Deborah, Ava, and the gang are in New York, baby! While we are not getting a dedicated New York episode, the trip is a short one as they try to convince the people of Madison Square Garden to let her perform there, with extravagant gifts. Gucci! Louis! A fruit basket! Flowers! A giant bottle of wine! But alas, per MSG booker Amanda Weinberg, played by Alanna Ubach, Deborah is “not right for MSG,” the same venue which, IRL, has hosted the likes of Jo Koy, Gabriel Iglesias, Joe Rogan, Bill Burr, Kevin Hart, and Louis C.K. thrice, most recently for his comeback tour post-#MeToo in 2023.
Surprisingly, Deborah took the rejection lightly? Sure, she offered the MSG booker stocks as a Hail Mary, but it’s uncharacteristic of her to just… give up. Technically, she hasn’t. Her Plan B is to “reignite the base,” a.k.a. the Little Debbies, who we have not heard of since she set out on her Late Night campaign. The episode quickly pivots back to Las Vegas, where the Little Debbies air their petty grievances (“You won’t admit you’re a lizard!”) over Deborah having “gone Hollywood,” causing her to stop doing once-trivial engagements and selling products that amounted to fan interaction before parasocial relationships were a science.
“These people are impossible to please,” Deborah tells Ava after hearing all the Little Debbies out. “I mean, my fans seem to think I owe them every single moment of my life.” Just as she was about to spiral, a fan gifts her with a collage portrait made with 29 types of natural seeds and grains. Grisly, really, and any other time, it would have disgusted her. But not today. Not when the (late) mother and daughter who made it were such big fans. In the words of Ann Dowd dressed as a bummed blue alien, “Fan art so ugly, it moves you to tears.”
Appeasing her fans, Deborah then reveals her real intent: to get them to rally for her to perform at MSG. She even apologized, something previous seasons’ Deborah would never. Not even for a rare antique pepper shaker. But what really got the Little Debbies riled up was the implication that their patron saint is not big enough for MSG — which is also all kinds of confusing if you followed the developments of the last few seasons. Hosted (then left) Late Night. Check. Was TIME Magazine’s 100 List. Check. Heck, she was even on the cover of The New York Times Magazine (which, now that I think about it, was a clever insert because apparently things have gone awry in the publication).
But back to my theory from the first episode that Deborah-Ava arc is setting off somewhere previous seasons did not dare to go. This episode doubles down on the punchline that maybe Deborah is not that bad a person. Or, better yet, maybe all that millennial condescension and judgment from Ava has slowly softened the cold-blooded comedian who’s previously blackmailed people, disowned her own sister, sued and lied to Ava herself, and continues to bet on fossil fuel stocks.
To prove this point, she throws Ava a birthday party with not just one, but two guests: her childhood crush Jesse McCartney and a friend she hasn’t seen since eighth grade? New character alert! (Not).
“Deborah, did you only throw me this party because you felt bad about what you said on the boat in Singapore?” Ava asks in the episode’s more sentimental end. And maybe Deborah was despite her denial. “You’re not wrong. You are my only friend,” Ava tells her.
“It’s really hard in a fifth season to give your audience new information about a character that they’ve lived with for so long, but also to give the other characters in the show information,” Hacks co-runner Paul W. Down says in an after-show video. “It is a really big admission for Deborah to say, ‘You’re my best friend’” — which she did not, in fact, say. Maybe it was cut because the creators, in a podcast, said they didn’t want the scene to be overly sentimental.
Maybe the showrunners are right that Deborah and Ava have earned this resolution, this mellowing down, considering this is the last season. But the question remains… Is Deborah really a lizard?
Hacks is currently streaming its final season on HBO Max.
