Hacks' Hannah Einbinder On Ava's 'Low Stakes' Throuple And Deborah Feeling 'Tossed Aside'

Hacks' Ava Daniels has finally found a way to let off some stream after suffering through her stressful job and ongoing feud with Deborah: by getting physical with her new boyfriend/girlfriend pair, Emily and Dev.

"She's in a high stress job and I think she's clearly emotionally unavailable due to her circumstances, so I think it makes a lot of sense," Hannah Einbinder tells TVLine about her character's new relationship. "If she's going to be in anything, I think she's looking for something that's low stakes, even though the great irony is that that's not true for the couple."

But while out to dinner one night, Deborah finds Ava feeling free and flirty in public, and the newly appointed late-night host wastes zero time popping over to the throuple's table to introduce herself and crack a few "three-way" jokes. Ava, who's extremely uncomfortable by the exchange, is sure to get her own licks in, both of which seem to catch her boss off-guard. First, Ava downplays the women's relationship, saying that they didn't know each other that well. ("I just wrote jokes for her.") Then, after Emily and Dev admit they haven't seen the show yet, Ava confesses that she told them to "wait for it to get good." Upon her exit, Deb not only looks slighted, but actually hurt.

"I think Deborah is someone who, like Ava, is kind of lonely," Einbinder adds, "and even though they're feuding, I think they're the closest relationship in each other's lives. To be kind of tossed aside that way is probably hard for Deborah to hear, even though she comes over [to the table] to torment Ava. She can dish it, but she can't take it sometimes."

Aside from Ava and Deborah's compromising restaurant run-in, Einbinder is proud of how the show has portrayed polyamory — especially since she feels we don't see many "dignified" poly storylines out of Hollywood.

"We have some folks on our crew who are poly and they were stoked on it," she says. "They felt really good about the representation, so I'm happy about that."

Thoughts on that dinner scene or Episode 5 in general? Drop 'em below!