We Are All Jane Scowling At A Bad Improv Class

Given the ten-year gap between The Comeback's first season and its current second one, the show's producers can certainly be forgiven for having brainstormed as many situations for Valerie to meet with the most inappropriate, oblivious, or otherwise just plain WRONG reactions and resolved to use them ALL now; after all, some of these writers may not live long enough to see a third season. Of course, I have no way of knowing if that's how this fourth episode of Season 2 came to be. But given that it includes Valerie

• granting the Seeing Red production permission to use her actual home as the set for Mallory's
• learning that Mickey might have cancer
• being present when a supposedly recovering drug addict commits suicide in her and Mark's rental property
• and taking her first-ever improv class

...I mean, you can see how I might assume there's some self-imposed pressure in the writers' room to cram in as much excruciating as possible, while it's still possible. And as brutal as the first three are, it's the fourth that really made the episode for me.

Valerie may be a little slow on the uptake sometimes, but she did notice, in her first scene with Seth, that he went way off-script and got rewarded with praise from everyone on set. Valerie wants to keep up with the young people and their exciting, risky new performance style, so she's decided to take a beginner "improvs" class with The Groundlings (and here is where I am obligated to note that Lisa Kudrow is herself a real Groundlings alumna). Surprise! She sucks.

Valerie lacks commitment; she doesn't pay attention to her scene partners; she gets through the class the same way she gets through everything -- grinning like an idiot (and I say that with love); and when the class takes a fifteen-minute break during which Mickey tells her about his possible cancer diagnosis, she brings all her scenes to a halt by...bringing up cancer. Because improv makes those who would attempt it so vulnerable -- and since Valerie is already an open wound all the time anyway -- this sequence would be eye-coveringly, cringily hilarious even if Jane's cameras stayed on Valerie the whole time. But something even more wonderful happens: Jane's cameras keep catching Jane. AND IT SEEMS LIKE JANE IS NOT A FAN OF IMPROV.

It's not like Jane's never seen Valerie fail at something before, but the deep scowl on her face throughout this exercise suggests that watching Valerie fuck up as an improviser is something Jane regards as a personal affront, much as we all do and should whenever we're confronted with really terrible improv, which, god, there really is NOTHING worse. Everyone, shout out things Jane would rather be doing! I heard "feeding a lame horse," "editing footage of Taiwanese boat women," and "burning down the Groundlings theatre and salting the earth so no more bad improv can grow"!