On top of everything else, The Comeback was swept up in a backlash against a confluence of inside-Hollywood shows. HBO alone had too many: There was Larry David's Curb Your Enthusiasm, a hit; Entourage, which was beginning to get traction with viewers; Unscripted (canceled after one season); and Ricky Gervais' Extras, which premiered in the middle of The Comeback's run. Earlier in 2005, Showtime had gotten in on this trend, too, with Kirstie Alley's semi-autobiographical Fat Actress (a flop). Even Bravo was in the game that year, with Kathy Griffin's reality-ish My Life on the D-List.

"Really bad luck," said Kudrow, recalling television's bizarre Hollywood vortex. "All I thought was, This is a show about a woman more than it is a show about a show. We're going to discuss all those other things, but it really is about what kind of human being signs up for a reality show just to get in the spotlight." She wasn't worried about a renewal, she said. "Season 2 is when this is going to take off, I honestly thought. And it's HBO, and they'll leave us on. Because HBO will tell you what's good by leaving it on. And that's what they do!" She paused. "They didn't do it. So that was the surprise."

The show's cancellation was announced on Sept. 19, 2005. "You're handed the failure plaque to wear around your head until you right it,” King said. “And when you feel like you didn't fail, it's hard. We felt we had done good work. I remember being very hurt and very confused and dazed. Dazed, as if something's out of alignment rather than the show was bad."

To Bucatinsky, the response to The Comeback had an insidious undertone. "Why do we have an unlimited capacity, why is it so easy for us, comfortable for us, to watch a male performer like Larry David? He humiliated himself all the time, and it wasn't cringeworthy and too uncomfortable to watch. Ricky Gervais is absolutely mortifying as this background performer, and Extras gets picked up for another season. It's a level of misogyny that will never leave this business."

Kudrow had a different — and delayed — reaction to the show's cancellation. "I was sad, because I wouldn't get to do it anymore," she said. "I didn't feel insulted. I felt — still — I was so proud of what we had done, honestly. And Michael was so angry. I thought, I'm not angry. Is that a problem?" Years later, though, she was watching HBO's Real Time With Bill Maher alone in her house, and Maher made a joke about how you can make fun of a white man, because they have power, but, Kudrow remembered him saying, "You don't make fun of the victim. It's not funny." Maher's comment had nothing to do with The Comeback, but "the penny dropped," she said.

"And then I almost couldn't breathe," Kudrow continued. "Women are still victims. No! That realization, women are still victims, is that why? Is that why? I couldn't breathe. I couldn't finish the thought. It made me so sad. It really devastated me. To realize something that intellectually I kind of know — but then I felt it in my bones. Shit. Goddamnit. Still. Goddamnit. We're still victims. Goddamnit."

As Kudrow and I talked, she was articulate and clear and thoughtful about everything from celebrity culture to how oppressive truffles are as an ingredient. She's self-deprecating in a way that both puts you at ease and also boomerangs back to the idea that a lot of people are stupid. "I miss a lot," she said at one point. "I don't understand a lot. I mean, I really know that I don't. And I think I'm better off."