'Hacks' Is a Love Letter to Women's Legacy

Hacks has triumphantly concluded its fifth and final season, and I couldn’t be sadder about it. The old adage, “don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened,” would apply here were I assured that more fictional works featuring female leads who are fifty and over will be forthcoming. Because much of the series’ power, less obvious than its rich comedy, is seeing the seventy-something-year-old Deborah Vance (Jean Smart) shining brightly in a world that demands women of that age do anything but. It’s a version of aging, inherently a potential future, rarely put on display for younger audiences. Hacks has always concerned itself with the subject of Deborah’s legacy, but it’s in the series’ final episodes that it plumbs the depths of what that truly means.

The previous season left off with Deborah coming face-to-face with a sight that would alarm just about anyone, let alone a high-power celebrity: her obituary. Deeming its contents underwhelming—Deborah: “Oh my God, they used the ‘R’ word.” Ava: “What?!” Deborah: “‘Retired!’”—she’s spurred into action to not only defy Bob Lipka (Tony Goldwyn, deliciously caddish here) but, more importantly, prove to herself and the world that her best days aren’t behind her. Thus begins her quest for “a legacy-defining win.”

As in seasons’ past, she has writer/confidant Ava (Hannah Einbinder) by her side. The show’s smartly put aside their cycle of contentiousness, one that was already overly familiar back in season four. By season’s end (which I felt much more warmly about, which tracks because Dustin is always wrong), the dynamic between the two women was permanently altered for the better: a mutual professional respect combined with the intimacy of what’s destined to be a lifelong friendship.

How long that life is, however, is suddenly called into question when Deborah confesses that the doctors didn’t successfully remove the entire tumor, leaving chemotherapy as the sole treatment available to her. Unwilling to undergo the process, she opts for assisted suicide overseas. It’s a shockingly risky note to end on for an award-winning comedy series, and I was instantly concerned we were gonna wind up with a tv version of Me Before You. Thankfully, writers Lucia Aniello, Jen Statsky, and Paul W. Downs (who also plays sweetly earnest talent manager Jimmy LuSaque) steered this alarming development away from overwrought bedside sobs by calling upon the initial spark of the season’s torch: Deborah’s legacy.

Her initial plan to solidify her legacy by selling out Madison Square Garden was ambitious enough—as well as an excuse to cast the marvelous Alanna Ubach as talent booker Amanda Weinberg—but when Bob thwarts her, it’s a blessing in disguise. Being one of the few entertainers to sell out the world-famous arena is quite a feat, but it pales in comparison to having more than 30,000 watch her do stand up in the middle of Central Park. There’s no way to top that, but when Deborah instinctively reaches for her notebook to jot down a joke while sitting in a Parisian train station, she comes to the realization that, despite reaching the pinnacle of her career, she still has more to say. Accomplishments and adulation, means a whole hell of a lot to Deborah, but even more than that is her gift for being the funniest person in any given room. “I may not have 30 years,” Deborah tells Ava. “But I think I have another hour.” So much for not crying.

In the Louvre, Deborah and Ava gaze upon Dutch painter Judith Leyster’s The Jolly Companions while the former explains how Leyster’s work was falsely attributed to a male rival painter. Deborah Vance is a work of fiction, but what she represents—a talented woman struggling in a male-dominated field—is entirely real. Hacks is a love letter to the legacies we leave behind and summoning the power to decide what that looks like. Demanding and more than a little self-absorbed, though capable of tremendous love—including of the physical variety; bless Downs, Statsky, and Aniello for not being afraid to show an older woman who loves sex and refusing to make it a punchline—she never allows anyone to call the shots for her, for better or worse. I can think of few things more aspirational.

Before setting off to do battle with the likes of Bob Lipka and the tabloids that dare to paint her in an unflattering light, Deborah roars, “I refuse to be remembered on other people’s terms.” In this, indeed, in every way that could possibly count, Hacks has succeeded admirably.

All five seasons of Hacks are available to stream on HBO Max.

Kaleena Rivera is the TV Editor for Pajiba.