From Other Woman To Everywoman.

AS it sends up Matt LeBlanc's image, the Showtime comedy ''Episodes,'' about the making of a fictional network sitcom, skewers Hollywood as well: the waffling, the double talk and especially the inept suits who excel at both. But by the end of the show's first season, one of those suits -- played by Kathleen Rose Perkins -- started to seem less clueless than clued-in. Ms. Perkins's Carol Rance, a programming executive, spends a lot of her time managing not just fish-out-of-water writers (played by Tamsin Greig and Stephen Mangan) but also the moods of her network-chief boss (John Pankow), with whom she's having an affair. So she's a suit and a mistress -- and on paper, pretty unlikable. Mr. LeBlanc's character, the star of ''Pucks!,'' the show within a show, can't even remember her name. But Ms. Perkins has been proving memorable this season for turning Carol into a heroine by infusing her with neurotic vulnerabilities, a charming interest in good television and the occasional ability to ungrit her teeth just long enough to smoke a large joint. Writing in The New Yorker this month, Emily Nussbaum called her ''the show's secret weapon.'' [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]