Hacks returns with a new setting but the same razor-sharp satire
Hacks
★★★★
Stan
Season three of this multi Emmy Award-winning comedy left us on a cliffhanger, and this new season picks up just minutes after that bombshell ending, in which our two antiheroes – Millennial comedy writer Ava (Hannah Einbinder) and veteran comedian Deborah Vance (Jean Smart) – both landed their dream jobs. Deborah finally got the gig she’s dreamed of her entire career, as the host of a late-night TV show, and Ava scored the role of head writer. But that wasn’t Deborah’s plan. Despite telling Ava she’d be her head writer, she tried to ditch her for someone more “experienced”, only for Ava (in true Deborah style), to blackmail her way into the gig.
Ava (Hannah Einbinder) and Deborah (Jean Smart) return for the fourth season of Hacks.Credit: Stan
The often toxic relationship has always been at the heart of this biting comedy, but this season both women now actively despise each other. Mostly.
In the opening couple of episodes, the pair is at all-out war, pranking each other to the point where they’re no longer allowed to be alone together without the network’s HR woman listening to every conversation. Deborah’s “writers retreat” in Las Vegas, in which she treated the writers to a weekend of gambling, drugs and booze, didn’t help either.
But they’re forced to call something of a truce when network executive Winnie Landell (Helen Hunt) informs them they need to work together to make the show a hit in just three months.
The move from live comedy circuit to network TV, from Vegas to Los Angeles, and for the women, from an employee-employer dynamic to one of co-workers, provides the backbone of the new season, but it soon slips into familiar story arcs: Deborah struggles with modern workplace etiquette (she’s genuinely shocked that she can’t just fire someone on the spot) while Ava’s earnestness (and ruthless ambition) continue to frustrate her.
Told by the network’s data expert that the show needs to attract younger women and mums, Deborah thinks makeovers and cooking segments are the answer, while Ava is hoping to include more political sketches. Some of the best satire this season is around the creative process involved in making live TV – or profitable live TV.
Co-creator and co-showrunner Paul W. Downs again stars as Jimmy, Deborah and Ava’s flustered manager, and Megan Stalter as the ever-zany Kayla, who has now been promoted to be Jimmy’s co-manager. Sadly, we don’t see much of Marcus (Carl Clemons-Hopkins), as he’s left to deal with Deborah’s shopping TV empire (she has to get rid of that now she works for a network) and strike out on his own.
What we do get, though, is a slew of Hollywood celebrities playing themselves – something that can go either way, comedy-wise. We’re not allowed to reveal who those are yet, but they’re mostly big names, and the cameos do work, even if some push the boundaries of credibility.
Despite the new setting and the new Deborah-Ava dynamic, Hacks remains as sharp as ever. Even if it’s often treading some similar ground, the chemistry between Hannah Einbinder and Jean Smart never gets old.
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