A comedy should not go two years without releasing new episodes, especially when its format allows it to easily produce an annual season of between 10 and 15 episodes without straining the machine at a creative or production level. Then it happens that, when it comes back from its break, as a viewer you are absolutely unable to remember where you were. And in the case of Hacks, which falls perfectly into this category of series with too long absences and which returns this Thursday, May 2, it doesn’t matter so much.
There is a moment during the first episode of their return in which you stop thinking about how the story had been interrupted to simply say to yourself “damn, how I missed them” (and without censoring the outburst in honor of the protagonists themselves). It is, without a doubt, one of those comedies that any television lover should be watching. It’s not as perfect as Max’s bosses would like but, in a television that often spoils comedies with excessive drama, it’s nice to see an adult series whose main objective is to make you laugh (and achieve it).
For those who haven’t checked it out yet, its protagonist is Deborah Vance (Jean Smart), a comedy legend who has been doing the same show in Las Vegas for too long. It has not been renovated, its public smells of hairspray and a high mortality rate. So, when she discovers that her show is in danger, she hires Ava (Hannah Einbinder), a promising screenwriter who ruined her chances in Hollywood with a joke that crossed the line.
Creators Lucia Aniello, Paul W. Downs and Jen Statsky understood the levels at which their comedy had to operate from the beginning. They needed a sparkling dynamic between Deborah and Ava, something they got from the pilot, and also original, since their dependent relationship is magnetic and not so extrapolated to other fictions. They looked for a secondary cast to support the main plots, which is possibly the weakest link in the production.
They showed behind the scenes of how comedy works: where the line is drawn, how the joke is polished, how balance is found in all the tensions that make up humor. And, incidentally, they knew how to go further with Deborah and Ava as two representatives of different generations of comedy: the thick line and the vices of the last century against the progressive virtue signaling of youth.
In the third season, which Max premieres this Thursday, Deborah and Ava reunite after their professional careers led them to distance themselves: one in Hollywood, in a promising relationship with a television superheroine, and the other discovering that in old age a She can redefine herself before the public and be the it-girl of comedy again. And, when they meet, the viewer can almost hear the resulting fireworks.
Hacks, for the moment, has not solved the artificiality of giving weight to the secondary characters, including those agents played by Megan Stalter and Paul W. Downs, one of the creators of the series. The seasonal arc is always carried away by the same trends and conflicts, so a certain repetition can be felt. But a good sitcom should never be afraid to repeat what works as long as it doesn’t convey stagnation.
And, when Deborah and Ava use their wits to fight dialectically and tell the best joke, when they argue about how to punch a joke, when they inspire each other organically, Hacks makes (television) magic.
