[This story contains spoilers from the season five premiere of Hacks.]
In the opening moments of the fifth and final season of the HBO series Hacks, Jean Smart’s Debra Vance is dead — or so scream the headlines on newspaper clippings at a memorial erected outside the gates of her Las Vegas mansion. The famous — perhaps legendary — comic is horrified to see the shrine when she pulls up with Ava, her head writer, comic foil, and best frenemy. However, being the megalomaniac she is, Deb is even more horrified by what her obituary says about her life as a pioneering underdog in the man’s world of comedy.
The set-up, which resolves season four’s cliffhanger that saw Debra and Ava far off in Singapore after her late-night show’s success imploded, works in the same manner the Emmy-winning series has since its 2021 debut. Guided by Smart’s sharp, undeniably charming performance — here conveying Deb’s vanity and pathos as she greets fans gathered at her memorial and then contemplates her legacy as it plays out across cable news infotainment — the opening encapsulates Hacks’ core themes while quietly setting up a season that will grapple with mortality, legacy, and control (and letting go of it).
“Debra’s anger and her bitterness, and hanging on to that — and really feeding upon her bitterness — really is what keeps her going,” Smart said in a recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter ahead of the season five premiere. “That kind of bitterness and resentment and trying to get revenge — you know, her motto is that old classic, ‘living well is the best revenge.’ It’s kept her going, but at the same time, she’s paid the price.”
For Deb, living well — or, more importantly, being seen living well after she quit her late-night show live on-air in season four rather than fire Ava, who accidentally leaked a network secret to a reporter — is joining the exclusive and coveted EGOT club. The episode sees her laying the groundwork for an eventual Oscar and Grammy (the more elusive prizes for Deb to achieve alongside her Emmy and Tony). This soon gives way to another stand-up comic’s dream. Recall how the late, great Andy Kaufman once said he wanted to play Carnegie Hall? For Debra, a creature of Hollywood exiled to Las Vegas, that would never do; her eyes are set on something bigger, brighter — and packed with her fans: Madison Square Garden, a MacGuffin and perhaps where the season, and the series, will end after nine more half-hour episodes.
The public can see none of these planned projects for 18 months, the contractually mandated period during which she must stay off stages and screens and refrain from performing comedy following her exit. Just another man-made constraint for our hero. So, once again, this being Debra Vance — who can’t not stand in a spotlight for fear of fading into irrelevance — the rules are broken, and quickly. Soon, she and her team are secretly orchestrating a groundswell of fan support as Deb, Ava, and the rest of the Hacks entourage take her act underground and her fight against corporate — and decidedly male — oppression, the show’s eternal boogeyman, to the people.
“The man,” in his many forms — a media exec, a tech guru, an ex from beyond the grave — is not Hacks’ sole villain this season. Networks, contracts, and NDAs; the public and its perception of aging women; and the inevitability of irrelevance — they’re all closing in on Deb. And the bitterness and resentment Smart mentioned remain central to her public persona and personal struggles. But as the show moves toward its conclusion, her edges seem slightly softened.
Much of this has to do with the evolution of the show’s central relationship between Debra and Hannah Einbinder’s Ava. Their initial odd-couple dynamic, which gave way to vengeful one-upmanship as the series progressed, now finds them — following Debra’s sacrifice of her dream late-night gig to save her head writer’s job — working in tandem toward shared goals.
Those goals remain largely Deb’s, and Ava is given little room for subplots across the final season. That feels inevitable, though, given who these characters are — and remain — after six years: a self-centered Baby Boomer and a woke Millennial, a bombshell and a bookworm, a star comedian demanding her spotlight and the unsung writer behind the gags.
Hacks’ 10-episode final season will release new episodes weekly, concluding with the series finale on Thursday, May 28.
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