'Hacks' Review: One of the best comedies about comedy

Copyright © HT Digital Streams Limit all rights reserved. Raja sen 4 min Read 12 Jun 2025, 06:05 IST Jean Smart in ‘Hacks’ Summary The fourth season of ‘hacks’ is an exciting return to form, with clever comos and a new urgency An unabashed first episode is a thing of rare beauty. It is unusual to see that a series is fully formed, with a voice, an atmosphere, originality and self -awareness. Even the most beloved shows can usually only establish an original premise or protagonists in the first episode, which over time and seasons grows into a world. Therefore, I can remember how delighted I was with the first suspension of hacks in 2021, forced to write about the show in this column, even if it was not in India (all four seasons can now be found on Jiohotstar). The Hacks opener was created by Lucia Aniello, Paul W. Downs and Jen Statky. The upcoming comedy writer Ava was canceled for making a problematic political joke on Twitter, and the only action on her immediate horizon is to work with the old school’s stand-up comedian Deborah Vance who performs so often in Las Vegas that she does not bother to change her rust, sexist material. The episode immediately sets up the different lenses to look at comedy, the progressive and the regressive about a generation gap, and then … A knockout: Deborah demands to know the joke that Ava has placed, and rejects it – not because he is political or provocative, but because he is not funny enough. She makes it right, and Ava (with all of us) is ominous. It is a superlative coup, which shows how the art of the joke takes us to the heart of the joke. It is a Sorkinesque flourish – and given how much I honor the glorious first episode of Aaron Sorkin’s The West Wing, there is really no greater praise. The first season builds on this crackling start, with unique and compelling characters and a screw -ball energy built on comic contrasts, with the lead of Hannah Einbinder (who plays Ava) and the majestic Jean Smart (as Deborah via) talking about each other forever. Yet … with wonderful start comes wonderful opportunities to stumble. The second season, where the two clues go on a nationwide comedy tour, is nice, but feels stretched and definitely less necessary. By the time the third season rolled around – with Ava and Deborah against each other and again and again, through easily avoided misunderstandings – the show has become repetitive and less than worthy of Jean Smart’s Bravura performance. Here we go again, I sigh, here is another of the wonderful Mrs Maison Prime, a show about a comedian where everyone liked the pilot, but few could come to the final finals of the Bela -Parents. So I am excited to report that the fourth season – wrapped last week – is an exciting return to form. By crowning Deborah, the first female host for late-night talkshow in America, Hacks found new urgency, not to mention smart comos of other hosts and comedians. Since no woman has ever been allowed in the US late night scene, these fictional protagonists break new track-and the Deborah/Ava contrasts feel exciting again because the game is genuine and fresh. Deborah wants to make the most popular performance that pleases every demographics, while Ava (who holds the deadlines of the Peabody awards) wants to push the envelope. The show has always had stunning characters. Co-creator Paul W. Downs, who plays Jimmy, the award-winning manager of these two flawed and fantastic women, is excellent this season. Helen Hunt is brutal as a no-nonsense network manager, Kaitlin Olson has some wonderful pieces as Deborah’s long-standing (and unenforceable) daughter, and Poppy Liu briefly shines as Deborah’s personal Blackjack dealer Kiki. However, Michaela Watkins produces a broad performance as an unconscious HR person, and I miss to see more of Carl Clemons-Hopkins than Marcus, the adviser, and he shakes his head at Deborah and Ava forever. The show really sings when the two women riffle over comedy. Deborah gets up a politically wrong joke that Ava-Alls get out too fast: “I just think it’s fat.” “And I think it’s fat-joke-shaming,” Deborah says. And then these two women, the first woman to offer a late night show and her lead author, giggled for a while. Of course, this is not all camaraderie. Deborah was written as one of the great grids in television history – with a Maggie Smith level of contempt and smart, this snark continuously deployed. Deborah sees Ava in Casuals, for example, shows: “You know, you’re not funny enough to dress like Adam Sandler.” There is one episode where it feels that Deborah will perform something for Ava, so to speak, but even this predictability feels appropriate. The biggest fan is the biggest critic is the biggest challenge. No challenge seems too much for Deborah. Smart plays her exceptionally well and creates an immediately iconic character that – insignificant – is just as credible as she is incredible. There is a lot she struggles with, but when the lights go on, we see Deborah – Seed and Deborah upset – have her teeth with her tongue, her brightest smile and retired, with practiced and photogenic grace. “You have to make the laughter of you,” Deborah says. “If you slip on a banana peel, people will laugh at you. If you tell people that you have slipped on a banana peel is the laughter of you. ‘ “It’s beautiful,” she said. “It’s Nora Ephron,” Deborah reveals. This comic self-awareness gives hacks its purpose, with Deborah who respect the women who came before her, and Ava went a step further by putting Deborah on a pedestal. Hacks show how funny women built on funny women who came before them, named Joan Didion and Eva Babitz, with a Cameo with the Great Carol Burnett. Deborah is definitely an icon, but she stands on the shoulder path of giants. Raja Sen is a screenwriter and critic. He has co-written chup, a film about killing critics, and now creating an absurd comedy series. He posts @rajasen. Also read: ‘Jungle Nama’: An exciting play for children restarts the myth of Bonbibi, catching all the business news, market news, news events and latest news updates on live mint. Download the Mint News app to get daily market updates. More Topics #Features Read Next Story