It’s early on a warm January morning in Las Vegas, and the entire “Hacks” team — stars, crew, producers — is milling around Kyu, a sushi restaurant at the Fontainebleau. It’s going to be a busy day of filming, with three locations scattered around the city.
But a wistfulness permeates the production today as cameras prepare to roll. After five seasons on HBO Max, this is the final day of stateside filming for “Hacks,” so for most of the cast and crew, it is also farewell.
“I’m not going to be boisterous or fun today,” star Hannah Einbinder warns me. When Jean Smart walks over and I remind her what a monumental moment this is, she instantly tears up. “We really came to feel like best friends and family and so — yeah, that’s very hard,” she says.
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Hours later, as the clock approaches midnight, production has relocated to the Orleans Arena, and it all comes down to this: a quiet, touching scene between Smart’s character, legendary comedian Deborah Vance, and her confidant and creative partner, the younger writer Ava Daniels (played by Einbinder).
The walkway where they’re shooting this two-hander — next to some brightly lit concession stands — is huge, and dozens of crew members are standing there, frozen, as they capture the shot. It’s hushed as Deborah strolls through the empty arena; she’s just faced a tremendous disappointment, and Ava is there to comfort her. The two are alone, and few words are exchanged or even necessary. Having been bonded by the events of the past five seasons, Deborah and Ava have never been closer.
“The entire crew was just standing behind the camera watching us, like every department, in a way that’s not typical,” Einbinder recalls later. “It was almost eerie and sad and beautiful and familial. It’s seared into my brain forever.”
And then it’s over. A producer breaks the tension, announcing, “After six incredible years, that is an American wrap on Hannah Einbinder and Jean Smart!”
It’s late, everyone is exhausted — yet the crowd can’t stop cheering. At the center of it all, Smart has her arm around Einbinder, who returns the affection with a peck on her co-star’s cheek. By now, their eyes are bloodshot. They take a moment to soak it all in, and then Einbinder motions for the crew to get closer. It’s a group hug that lasts and lasts, and she doesn’t want to let it go: “I would like to organize some semi-regular park hangs,” Einbinder tells the crowd as they finally pull back. “I’m just putting that on your radar. You’re going to get department texts!”
And that was just the “American wrap” for “Hacks.” No spoilers, but the show traveled to Paris to shoot its final episode, and managed to film in the Louvre (no easy feat given the museum’s recent heist!). With just 12 or so people in the room, that made the series’ final take even more intimate.
“We said, ‘I love you,’ and cried,” Smart says, describing it to me later. “The last shot of us was in this long room with huge, high ceilings, and just us on a bench about the size of a couch. We were lying flat on our backs staring at the ceiling, with these 40-foot-high Dutch masters paintings, and ad-libbing. We were just making up crazy shit. It was fun to end it that way.”
What a poignant send-off for “Hacks,” after a tremendously successful and hard-won (more on that later) journey. Created by showrunners Lucia Aniello, Jen Statsky and Paul W. Downs (who also plays Deborah’s beleaguered agent Jimmy), “Hacks” returns for this final season on April 9, with the series finale airing on May 28. This is one of those “end-of-an-era” moments, as “Hacks” was a defining series of the decade — and will be remembered as one of the most influential comedies of all time.
“Hacks” almost didn’t even get off the ground. The creators pitched it around town in 2019 and were turned down everywhere — except, finally, P. by HBO Max, a new platform that would launch in May 2020 and needed programming. Kaley Cuoco’s “The Flight Attendant” gave HBO Max an early win in fall 2020, but when “Hacks” premiered the following May, the debate over whether a “Max Original” could match up to an “HBO Original” melted away. Forget about the HBO versus HBO Max debate: Deborah Vance deserved to be right there on the Mount Rushmore of HBO comedy leads, alongside Larry Sanders, Carrie Bradshaw and Selina Meyer.
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“Hacks” has been an unlikely triumph, a show about the generational gap between two women who are stuck in a rut until they find each other — and together, discover how to grow as humans and stop being, well, hacks.
It also proved that you could base a hit show around a woman in her 70s, something that is still virtually unheard of. (The streaming age has at least broken down that barrier a bit, with shows like “Grace and Frankie” proving that funny doesn’t stop once you hit Social Security.) Smart, 74, was already experiencing a career renaissance — with dramatic turns in “Watchmen,” “Fargo” and “Mare of Easttown” — when “Hacks” boldly paired her with Einbinder, a young comic with no real acting credits.
If that weren’t daring enough, “Hacks” stacked the show with plenty of authentic LGBTQ+ depictions — Deborah, after all, is quite the gay icon, and her world is populated by queer characters (including Ava). “Hacks” has even gotten away with storylines about show business, a topic that’s usually considered too inside baseball for audiences.
“They were able to truly ignite conversations around female relationships, and aging and representation,” says Erin Underhill, the president of Universal Television, the studio behind “Hacks.” “In this industry, you are lucky if you get to work on one show that you feel really moved the needle in a significant and long-lasting way. I think this show will continue to live on for generations. This will be one of those comedies that stands the test of time, even 30 to 40 years from now.”
“Hacks” was audacious from the start, and the chemistry between Smart and Einbinder was immediate, while the show’s industry satire was on point. It quickly became a critical darling and an awards smash, winning Smart four Emmys (for every year she’s been eligible so far) and one last year for Einbinder. The show was crowned outstanding comedy in 2024, and is the front-runner to repeat that victory this year (since “The Studio,” another Hollywood parody that has “Hacks” to thank for paving the way, won’t be eligible).
The three creators still seem in awe that they were able to make the show at all, let alone write the things they wanted to say and with the characters they always envisioned. It’s no coincidence that the writers tackle AI with a pointed storyline this season.
“Hopefully, in 10 years, 20 years, 100 years, the point of ‘Hacks’ is still about human connection,” Statsky says. “And how that can’t be replaced.”
Over the first four seasons of “Hacks,” Deborah and Ava’s relationship was a constant push and pull. The duo would fight one moment, be BFFs the next — which can get exhausting. Last year saw the couple (and yes, this is perhaps one of the great love stories on television) at their lowest, as Ava had blackmailed her way into the head-writer gig on Deborah’s late-night talk show. Things had become so toxic between them that it threatened to destroy the very prize Deborah had coveted above all else: her own show.
“I was afraid people would be turned off by it,” Smart says of how dark things got between the two characters. “Deborah got her white whale, and whatever that thing is that drives Deborah Vance — that demon inside her of needing respect. She was willing to sacrifice just about anything to get that.”
Deborah and Ava clashed over the direction of the show, and eventually Ava — fed up with her writing staff and smarting over a breakup — quit. That alarmed Deborah, and the two reconciled. “Late Night With Deborah Vance” shot to No. 1 — and honestly, that high note is how many fans thought “Hacks” might end. (“I was a little disappointed I didn’t get to play talk show host longer, because that was really fun,” Smart says.)
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But then came the twist. Deborah was forced by her network bosses to fire Ava, leading to the kind of sacrifice she never would have made before, even for her own daughter, DJ (played by Kaitlin Olson): In a shocker, Deborah abdicated the late-night throne, choosing Ava over her career.
With Deborah out of work because of a non-compete clause, Ava came up with a loophole: Deborah could perform stand-up in Singapore, through a translator. But that solution was as depressing as it sounds, and when TMZ reported that Deborah died, she was more than ready to return home to rebuild her career. Which is where we pick up in Season 5.
“They come back to Vegas with a mission to rewrite Deborah’s legacy,” Downs says. “It’s a little bit back, in a way, to Season 1, because it’s like the gang is back together.”
The final season is all about Deborah cementing that legacy, and this time she and Ava are simpatico. Seeing their chemistry on full display may be one reason both Smart and Einbinder call this final batch of episodes their favorite of the entire series, particularly after last year’s betrayals. “We go into the year on the same team, totally not adversarial at all like the past,” says Einbinder — who, for the record, ranks the seasons this way: “I’m a 5-3-1-4-2 girl.”
Smart says if “Hacks” has to end, she’s glad it’s wrapping with a “perfect” final season. “There’s one storyline I can’t wait for people to see — but I’m also scared for people to see,” she says of an episode set in Montecito where Deborah and Ava have to pretend to be in a relationship for an entire weekend. “It’s hilarious. The only time in six years that I broke up on the set and could not get to a line!”
Among this season’s episodes is a crossover with “The Amazing Race.” Aniello is a superfan of the CBS competition show and, at a Variety dinner a few years ago, asked to be introduced to the long-running reality show’s producers. From that point on, Aniello brainstormed exactly how to write “Amazing Race” into a “Hacks” episode, and finally pulled it off this year — with Deborah and DJ teaming up for a mother-daughter journey that Downs says is Olson’s best work on the series.
The show also plays with May-December romance as Deborah gets involved with a young character played by new guest star Christopher Briney. For Smart, whose teenage son just started watching “Hacks,” it might get a little awkward. “Every once in a while I have to tell him, ‘Well, there’s a scene you might not love,’” she says.
Aniello, Downs and Statsky always had a succession of storylines in mind for “Hacks,” with big tentpoles that would arc along an approximately five-season timeline. They changed those beats along the way — expecting to do the late-night plot much sooner, for example, until they adjusted the time it took to tell some of the chapters of the Deborah and Ava saga. But from the beginning, they had a plan for how the show would wrap.
“I never asked them in all these years how the show was gonna end,” Smart says. “I wanted to be surprised, but then when I found out, at first I was concerned — and a little taken aback. But the more I thought about it, I thought, ‘OK, I can see that.’ And then there’s a twist at the end. But I won’t spoil it.”
This is a show that has always expertly woven bust-your-gut comedy with some of the most tear-inducing drama on any series. “Hacks” defies categorization because it feels so raw. And that will be true of the finale, Aniello promises: “A lot of things we’ve been building on for all five seasons finally pay off.”
As they race to get Season 5 edited, bringing it to the finish line, Aniello, Downs and Statsky don’t have time to get too introspective yet. But they know how lucky they are that “Hacks” even made it this far.
“We had so many trials that made us feel like we might not make it to the end, or that we might not be able to tell the story and wrap it up the way we wanted to,” Downs says. “There have been deaths and cardiac issues and births on set. Not to mention things that we all experienced in L.A. — the fires and the strikes. There have been so many things that made us every year ask, ‘Are we going to actually get to even finish the season?’”
Sami Drasin for Variety
The challenges came from the very start: Smart was still recovering from an injury on the set of “Mare of Easttown” when she began on “Hacks.” And then came the pandemic, before production could even begin on Season 1. “Jean told us she was diabetic and had some other genetic predisposition that would have made it very bad if she got COVID,” Downs says. “Jean Smart could not get COVID!”
When cameras started rolling, it was the early days of strict COVID protocols, and only the actors didn’t wear masks. That helped forge a quick attachment among the series stars — especially between Smart and Einbinder.
“The first day shooting ‘Hacks,’ I shared something with Jean in passing, and I didn’t know that she had a similar experience,” Einbinder says. “We had a conversation about something that I think she wasn’t talking to anyone about, and there was an immediate sense of trust between us. We didn’t really have a sense yet of what the show would be, how much of our life the show would be. We were just focusing on doing a good job and making the show day by day. But our mutual vulnerability created a really solid foundation of love and respect.”
That closeness became critical when Smart’s husband, Richard Gilliland, died suddenly in March 2021 of a heart condition — just days before filming on Season 1 was set to wrap. It was a trauma made even worse by trying to navigate hospitals and medical care in the middle of the pandemic. The “Hacks” team — and Einbinder, in particular — rallied around Smart when she needed it the most. “I really turned to her for comfort and support, and she was amazing,” Smart says of her co-star. “I mean, she’s very wise.”
Einbinder, normally wry and witty (not unlike Ava!), turns serious when she recalls that time. “God, I remember everything,” she says. “Every moment of it. I remember getting calls from the hospital on set, and it just was so painful. And I remember the way that everybody around sprang into action to care for her.”
Among the others offering support was Olson, who had just started working on the show when Gilliland died. “That really set the tone for me: We really leaned on each other, and I wanted to be there for her through whatever she was going through,” Olson says.
Despite the personal tragedy, Smart finished the season. “I was just still kind of in shock,” she says, remembering it now. “I said, ‘Let’s just do it.’ The only the day that got me was when we shot Ava’s father’s funeral. I suddenly thought, ‘I can’t do a funeral scene — I can’t.’ I’m not prone to anxiety at all, but that was not a pleasant day.”
Speaking with Smart’s colleagues, the word “indefatigable” comes up more than once, especially to describe how she worked through her grief at the end of Season 1. HBO Max boss Sarah Aubrey lauds Smart’s “old-school” ethos: “She’s kind of ‘The work is the work, and I will always do what I signed up to do, even under the most challenging circumstances.’”
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Smart’s spirit on the “Hacks” set is infectious. At the other end of the circle of life, in 2022, in the middle of directing a Season 2 episode, Aniello — who’s married to Downs — went into labor. The following morning, Downs took over directing on set, but Aniello was still working from home, watching the shoot on a laptop and calling in notes between contractions.
But “Hacks” faced its most daunting challenge in February 2023, when Smart was given more shocking news: She needed triple bypass surgery.
At the time, HBO Max and Universal TV kept the news vague in the press, saying only that Smart had undergone a “heart procedure.” But now, Smart shares details she’s never publicly disclosed — starting with when she realized on the “Hacks” set that something was off.
She remembers not feeling right while shooting the Season 3 episode “Yes, And,” in which Deborah is on the UC Berkeley campus to accept an honorary doctorate. In a moment of comedic absurdity, Deborah lets off steam at a frat party — where she pulls off a keg stand.
“After several takes, I was like, ‘Did you get it? Was that enough?’ I was feeling a little tired. But I didn’t think anything of it,” Smart remembers. “I had gotten used to feeling a little pressure, like if I’d go up a couple of flights of stairs. But it would always just go away. And I would always think, ‘Jean, you’re in such crappy shape.’ It didn’t ever occur to me that it might be anything other than the fact that I needed to exercise more.”
That was on a Friday. Smart spent the weekend in discomfort, returning to the set on Monday and putting in another full day, still not feeling great. “I thought, ‘You haven’t seen your cardiologist in a long time. Don’t be stupid. Your kids just lost their dad!’ So I left her a message, since it was after hours. I said, ‘I know I probably can’t get in to see you this week, but maybe I should do a stress test or something.’ Her service called back instantly and said, ‘Yeah, you’re gonna go to the nearest emergency room right now!’”
But Smart still had a scene to shoot. So she finished filming without telling anyone what was happening — and then waited for her driver. “I told him, ‘Flag on the play. We’re not going back home. We’re going to the hospital.’”
Coincidentally, Downs was already at Cedars-Sinai, because his mother had broken her ankle and was having surgery there.
“I often wonder how much Jean remembers, because it was so stressful,” Downs says. “Her children had just lost their father, and I think she didn’t want to scare them, so they weren’t there. Obviously her husband wasn’t there. I think she was waiting for her brother to fly in. And so I was there with her as she was talking to surgeons and hearing them say, ‘You can’t get a stent. You have to get a triple bypass.’”
Smart says she remembers consulting with three surgeons before choosing the one who advised the triple bypass. “I wasn’t really scared until I woke up the next day, and I’m thinking about what they had to do,” she says. “You start to feel so fragile.”
Einbinder was in the hospital room when Smart woke up. “She is the most durable woman in America,” Einbinder says. “I tell her this all the time. And for how much she injures herself, she is genuinely the clumsiest person I’ve ever met! Bing, bang, bong, running into a work truck, banging her head on some pole. She is constantly getting hurt, and constantly pushing through it.”
As for proof of Einbinder’s thesis, last summer, while performing the one-woman show “Call Me Izzy” on Broadway, Smart fell and broke a kneecap in New York. “I had to do the second half of the show’s run with my foot in a leg brace,” she says sheepishly.
Sami Drasin for Variety
Once again, Einbinder was there: “Oh my God, I was in town to see the show, and she fucking broke her knee that day. Are you kidding me? I’m always giving her grief. Like, sister, watch where you’re freaking going!”
All of this behind-the-scenes drama is why Aniello, Downs and Statsky say it’s not an exaggeration that “Hacks” making it to the end is a bit of a miracle.
“Our producer and AD, Jeff Rosenberg, calls the show ‘snakebit,’” Statsky says. “He means that the universe keeps throwing things at us, that someone doesn’t want this show to be made. But they lost — because we made it!”
We’re back in Vegas, where throughout the day, producers are calling series wraps on stars including Downs, Rose Abdoo (who plays Deborah’s housekeeper, Josefina), Mark Indelicato (Deborah’s assistant, Damien), Carl Clemons-Hopkins (Deborah’s former business partner Marcus) and Megan Stalter (Jimmy’s agency partner Kayla).
“I am grateful that there were cameras capturing it, because it kind of went by in a blur,” Abdoo says. As for Stalter: “I was really crying a lot. I think of where we were at five years ago, and think about now. This was my first job on film. I was doing comedy for eight years before the show, but never getting paid to do it like this. I would have been background on the show and been happy!”
For Indelicato, “Hacks” gave him validation that he was more than a child actor from “Ugly Betty.” “I was unsure about whether this was something I wanted to continue to do,” he says. “Did I want to be an actor anymore? Was I allowed to be? ‘Hacks’ reinvigorated my love of what I do.”
And Einbinder — who is the daughter of Laraine Newman, from the original cast of “Saturday Night Live” — found a whole new career in acting. Early in the show’s run, audiences were divided on Ava, with some annoyed by her character’s self-righteous zillennial ways. But as Deborah learned to love Ava, so did viewers.
“I thought I was going to be a stand-up comedian — that was my whole plan,” Einbinder says. “But collaborative, comedic work has been so rewarding. I have come into myself. I was 24 when I got cast. I’m 30 now. I’ve walked through fire to build my self-esteem during this time. I know who I am in this world. The crew of ‘Hacks’ are like my blood relatives. They have changed my life.”
Then there’s Smart, who has been working for more than four decades, has accomplished what few comedy actors can claim: a classic television performance that she brought to life. She did it while facing some of the toughest circumstances imaginable — while also experiencing the exhilaration of making permanent, emotional connections with everyone involved with “Hacks.”
There’s always the possibility of a revival or a reunion (Abdoo is pushing for a movie), but for now, they do have their lively “Hacks” group text. “Jean sends us really good memes,” Stalter says. “It’s always something funny but also innocent, like animal stuff.”
So did “Hacks” really have to end? Downs says that at the start of Season 5, they did debate stretching out the show and doing one more season: “To have a show that breaks through and have a comedy that we’ve been able to make — are we crazy to voluntarily end it?”
Ultimately, the creators decided to stick with their original plan, and everyone seems to agree it was the right call. “I think it’s very in the ethos of Deborah Vance to leave them wanting more and leave people laughing,” Downs says. “You don’t want to outstay your welcome. And we’ve been very welcomed.”
Production Design: Sydney Forester/Mad Elegance
Jean Smart: Hair and makeup: Keith Sayer; Styling: Micah Schifman/ The Only Agency; Blue dress: Rhea Costa; Gold suit: Badgley Mishka
Hannah Einbinder: Makeup: Molly Greenwald/ A Frame Agency; Hair: Jerrod Roberts/ The Wall Group; Styling: Jamie Mizrahi/A Frame Agency; Black dress: Dress: Heirlome; Shoes: Jimmy Choo ; Jewelry: Sophie Buhai and Kinraden; Brown dress: Dress: Heirlome; Shoes: Paris Texas: Jewelry: Sophie Buhai and Kinraden
