Mini Appreciation: ‘Hacks’ 

Watching Jean Smart makes me feel warm inside. Her turn as Deborah Vance in HBO Max’s Hacks is as thrilling as it is brilliant. I mean, how often do we get to see a woman over 70 absolutely killing it on screen? And with a much younger openly queer counterpart? (Yes, Hannah Einbinder as Ava Daniels is equally brilliant.) Before Hacks was hurled onto my radar, I couldn’t have told you a thing about Smart or Daniels or about stand-up comedy. But the show and these actors have captured me unexpectedly. 

I gobbled up those episodes like no tomorrow, and in a way I feel like Hacks has opened me up to a part of myself I never knew existed or maybe that I’ve been suppressing for a long time. I’m not typically one for comedy and I hesitated a bit before deciding to watch it when it first premiered. But I loved it immediately and waited with bated breath for the next Thursday installment. 

All told, there’s something different about this show than others I’ve loved. I’ve always gravitated toward darker, grittier dramas and sometimes even darker, sadder characters. In years past, I’ve often held close deeply flawed characters overcome by pain and grief and misfortune—probably because that’s how I always saw myself.

But I feel such a sense of triumph in watching Deborah and Ava be beautifully flawed and own it even in the most preposterous of ways. They recognize their imperfections and use them to their advantage, and turn their shortcomings (real or perceived) into comedy because…what else can you do in a life that’s so short, so fleeting, so uncertain?

Laughter, joy, pain, disappointment, failure, and death are all very certain. Those things come for all of us in due time. The characters in Hacks hold all of that to be true without letting it weigh them down. I think they’re teaching me how to do the same.