The ‘Hacks’ Team Wanted to End Like Deborah Vance — ‘On a Creative High’

There’s a delightfully meta quality to the final season of “Hacks.” After four seasons devoted to watching Deborah Vance (Jean Smart) rise above her aging Las Vegas residency, Deborah takes a hard, sobering look at what her own legacy is going to be across these concluding chapters.

Framing that analysis is a series that’s as accomplished and revered in the world of comedy as Deborah is in this fictional universe. HBO Max’s Emmy darling has never experienced a downfall as extreme as Deborah’s or even Ava’s (Hannah Einbinder). But, as is often the case when it comes to this razor sharp and blisteringly funny show, Season 5 of Lucia Aniello, Paul W. Downs and Jen Statsky’s series seems unafraid to reflect on its own legacy and how it may change the comedy ecosystem for those to come.

“It’s hard to write your own legacy. We set out to make a show that was both hard funny and really emotionally resonant,” Statsky, one of the three creators of the series, told TheWrap. “I hope the legacy of the show is one that did both of those things at a very high level and really made people laugh and cry.”

“I always feel really pleased when people come up to me and tell me that watching the show made it easier for them to talk to someone in their life, like their mom or their daughter,” Hannah Einbinder, who plays Ava, told TheWrap. “The intergenerational connection feels like something that — just from what people have told me — has affected people’s lives. That’s the most important thing that art can ever really do.”

“Absolutely,” Smart added. “And hopefully, they laughed a lot.”

Aniello pointed to change as a core principle for both this season and throughout “Hacks” as a whole.

“Something that we set out from the beginning and that we continue to have as a throughline this season is to be open to change, be open to other people’s perspectives and how exposing yourself to other perspectives and people can change you for the better,” Aniello told TheWrap. “If that has resonated with people, that’s a beautiful thing to have out in the world.”

“Hacks” Season 5 is certainly about change. At the end of Season 4, Deborah quit the late night show that had been her life’s dream for decades instead of firing Ava. The debacle left her with a legal gag order preventing her from performing comedy for a year and a new zest for life. As she tries to find as many legal loopholes as possible, Deborah becomes obsessed with cementing her legacy. At the same time, Ava’s career starts to take off in a new direction.

If last season was a reflection about how the late night ecosystem is struggling, Season 5 is a quiet whisper of hope. No matter how bleak life may seem for Deborah, Ava and the comedy community at large, there are still very funny people out there who are going to find ways to make the world laugh.

“There are certain shows or certain scenes from other shows that when you drive past something, the joke will come to mind. It’ll be attached to that thing for the rest of your life,” Paul W. Downs, “Hacks” co-creator and star told TheWrap. “I hope ‘Hacks’ is that for people.”

At the center of this industry love letter is the relationship between Deborah and Ava, who are more aligned and focused than “Hacks” has ever portrayed them before.

“[Deborah and Ava’s] relationship is at a point where it is built on such a solid foundation of everything they’ve been through. The solid place you find them in Season 5 is really because of so much that they had to endure,” Statsky said. “They clash over certain topics. They’ll always have opposing points of view. But after Deborah gave up her show for [Ava] last season, that was the ultimate declaration of love.”

“They’ve like changed each other ,so they’re in place where they’re able to let each other into their lives more,” Aniello added.

Even the choice to end “Hacks” now speaks to the intense respect this team has for both its fans and the art of comedy.

“Everybody knows what it feels like when a show you love keeps going past the expiration date. It was really important to us — in a way that is very Deborah Vance — to not run the light, so to speak, to try to go out when we felt we were still on a creative high,” Statsky said. “As much as we love these characters and the people we get to make the show with, it just felt like the right time to bring this story to a conclusion”

Einbinder revealed that the cast knew “Hacks” was only going to run for five seasons “at a certain point.” But now that that point has arrived, the cast is starting to feel the full weight of the show’s conclusion.

“It’s been really sad. We’ve been crying a lot,” Einbinder said.

“We’re lucky as part of the cast because — unlike our crew, who for the most part had to rip off the band-aid — we’re able to do it slowly. We’re promoting the show now, and we will go through a whole other awards season through next February,” Smart said. “We will be gradually — very gradually — weaning ourselves off of ‘Hacks.’ “

“We wanted to go out with a bang,” Downs said. “We really wanted to make this a complete circle, and getting the chance to do that is really rare. So we were very excited, and we feel very honored that we were able to tell the story the way we set out to do it.”

“Hacks” premieres Thursday, April 9, on HBO Max.

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