It’s Back to ‘Silly’ Basics and True Teamwork in Season 5 of HACKS, Say Jean Smart and Hannah Einbinder

By BILL HARRIS Special to The Lede   What goes around comes around on HACKS, according to Jean Smart. With the fifth and final season of the award-winning HBO series set to debut on Thursday, April 9, Smart – who plays Deborah Vance, an iconic comedian who is fighting to remain relevant – pointed out a tonal back-and-forth that devoted viewers might notice. “Season 4 got a little bit dark,” Smart acknowledged. “But I think we had earned it.” That’s an interesting take, to suggest that quality comedies can “earn” the right to turn somewhat serious, in the belief that the loyal audience will remain on board. “I was worried that people would hate (Deborah), because they cared so much about the relationship (with Ava, played by Hannah Einbinder),” Smart continued. “It was like they were willing to go anywhere with us, which was really wonderful. But in Season 5, we get to get back to being profoundly silly, which is really, really fun.” There was a fairly straightforward premise back when HACKS began: Deborah’s standup act had grown stale, so Ava was hired to help freshen it up. There was automatic comedy built into that theme, with old-school Deborah and cutting-edge Ava sniping at each other. But the show has taken a number of fascinating twists and turns, and there were times when the acrimony between Deborah and Ava was no joke. But Season 5 sees them back together with a single purpose: to secure Deborah’s legacy. “It’s nice that we (Ava and Deborah) were able to kind of be on the same team,” Einbinder said. “I think that’s so fun for us. Of course, we still have our sparring throughout, which we also enjoy just as much. But it’s so nice for us to be working towards the same goal. And personally, I’m always just so excited about the opportunities and challenges that they present me with, dramatically and comedically. I always know that I’m going to be pushed to a new height in terms of performance, and it is so invigorating, and exciting, and just the best feeling you can have as a performer.” Smart and Einbinder were asked if there are certain elements and complexities to their characters that they might not have foreseen when HACKS premiered in 2021. Both of them were momentarily stumped. “I’m sure there are,” Smart finally said. “Nothing’s springing to mind immediately. I feel like certainly they’ve both become more nuanced, and they’ve both affected each other, and they’ve both changed each other. But I just feel like from Day 1 that Deborah was on the page, and I totally got her. It was a gift.” Einbinder added, “yeah, I would say the same. I think every evolution that these characters have undergone has felt warranted and earned. And everything that I would hope for them has been achieved. So what I can observe about Ava’s growth is just that she has changed and been affected for good, I think, by Deborah and, you know, grown up. And I think the difference between a 24-year-old person and a 30-year-old person is actually quite huge. There’s a ‘Saturn Return’, obviously, if you ascribe to that. Yes, Ava really went through that on this show.” For those who are curious, a ‘Saturn Return’ is an astrological event that occurs roughly every 29.5 years, when Saturn returns to the exact position it occupied at a person’s birth. It supposedly sparks a period of intense, transformative challenges, aimed at fostering maturity, responsibility, and a realignment with one’s true life path. The first Saturn Return happens in a person’s late 20s, the second in their late 50s, and the third in their late 80s. So Ava has a couple more to look forward to, good health assumed. Planets notwithstanding, the HACKS universe is coming to a close. Smart admitted to some mixed feelings about that, in a specific storytelling sense. “Just to be extra mysterious, I had never asked (the creators) how the series was going to end, from the day we met until the finale,” Smart said. “And I didn’t really have an idea of how it would end. I just wanted to be surprised. I’ve loved being surprised by every episode for all these years. But when they first talked to me about how it was going to end, I was not … I was not sure I was real happy about it. But I said, ‘hey, you know, I trust you guys, I always have, and it always turns out great.’ And it did. And now I think it’s kind of perfect. It’s really great. It’s truly great.”   billharristv@gmail.com @billharris_tv