Adam Patla
In the emotional series finale of Hacks, Deborah Vance (Jean Smart) must make a choice between going out on her own terms after a cancer diagnosis and the prospect of continuing to create art with her best friend, Ava (Hannah Einbinder). For creators and showrunners, Lucia Aniello, Paul W. Downs, and Jen Statsky, they got the best of both worlds.
“I mean it is such an honor and a privilege, especially in this industry, like you know how lucky you are to work in it and so anytime you get to make a show it’s a miracle,” Statsky says. “But yeah, to get to do it with the people we love and for the three of us to have started with this project in 2015…and to work on it for so long and still be friends and married in whatever configuration…you know, that would have been enough. And then to also get to have the support of a network to let us end the story where we felt it was right for the characters, it’s just such a blessing.”
The final season earned twenty-four Emmy nominations, making it the most nominated season of a comedy ever. Two of those nominations recognized the finale episode, aptly titled “Hacks,” with one going to the trio for writing and one for Aniello’s direction.
Watching the episode, it’s clear why this trio continues to collect awards. In one of the most talked about scenes in the finale, Ava and Deborah go to a club together. The scene impressively encapsulates everything the show does so well. There’s the absurdity of seeing Deborah dressed in Ava’s clothes, living it up in the club. We witness the joy of Deborah and Ava having this moment together. It’s followed up by intense, melancholic grief as the weight of what’s coming settles in. Most impressively, the scene was really built out from a simple line direction in the script.
“It was just like, ‘They dance at a club,'” she explains. “And then as I’m like, you know, making a season of a show, you’re…sprinting for so long. So by the time we were in Paris… I don’t know if it was right when we got there or on our way there, I started to really like dig into that scene and thinking about the overall story and it started to dawn on me that there was something in that area that I wanted to do without dialogue that felt like you were understanding why Ava went from, ‘Okay I’ll go on this vacation’ to ‘I need to try one more time’ because we had both of those things already done.
“And, so, yeah, it was kind of like, how do we flip this in the middle of it?” Aniello continues. “So the idea that it’s like, it’s fun, it’s fun, it’s fun and then something shifts and she just…experiences anticipatory grief of…what’s about to happen and… only because she’s so happy that she has a realization that this is so fleeting….”
The scene features the song “About Work the Dancefloor” by Georgia, an anthemic dance track that contains a deep sense of melancholy despite its uplifting production. Downs admits to loving music like that, feeling like it’s another element tying back to the themes of the show.
“We listen to a lot of Robyn cause she has that too,” Downs says about the song choice. “You know what I mean? And that’s I think actually representative of the show. We wanted to make a hard comedy that also had a lot of emotion and there was sadness too because that’s real life. And so we were so lucky that our show was about a stand up comedian so we could make hard comedy jokes, but then also shows the real life of this woman. And so that song is great, it’s very emblematic as I feel a lot of Robyn’s music is of having joy but also having a lot of pathos, having like a lot of emotion underneath it.”
In addition to showrunning duties, Downs also stars on the show as Jimmy, Deborah and Ava’s manager who, along with his business partner, Kayla (Meg Stalter), meets a triumphant end after a season full of trials and tribulations with their business. Jimmy and Kayla emerged as fan favorites, with many begging for a spinoff series. But Jimmy and Kayla were not a duo with a clear trajectory when the series initially started.
“The way that Deborah and Ava were so carefully arced out, Jimmy and Kayla are a nice kind of counterbalance to that where we didn’t have as much like planned out….” Statsky explains. “In a really nice way they became this sort of like shadow of the Deborah/Ava duo.”
For Downs, Jimmy provided the opportunity to stretch himself as a performer.
“You know, Jimmy is the straight man,” he explains. “The comedic foil’s job is to set up sort of chaotic character. But so it really made me stretch in terms of how do I make that funny? That job can sometimes be a little thankless when you’re just doing set up to the punchline. But I think it really allowed me to find ways to be funny as the straight man. But also, we got to discover so much because Meg is such a dynamic performer. She’s so great that it also meant we had to keep up with each other, I always had to return the serve.”
Jimmy and Kayla’s evolution feels indicative of the larger magic at play for Hacks. Aniello, Downs, and Statsky are a team with a clear vision and a plan on how to execute that vision. But they are not married to the plan and pride themselves on malleability. They know what they want, but they are open to discoveries along the way.
“The process of making the show taught me that…you have to be so adaptable as there’s a million things that you’re like, well it needs to be this, it needs to be that and then production especially will just beat the crap out of you into realizing like you’re perfect dream for it can’t necessarily always happen and so you have to adjust and change things,” says Statsky. “And then truthfully, you look at the show and you’re like, I love that scene. I think just in general, there’s a lot of things that wouldn’t have been the exact way you planned it and you have to be open to like the magic that comes as you adapt and open yourself up to different paths.”
The magical balance is what made Hacks the special series it was. Aniello, Downs, and Statsky embody a leadership style that instills not only confidence at the vision but also confidence in the others making it, allowing it to be the best it can be.
The final season of Hacks is now available to stream on HBO Max. Check out our full interview with Lucia Aniello, Paul W. Downs, and Jen Statsky now!
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