In 'The Comeback's' most emotional moment of all, Mickey's spirit was on set

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Set us as preferred We’d have to say the most challenging thing about us writing “The Comeback” was coming back from the dead after the show was canceled following its first season way back in 2005.Talk about a hiatus.There are always nerves when you return to do the next season of a series, but when the hiatus lasts 10 years between Season 1 and Season 2, and then another 10 years between the second and this third, final season — that’s a whole other level of “When we last left Valerie …”But, gratefully, when we get together to write Valerie Cherish and her world again, it’s somehow more exciting than daunting.

The nerves fade and the fun starts.The fun along with — of course — the doubts, the surprises, the deadlines, the page count.

The comedy and the tragedy (see page count again).We improvise dialogue so much in the writing room that our notes tend to reach into hundreds and hundreds of pages — per episode.

That’s a joke … kind of.And on top of all that, this season and this script that we’ve been nominated for writing had a particular challenge.Between the second and third seasons, one of our most beloved cast members, Robert Michael Morris, died.

Robert played the beloved, significant, audience-favorite character Mickey, Valerie’s hairdresser.At first, we couldn’t imagine doing a season without this important person and character … but when we decided to go forward with this season’s story, which deals with the TV industry’s fear of an AI takeover, we knew we had to find a way to deal with Mickey’s absence.

We decided that since Robert Michael’s death happened during that second 10-year hiatus, we had to find a way to incorporate that history into the Valerie and Mickey storyline.And because it had never been dealt with by the show on camera, we decided that maybe Valerie hadn’t fully dealt with it as well.

That way, the viewers wouldn’t feel like they ...