Saying goodbye to ‘Hacks’ with Hannah Einbinder and Jean Smart
Hannah Einbinder and Jean Smart reflect on the emotional final days of filming “Hacks” and the meaningful souvenirs they took from set.
Spoiler alert: This story contains details from Episode 7 of Season 5 of “Hacks” (now streaming) on HBO Max.
Those who have shipped Deborah and Ava, your time has come.
Before concluding its fifth and final season May 28, writers of HBO Max’s “Hacks” (Thursdays, 9 ET/6 PT) gave viewers a glimmer of what a love affair between comedy comeback queen Deborah Vance (Jean Smart) and her millennial bisexual writer Ava Daniels (Hannah Einbinder) could be like.
The episode “was so much fun,” Einbinder says beside Smart in an interview with USA TODAY. “It was so funny. I thought they handled it beautifully. I thought it was true to the reality of the characters while also delivering what (fans) wanted.”
In Episode 7, Deborah is anxious about what to wear to her career-defining show at Madison Square Garden. With the help of her psychic, she settles on a white jumpsuit with a gauzy long-sleeved top that Carol Burnett wore on the series finale of her eponymous variety show in 1978. Designer Bob Mackie (who costumed Burnett for her show) makes a cameo in the episode and hints to Deborah that a rival comic now owns the look. Kelly Kilpatrick (Cherry Jones) hates Deborah for reasons the latter can’t recall. Leave it to Ava to refresh her memory.
“You were pretty mean to her after she came out at the VMAs,” Ava says of Kelly, who is a lesbian. “I believe the exact quote was, ‘She should go back into the closet and pick something else.’” Deborah also slighted Kelly’s talk show. Deborah decides to apologize to Kelly at a restaurant, with hopes of getting the outfit. When Ava interrupts to bring Deborah her cell phone, Kelly mistakes Ava for Deborah’s girlfriend and has a new understanding of her foe.
“No wonder you’ve been so bitter and frustrated and jealous all these years,” Kelly says before inviting the “couple” to the Montecito home she shares with wife Monica (Leslie Bibb). Ava agrees to feign being in a relationship for $1,000 and lays it on thick for their audience of two.
“The connection was undeniable,” Ava tells Kelly and Monica while recounting how she and Deb met. “But I think our spark is in our fighting, the way we bicker. It comes into play in the bedroom a lot, too, as well.”
Then Ava asks for a kiss. Deborah pecks her before reluctantly giving in to more passionate smooches. Later, Deborah decides to come clean to Kelly and Monica, but they won’t have it.
“Deb,” Kelly begins, “after a full weekend of watching you and Ava, I think it is pretty obvious that you’re in a relationship.” Miraculously, Kelly gives Deborah the jumpsuit.
“It just was classic ‘Hacks,’” Einbinder says.
“That’s what I love about this season,” Smart says. “We got to be really silly again, after being kind of serious last season.”
In addition to a faux-mance with Ava, Deborah had a brief fling earlier in the season with much younger rock star Nico Hayes, played by “The Summer I Turned Pretty” breakout Christopher Briney. But Smart wouldn’t even flirt with the idea of ranking this season’s kisses.
“I do not kiss and tell!” she says.
Series cocreator Jen Statsky says writers had the Ava and Deborah storyline “in our minds for a while. And it felt like Season 5, when we finally got to this place in the relationship, was the right place to do it.”
At this point in the series, “there’s just so much history between these two to draw on,” Statsky says. “When they get in a fight and joke about having hit her or sued her, there’s so much history here. There really would be so much for them to unpack in couples therapy. They should go twice a week.”
