With Jean Smart and Hannah Einbinder Playing Punchline Polar Opposites, HBO Max’s HACKS is a Crisp Comic Clash

By BILL HARRIS Special to The Lede It’s 100% accurate to refer to the new HBO Max series HACKS, which debuts Thursday, May 13 with two episodes on Crave, as a “generational comedy.” Deborah Vance, played by Jean Smart, is a legendary Las Vegas stand-up comedian who is still very successful for her own crowd, but changing demographics and an antsy employer are forcing her to envision the end of the line. Ava, played by Hannah Einbinder, is a judgmental, entitled, millennial TV writer whose cutting-edge wit on social media has placed her in temporary (hopefully, as far as she’s concerned) professional purgatory. The manager that they share – Jimmy, played by Paul W. Downs, who also is an executive producer on the show – hopes to solve two problems at once by placing Deborah and Ava together, even though they’ve never met, Deborah has always written her own material, and both are hostile to the idea of collaborating on anything. “I’m not going to go write knock-knock jokes about how men don’t put the toilet seat down – I’m not that desperate,” Ava bellows at Jimmy. “Respectfully, as your manager … right now, you are that desperate,” Jimmy replies. Einbinder, who turns 26 next week and is a stand-up comedian herself, does a great job in HACKS encapsulating many of the challenges of her age group, as Ava bounces between bursts of anger, snooty condescension, fake deference, and true economic desperation. For TV comedy historians, if Einbinder looks slightly familiar, she’s the daughter of Laraine Newman, one of the original cast members on SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE. “My mom played comedy for me in the car growing up, like, I listened to stand-up from fifth grade on – probably not the best idea,” said Einbinder, cracking up TV reporters in a virtual panel interview. “I think as a working comic, I get the rhythm of jokes, and pitching, and drafts, and feeling like you’re bombing, and the disappointment that I think my character feels when we do sort of clash in that way initially, when our senses of humour aren’t necessarily matching up. I think being a comic helps just in terms of acting – I guess I’m used to doing comedy for a group of people, and it feels like that’s what this is, if you just boil it down.” Smart, of course, is an entertainment icon in her own right, her character in HACKS notwithstanding. But the three-time EMMY® winner admitted that she doesn’t have a super deep background in stand-up comedy. “I mean, I’m certainly a fan of a lot of female comics – in fact, I just recently bought a book called We Killed, and it has interviews with about 30 or 40 female comedians … but I haven’t even opened it yet,” said Smart, inadvertently displaying expert stand-up timing. “Every once in a while I’ll do something and I’ll think, ‘Oh, that kind of reminds me of so-and-so.’ But I don’t know, I guess I borrow things from other comedians unconsciously, from Elayne Boosler, to Phyllis Diller, to Sam Kinison. There’s a little Sam Kinison every once in a while.” Laughs aside, there are poignant moments in HACKS, too. In the second episode, when an impromptu mini-road trip goes awry, Ava expresses exasperated puzzlement as to why Deborah is making everything so hard. Deborah’s bitter but pain-infused reply about the hardships she has faced in her own career gives Ava some much-needed perspective. “Deborah’s sort of on automatic pilot a bit when we first meet her, which is why her manager has insisted that she meets with this young person to punch up her act a little bit,” Smart said. “Which, of course, Deborah resents, because she has always done her own writing. Neither one of them is right or wrong – they just disagree a lot about what’s funny. Ava’s point of view is if the masses think something is funny, then it’s not cool if the masses like it. If the people from Florida who eat at Panera like it, then it’s not funny.” Executive producer Michael Schur added, “The real fun of it is the generational divide between the two comedians. For example, there’s the moment where Deborah is reading the jokes that Ava has written for her, and one of the jokes is just, ‘I had a horrible nightmare that I had a voicemail.’ There’s then like a seven-and-a-half second pause, as Deborah slowly looks up at Ava, and then just goes, ‘What?’ It’s about those moments, where their comedic sensibilities clash. It’s about the two women, and how those gears grind somewhat unpleasantly at times.” The first season of HACKS is 10 episodes, with two new episodes dropping every Thursday on Crave, up until June 10. billharristv@gmail.com @billharris_tv