Editor’s note: The below interview contains spoilers for Hacks Season 4 Episode 6.That Hacks Season 3 finale twist, when a fuming and forlorn Ava (Hannah Einbinder) decides to embrace her dark side and blackmail her mentor Deborah (Jean Smart) into giving her the Late Night head writer position, completely recalibrated the series and thrust it — along with Ava and Deborah’s relationship — into uncharted territory. How on Earth were these two comedy soulmates ever going to come back from this — and get Late Night off the ground, no less?
Ava’s bold, out-of-character move that Season 4 of Hacks wrestles with is both heinous and overdue. After all, Ava only blackmailed Deborah because she was pushed to it after finding out that Deborah gave her the head writer position, then lied and said the network didn’t want Ava, simply so Deborah could bring in an industry veteran to make sure her show was “bulletproof.” Ava was left with no other choice but to take a page out of Deborah’s playbook.
Backstabbing and brutality aside, Hacks Season 4 is utterly hilarious, and our leads are as sharp and witty as ever as they carry this big storyline on their shoulders. During this interview with Collider, Hannah Einbinder and Jean Smart walk us through their first impressions of the season, whether or not Ava and Deborah’s relationship can be repaired, Deborah’s stage fright, and how much is on the line for Late Night.
COLLIDER: Season 4 takes place right where Season 3 ends. Jean, in a weird, twisted way, do you think Deborah is weirdly proud of Ava for going this far with blackmail?
JEAN SMART: I do think there’s a little part of her that is standing outside going, “Hey, you go, girl. You learned well.” But at the same time, it pisses her off that she’s even feeling that way remotely. Because it infuriates her and hurts her a little bit. But yeah, she’s thinking, “Didn’t know you had that in you. But okay, game’s on. Let’s go.”
Hannah, what was your impression when you got the script for the premiere? What was going through your head?
HANNAH EINBINDER: I thought it was justified. I felt really, really connected to the finale of Season 3. I feel like that sense memory really carried over, even though there were many months between shooting. I think reading that first episode, they really did a beautiful job of maintaining the momentum. I think it was all justified, and I’m always pleased.
SMART: Well, it wasn’t justified, but you can think that if you feel like it.
EINBINDER: Well, you know what? I’ll see you in court.
SMART: Okay.
EINBINDER: And that’s… we’ll talk about that there.
Jean Smart and Hannah Einbinder Were Surprised Reading ‘Hacks’ Season 4

Jean, reading the premiere for Season 4 — what was going through your mind? Thinking from Deborah’s perspective and then Ava’s?
SMART: Well, because of the end of Season 3, which was so surprising to me — and I knew it would be very surprising to the audience — so I was excited about that. So of course, I knew when I found out we were going to be picking up literally moments after that. I thought, “This is perfect.” Because first of all, you want to remind people at the beginning of Season 4, what happened a year before, in terms of TV viewing. So that was very smart on their part. And it’s fun, because it just started the show off at such a high energy level and it was a great way to start the season.
I was very surprised and impressed with how much animosity there was consistently with Deborah and Ava. I feel like there could have been a lot of storytelling shortcuts to get them back to their homeostasis. Were you at all surprised at how long they were at odds with each other? Because it’s really not until the end of Episode 6 that you could take a deep breath.
SMART: I kind of was.
EINBINDER: I was too. Yeah, yeah, I was too.
SMART: I admired that in the writing. Essentially, we are a comedy, but again, they’re very wise about the way they have told this story from the beginning. There are certain things that we did in Season 3, and certainly in Season 4, that we couldn’t have done in Season 1 or 2. It would have turned the audience off. It just would have been a different show. But they have now earned the right to have these characters go just about anywhere. And our fans love the show so much that they’ll go there. They’re invested in the characters that much that you sort of forgive and want to see what’s going to happen next.
Hannah, do you agree? Do you have anything else to add to that?
EINBINDER: I do. I do agree. I think like, there’s definitely, as you said, we could have gone a different route and taken those shortcuts. Although I believe it’s justified, I think that it’s a grave thing that Ava has done, and I think it’s going to take a long time for them to reconcile, especially because of the nature of Deborah’s character, as she does kind of hold a grudge. As Paul says to Ava in the first episode, no one beats Deborah. She’s been doing this for 50 years. She’s not just going up against someone who’s like, “I get it.” That’s not really the energy. [Laughs] I think it’s justified, and I think it is an interesting point of tension to continue to sort of play out. Just because it is a 10-episode season and so you still get some solid time of them being united towards a common cause.
Hannah Einbinder Couldn’t Get Over Deborah’s “Cruel” Behavior in ‘Hacks’ Season 4 Episode 6

Image via Max

Were there any moments where you were like, “I don’t know how they’re going to salvage this”? They say and do some pretty brutal stuff to each other.
EINBINDER: I definitely felt that after Deborah and Ruby have their Late Night interview. I think that was a point where it’s like, how the fuck could you ever come back from that? Like, for real? That was so cruel. It was so fucked up.
SMART: It’s sort of like marriages that you see, or even marriages that you’re in. You can have a fight that you think, “How will we ever go on after this fight?” This fight was a really bad one. But when there’s that core, that bond, you just do. It’s okay, and you move on, and sometimes you’re actually better for it. My marriage, yes, we’ve certainly had fights where I thought, oh, “How are we going to get past this one?” But it was never as verbally as abusive as Deborah. [Laughs] I think we’ve all seen friends who are in relationships where you think, why are you people still together?
EINBINDER: [Laughs] Yeah. It’s definitely what’s happening here.
SMART: But no one knows what somebody’s relationship is like in private.

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Jean Smart Understands Why Deborah Had a Panic Attack in ‘Hacks’ Season 4

Image via Max

I feel like the season runs on the idea that the people that love you the most can hurt you the most because they know your pressure points. What’s really interesting to me is how Deborah is extremely nervous during the dress rehearsal. She kind of talks a big game. What do you think is going through Deborah’s mind during the panic attack — or the heart issue, as she puts it?
SMART: I think she was experiencing stage fright for the first time really ever in her life, because she just wanted it so badly. Where she’d gotten to before with her comedy was a gradual climb, gradual climb, gradual climb. But this was something that she had actually given up on some years ago, still hung on to the idea of it and the bitterness of losing it, but never really thought there was going to be another chance, another shot at it. So, when this shot came along, I think she was excited, but kind of in shock. Also, she knew that if it didn’t work, people would say, “well, see, you know, she never was good enough.” And also, too, she thought, “what am I going to do after this? If this doesn’t work? What am I going to do? I’m going to go back to Vegas to some grade C casino off the strip? Is that really going to be it for me?” Because she doesn’t really have an option B.
EINBINDER: I get so emotional with that scene — I don’t know if it’s in this season, or if it’s in last season — when she does the test show, where you cross by the mirror, and it’s like your younger self. Is that this season or last season?
SMART: Oh, I think that’s Season 3.
EINBINDER: Oh, my God. I think that rings true. I think of, you know, what it meant to her and her history, hosting the show back in the day, and getting that shot and losing her family as a result of it. Just how fraught it is. It’s just so heartbreaking. It’s like, God, so much pressure.
SMART: I think of it as like those athletes you see who’ve trained all their lives, and especially in the previous four years, and they go to the Olympics, and they have, like, 30 seconds to be their absolute best. Every atom in their body has to be at its best. What are the odds of being able to perform like that? It’s just insane.
New episodes of Hacks Season 4 air Thursdays on Max.

Hacks

Release Date

May 13, 2021

Network

HBO Max, Max

Showrunner

Lucia Aniello

Directors

Desiree Akhavan

Writers

Pat Regan, Ariel Karlin, Carol Leifer, Joe Mande, Guy Branum, Andrew Law, Samantha Riley