The only thing better than watching Hacks win an award is watching its creators Paul W. Downs, Lucia Aniello, and Jen Statsky accept an award. Exhibit A: Their Emmy acceptance skit for Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series last year. The trio may not have prepared an elaborate ruse for their second Best TV Comedy Series Award at this year’s Golden Globes (in their defense, they have a 6 a.m. call time the next day as they start shooting the next season) but it’s just as sweet. Downs reminds Jean Smart’s Mare of Easttown co-star Kate Winslet not to give the Hacks lead a shot when she asks for one.
The series, which premiered in 2021, follows Deborah Vance (Smart), a has-been Las Vegas standup, who tries to hack her act to beat “old hack” allegations by enlisting the help of “cancelled” bisexual television writer Ava Daniels (Hannah Einbinder), who’s desperate to salvage her career.
Hacks came at a time when the genre of comedy is at a crossroads, but the show has masterfully mined the culture wars as a source material as The New Yorker writes. Deborah, herself a Joan Rivers-inspired character, is emblematic of an ageing class of comedians struggling to find their footing in a world reckoning with their abrasive brand of humor.
Just as this breed of television is undergoing a rethinking of its own, negotiating what is comedy and what is in fact “funny” — a futile subjective undertaking — Hacks came in as a reassurance. In doing so, the show gained cult and awards season fixture status and is well on its way to becoming a decorated comedy series.
Hacks’ Golden Globes winning streak, for example, was only interrupted by Quinta Bronson’s Abbott Elementary, which won Best TV Comedy Series and Actress in a Comedy Series last year for its star-studded Season 2 whose guests included Golden Globes-winning actors Taraji P. Henson and Ayo Edebiri.
But even in its loss, Hacks Season 2 was undeniable with its reenergized romp between Einbinder’s acerbic character Ava and Smart’s stubborn septuagenarian Deborah, who go on a road tour to test her new material — and, well, each other’s limits. And just when we thought Downs, Aniello, Statsky, and their rotating cast of writers which included comics and actors Pat Reagan and Joe Mande, who also played small hilarious parts in the show, couldn’t top their debut season that catapulted Hacks to acclaim, they manage to do so with Season 2. That season finale had me bawling the (estimated) 22 times I watched it and proved to the world that Einbinder was more than just a jester, who also happens to be a nepo baby (who delivered a self-depricating nepo baby line on the show!) — she’s also a formidable dramatic actress.
Still Got It
Season 3, for which Hacks was recently awarded at the 82nd Golden Globes, takes the “old hack, new tricks” dynamic of Deborah and Ava, which was previously thought to be over after that heartbreak of a season finale, to a whole new level.
Deborah, reeling from the success of her special, is the hottest Hollywood, nay, worldwide commodity, even appearing on the TIME 100 List. She was so booked and blessed, and too busy to care about her previous mogul love interest that Marty Ghilain had to book an impersonator to launch a slot machine inspired by Deborah Vance. Oh, he was obsessed!
Not only has the show lasted long enough to turn the fortunes of not-really-down-on-her-luck-but-just-stuck comic Deborah, but it has also managed to make the show relevant three years after it was created and amidst a solid lineup of comedy newcomers like the romantic comedy starring Kristen Bell (previously of The Good Place, another banger. RIP) Nobody Wants This and what initially proved to be a formidable Abbott Elementary competitor (both satirize the struggles and small wins of being an educator in America today) English Teacher written by and starring a mostly near-naked Brian Jordan Alvarez. The operative word being “initially” because the show turned out to be an early slugger, swinging big in the first few episodes but couldn’t move past Alvarez’s thirst-trapping and the sexual assault allegation against him.
By raising the stakes in the show’s plot — Ava’s renewed romantic relationship on the balance, Deborah’s second shot at her dream gig, a long overdue karmic cancellation, and a rekindling of the two’s comedic firebrand and borderline sapphic relationship — Hacks had effectively created a bigger canvas in which its creators can take on even more themes, including ones that don’t revolve around its leads. Deborah Jr. (Kaitlin Olson) delivers a deft performance in Episode 3 where the mother-and-daughter duo revisits their fraught relationship when DJ herself is revealed to be pregnant. It’s a recurring and winning storyline throughout the show that’s only rivaled this season by the introduction of J. Cameron-Smith as Deborah’s erring sister Kathy, who tries to make right by her older sister decades after she made off with Deborah’s husband. Even Meg Stalter’s character, the bratty Kayla, gets her redemption arc as she proves pivotal to Deborah landing the Late Night hosting gig. Not all nepo babies suck!
In true Hacks fashion, the season ends with an emotional roller coaster of events involving Ava and Deborah. Where in Season 1 they (or at least one of them) try to establish that they have a relationship outside of an employee and employer one (Ava: “Yeah right, lady. You do think about me and I think about you. It’s called a ‘human relationship.’ And sorry but we have one.”) and in Season 2 Deborah finally acknowledges that they do have one and that Ava might even be the same person as she is (Deborah: “I told you, you’re just like me. Get your own mountain to climb.”), the latest season’s finale simmers to one of the show’s most confrontational examinations of their relationship.
“And even if I wasn’t the best person for the job — and I am!” Einbinder, who refused to rehearse the scene to make it feel of the moment, real, trailed. “You should give it to me because of our relationship.” It is this scene, for her portrayal of what Statsky calls the “tremendous hurt” that Einbinder got nominated for the Emmy for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series last year, her third Emmy nomination and what fans thought was her strongest chance (she ultimately lost to The Bear’s Liza Colón-Zayas. At the Golden Globes this year, Baby Reindeer’s Jessica Gunning won her out).
But as with all good comedies, it ends not with a laugh. In Ava’s case, in an All About Eve-esque standoff between her and Deborah on her first day as (spoiler!) the new host of Late Night. And unlike the Season 2 finale, where Einbinder upon reading the script thought she’s being written off, Season 3’s end promises that Ava and Deborah will still be working together — for better or for worse.
If Hacks season finales have taught me anything, it’s that the wilder and explosive it is, the wackier the succeeding season premiere will be.
