'Hacks' With Jean Smart Sharply Unpacks How Comedians Are Fundamentally Flawed [Review]

If pop culture insists on telling stories about tortured comics with deep-rooted personal issues veiled by their stage personae, at least do viewers the courtesy of democratizing that outline and producing good examples with something to say, like “Hacks.” Created and showrun by Paul W. Downs, Lucia Aniello, and Jen Statsky, “Hacks” has something to say. Leads Jean Smart and Hannah Einbinder, the series’ aforementioned, creators, the writers, ranging from Downs and Aniello to Joanna Calo, and the directors, chiefly Aniello but with room for guests like Desiree Akhavan, all have something to say. Occasionally all that’s said is all that’s fundamental to shows like this: Comedians are constitutionally flawed human beings. But it’s the ways the show expresses the trope that matters.

Deborah Vance (Smart), stand-up icon and longtime resident of Las Vegas’ stages and zip codes, hits a wall when Marty (Christopher McDonald), owner of Deborah’s longtime stomping ground, the Palmetto Casino, snatches away her weekend dates to spotlight younger talent for their largest audiences. Deborah’s very much the “any gig in a storm” type; losing shows to Pentatonix isn’t exactly a death knell for her career. But an indignity is an indignity nonetheless. At the same time in Los Angeles, Ava (Einbinder), a struggling writer whose own career is in shambles thanks to a couple of off-color but ultimately harmless Twitter jokes, is duped by her agent (played by Downs) into a job writing for Deborah. It’s a culture clash. It’s a generation clash. It’s a recipe for caustic humor and, perhaps, growth for both of them.

It’s also a great portrait of what the entertainment industry does to women as they age out or as they start out. In both cases, the industry is bullshit. Men get to say (and do) whatever they want without losing their status, with exceptions, and they get to work until their bones start turning to dust, again with exceptions; women, as Deborah puts it, have to “claw and scratch” for everything they get. They get their chance. If they blow it, they blow it. “Hacks” draws Deborah as a gifted comedian and equally shrewd businesswoman, branding her name and image apparently to insulate herself in the event her standup fortunes sour, as they do when the series starts. If there’s anything for Ava to learn from her, it’s how to cover her ass.

But “Hacks” gives plenty of opportunities to see Deborah in her element, too, both in the present and in her heyday, standing loyally by the classic setup-punchline formula to tell jokes about herself: Her life, work, relationships, sexuality, motherhood, the whole gamut. Ava, who in keeping with her millennial roots claims the “traditional joke structure is very male,” considers Deborah’s style hopelessly out of date, as if she’s in any position to talk to anyone about the definition of “funny.” Ava only tends to be funny by accident. Aniello, Downs, and Statsky clearly have affection for her the same way we’re meant to have an affection for schlemiels and schlimazels; hard as she might try, Ava’s the person doomed to have the soup spill in her lap, or more specifically to the show, the person doomed to wear a melted chocolate bar on her tank top. That’s her just desserts for getting stranded in the desert by her boss.

We pity Ava, and over time adore her despite her tiresome performative uprightness. She means well when she describes a joke workshopped between Deborah and a client as “degrading,” and bless her for it. But “Hacks” argues that comedy has no safe spaces and anything, any subject, any piece of material, is up for skewering. This is one nebulous dividing line among many separating the show’s protagonists; Ava presumes she’s less prone to giving offense than Deborah, but that Ava can’t land a job because she took a potshot at a Senator’s homophobic hypocrisy. What is or isn’t insensitive or #problematic is in the eye of the beholder. Deborah mocks Ava with vicious glee in the third episode, “A Gig’s a Gig,” during an impromptu set aboard a Vegas tour bus. Everyone guffaws with pleasure except, of course, for Ava because no one likes being the butt of a roast.

“Hacks” pivots on that nightmare boss dynamic, seesawing between Deborah the monster and Deborah the person as Ava puts in the emotional labor most 20somethings exert while finding themselves. There aren’t many mysteries to Ava. She’s an open book, a millennial hallmark because we’re all accustomed to documenting ourselves on our social media feeds. Deborah’s much more elusive, and the show is mostly about her journey from one-time it-girl to Sin City staple. Ava functions as an audience surrogate, though thankfully not at the expense of character. They’re both caught in existential crises, Ava unsure of where she’s going, Deborah self-possessed and confident but still adrift in a business that respects but doesn’t want her. “Hacks” clangs their personal experiences together and finds warmth in the cacophony.

The series works best in quieter moments where Smart and Einbinder get to reflect. Deborah sheds her costume, makeup and wig, and extravagant outfits at the end of a long day; Ava smiles, laughs, and tears up at an old tape of Deborah in her heyday, hosting her first late-night show, proudly showing off her daughter to her adoring audience. It’s a fuzzed-up snapshot of what might’ve been in a more equitable culture and a wonderful melancholic detail that helps push “Hacks” away from the blueprint it’s based on toward an identity of its own. Couching that familiarity in Deborah and Ava’s perspectives, and wrapping up the plot in Smart and Einbinder’s performances, makes a scintillating narrative. This is a good series well on its way to great. [B+]