The second season of Emmy darling Hacks just wrapped up its pitch perfect second season. With no evidence of a sophomore slump, news was announced last week that the HBO Max comedy was renewed for a third season. Much to the delight of just about everybody with an internet connection, Zoomer Ava (Hannah Einbinder) and her Boomer comedy mentor Deborah Vance (Jean Smart) will get at least one more season to finish their set.
Considering how the show left the two main characters at the end of Season 2, it’s interesting to ponder where the next chapter of Hacks might find the workaholic comedy legend and her talented hot mess protege.
Without spoiling any details of Season 2, the season finale finds both women riding a professional high. Both have achieved much of what they set out to do at the beginning of Season 1 when they were both at professional (and personal) crossroads. And they, by and large, achieved those things via their partnership with each other as a comedy writing/performing team.
Riding that wave, Ava finds herself with many opportunities in front of her. Yet the final scenes of the season present Ava as reluctant to take those first baby steps out of the nest. With the world (or at least her pick of smelly, sweaty TV writers’ rooms) at her fingertips, Ava just can’t seem to quit Deborah Vance.
And audiences don’t want her to. Viewers have gotten quite attached to this entitled, self-involved dynamic duo, hence a Season 3. What is it about her partnership with Deborah that keeps Ava from being able to spread her wings and fly? And why are viewers so invested in their “Boomer meets Zoomer” mentorship?
Give ‘Em the Old Freudian Slip
Just like your annoying freshman year psych major roommate always said, it really does all go back to your mother. From the very first episode of Season 1, writers have set Ava’s relationship with Deborah in contrast to the relationship the 20-something has with her mother back home.
Through frequent phone calls, viewers get a taste of Ava’s family and what her adolescence must’ve been like. Ava’s mother Nina, as portrayed by HBO favorite Jane Adams, isn’t an unkind woman or a “bad” mother.
Nonetheless, it’s clear through these interactions that Ava’s relationship with her mother is hollow and only held together by the presence of her father. Over time, it also becomes clear that Ava’s creativity and sense of humor as a child were things her mother never took the time to understand, nurture, or cultivate.
As an adult, that manifests itself as Nina not understanding or supporting Ava’s comedy career. This is evident by Nina’s obsession with Ava purchasing a condo, a marker of success to Nina, while Nina fails to acknowledge that the big purchase at such a young age was only possible due to Ava’s talent as a comedy writer.
With no parental support behind her, as an adult in LA, Ava has made herself into a tiny island, isolating herself geographically from her parents back in the midwest, isolating herself socially from peers, and isolating herself emotionally from lovers.
That’s where the first episode of the series finds Ava, isolated from anyone who could offer professional or emotional support. It also finds her facing a smidge of cancellation after an off-color Twitter joke about a senator rubs some the wrong way. Worried her career–the only thing she’s ever put any energy into–is tanking, she turns to the person she seems closest to in life, her agent Jimmy (Paul W. Downs).
Jimmy is Ava’s biggest cheerleader, and he’s a big fan of another client of his, comedy legend Deborah Vance. In an impulsive move, he pairs the two together, pitching Ava to Deborah as the ghost writer she needs to punch up her stale routine.
These two women are a lot alike. So it’s no surprise that upon first meeting each other, they don’t exactly hit it off. No, instead of brunch and mimosas, it’s a comedic cat fight where insults fly instead of fur.
But of course, there would be no show if the two weren’t shoved together for an odd couple Boomer vs. Zoomer mismatch. Ava does indeed sign on to work with Deborah on new material, and straight away their similarities (and differences) are the source of much of the conflict of the show.
Two Hacks in a Pod
How is Deborah like Ava? Deborah too has always been career-focused, ignoring much in her life–including her now-adult daughter–in order to ensure she achieved her professional goals. And her lavish life would indicate that over the course of four decades, she achieved everything she set out to do. Yet with her Las Vegas residency in danger of ending, suddenly Deborah begins to question what she chose to prioritize over the years. It’s lonely at the top, and facing the end of the residency, workaholic Deborah feels more alone than ever.
In many ways, Deborah is meant to represent what Ava could turn into if she continues on her current path. And for Deborah, Ava represents her second chance, her chance to set right so many of the things she regrets about her own career and about her relationship with her daughter.
Mothers and Daughters
Over the course of two seasons, the relationship between Deborah and Ava expands to take on many shapes and dynamics. Just when the two establish a clear mentor and mentee dynamic that seems to be fulfilling for Ava, Deborah makes a point to snap Ava back into reality by reminding her that she is the boss and Ava is only her employee.
Yet despite Deborah’s best efforts to build up walls, it becomes clear through her deeds that she considers Ava as more than just an employee, more than even a mentee. Early in Season 2, Deborah makes the choice to delay her touring schedule to help Ava with a sentimental task.
Of course she does so while still engaging in active litigation against Ava for violating her NDA agreement. But such is life with Deborah Vance. There are highs, there are lows, there is praise, there are blows (literally, Deborah slaps Ava in Season 1).
It’s All In Your Head
And how does Ava perceive Deborah? In Season 1, Ava is creeped out by herself after having a sex dream about Deborah. Worried that she is secretly harboring sexual feelings for her boss and a person old enough to be her grandparent, Ava has a bit of a crisis.
She only calms down when Kiki (Deborah’s blackjack dealer) illuminates how the sex dream was her subconscious’s twisted way of acknowledging the mutual respect and growing intimacy the two women share. The emotionally isolated Ava realizes that intimacy is something that is so foreign to her that her brain had to present it to her in a manner she was familiar with (sex=intimacy) in order for her to understand how much she values Deborah’s role in her life as her mentor.
Hacks of a Feather Flock Together
Even though Ava respects Deborah and values the professional and personal guidance she has to offer, life with Deborah is nonetheless rocky and unpredictable to say the least. In the wake of physical and verbal abuse and a whole lot of head games, why does Ava stick around in Season 1?
And after the end of Season 2 saw Ava come into her own with a cornucopia of opportunities outside of Deborah’s orbit, why does the young comedian still seem intent on riding Deborah’s coattails? That’s a mother of a question.
As the earlier mention of Freud would suggest, Ava is so deeply invested in her relationship with Deborah because she gets from it everything she never got from her mother: creative and professional support, encouragement, understanding, and collaboration.
Granted that support comes with lawsuits, the occasional slap, and constant digs about her man hands. But nobody’s perfect.
Ava sticks around because she and Deborah speak the same language, a language her mother Nina never seemed interested in learning. Ava has finally found her support system, the thing that is helping her grow as a person and as a comedian in ways that her family never could. Letting go of that support after just getting her feet steady feels overwhelming, impossible.
Indeed, the way the writers left Ava at the end of Season 2, it feels like Season 3 will find her somewhat untethered.
For Deborah’s part, the second season finale left her on the precipice of some emotional breakthroughs with her daughter DJ (Kaitlin Olson), some mushy emotional stuff that the icy Deborah also likely does not want to face alone.
Throughout the series, Zoomer Ava has guided the Boomer through exploring and expressing her emotions. And without her stand-in daughter by her side to help her navigate her relationship with her real daughter, it’s easy to imagine Deborah feeling somewhat untethered in Season 3 as well.
We Are Family
Just as Deborah sees Ava as the daughter she wished she’d been capable of raising, Ava sees Deborah as the supportive mother she wishes she’d had. Ava just can’t quit the only person who has ever felt like real, true family to her. And Deborah likely doesn’t want to push Ava out of the nest just yet, despite her cool exterior.
Yet, learning to trust each other as family is shaky ground for both women. As the two learn that it’s ok to need each other, to need and accept support, as the characters grow professionally and personally, they only become more interesting.
As they both claw their way to the top, trying to become better comedians and better humans, they clash, and often, they fail. In the most compelling ways.
And that’s why audiences can’t quit these two characters. Because even when Deborah and Ava bomb, they still get the last laugh.
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