Deborah and Ava Go to New Places in Season 3 of HACKS, Including a Trip to Canada

By BILL HARRIS Special to The Lede This is a very important message for Canadian fans of Max’s HACKS, which returns for its third season with two new episodes on Thursday, May 2, only on Crave. In the first episode of Season 3, Deborah Vance (played by Jean Smart) and Ava Daniels (played by Hannah Einbinder) run into each other in an elevator about a year after Deborah fired Ava at the end of Season 2. And the elevator reunion happens to occur in a certain Canadian city. To avoid spoilers, the name of that Canadian city won’t be revealed here. But at one point Deborah is talking specifically about the city, and the insult that she utters is bitingly hilarious. Whether there’s any truth to what she’s saying, or not, will be left up to each individual Canadian viewer! The wider point is, HACKS is back, with Deborah and Ava both dealing with new circumstances, while equally pondering just how much, or how little, they have changed. “I love the way they get back together, because it just felt completely right,” said Smart in a panel interview with the cast and creators of HACKS. “It was just this kind of fake politeness for five minutes, and then they start to insult each other.” As the third season of HACKS begins, Deborah’s career is soaring, due to the immense popularity of her comedy special. She has even been named on the prestigious “TIME 100” list, which recognizes the world’s most influential people. At the “TIME 100” gala event, Deborah passes by someone who suddenly says, “I loved your special!” And Deborah replies, “I loved your vaccine!” That’s the social level at which Deborah is currently circulating. Ava’s life seems to be going fine, too, both professionally and romantically. But her feelings have truly been hurt by Deborah cutting off all contact over the past nine months. Deborah thinks it was for Ava’s own good, but Ava thinks it was unnecessarily cruel. In fact, just moments before their random meeting in the elevator, a frazzled Ava says bluntly, “I’m not ready to see her.” “I think it was good that they were both off enjoying their lives, and accomplishing things that they wanted to accomplish,” Smart said. “And I’m sure they were thinking about each other, but (Deborah) had an excuse to say, ‘oh well, it’d be better for her if I don’t call her.’ I do think Deborah was a bit altruistic. I think she was trying to do what was right for Ava.” Einbinder said, “yeah, I definitely think there is a point where Ava and her girlfriend are maybe having a little bit of a tussle, and her girlfriend speaks to how hard it was for Ava leaving Deborah, and how much of a toll it took on their relationship. While Ava has been thriving, certainly, it also seems like it was a really heavy weight on her conscience always, when there’s just that one person who is just weighing on your mind.” And despite all her recent triumphs, Deborah has things weighing on her mind, too. She has noticed that audiences are laughing at anything she says – anything – whether it’s funny or not. While that can be a nice security blanket for famous comedians, it doesn’t do anything to keep them sharp, or challenged. As Smart put it, “Deborah’s at a point where she has had this great special and everything, but now it’s like, ‘well, now what do I do? Do I go back to Vegas and do a second-rate club? Do I do another bad sitcom?’ ” Of course, HACKS is about Deborah and Ava and how they interact, so as all fans could easily predict, situations occur in Season 3 that bring their lives back into the same orbit. “Sometimes they make each other better, but they also make each other worse,” Einbinder observed. With three seasons under their belts, Smart and Einbinder were asked if they ever catch themselves becoming more like their HACKS personas. “I mean, yeah, whenever I’m correcting someone for maybe not saying the right thing, I kind of feel like I’m going, ‘okay, not to go Ava mode, but … ’ ” Einbinder said. “However, I hang out with comedians, so I have to be like, ‘WHOA, WHOA, WHOA’ all the time.” Smart added, “I do. I do find myself, every once a while when I’m joking around, if I get particularly loud, I go, ‘okay, reign it in a little bit, Deb.’ Because I don’t want to go there. I don’t want to go there.” billharristv@gmail.com @billharris_tv