The Max series Hacks is, among other things, about the constant struggle to do good work in the face of myriad impediments and compromises. It’s a show focused on the grind, and the difficult people one might find oneself tethered to in the pursuit of more and better. But the series itself glides on smooth rails, suggesting that there is mostly harmony behind the scenes of this winsome, goes-down-easy show—though in the third season, which premiered on May 2, one starts to see the strain just a little bit.
What’s always been good about the series is still happily intact. Jean Smart is tart and savvy as Deborah Vance, a sellout Vegas comedian and product hawker who has, after releasing a bruising and personal new standup special, found herself in the rarefied air of critical esteem. At the end of season two, Deborah fired Ava (Hannah Einbinder, bright and biting), the principled young writer who helped get her there. This was meant to be an act of something like mercy—it was time for Ava to fly the nest and pursue her own work. But Ava, who has since landed a gig as a writer on a John Oliver-esque political show, sees it otherwise. She feels scorned, abandoned.
Season three is about the two reuniting over a shared mission: a coveted network late-night chair has been vacated, and Deborah desperately wants it. When Hacks is focused on that goal, it moves spryly. The show’s familiar push-and-pull patter, its pendulum swinging between gains and setbacks, has a hypnotic pull. There’s a coziness to Hacks now that we’re so used to its cadence, so trusting of its assured quality.
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But the season also requires some padding, which is where it runs into trouble. A few episodes, particularly one that has Deborah and Ava pointlessly lost in the woods while on a hike, play like wheel-spinning. So do the various digressions into side plots concerning Deborah and Ava’s shared manager Jimmy (series co-creator Paul W. Downs), his brash and clueless assistant Kayla (Megan Stalter), and Deborah’s COO Marcus (Carl Clemons-Hopkins). These characters work best when they flit into and out of the lives of our two protagonists; their personal escapades feel tacked on, like half-hearted attempts to make this two-hander show an ensemble.
A traditional sitcom needn’t always stay on task. B and C plots are welcome. But Hacks isn’t exactly a traditional sitcom. It’s a process show, and any distraction from that process begins to seem like a nuisance. Despite its premise, Hacks is also not a joke delivery machine. Its best scenes are often the most dramatic ones. As such, Kayla and Jimmy’s borderline cartoony antics can clash awkwardly with the more grounded interactions between Ava and Deborah.
The show’s study of codependency is compelling, both sympathetic and frustrating. What Deborah dangles in front of Ava is enticing, but it is a career path that stops dead at the brick wall that is Deborah. It is a reality of the comedy world that the best gigs are often writing words for someone else, but Ava is perhaps too comfortable in Deborah’s particular shadow, chilly and looming as it is.
Hacks has a complex relationship to ambition, in turn singing its virtues and warning of its pitfalls. It is plainly stated that Deborah is talented, and we are to assume that Ava is too. But the elder comedian’s leveraging of that raw ability, and Ava’s drafting off of it, threatens to become crass at best and ruinous at worst. Pleasant as much of season three is, it’s impossible to shake the creeping feeling that it’s headed somewhere dark, that these two people–mentor and mentee, frenemy rivals, fucked up parent and child—can’t maintain their amiable working relationship forever.
The show has trained us to suspect that. The previous two seasons were structured the same way: an uneasy alliance that is, in one way or another, torn asunder by the end. The grand question of Hacks is how far that rollercoaster track can be laid. Season three ends with a juicy payoff, near guaranteeing that audiences will eagerly return for another round. But how many more times can we watch this repetitive process and still find it engaging?
That’s something we probably needn’t worry about just yet. The show’s creators—Downs, Lucia Aniello, Jen Statsky—have proven adept at keeping things interesting, despite the occasional unnecessary ramble. Their plotting, while loose, is subtly intricate; season three is a patient and detailed build to a grand payoff. There’s no real slump happening. But as the show ages, its routine may need some tightening.
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