ONE IN FOUR

Comeback Kids features seven actors whose careers were cut short by their addiction to drugs or drinks or unsuitable men. One of its producers, Gia Mathews—director of the treatment center Crystal Meadows, whose identity on the show has been kept secret so far—spotlights them individually and in groups as they pursue their healing regimens under the guidance of sobriety coach Dr. Laurel Harlow. The stars’ often erratic and hostile behavior can be tough to watch, but it’s made the show a hit that’s contending for an Emmy with Queer Eye until the youngest cast member playing herself, 19-year-old Maddie Hernandez, is found dead, a victim of anaphylactic shock as a reaction to ibuprofen, the one pharmaceutical she’s known to be allergic to. The last message Maddie recorded in the daily journal she was required to keep—“If something bad happens to me tonight, it wasn’t an accident”—makes Detectives Wallace and Boone of the LAPD treat her death as very suspicious indeed. They quickly choose Laurel, who narrates the story except for a series of flashbacks to a brutal gang rape in sections labeled “Then,” as the most likely perpetrator. Then Laurel herself makes one discovery too many, and the tale switches abruptly to an unflinching take on the damsel in distress betrayed by someone she thought she could trust, just like all of Berry’s other luckless heroines.

May 13, 2025 - 05:23

Comeback Kids features seven actors whose careers were cut short by their addiction to drugs or drinks or unsuitable men. One of its producers, Gia Mathews—director of the treatment center Crystal Meadows, whose identity on the show has been kept secret so far—spotlights them individually and in groups as they pursue their healing regimens under the guidance of sobriety coach Dr. Laurel Harlow. The stars’ often erratic and hostile behavior can be tough to watch, but it’s made the show a hit that’s contending for an Emmy with Queer Eye until the youngest cast member playing herself, 19-year-old Maddie Hernandez, is found dead, a victim of anaphylactic shock as a reaction to ibuprofen, the one pharmaceutical she’s known to be allergic to. The last message Maddie recorded in the daily journal she was required to keep—“If something bad happens to me tonight, it wasn’t an accident”—makes Detectives Wallace and Boone of the LAPD treat her death as very suspicious indeed. They quickly choose Laurel, who narrates the story except for a series of flashbacks to a brutal gang rape in sections labeled “Then,” as the most likely perpetrator. Then Laurel herself makes one discovery too many, and the tale switches abruptly to an unflinching take on the damsel in distress betrayed by someone she thought she could trust, just like all of Berry’s other luckless heroines.