By: Mariah Thomas
Patience (Ella Stiller) got stung by a bee that made its way into her breakfast sandwich. This short lived moment comes to an end as Mark (Damian Young) says goodbye before heading off to Burning Man. Valerie (Lisa Kudrow) admits she didn’t think he was serious about going and encourages him to visit his daughter and grandchildren on the east coast instead. Mark insists some time with ayahuasca will help him work through why he doesn’t want to go. Valerie decides to let the battle go and kiss him goodbye because she is awaiting a meeting with marketing. The team has shot down her request to help the show’s writing assistant in the WGA and an idea she had for the show’s poster. She is shown the chosen poster which uses an AI-generated version of the Under The Tuscan Sun poster with Valerie’s head edited over Diane Lane’s body. Valerie jokes that she can’t believe people are scared of AI.
Valerie finds herself running late to a meeting with Billy (Dan Bucatinsky) due to a body-scan delay at the Digital Dome. Billy points out she is only 7 minutes late and questions his assistant on why he wasn’t also invited for a digital scan. Jane (Laura Silverman) jokes that is due to the fact the network can’t profit off of exploiting his image. Valerie gets the ball rolling wondering what Billy wanted to discuss and he promptly kicks Jane and her film crew out of the room. It is soon revealed that Billy has his own camera crew ready. He has a couples-therapy pilot set up for therapist David Berkus (Kadan Well Bennett). He wants to discuss his relationship with Valerie on camera. Valerie tells Billy she doesn’t have time for this ambush and invites her camera crew back in. There is a small battle between camera crews trying to get the best angles.
In the dressing room for the show, Walter (Barry Shabaka Henley) kicks out non actors and the camera crew for a little conversation. He points out that it is clear they don’t all know what is going on with the show. Valerie lets it slip that the show is AI before Walter can express his concern. He doesn’t realize what she’s said and says on a previous show of his, there were concerns of the main star trying to take over. He sees that happening again here. PDP (Matt Cook) however did not miss her AI comment and circles back to it. Valerie finally admits to the other actors that the show is written by AI and they are all stunned. Frank hilariously points out he finally knows why no one would give him Al’s contact information. By the end of the conversation, the actors see some good in the show being written by AI.
Back at home, Valerie calls Mark and leaves a voicemail as he is on his Burning Man trip. Valerie spends her down time eating pizza and watching one of her former works. The next morning, she and Billy hash out their therapy session on Valerie’s podcast. The session is interrupted by Jane’s girlfriend, Peri (Clea DuVall), when she confronts her about a recent lie. Jane had not told her she was working with Valerie again. In the midst of Valerie telling Jane she should’ve been upfront, Billy makes it a point to remind her she can’t publish this AI documentary without the consent of the network due to the NDA. Jane hesitantly revealed she never signed one.
Back in her dressing room Frank (Tim Bagley) comes to Valerie with concerns of Tommy (Jack O’Brien) being a ‘close talker’. In a previous moment viewers saw that Tommy has indeed been a little too touchy/feely with Frank. Since she is an executive producer, it falls on Valerie to do something about an official report. She brings it up to Tommy and he immediately takes the note. Tommy says he takes the word of his astrologist and takes this as a sign to ‘exit stage right’. Tommy feels offended that another gay man was the one to be the first to ever call out this behavior from him.
In this current chaos, Billy comes into the dressing room with security to pressure Jane into signing the NDA. Valerie is sure she will and trusts her but Jane says she never planned to. Billy points out the studio owns the footage since they’ve been paying her and she reveals she hasn’t cashed the checks. Valerie tries to reason with Jane on a friend level but Jane is strong in her stance that people deserve to know that AI is coming from their jobs. Billy is angered with Jane for screwing over Valerie once again. Jane finds out her crew all signed their NDAS, so she is escorted out. While filming a new episode, the cast finds out Jane leaked the AI information about the new show. Valerie’s name is individually trashed online since she is the star and executive producer of the show. On CNN, Jane makes sure to clarify that Valerie’s role in the use of AI was very limited. Mark instantly swoops in, having left Burning Man when finding out the news. He holds her as she cries feeling the weight of the online hate.