Hacks Creators Talk Finale's Major 'Wake Up Call,' Deborah's Next Move: 'They Are Ready To Fight Together'
The following contains spoilers for the Season 4 finale of Hacks.
Late Night With Deborah Vance may be no more, but Hacks' leading lady isn't ready to lay down and die — no matter what that TMZ obituary says!
In the season finale of Hacks, Deborah searched for a loophole that might allow the comedian to take the stage, contractual non-compete, be damned. Unfortunately, the network has her hands tied, which leads to a very sad couple of weeks for the former headliner. That is, until she figures out her next step: Temporarily move to Singapore where she can technically take the stage... if she's using a translator.
With Ava in tow, the ruse seems to work at first. Deborah feels rejuvenated by each and every laugh she gets. (Though, the laughs are a bit delayed, what with the translator and all.) But the set-up soon grows stale and Deborah starts drinking too much, causing Ava to worry about her boss' wellbeing. But Ava gets quite the shock when she wakes up one morning to find that TMZ posted Deborah's obituary. No surprise here, but Deborah is not, in fact, dead, but the terrible obit's claim — that Deborah killed the Late Night franchise — is more than enough to shock the comic out of her funk. She refuses to let that be her legacy, and with that, she tells Ava they have some rewriting to do.
Ahead of the Max comedy's official Season 5 renewal, TVLine spoke to creators Lucia Aniello, Paul W. Downs and Jen Statsky to break down the season's last two episodes, discuss where the series might be heading and whether or not it'll have anything to do with Cher.
TVLINE | This season was such a rollercoaster. From Deborah and Ava's biggest conflict yet to Deborah losing her dream gig, what was most important to you as writers when you began working on this particular chapter?
JEN STATSKY | What happens in Episode 9 is really the culmination of these two characters' relationship for four seasons. The heart of the show is the Ava/Deborah love story and the journey that they've been on, from Deborah having this white whale, this thing she's dreamed of forever in her career and achieving it, and then walking away from it, primarily out of love for Eva. That is a huge pivotal moment in the series thus far, probably the biggest moment thus far, so we knew it was all building to that. We knew that that's where we were going, and so we knew that Ava and Deborah had to really go through it. Sometimes you need to break something for it to come back together better than before, and that's really what happens with Ava and Deborah this season. They go to their lowest low, so that they can have that moment together on the beach where Deborah promises her she will make it up to her. And then the question always is, of course, like, "Does this person mean it? Will they follow through?" And Deborah does.
And then the things that we talked about in her monologue, the way the industry has changed, the way that the influx of tech companies has changed the industry, all of that were things that we wanted to highlight throughout the season of how different making a late-night show would be, but then also what Deborah would be struggling with as an artist at, as she calls it, that difficult intersection of art and commerce.
TVLINE | In the Season 3 finale, Ava tells Deborah that Deborah will never put her first. Fast-forward to Episode 409, and Deborah literally does just that, which puts her job in jeopardy. What does that say about how their relationship has changed in the last season, or even how Deborah has changed throughout these episodes?
LUCIA ANIELLO | The "Mrs. Table" episode is quite pivotal because it's a moment where Deborah realizes that she hasn't been protecting Ava, from taking the job away from her in Season 3, and also not supporting her vision and collaborating with her in the making of the show. But I think she realizes she really does need Ava, in a way that is just essential. And so when she says, "I won't let you down again," she really means it. And I think that Ava obviously doubts that towards the end of the season, but when Deborah said that, she really meant it. And so for us, I think it was about holding Deborah's feet to the fire in terms of when it comes down to your dream job or this person that helped get you the dream job. In the end, what is more important to you? And in the end, she makes the choice that this show isn't really the dream anymore, [and that] somebody who's been there for her and has fought for her is worth sticking with. It's four seasons coming. It's something that we had been planning for since the very beginning. There's quite a few parallels in terms of dialogue, of "Where is the line?" and things of that sort, that all reflect back to this really climactic episode of the season.
TVLINE | At the top of this finale, Deborah says if she's not on the stage, she has nothing. Can you give me a snapshot of what her mentality is like before they head to Singapore.
PAUL W. DOWNS | As a fellow actor who's addicted to the spotlight, you mean? [Laughs] I think for someone like Deborah who defines her life by her work, she takes a lot of pride in her work and she really is very connected to her work. It is very much a part of her identity. So when she can't perform, she feels very rudderless, and it is the thing that makes her the most depressed. So not only does she [go] to Singapore to escape some of the grief she feels for losing her late-night show, but also because she just needs to get on that stage. She is, as we know from Season 3, an addict. She's addicted to the laugh. She's addicted to the audience. She's someone who has been lonely in her life, but she's always had that crowd, and so she really needs it in this moment now more than ever, which is why she truly goes across the planet to seek out that hit.
TVLINE | Once Ava attempts to tell Deborah that she's worried about her, Deborah immediately starts lashing out again. Why can't she hear or accept what Ava is saying?
DOWNS | I think in this moment, we've never seen Ava really worried about Deborah. She's been afraid of Deborah, she's had friction with Deborah, she's had moments of great, creative satisfaction and affection for Deborah, but she's never really worried about her because she's never seen her do this. [Deborah's] drinking a lot and she's not acting like yourself. Ava is really kind of trying to have an intervention, and it's so typical of someone who's in grief and in a dark moment to lash out when there's an intervention, in particular. The thing that is really remarkable to me is that Ava doesn't clap back. She doesn't lash out in return. There's not a reaction because she is deeply concerned and hopes that Deborah can find her way out of it, and she's realizing in that moment, there's not much that she can do because Deborah is in a state of denial. She's really in this place where she's trying to distract herself. So she leaves, I think, hoping that Deborah will find her way through. Obviously, what happens the next morning is a wake up call for both of them in a major way.
TVLINE | That leads us to the TMZ of it all. Ava gets quite the shock when she wakes up to read Deborah's obituary. Clearly, it was accidentally posted, but it sparks something in Deb to want to rewrite her legacy. So please tell me all of your plans for Season 5 in as much detail as humanly possible.
ANIELLO | [Laughs] Get a pen!
TVLINE | But seriously, after that ending, where do we go from here, both in terms of Deborah's career and her friendship with Ava?
ANIELLO | Deborah and Ava are quite bonded. Obviously, they had that conversation on the boat, but, Deborah doesn't say "I" have some rewriting to do. She says, "we" have some rewriting to do. We don't necessarily feel like it will return immediately to that friction. I think once they have a shared goal, it's kind of off to the races. I think that they are ready to fight together.
DOWNS | After that slippery slope, after what happens in that episode, yeah, they're pretty ride or die.
ANIELLO | Yeah. But in terms of what else is left to conquer, I think part of the journey is figuring out what exactly, what kind of legacy you want to leave behind, and how do you get that, and then what are the obstacles for getting that? As an artist, it's a really interesting thing, especially for Deborah, because she has a certain career, and in terms of who defines it, she's always had her career defined by other people. So this is her opportunity to define it on her own terms and how she does that, we think, will be really fun.
TVLINE | Congratulations on the official renewal for Season 5, by the way! Though, the news didn't say it would be the final season, and you've been pretty open in the past about having a specific five-season plan. Any comment on that?
STATSKY | I think the only comment is that we're writing right now, and if you look at the history of the show, our network has been so wonderful in terms of being amenable to the creative and being creative first. That's why Season 1 is 10 episodes and Season 2 is eight and Season 3 is nine. We've really always let the story dictate what we do, and follow the story and follow what goes right for these characters. We know where the series ends, but along the way, things have changed, things have been added, things have been subtracted. We're just at this point, listening and figuring out and really doing gut checks on where we want the story to go. That's a really long non-answer, but the truth is is that we do let the story and the characters tell us, and so we're still figuring out how much more there is to tell.
DOWNS | We want to give everybody there due, too, and so to wrap your arms around that and to wrap things up in a really satisfying way, which I think we've been supported enough that we're going to get to do that. You can only do so many episodes in a year, so we just have to see. I'm not sure.
TVLINE | As you inch closer to the end, is there any added pressure about being able to land the plane in the specific way you want to?
DOWNS | Yeah, I think every season, the pressure is greater because we do want to make it better every year. We want it to be more satisfying. We want it to be funnier, we want it to be more touching and that's both because we owe that to the audience who has supported the show, but also because these characters have now become so real to us that we want to do it for them too. We want the characters to be in scenarios and the actors to get to play scenarios that they're excited to do and that feel fresh to them. So in a way, the pressure is always greater.
ANIELLO | Exactly. I think every year we're very stressed out.
STATSKY | The pressure has never dissipated. The pressure is never gone.
DOWNS | And it's only self-imposed! We really put it on ourselves. It's weird. There's mounting pressure and yet, the longer we've gotten to tell the story, the luckier we feel because we know how rare it is, especially for comedy, to get to do that in four, five, six seasons. It's more rare than it should be. So while we feel pressure, you also feel really grateful, so it's a wild mix of emotions.
TVLINE | I'm curious about Marcus. It seems like over the last two seasons, he's been slowly stepping more and more outside of Deborah's world. Can we anticipate seeing Carl Clemons-Hopkins back in Season 5?
ANIELLO | He's in the finale quite a bit, and I think that is because his story is not done. Re-incorporating him into that finale was a conscious choice.
DOWNS | Also, we've always tried to keep it true to life, and we've talked about like, "Oh, how could Marcus factor into the late-night show?," but it isn't really what he does or wants to do, so it didn't feel right for the character. It almost felt unfair to do that to the character. So now that we're not in the late night offices and making that show, there's obviously more room for his story to dovetail again with Deborah's, which is exciting because as we get to the final chapters of the story, it does feel nice to sort of have a return to what we started doing in Season 1 with our ensemble.
TVLINE | Last but not least: Will you be approaching the elusive Cher again about a potential Season 5 cameo?
ANIELLO | You know, we keep asking, she keeps saying no. What's the worst that could happen?
DOWNS | The truth is I talked about it on Kimmel and I said we had asked her three times, [but] we've only asked her twice actually. We asked her in Seasons 3 and in 4, so the third time might be the charm, you never know! Why not ask a third time? At this point it's funny. It's a running gag!