In “Hacks,” Jean Smart and Hannah Einbinder Gave Us an Odd Couple for the Ages

The depth of Deborah and Ava’s unlikely bond led the show, in its home stretch, to what many viewers considered its best episode. In this season’s seventh installment, “Montecito,” directed by Downs and written by Guy Branum, Andrew Law, and Bridget Parker, Deborah has to persuade another comedy veteran, Kelly Kilpatrick (Cherry Jones), to hand over a Bob Mackie jumpsuit for Deborah to wear at an upcoming gig at Madison Square Garden. Kelly, an out lesbian with traces of Ellen DeGeneres (including a femme younger wife, played by Leslie Bibb), mistakes Deborah and Ava for a closeted gay couple, and they play along with the ruse during a weekend at Kelly’s country estate. “Montecito” is “Hacks” at its best: sharply written, a little outrageous, and fuelled by the chemistry of its two stars. I won’t soon forget Smart’s delivery of the line “Don’t you dare bring up A-S-S after you said I eat it.”

One of the joys of “Hacks” is its meta-narrative: just as Deborah reached a late-career high within the show, so did Smart, after decades in television, enjoy a multi-Emmy-winning victory lap. The same goes for Einbinder, who, like Ava, has established herself as a politically outspoken, incisive comedic voice. (Look out for her upcoming star turn in Jane Schoenbrun’s queer slasher film, “Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma.”) Then there’s the show’s second-banana duo, the talent managers Jimmy and Kayla, played by Downs and Meg Stalter. Like his character, Downs was the show’s straight man (though Jimmy’s sexuality is left curiously ambiguous) and a behind-the-scenes player, while Kayla’s rise from inept assistant to business partner mirrored Stalter’s ascendance from TikTok comedian to blowsy, off-kilter character actress. (Stalter was less assured as the romantic lead of Lena Dunham’s series “Too Much,” but her obnoxious-halfwit persona was put to perfect use on “Hacks,” her first professional acting job.) “Hacks” filled out its cast with a crackerjack ensemble, from Carl Clemons-Hopkins, as Deborah’s gay consigliere, to Lauren Weedman, as the chaotic mayor of Las Vegas.

But the show wouldn’t have worked without Smart, who imbued Deborah with wisdom and weariness, grit and glamour. In a standout scene from Season 1, Deborah offers a sexist m.c. at a comedy club $1.69 million if he agrees never to set foot on a stage again. “I can’t get rid of ’em all,” she tells the stunned crowd, with the fatigue of a lifetime spent fending off douchebags, “but I can get rid of one.” The guy shakes on it, and she crows, “Now get the fuck off my stage.” Smart, who starred on the eighties sitcom “Designing Women,” had to be plausible as a battle-tested superstar, and she brought what all great comics must have: timing. Unlike Diller’s, hers was laid-back and authoritative, with echoes of Miranda Priestly (another stylish doyenne with a beleaguered protégée). Deborah is a creature of show business, and Smart understood that comedy was less her job than her engine—a way of winning her place in the world.

The idea of comedy as life force is what propelled the note-perfect finale. After finding out that a cancerous mass has spread, Deborah declines chemotherapy, reasoning, “I want to go out on top.” Instead, she cajoles Ava into accompanying her to an assisted-suicide facility in Zurich, with a stopover in Paris. Deborah’s death wish seems ironclad until the episode’s final moments, when the two banter at the train station over some gallows humor, and, in a callback to the pilot, Deborah chases down Ava and asks her to help write a cancer-themed special. (The needle drop couldn’t be better, or gayer: the famous duet between Judy Garland and the young Barbra Streisand.) The quest to find the better joke, the stronger laugh—that’s reason enough to keep on living. Smart played the moment, as ever, with understated panache. No wonder she never lost an Emmy in the role.

Speaking of which, I’m already dreading this year’s Emmy race, which will likely pit Smart against Lisa Kudrow, who plays the fictitious sitcom actress Valerie Cherish on another HBO comedy, “The Comeback.” Both Deborah and Valerie are show-biz survivors who hit their stride in the sequinned eighties and kept working long past Hollywood’s sell-by date for women. Both are seasoned comedy professionals, though poor Valerie doesn’t have half of Deborah’s talent. The titles of their shows could have easily been swapped: Valerie’s the actual hack, while Deborah gets her hard-won comeback. Who knows, they may even occupy the same fictional world—you can imagine the characters having crossed paths at the 1988 People’s Choice Awards. (Something tells me that Valerie thinks of Deborah as a dear friend, while Deborah absolutely loathes Valerie.) To hell with Marvel. This is the cinematic universe we deserve. ♦