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Hacks Season 4 on MAX picks up exactly where Season 3 left off, with Ava (Hannah Einbinder) ruthlessly resorting to blackmail to force Deborah (Jean Smart) to give her the head writing job she was originally promised. If Deborah does not make Ava head writer of her late night show, Ava will reveal that Deborah had sex with the married chairman of the production company shortly before the show was announced. It would ruin Deborah’s reputation and sink the show the comic has been dreaming about for decades. It would also mark a deep betrayal of Deborah and Ava’s relationship. Indeed, the fact that Ava has stooped so low to get what she wants is a betrayal in and of itself.
Naturally, this sets up a toxic tone for Season 4, transforming the already spiky barbs the comics trade into something more akin to “torture,” per Hannah Einbinder.
**Spoilers for Hacks Season 4 Episode 1 “Big, Brave Girl,” now streaming on MAX**
Hacks Season 4 Episode 1 “Big, Brave Girl” opens immediately after Deborah reluctantly names Ava head writer. While it’s a win for Ava, it’s also something of a loss. She’s crossed a line she’s never crossed before, resorting to the sort of underhanded and cruel tactics Deborah is more known for. Deborah, on the other hand, is clearly fuming. The tone of these opening scenes is more tense than Hacks has ever been before.
“We really wanted to deliver on that feeling people had at the end of the season,” Hacks star and co-creator Paul W. Downs told DECIDER. “We were like, ‘We can’t have this energy dip. We need to be off the runway with a rocket launcher on,’ you know?”
“So we do pick up very shortly after we left off and hopefully deliver on that intensity that you feel at the of Season 3 because you really want to see the fallout. I think that’s why people are excited to come back and we really go there in the first seconds of Season 4.”
Throughout the Hacks Season 4 premiere, it’s clear that Deborah is not going to acquiesce quietly. She sabotages Ava left and right with pranks that are darkly funny, but deeply messed up.
“Yeah, I mean, there have been some scenes where there isn’t really a lot of humor and then that feels kind of bad, you know,” Jean Smart told DECIDER.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Totally. There’s some torture,” Hannah Einbinder said. “It was always [Ava] being tortured on some degree, some on some level.”
“I do think, though, when Deborah says, when they’re having their picture taken together and she says, ‘You broke my heart.” I think she means it,” Smart said, referring to the final sequence of the Hacks Season 4 premiere. Deborah and Ava are in full glam, posing for a glossy New York Times magazine cover story touting their close bond. In fact, as they stand cheek-to-cheek, they are further apart than ever before.
“That is so fucked up,” Einbinder said. “‘Cause they look beautiful, too.”
“We did look good,” Smart said.
“And so it’s like tragic and gorgeous,” Einbinder said.
“We should have just ended the season right there,” Smart quipped. “In fact, the whole series should have ended right there. ‘You broke my heart.’ That’s it, end.”
Of course, that’s not the end of Hacks. In fact, it’s just the beginning of Hacks Season 4. The Emmy-winning comedy continues to mine the “fucked up” crevices of Deborah and Ava’s relationship with its trademark sharp humor.
“We do have a little bit of a cheat because we are making a show about a comedian and comedy writers,” Downs said. “Even though it’s a challenge in the show, we can write in joke format because someone like Deborah Vance, and Ava, they’re addicted to joking. They’re addicted the telling jokes, to ribbing each other, to that kind of dialog. “
“It allows us to do it in a really grounded way because it’s true to those characters, which is why I think we’re also able to make things feel sometimes dramatic, like life. Because life can be both comedic and can be tragic or dramatic at the same time.” And the Hacks Season 4 premiere is clearly both hilarious and deeply tragic.
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