Hacks–Boomers v Gen Z

In this intergenerational and “mommy-issues” comedic drama,  Hacks, we see a 25-year old writer Ava (Hannah Einbinder), eager to restart her briefly successful writing career with any job offer that will keep her away from her mother (Jane Adams).  Her agent, Jimmy (Paul Downs, also a co-writer and producer), is determined to obtain a gig for Ava and suggests a former big-time comedian, Deborah Vance (Jean Smart), a seventy-five year old soon-to-be has-been on the Las Vegas strip. Both have been “canceled” :  Ava for a gross, politically incorrect joke   and Deborah for her age gap with the Gen Z crowd.  

The two characters seem to paddle along the coast of restarting their careers, but never quite hitting the shore.  While thinking they have nothing in common, even ignoring the half-century age difference, they in fact do have.  What makes them so volatile together is intuitively knowing how to strike each other’s jugular.  Both have unhealed wounds.   Neither would ever admit to needing anyone. They are self-obsessed, self-righteous, narcissistic souls who want to be loved but do not know how to even begin.  The main tipping point of their relationship is the failure to acknowledge their bond.

However, when the two creative minds are in sync, collaborating at a mind-reading level, their relationship is as intimate as any romantic one.  The seventh episode in season one, “Tunnel of Love,” opens with Ava in bed, dreaming of kissing a guy she casually hooked up with, startled awake to realize she is kissing Deborah.  In another episode, while drunk and drug-addled, Ava calls Deborah “mommy”.   

The excruciating sadness, sometimes bordering on farce,  is that neither character can confront  reality.  Pointing the finger at each other and scapegoating all those around them, Deborah and Ava are messy personalities, equally frustrating and entertaining.  Made for each other–as lovers, as parent and child, as partners,–the pair can be laugh-out-loud comical.

With this level of screenwriting– a staggering amalgam of moods, rage, betrayal, and grief, –the acting is also oftentimes astonishing.  The obliquely conveyed emotions are precisely correct, yet surprising in their retrieving material from  the most commonplace of situations.  One example:  Deborah’s tragically estranged daughter, DJ, asks Ava to “baby tickle” her arm, gently stroking it, in order to soothe her and relieve her stress and anxiety (the way her mother couldn’t when she was a child.) 

The foundation of Hacks is cemented in the very first episode, but succeeding episodes shift the assumed paradigm of love-hate morphing into mutual respect in highly original and sometimes breathtakingly poignant ways.  Hacks  keeps things interesting with its understanding of the sensibility of emotions and triggers, throwing the viewer off balance.  All episodes are not equally engaging. Some are hilariously funny, buoyantly outrageous, and cruelly human although others bring in undeveloped characters and irrelevant scenes.

Don’t wait any longer to watch this series.  I don’t know why I did!

Availability:  HBOmax (five seasons)

Note:  Hacks has broken all Emmy records for Best Actress in a Comedy, with Jean Smart winning for all five seasons.  Quite astonishing that Hannah Einbinder won only for season four as Best Supporting Actress.  Her role as Ava is indispensable as Jean Smart’s character’s alter ego.