In an audiovisual context where ‘The Bear’ wins awards for best comedy series and productions like ‘Ted Lasso’ or ‘Unfiltered Therapy’ are considered “hilarious”, the farewell of ‘Hacks’ is a catastrophe of Homeric dimensions, the end of television comedy. Thank goodness we still have ‘The Studio’ left.
Actually, the end of ‘Hacks’ comes at the perfect time. Neither too soon, as happened with the long-awaited ‘Mindhunter’, nor too late, as happened to ‘Homeland’ or ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’. The fourth season, although notable, already showed some symptoms of exhaustion: the same narrative dynamics, the same dramatic conflicts and very similar ideological debates reappeared. The series was still working because Deborah and Ava are two of the best written characters in current fiction and their chemistry is indestructible, but some wear and tear was beginning to show.
Furthermore, as has happened with ‘Euphoria’, balancing agendas was going to be increasingly complicated. Hannah Einbinder’s career is taking off in such a way (she has just presented in Cannes what promises to be one of the films of the year, ‘Adolescence, Sex and Death in Camp Miasma’) that continuing to film ten episodes a year as the protagonist was not going to be an easy task.
This fifth season has been, as its creators Lucia Aniello and Paul W. Downs anticipated, “happy and bright.” As much as that version of ‘Happy Days’ by Judy Garland and Barbra Streisand that plays at the end of the last episode. The comic and dramatic weight of the series continues to be based on the relationship between Deborah and Ava. However, the dynamic based on antagonism, cultural clash or generational conflict is no longer insisted on. Their bond has transformed into a sincere and deeply complicit friendship.
That change of tone, more friendly, less conflictive, allows ‘Hacks’ to say goodbye in a big way. And the big thing in a comedy is by making people laugh. Heartily. There are episodes in this season, like the fifth (‘D’Amazing Race’) or, especially, the seventh (‘Montecito’), that are pure chufla from start to finish. Also, as expected in a farewell, there are moments to shed a tear.
But, like any good monologue, there is always a final joke. A joke – I’m not going to reproduce it so as not to create spoilers – that perfectly condenses everything that Deborah Vance has been during these five seasons: a woman incapable of giving up humor (and vanity), even when she talks about what she fears most.
There will be no more seasons of ‘Hacks’, but there will be new projects by Lucia Aniello and Paul W. Downs. Both have renewed their contract with HBO and have already confirmed that they are working on a new series. Comedy, of course.
