend that much time together without learning a few things about each other; just as Jane was practised in the art of making Valerie into a compelling reality TV subject, so has Valerie figured out how to push the buttons of a behind-the-scenes peon that, if asked, Val would FOR SURE describe as a friend and then almost immediately correct to call an employee. Of hers.