Not much changes in Vegas. Clocks are notoriously absent from casino walls, creating a container within which patrons are suspended outside time, the cost of their sojourn deferred until reality becomes heavy enough to break the spell. Vegas offers a predictable escape, ubiquitous entertainment, an obvious destination for your bachelor(ette) party, endless options for tossing away dollars. The lights are always bright, and the heat is always thick. Most people could barely survive a long weekend in this setting; Deborah Vance, the veteran stand-up played by Jean Smart in HBO's Hacks, is entrenched in it, committed to serving as one of its glorious pillars until her decades-deep residency comes to an end.
This is where Hacks' first season left off. In the finale, Deborah performed her 2,500th and final show at the Palmetto hotel after a protracted battle with the management, who were intent on replacing her with a trendier act. Invigorated by a fiery sense of indignation, she scrapped her standard set and constructed an entirely new hour of material in hope of attracting another residency offer. While Deborah's desire for revenge was what ultimately catapulted her out of cruise control, that shift was made possible by Ava (Hannah Einbinder), the headstrong, disaster-prone 25-year-old Deborah took under her wing as a joke writer.
That said, the decision to put together a fresh set was certainly not reached through simple consensus. Ava spent much of the first season warming Deborah up to the idea — attempts which were most often swatted down by the latter's caustic snark and impenetrable self-image. While a surface-level analysis of Hacks might frame the series as a Boomer–Zoomer face-off, due to Deborah and Ava's first encounter in the premiere, it was made immediately clear that these women mirror each other — both of them brimming with a tenacity that sent insults darting across Deborah's mansion and landing like stinging arrows that fated their comedic union. At first, Deborah was utterly incensed by the thought of someone helping her write material, but, little by little, Ava got closer to her and found chinks in her armour, swaths of Deborah's history to dredge up and sculpt into a more candid performance — one that could relinquish some of the hardness and dispel the false narratives she was forced to assume as a woman with a lengthy career in the entertainment industry.
In its second season (the first two episodes of which air on May 12), Hacks explores what becomes of Deborah Vance when she overhauls the foundations of her empire and heads out on the road to test her new jokes, radically sacrificing the familiar comforts to which she has long clung. Back in Vegas, she lives in a palatial estate with a soda fountain to keep Diet Coke on tap and support staff coursing through the halls. There's Marcus (Carl Clemons-Hopkins), the stoic, fiercely dedicated overseer of all things within the Deborah Vance Universe, who handles both her comedy career and the countless side hustles that boost her cachet; Damien (Mark Indelicato) is her sassy assistant, Kiki (Poppy Liu) her personal one-on-one blackjack dealer, Josephina (Rose Abdoo) her omnipresent housekeeper — and then there's the latest recruit, Ava. Deborah is frequently curt with all of them, but they keep her life running like a well-oiled machined and experience various perks by staying in her orbit. (Ava secures a comedy writing position after being effectively exiled from Los Angeles for a somewhat dicey tweet; Kiki rides around in her third hand-me-down Rolls Royce.)
While Ava and Damien are the only members of this battalion that Deborah schleps on tour, Season 2 remains interested in the storylines of all these fantastic characters. We see Marcus unravelling after being dumped by Wilson (Johnny Sibilly), nerves puncturing his tightly wound comportment and forcing him to reconsider his relationship to work. Evidencing Hacks' brilliant ability to locate the intersection of drama and comedy, Marcus's painful reckoning is offset by the presence of his mother (Angela Elayne Gibbs) and her friend Miss Loretta (Luenell), who are wont to overstay their welcome in his house and play off each other hilariously. Not to be overlooked is another one of the show's most delightful duos: Deborah and Ava's manager, Jimmy (Paul W. Downs, who co-created Hacks alongside Lucia Aniello and Jen Statsky), and his professionally inept assistant, Kayla (played singularly by one of Hacks' many breakout stars, Megan Stalter). In the new episodes, Jimmy finds himself embroiled in an HR-related fiasco after Kayla's confusing advances go too far. Also, added to this season's arsenal of comedic excellence is Laurie Metcalf, embodying a tour manager with the demeanour of a drill sergeant.
Perhaps most crucially, by leaving Vegas, Deborah lost a knowable, consistent audience. She was guaranteed a packed house most nights of the week; there are always people in Vegas looking to be entertained, often by the most expedient means possible. When Deborah was on stage at the Palmetto hotel, she'd command the crowd effortlessly, her sequinned suits glinting like the Strip. A montage in the first season spliced several of her performances together and showed the same joke, same delivery, provoking uproarious laughter each time.
A stark contrast is drawn in Season 2. In its second episode, Deborah stops at a small venue in Arizona, and, in lieu of her former celestial backdrop, she's subjected to a single, piercing spotlight. There's a sense that she might flop, the lengthened pauses between punchlines leaving more space to be filled with tension, a greater possibility of the audience not granting the patience she's asking of them. However, she went on the road because she was ready to bomb, eager to scavenge through the debris for the bits that resonated. Ava galvanized Deborah to travel down that path, and Hacks itself continues to resonate because, through the complex chemistry linking these two characters, it tracks the frustrations of misunderstanding, as well as the electric moments of truth being communicated — humour offering our best tool for shrinking that gap.
(Crave)This is where Hacks' first season left off. In the finale, Deborah performed her 2,500th and final show at the Palmetto hotel after a protracted battle with the management, who were intent on replacing her with a trendier act. Invigorated by a fiery sense of indignation, she scrapped her standard set and constructed an entirely new hour of material in hope of attracting another residency offer. While Deborah's desire for revenge was what ultimately catapulted her out of cruise control, that shift was made possible by Ava (Hannah Einbinder), the headstrong, disaster-prone 25-year-old Deborah took under her wing as a joke writer.
That said, the decision to put together a fresh set was certainly not reached through simple consensus. Ava spent much of the first season warming Deborah up to the idea — attempts which were most often swatted down by the latter's caustic snark and impenetrable self-image. While a surface-level analysis of Hacks might frame the series as a Boomer–Zoomer face-off, due to Deborah and Ava's first encounter in the premiere, it was made immediately clear that these women mirror each other — both of them brimming with a tenacity that sent insults darting across Deborah's mansion and landing like stinging arrows that fated their comedic union. At first, Deborah was utterly incensed by the thought of someone helping her write material, but, little by little, Ava got closer to her and found chinks in her armour, swaths of Deborah's history to dredge up and sculpt into a more candid performance — one that could relinquish some of the hardness and dispel the false narratives she was forced to assume as a woman with a lengthy career in the entertainment industry.
In its second season (the first two episodes of which air on May 12), Hacks explores what becomes of Deborah Vance when she overhauls the foundations of her empire and heads out on the road to test her new jokes, radically sacrificing the familiar comforts to which she has long clung. Back in Vegas, she lives in a palatial estate with a soda fountain to keep Diet Coke on tap and support staff coursing through the halls. There's Marcus (Carl Clemons-Hopkins), the stoic, fiercely dedicated overseer of all things within the Deborah Vance Universe, who handles both her comedy career and the countless side hustles that boost her cachet; Damien (Mark Indelicato) is her sassy assistant, Kiki (Poppy Liu) her personal one-on-one blackjack dealer, Josephina (Rose Abdoo) her omnipresent housekeeper — and then there's the latest recruit, Ava. Deborah is frequently curt with all of them, but they keep her life running like a well-oiled machined and experience various perks by staying in her orbit. (Ava secures a comedy writing position after being effectively exiled from Los Angeles for a somewhat dicey tweet; Kiki rides around in her third hand-me-down Rolls Royce.)
While Ava and Damien are the only members of this battalion that Deborah schleps on tour, Season 2 remains interested in the storylines of all these fantastic characters. We see Marcus unravelling after being dumped by Wilson (Johnny Sibilly), nerves puncturing his tightly wound comportment and forcing him to reconsider his relationship to work. Evidencing Hacks' brilliant ability to locate the intersection of drama and comedy, Marcus's painful reckoning is offset by the presence of his mother (Angela Elayne Gibbs) and her friend Miss Loretta (Luenell), who are wont to overstay their welcome in his house and play off each other hilariously. Not to be overlooked is another one of the show's most delightful duos: Deborah and Ava's manager, Jimmy (Paul W. Downs, who co-created Hacks alongside Lucia Aniello and Jen Statsky), and his professionally inept assistant, Kayla (played singularly by one of Hacks' many breakout stars, Megan Stalter). In the new episodes, Jimmy finds himself embroiled in an HR-related fiasco after Kayla's confusing advances go too far. Also, added to this season's arsenal of comedic excellence is Laurie Metcalf, embodying a tour manager with the demeanour of a drill sergeant.
Perhaps most crucially, by leaving Vegas, Deborah lost a knowable, consistent audience. She was guaranteed a packed house most nights of the week; there are always people in Vegas looking to be entertained, often by the most expedient means possible. When Deborah was on stage at the Palmetto hotel, she'd command the crowd effortlessly, her sequinned suits glinting like the Strip. A montage in the first season spliced several of her performances together and showed the same joke, same delivery, provoking uproarious laughter each time.
A stark contrast is drawn in Season 2. In its second episode, Deborah stops at a small venue in Arizona, and, in lieu of her former celestial backdrop, she's subjected to a single, piercing spotlight. There's a sense that she might flop, the lengthened pauses between punchlines leaving more space to be filled with tension, a greater possibility of the audience not granting the patience she's asking of them. However, she went on the road because she was ready to bomb, eager to scavenge through the debris for the bits that resonated. Ava galvanized Deborah to travel down that path, and Hacks itself continues to resonate because, through the complex chemistry linking these two characters, it tracks the frustrations of misunderstanding, as well as the electric moments of truth being communicated — humour offering our best tool for shrinking that gap.