If you’re looking for something fresh, unique, and satisfyingly clever to watch, then Hacks is a series you’ll eat right up.
It’s hard to pull off a show about showbiz to begin with but doing one about making comedy is an even harder act to do.
However, with the winner combo that is the brilliant Jean Smart and her booming young stand-up comic co-star Hannah Einbinder, not only do they pull it off, but they also knock it out of the park.
The premise is simple: Smart plays Deborah Vance, a veteran comic with a successful long-running show in Las Vegas who recently is told to give up her weekend slots so that venue owner, Marty, played by Christopher McDonald (Into Thin Air, Happy Gilmore), can book a new singing group to attract a younger demographic.
While Vance acknowledges her show regulars are people “who come up from Florida”, she is livid by having to give up her weekend shows to make way for a lip-synching singing group.
Meanwhile, Einbinder plays young Ava who has recently been canceled by a now very woke LA due to an insensitive tweet and is having difficulty booking writing gigs despite previously having lucrative enough prospects to be able to afford to purchase a townhouse for herself.
Hollywood has now turned its back on her just as the city has and has found herself ostracized from the industry with no one wanting to work with her.
Serendipitously handled by the same agent, Ava is sent to Vance in Las Vegas to work for her as a writer in hopes of freshening up her act to keep her weekend show slots.
Thus, the equally skeptical working relationship begins.
More importantly, the show also tackles the great generational divide between Smart and Einbinder’s characters. Coming from the tail end of the disillusioned Gen X myself, where we are taught that soldiering on in a job you don’t enjoy is just a part of life you need to live with, it’s easy to find Ava’s idealistic take on unemployment very annoying.
She will likely be judged by the viewer initially as an entitled slacker who does not really know what hard work means.
Ava is someone who likes to complain about everything and somehow manages to logically justify it to be a violation of her rights and does a lot of this throughout the show.
That is why it is also equally enjoyable to watch Vance not give any importance to these complaints and oftentimes make her do grunt work fit for a personal assistant than a hired writer who is employed to better your comedy.
As much as it is satisfying to see the entitled Ava disgruntled by donkey tasks, this dynamic does not last as the two eventually find a way to work together through circumstances that present itself when forced to work together.
This is where the show tackles the real essence of the generational divide and where both Smart and Ava open up their characters quite beautifully.
You are immediately drawn by the many layers of Deborah Vance’s character, toughened by years and years of shit-eating she had to do as a pioneering woman in the world of comedy.
Just as we are drawn to it, so is Ava, and her resentment easily turns into admiration as she first realizes that Vance was probably a major player in kicking down the door that opened opportunities for women of her generation today.
But the show also reveals, albeit very subtly, that Ava does have a unique point of view as a writer and is not as entitled as she makes out to be. Rather, she is a smart female in her twenties who has real talent, empowered without hesitations to stand up for what she thinks is rightfully hers for the taking.
As the two characters learn from each other and try to make each other better, it is not hard to root for them.
The show makes you hope that the two can sort out their issues and work together because you almost positively know for sure that when they do, it will be magic. We have yet to find out.
In the meantime, you will find Hacks truly engaging and surprisingly addicting as you find yourself caring deeply about its characters.
It’s not a surprise that the show has bagged a few Emmys just in its first season. It is brilliantly written and the two women who carry the lead roles are astounding in it.
You can catch Hacks on HBO, which has been airing since October 11, 2021.
