‘Hacks’ Review: Season 3 Crafts a Whipsmart, Sidesplitting Rom-Com for Working Relationships
“Hacks” is, and has always been, a relationship comedy. The HBO Max series from Lucia Aniello, Paul W. Downs, and Jen Statsky takes an exhaustively progressive Gen Z comedy writer and pairs her with a legendary stand-up comic whose worldview has become as stale as her jokes. The first season harvested humor from their prickly interactions, as both Ava (Hannah Einbinder) and Deborah (Jean Smart) felt each other out while finding a working rhythm. In Season 2, they took their show on the road, driving their fragile yet fruitful new connection toward a creative explosion or a close-quarters’ flare-out.
Ava and Deborah’s relationship is strictly platonic — Deborah’s running jokes about Ava’s “huge” hands negate any romantic assumptions, which the show itself has also acknowledged as a sneaky running joke of its own — but they’re not without romance. “Hacks” fits the comfortable mold of a romantic-comedy. Its Hollywood satire takes center stage during most conversations, as do its performances (namely Smart’s, who’s enjoying a well-deserved renaissance), but the rom-com structure has never been more apparent than in Season 3. Season 1 is the bickering meet-cute. Season 2 is the honeymoon — when anything feels possible so long as they’re together — and that makes Season 3 the reality-check.
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Back from their trip, basking in their success, yet torn apart by a big fight in the finale, it’s no spoiler to say Deborah and Ava find their way back to each other. But “Hacks” also brilliantly reframes their working relationship once again, asking whether the thrilling spark kindled by two prolific partners can simultaneously set their souls ablaze and burn them down in the process. What’s a healthy push, and what’s a toxic influence? Can a great move professionally also be a destructive personal decision? And is all this hubbub simply because society doesn’t support women who put work first, or, in their pursuit of fame via frivolity, have Ava and Deborah lost track of what really matters — love?
Among these beautiful, big-picture questions, “Hacks” doesn’t lose track of the “com” in its rom-com. Most episodes induce approximately half-a-dozen laughing fits. They’re so funny you have to stand up, walk to the next room, and tell your partner what you just heard (knowing full well it won’t be as good coming from you, but hey, that’s the price they pay for not keeping up with “Hacks.”) Ava commits so hard to eating dog biscuits you can’t help but love her for it. Deborah’s “1987-1992” themed guest suite is a jaw-dropper. And I will never forget a throwaway bit about the “Gumby” movie.
Smart and Einbinder’s crackling chemistry carries many of these exchanges, as Deborah seeks out a new challenge and Ava tries to find her own voice. The premiere jumps one year into the future, where Deborah’s comeback special (which she self-produced and sold at the end of Season 2) has been hailed as the decade’s best hour of stand-up. Offers are pouring in. Gigs are selling out. Fans are obsessed, which is actually a bit of a problem (and not because of her stalkers). No matter what she says during a set, they laugh. Deborah will thank them for being there, and it gets a laugh. She’ll pivot into something more confessional, and they’ll laugh. She’ll try to quiet them down, and they laugh harder.
Ava, meanwhile, is also bowled over by her good fortune. She’s writing for a “Last Week Tonight”-esque variety talk show. She’s back together with Ruby (Lorenza Izzo), her movie star ex-girlfriend. She’s a hot young writer in Hollywood (in every sense of the word), and yet… there’s something missing. Deborah’s dismissal of Ava still nags at her a year later, the heartbreak only magnified by Deborah’s refusal to get back in touch with a former employee (and friend) she claims to have sent packing for the right reasons (aka so Ava could be her own boss, write her own scripts, and become her own person).
What draws them back together is at the center of Season 3, which is, itself, about our search for self-fulfillment. For Deborah, she realizes she needs a challenge, and sets her sights on a doozy: her all-time dream gig of hosting a late-night show. But what does she lose when she fixates on one goal? What about her family, like her once-wayward and still doofy daughter DJ (Kaitlin Olson), and her long-estranged sister Kathy (actor embargoed)? What about her old fans and staff, who may get left behind if she moves up in the world? What about the people who helped get her where she wants to go?
Ava may be among them (she certainly has been before), and her own fears are tied up in investing so much of herself in someone who’s cut and run before. There’s something radical happening between her and Deborah; something special, invigorating, and satisfying that any artist would be hard-pressed to resist. It’s love — a form of it, anyway — and what makes this situation dangerous for them both is that neither is ready for it. Ava is young enough to throw herself in headfirst, exposed and vulnerable, while Deborah is old enough to have her guard up, to protect herself at all costs, and to revert back to a defensive stance when she’s scared.
Co-creators Aniello, Downs, and Statsky expertly mine this dynamic for humor and conflict throughout Season 3, teasing out Ava and Deborah’s friction even as they warmly work toward similar ends. “Hacks” excels at giving the audience what they want, even mid-reinvention, and the series continues to exemplify the upsides of excellent episodic structure with half-hours built around Deborah’s roast, a Christmas special and, if you can believe it, a hike in the woods.
With just those few descriptors, each episode comes rushing back in a flash of vivid jokes, staging, performances — you name it — and while none of them hit the insane highs of Season 2’s killer second-half, including “The Captain’s Wife,” “Retired,” and the finale, “The One, and Only,” there’s also zero evidence of the offscreen hold-ups that delayed Season 3’s release. (Smart underwent heart surgery before the dual WGA and SAG strikes.) “Hacks” flies by so fluently and fast you’ll either start the season over as soon as it ends, or circle back to rewatch the whole thing, just to appreciate what you missed, or re-appreciate everything you remember.
For as well as “Hacks” spreads the wealth — Downs, as Jimmy, is sneaky great this season, and Aniello’s quietly rich direction drops a few new stunners (Deborah in the mirror!) — it’s all in service of the core relationship. Ava and Deborah are just trying to figure each other out while figuring themselves out. They’re seeing if this weird, wonderful thing between them can work, or if they’d be better off with new, more compatible partners. After Season 3, it’s clear they’re going to chase their connection as far as it goes, consequences be damned. And we’re right there with them, hoping for the best.
If that’s not a love story, I don’t know what is — bring on the “Carol” supercuts.
Grade: A-
“Hacks” Season 3 premieres Thursday, May 2 on Max with two episodes. New episodes will be released two at a time through May 23, with the finale released May 30.
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