Review: Hacks, "Big, Brave Girl" & "Cover Girls"| Season 4, Episodes 1 & 2

Welcome back to Episodic Medium’s coverage of Max’s Hacks, which begins its fourth season after winning Outstanding Comedy Series for its third. With Lisa Weidenfeld newly employed elsewhere, Emma Fraser expands her coverage footprint and will be covering the season for paid subscribers. $5 a month lets you join the conversation in the weeks ahead.

What happens when your dream job involves working alongside someone who broke your heart? This question is something Deborah Vance and Ava Daniels have to contend with in the first two episodes of the fourth season of Hacks. Sometimes comedies begin to spin their wheels at this point, but the ever-shifting ground keeps both women on their toes as they enter uncharted territories. Unlike last season, there is no time jump, and we are thrust into the immediate fallout after Ava resorted to blackmail to score the head writer job on Deborah’s late-night talk show.

In the hands of Hacks creators Lucia Aniello, Paul W. Downs, and Jen Statsky, this new spikier stage of Deborah and Ava’s creative partnership keeps the Emmy-winning series fresh and still hits humorous and heartbreaking beats. Each character is at fault for their role in this mess, making it less about picking a side and more about watching them navigate the untested personal and professional waters. Unlike other disagreements that have left the duo seething with space between them, they are now forced to work together with the eyes of the network watching.

Ava has become an expert in the art of war with Deborah, and her refusal to back down gives the material an unpredictable edge. Just because no one has beaten Deborah doesn’t mean the veteran standup comic can’t lose. It contrasts the Ava of the past, who has struggled to assert herself against her boss. But years of watching Deborah’s caustic methods have rubbed off. The premiere, “Big, Brave Girl,” takes its name from Deborah’s venom-filled observation, but in this case, Ava’s grown-up blazer matches her bold moves. Well, almost. This is still Hacks, and dirty panties and accidentally dropping a urine sample on herself indicate that Ava hasn’t had a personality makeover.

A running joke that got a laugh out of me in both episodes is Ava’s terrible and increasingly desperate attempt to pin every awkward and inappropriate moment as “part of our silly repartee,” using George Clooney’s penchant for on-set pranks as a comparison. Much like The Studio, the Hollywood that Ava and Deborah inhabit features household names, with Clooney's practical jokes hitting a register similar to Ava’s excitement at trying the Tom Cruise coconut cake last season. It is familiar without being too inside baseball.

Later at a press conference, rather than actors, reporters from sites like Variety, Deadline, and The Hollywood Reporter ask questions, offering a more niche, authentic detail to slotting Deborah’s late-night show into the current landscape (full disclosure that I have worked with one person featured here and I was thrilled to see her).1 Even if the journalists' faces don’t register, the types of questions that focus on Deborah’s age and gender will. Without Ava’s prepared jokes to fall back on (Deborah threw them in the trash), all the veteran has is her brewing irritation and the prickly responses set off PR alarm bells. Everything has consequences, and instead of finding an easy way to extract Ava, Deborah ends up having to share her spotlight when network head Winnie Landell thinks that the two of them are the angle they need to sell the new late-night host to the world.

It is a strong start to the season that gives both Jean Smart and Hannah Einbinder plenty to dig into, both in scenes together and apart. Deborah is so quick to reject anyone who slights her (Jimmy mentions she got someone taken off an organ transplant list) that there was never a good time for Marcus to break the news that he is leaving. One area where Hacks has struggled is finding a place for Marcus after the first season—Deborah moved forward, but he remained stuck. This scene has been a long time coming, and it is Deb at her most fragile.

A couple of lines during this emotional exchange conjure an image of Mad Men—it might be a reach, but it’s where my head ends up, and echoes elsewhere in the episode. When Deborah tearily spits, “How is it everyone leaves me as soon as I get what I want?!” it gave me a flash of Pete Campbell’s “Why does it always have to be like this? Why can't I get anything good all at once?” And Deborah saying, “I don’t care about the money. It’s about loyalty” sounds like a reverse of “That’s what the money is for.” Ava blackmailing Deborah to score the head writer job (that she has legitimately been offered and then lost) is a Pete move too, of course. However, Ava successfully uses this underhanded method to achieve her dream, unlike Pete. Ava can't enjoy this when she has to be on high alert at the office about what Deborah might do next, keeping us on our toes.

The gloves are definitely off by the time Ava makes it to the party hosted at network owner Bob Lipka’s lavish home at the end of the premiere. Bringing back Tony Goldwyn this early into the season ensures that Ava’s threat doesn’t read like an empty promise: Bob wants to make sure Deborah hasn’t told anyone about their one-night stand (she says she hasn’t), and Ava makes polite chit chat with Bob’s wife (including mentioning the golf event). Deborah digging her nails into Ava’s arm is also a reminder of the physical abuse the older comic has enacted, but again, Ava doesn’t flee. Without that mark on her arm, Ava might come across as unreasonable or going full villain mode when she demands Deborah say that she won. Again, neither is coming out of this smelling like roses, and that makes the push-pull more interesting.

One thing I was worried about is that this battle would quickly become too mean and tiresome, but the New York Times photoshoot at the end of “Big, Brave Girl” indicates there is room for more civil reflections. “You were right. You won and you broke my heart,” says Deborah. “You broke mine first,” Ava responds. It is a gut-punch interaction, and both Smart and Einbinder nail the layers of hurt, which takes a turn for the visually absurd when the photographer asks them to smile. Of course, they can fake grin because everything they want is in this frame, no matter how tainted this experience is.

The magazine is the source of contention in the second episode, “Cover Girls,” with Deborah taking umbrage that Ava is being credited for breathing new life into Deborah’s work. The premiere has already put Jimmy in the center of this battle, and Downs excels at depicting Jimmy’s discomfort at the middleman. Jimmy and Kayla's scenes are a mixed bag and can kill the momentum of the other storylines (such as Kayla filling the office with pets and children in an attempt to find clients). Even if Megan Stalter's delivery is hilarious, Kayla’s choices and comments still veer into distracting territory. However, I did think her choice of apartment for Ava wasn’t entirely ridiculous, and if anyone is going to live at the Americana, it makes sense that it is Ava. After all, she spent most of the first season living in a Las Vegas hotel.

Timeline wise I do have some niggles about the speed at which the NYT magazine cover story came together and hit newsstands, but Hacks has always has a slightly flexible relationship to how long it is between episodes. Later on, Winnie mentions the late-night show is behind schedule, including hiring writers. With this particular task, it becomes clear that some disagreements would happen if they were in a fight. It is a reminder that the generation gap conflict remains the same, anchoring the comedy.

Perhaps the biggest headscratcher for me in this Hacks double-header is that Ava and Deborah get into a loud argument in front of a long line of people. Yes, the gag is that they have an audience, but they seem unconcerned about how public it was until Winnie brings it up as an issue. I can’t see Ava or Deborah being so naive that it isn’t a big deal. Or perhaps it is another example of how blinded they are by their dispute that they are acting irrationally. I don’t need Hacks to be a play-by-play of how this industry works, but if you are going to include real reporters, something as public as this fight should come with backlash—or at least a call from Paul about TMZ or Page Six.

Hacks is much more adept at portraying the precarious nature of this TV institution than the gossip firestorm the Comedy Store fight would set off. But it is a catalyst for Winnie to summon the pair to her stunning Mulholland Drive home to deliver an ultimatum: if they don’t make Deb’s late-night venture a hit by the end of the year, then this show is done. No new host, canceled. The knife to the heart comes after they leave Winnie’s house when Deborah pulls Ava in for a hug. For a beat, I didn’t realize that Deborah was playing up to the camera. The sounds of Carlos Rafael Rivera’s tinkling piano score lulled me into Ava’s too-brief content reaction to this intimacy. Einbinder continues proving she can match Smart’s dramatic chops with how her face dropped when she realized it wasn’t a truce.

It would be too quick if a resolution happened already, but Deborah’s ability to leave things with Marcus on a positive note points to her ability to get over a grudge. “You got to dance with the one that brought you,” Marcus says. It is sage wisdom, and this end to one of Deborah’s longest working relationships suggests that Hacks can and will move forward. Or maybe not so fast, as Deborah announces to Ava that they are off to Las Vegas for a writers’ retreat. Will their old home bring them back together or drive them further apart? The future of late-night rests on their success, and I am thrilled to be on this ride.

Stray Observations

• Welcome, Michaela Watkins, to the Hacks cast as the soon-to-be overworked HR rep Stacey. The very specific examples both Ava and Deborah give immediately clue her in that this workplace has a toxic vibe.
• Also, we welcome Robby Hoffman as Kayla and Jimmy’s new assistant, Randy, who has just moved to L.A. and already seems to know as much as her employees. The Speed references were amusing, and I have always felt a certain way about Summer Friday.
• The accidental three-way phone call with Jimmy, Deborah, and Ava seemed like a predictable joke to end that scene, but Kayla walking in on Jimmy saying he was calling Kayla nuts adds an unexpected spin (“I’m not nuts, I’m quirky!”).
• “You know you’re not funny enough to dress like Adam Sandler.” Hats off to costume designer Kathleen Felix-Hager, who nails Ava’s Sandler-looking attire. I appreciate that we got the full spectrum of Ava looks, from a suit to a blazer paired with jeans and tee to the weekend basketball shorts.
• Perhaps my favorite visual gag is the Wolf Girl poster behind Ava as she comes down the elevator at the end of “Cover Girls.” Ava has to look at a huge picture of her ex-girlfriend near her apartment.
• On the other prestige TV front, Deborah’s coyote dream made me think of The Leftovers, as it becomes harder to distinguish between dream and real animals. There are actual coyotes, though, and while Deborah is fine getting rid of a dead animal on her doorstep, she will outsource getting bear urine to Damian.
• The best generational difference reference is Ava knowing how to unsend an email (“You can’t. You still use Hotmail.”)
• “You think George Clooney does pranks because they’re fun. The man is sick.”
• After finishing my stint at The Pitt, I am excited to dive into coverage for a show that has brought me much joy since its debut in 2021. I cannot wait to see where Deborah and Ava’s relationship and this season as a whole go.