Hacks is going out with a bang. The Emmy-winning HBO Max comedy returns for its fifth and final season this spring, with a thrilling slate of guest stars—from legendary character actress Ann Dowd to Cherry Jones and Leslie Bibb.
At its center, however, remain the core Hacks players—Jean Smart, Hannah Einbinder, Meg Stalter, Paul W. Downs, and Mark Indelicato—navigating the vagaries of the entertainment business in deliriously funny style.
If it’s a little heartbreaking to know that we have just one season left to take in the toxic-yet-loving push-pull dynamic between Einbinder’s comedy-writer protagonist, Ava Daniels, and Deborah Vance (Smart), her glammed-out Vegas stand-up boss, know that the show’s creators have had its ending plotted out from the start.
“Part of our original pitch for the show was the very last scene,” Lucia Aniello—one of Hacks’s three showrunners, alongside Jen Statsky and Aniello’s husband, Downs (who co-stars as beleaguered talent agent Jimmy)—tells me via Zoom. “We knew how the season would end and how the show would end if we were so lucky as to get to imagine it how we wanted. It’s very full-circle, and there’s a lot of mirroring and callbacks and things. Hopefully people will find it as satisfying to watch as it was to write.”
Delightful as it is to catch up with the show’s myriad side characters, like Las Vegas Mayor Jo Pezzimenti (Lauren Weedman), Ava’s unhinged yet supportive mom Nina (Jane Adams), and Randi (Robby Hoffman), the weirdly confident talent assistant, the heartbeat of Hacks is still Deborah and Ava—and, per Aniello, Einbinder and Smart are in top form in Season 5.
“They’re better than they've ever been,” she says. “After five seasons of playing these characters, it’s such a lived-in performance, but they still find ways to be surprising and do things that we don’t expect from Deborah and Ava.”
Below, enjoy an exclusive peek at some of Season 5’s most exciting moments. We can’t wait to tune in.
Photo: Courtesy of HBO Max1/8Jean Smart, Poppy Liu, Hannah Einbinder
Photo: Courtesy of HBO Max2/8Megan Stalter and Paul W. Downs
Photo: Courtesy of HBO Max3/8Robby Hoffman, Jean Smart, Paul W. Downs
Photo: Courtesy of HBO Max4/8Kaitlin Olson, Jean Smart
Photo: Courtesy of HBO Max5/8Lauren Weedman
Photo: Courtesy of HBO Max6/8Leslie Bibb and Cherry Jones
Photo: Courtesy of HBO Max7/8Ann Dowd
Photo: Courtesy of HBO Max8/8Hannah Einbinder, Jean Smart
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