Of course, spoilers ahead
Jimmy LuSaque is the glue that holds all of Hacks together. Lest anyone forget, our boy pushed Deborah to take a meeting with down-on-her-luck, semi-canceled Ava in Season 1, got that “face time” with Winnie Landell (and beat her and her ex-wife’s asses at pickleball) to get her to consider Deborah for Late Night in Season 3, and, mind you, went “gorilla mode” on Bob Lipka when the network exec tried to cut Deborah’s impassioned speech about censorship when she quit Late Night on live TV in Season 4. So why Jimmy is taking all the Ls this finale season is beyond me.
Hack’s third-to-the-last episode, “The Cube,” takes off from the cliffhanger two episodes ago, where Jimmy and Kayla trekked all the way to Kalamazoo, Michigan to convince a comedian signed with their former employer, Latitude, to do a residency at The Diva, Deborah and Marcus’ casino-hotel in the works. Well, that same comedian turned out to be a murderer. So, on top of trying to circumvent Kayla’s dad, Schaefer and LuSaque effectively lost Latitude a promising talent after they convinced the comedian to turn himself in.
Kayla’s dad was understandably mad, but he didn’t need to read her and Jimmy’s asses clad in Sassafras. To be fair, velour tracksuits and newsboy caps are kind of chic again. He takes away Kayla’s Porsche and her trust fund, and along with it, Schaefer and LuSaque’s office.
Kayla And Jimmy Must Decide
In “The Cube,” their agency takes a turn for the worse: Kayla’s dad is suing them for $30 million dollars in loss of commission and “emotional distress.” They try to reason with him that all their agency has for a legal team is an actor Jimmy’s mom briefly dated, who still knows some law stuff from being on L.A. Law.
A counteroffer is thankfully on the table for Kayla’s dad to drop the lawsuit: he wants Schaefer and LuSaque to be absorbed by Latitude, an idea Kayla repulses, but one Jimmy seems to consider. Truthfully, they wouldn’t have been on the red had they not been adversely affected by Bob Lipka’s wrath for Deborah. To quote Mr. Schaefer, “You’re blacklisted all over town, you work out of a shovel on the East Side; You’re a joke. A joke that I don’t find funny.”
And reader, the next events are nothing to laugh about.
So while Deborah is stuck a hundred feet above the Las Vegas Strip, Jimmy and Kayla, defeated, drive back in an electric car that’s about to die, an hour away from the city. On they go, pushing the car to get to the nearest charging station.
Jimmy, ever selfless, persuades Kayla to consider returning to Latitude for the sake of their clients. “But then Latitude gets to be the winners… It’s not fair,” she pleads. “You do so much for Deborah, you’re not gonna get any credit. He’s gonna get all the credit. Is it really worth it?”
“My talent is helping talent,” Jimmy answers. “When they win, I feel like I’ve won. But the only way that we can do that now is if we go with Latitude.” It’s settled.
Kayla, for all her hysterical woman antics, becomes serious for once and asks Jimmy, “Do you want to know why I got into the business? To hang out with you.” You know you’re nearing the end of a Hacks season when you’re crying more than you’re laughing, and I’m afraid we’re nearing the end, but alas, “we gotta get this car to the charging station.”
They arrive at the Las Vegas Strip just as Deborah successfully turned a crisis into a PR opportunity to sell tickets to her Madison Square Garden hour. Jimmy tells Ava that she is now officially a Latitude client after it acquired Schaefer and LuSaque. She replies, “Well, are you still my manager?” “Yeah, of course.”
What Happens To Jimmy LuSaque?
But is he? After they found out Deborah sold out Madison Square Garden in 10 minutes, the scene cuts to the Latitude offices. Jimmy, the man that he is, immediately tells Mr. Schaefer that he wants his clients, as well as Kayla and Randi, taken care of. The big man assures him, then says, “But you, I’m not so sure that we should put another white guy in a senior leadership position. You know, optics.”
And just when we thought Kayla’s dad was about to pay Jimmy back for bringing her daughter back, I don’t know, with a corner office or something, we see him sorting mail. In a suit!
He wheels off a cart to deliver mail to every desk. Eventually, he lays a packet on one: a copy of Variety with Deborah on the cover, announcing that she had sold out MSG and has returned home to Latitude. He pauses and looks mildly satisfied.
After spilling her heart out while pushing a dead electric car, I expected Kayla to at least express some resistance to this injustice.
To quote her in Season 4 Episode 9, “We, as power bitches, need to treat him better.”
Hacks is currently streaming its final season on HBO Max.
