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SPOILER ALERT: This story contains spoilers for the Season 4 finale of “Hacks,” now streaming on Max.
In its Season 4 finale, “Hacks” goes where the Emmy-winning comedy has never gone before: to the other side of the world. Still smarting from the sudden end of her time as a late-night host and a subsequent non-compete that bars her from the stage for 18 months, stand-up Deborah Vance (Jean Smart) has taken her trusty collaborator Ava Daniels (Hannah Einbinder) to Singapore. There, Deborah exploits a loophole that allows her to do comedy through a translator — and spends months in a fugue state before TMZ falsely reports her death, snapping her out of her stupor.
Incredibly, Deborah hadn’t been fired from her dream job as the face of “Late Night,” a fictional franchise she and Ava successfully propelled to No. 1 in the ratings even as they were at each other’s throats. In the season’s penultimate episode, Deborah quit rather than succumb to network pressure to fire Ava, the collaborator who’d helped her pull off a career renaissance, bucking an order from executive Bob Lipka (Tony Goldwyn) to throw Ava under the bus. It’s a full-circle moment for the duo: in the Season 3 finale, Deborah was perfectly willing to cut Ava loose as head writer to play it safe for her second go at TV stardom, forcing the younger woman to blackmail her way into the job. After reconciling in an emotional heart-to-heart at this season’s halfway point, Deborah is finally ready to make a sacrifice for someone else.
That decision still comes at a hefty cost, and Deborah’s time in Singapore quickly devolves into the very casino residency-shaped stasis Ava helped rescue her from in the first place. “We didn’t want it to feel like she isn’t a real person — that it would just be so easy for her to have made this decision and then not feel some sort of grief,” said co-creator and co-showrunner Jen Statsky. Headed into the recently announced Season 5, Deborah has resolved to return to the States and fight Bob’s gag order. But first, she and Ava have entered a new chapter in their relationship: one where Ava is helping to support Deborah as a friend, not just an employee.
Statsky spoke with Variety, along with Lucia Aniello and Paul W. Downs, the other two members of the core “Hacks” braintrust. (Aniello directs many episodes, including the finale, while Downs plays Ava and Deborah’s mutual manager Jimmy.) Together, the trio broke down the end of Season 4 — and address whether Season 5, as the trio have previously stated, will be the show’s last.
I was struck by the pacing of following up Episode 9, which is more conventionally climactic, with Episode 10, which is a break from form. Why did you want to end the season on the Singapore interlude instead of Deborah walking away from the show?
Lucia Aniello: There were a variety of reasons. Part of it is that we felt — like you’re saying — that Episode 9 felt like a typical climactic ending, but it also had an ending where you’re just like, “Oh, that feels like it could be almost a series ending.” And we just didn’t want to end the season that way.
We also thought it was really interesting to see the fallout from Deborah walking away from the show — what that felt like for her, what that looked like from her. That felt like a different energy. And also to end the episode with a little bit more of a lift, a little bit more about, “Here’s what I’m ready to go fight for next.” It is a break from form. And when you’re four seasons into a series, you just don’t want to be repeating yourself too much. You want to stretch yourself and push yourself to be doing different things and fresh things, and not let the audience ever feel like they know what to expect. For us, that was part of what inspired this episode that we’re really proud of.
Jen Statsky: One of the things that we love about the show is that it is a hard comedy, but also real and grounded in real emotion. Obviously, Jean and Hannah play it so beautifully in that way. We really wanted to pay homage to the fact that this has been our main character’s dream for for her whole life, and while she did this incredibly amazing thing out of love for Ava and for what they’ve built together, we didn’t want it to feel like she isn’t a real person — that it would just be so easy for her to have made this decision and then not feel some sort of grief, some sort of loss from the fact that her voice has been taken from her. It was really wanting to honor the character, and wanting to honor the entire backstory we’ve given her, and show what it would be like for a woman who, getting on stage and performing is what she’s addicted to, as we learned in Season 3. What is it like when that addiction, she has to go cold turkey?
I did want to talk about the events of Episode 9, because they’re so pivotal to setting up what happens in the finale. Given Deborah’s history of selfish behavior, especially where Ava’s concerned, what kind of groundwork did you want to lay throughout Season 4 to sell that reversal of her doing something selfless, in part for Ava?
Paul W. Downs: It’s definitely groundwork laid in in the season, but really it’s in the series. The entire series builds to the climactic moment in that live show where Deborah walks away. And one of the things that was really important to us was to stick that landing. It was really important throughout the season to explore the grist and the dynamic change that they have in this pressure cooker that is late night. It was really important to stretch that rubber band so that we finally got to have this release valve of Deborah making an emotional decision out of love and putting Ava first and putting her relationships first. Which, in the finale of Season 3, Ava says: “You’ll never do that for anyone. You’ll never put anyone before your career.” There were a lot of things that had to be in place for that episode to work, to resonate with people and get them to feel the emotion we wanted them to feel.
You’ve always spoken about how the show has a roadmap, and Deborah having the late-night show was a part of that. Was her choosing to walk away also part of that master plan?
Downs: Her walking away from late night was always part of the plan. Obviously, the ways in which it happened — the dialogue in that scene was written and rewritten and rewritten many times, and so that was never set in stone. A lot of the experience that we all shared during the work stoppage and during the strikes last year impacted how we talked about the changes in the industry and also the changes to her dream. So that was something that evolved and was constantly being worked on, even though we did know we would figure out a way to make it feel satisfying and earned.
What were some of those impacts the work stoppage had on your writing?
Statsky: We wanted to reflect the experiences that we’ve seen so many people [have]: our friends, just anecdotally, what we read about. The way the business has changed, the way there is tremendous pressure on individual properties to perform beyond what used to be usual and what used to be expected, particularly in the comedy space. We feel so incredibly lucky to be in Season 4 of a comedy. And then we also feel so incredibly sad that four seasons of a comedy — that’s really rare nowadays. We just wanted to speak truth to the fact that there are so many more expectations placed upon something like [Deborah’s show] “Late Night.” A property like “Late Night,” it has to over-perform because the expectations have gotten so great, and those expectations are often because of what your shareholders need, how the companies need to perform to outpace other companies that have the incredible backing of tech, and have profit from things that aren’t television.
Downs: I think that’s something that people are feeling, no matter what their industry. It’s not just in show business, the fact that it isn’t enough to make a small profit. When something is publicly traded, when it’s a conglomerate, you have to show growth. Your profit has to grow. And the only way to grow profit is to push down on labor and to exploit the chains of labor. Even though we feel it very much in entertainment, I think it’s so universally accessible to people. Business is changing in a world where you have to grow profit, because even if you make a big profit, it’s not good if you make the same amount the next year, which seems crazy.
Being a fourth season comedy, you’re able to take a big swing like going to Singapore. What was it like to move the production there?
Aniello: We were able to take some key heads of our department, which was really great, to make sure that the product on the screen still felt cohesive with the rest of the season and the rest of the episodes. Because about the first 35% or so is still in Vegas and L.A. But yeah, we had a really fantastic time there. We were able to take some really high quality crew members from all over Asia who came to shoot in Singapore, as well as some great local crew. It was very wild, because obviously it’s a 17-and-a-half hour flight. But also, we were shooting mostly from midnight till about 10 a.m. because of the locations. They didn’t really want us disrupting where they were conducting business. So a lot of that was shot at like, two in the morning or three in the morning Singapore time. But also that was actually correct on our body clocks? It was very disorienting.
So much of it feels like a fever dream, to be honest, being in Singapore. But I think that also kind of mimics the way that you should feel when you’re watching it. Deborah is, as she has done in the past by going to Vegas to create the world that she wants to exist in — she does the same in Singapore. She’s banished from performing in America and Europe, or just any English-speaking country. So Deborah does what she’s got to do. She’s got to go to Singapore to get her rocks off, and so she does. [laughs]
So you’re saying when Deborah falls asleep in her chair — that wasn’t acting.
Downs: I think Jean enjoyed us saying, “You can close your eyes for a second.”
Aniello: Jean has an unbelievable ability of falling asleep wherever she needs to. I think it serves her very well in her life.
Statsky: She didn’t go method for that moment, but she could.
Something that’s interesting to witness in this episode is that Deborah experiencing this change has really recalibrated the dynamic between her and Ava. How do you see their relationship shifting in Singapore and heading into next season?
Downs: It was a new gear for Ava, because I don’t think we’ve ever seen her concerned for Deborah. There’s certainly been moments of risk, there’s been moments of fear, there’s been moments of anger, there’s been moments of great love and affection. But this is a moment when she’s really concerned for her friend, because Deborah, she’s in a state of denial, and she is really grieving the loss of her dream. That was something we hadn’t explored, the scene with Jean and Hannah on the boat. They’re both so incredible in that scene. It’s so interesting to see, as wounding as some of the things that Deborah says could be to Ava, there’s a real growth to the character and maturity, because she does understand what this woman has been through, and why she’s lashing out in that moment the way that she is. We were really conscious of making it feel like something totally different for them. They’ve been through so much together. Now they’re on the other side of the world together, and they are constantly evolving.
As our premiere Hollywood satirists, and as people directly affected by the change, I do feel like I have to ask you for your opinion on the HBO Max boomerang.
Statsky: What’s so interesting is we aren’t totally directly affected. We are, in that we are on the platform, whatever it may be called. But because we’ve always had such a good experience with the people running the platform and our executives, we don’t really notice the change, because those people stay the same. I think we’re working too hard on “Hacks.” There’s consistency in the people that we work with, that support the show, at whatever it’s called. It doesn’t totally affect us.
Aniello: We’re just happy to get to make a show, honestly. Sorry to be Pollyanna, but we get to make the show with the best network that we could imagine. We’ve had nothing but support, both from HBO Max and from Universal. So we’re just like, call it whatever you want.
Downs: Although, I like HBO Max! I like that we’re back.
In addition to saying you have a master plan, you’ve always said this is a five-season show. We now know Season 5 is happening. Is that still what you’re working toward?
Downs: Let me tell you this. This is the thing that I think is a testament to how great our executives are, the people that we work with. We’ve been allowed to do the amount of episodes every season that the story demands. So when we get together, as much as we’ve had a master plan, there’s an episode in Season 3 where Deborah gets an honorary degree from her alma mater. That was something we thought about Season 1, and it ended up being something that, based on how we mapped it out, happened in Season 3.
We are now breaking up Season 5, and we have to see how many episodes it will take us to get to where we know we’re going to go. The final scene of the final episode has been in our minds since 2015, and we’re excited to get there. But that may take more episodes than we can fit in the season. So the truth is that we don’t know. The truth is that we’ve been really lucky to be able to tell the story in the way that the writing requires, and we’re gonna do that again. And so if we can’t get to that final chapter in 10, and it might be more — we just don’t know. That’s the truth. We know where we’re going, we just don’t know how long it will take to get there.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
English (US) ·