Hacks season 5 review: Acclaimed comedy gets last laugh in final season

For perhaps the first time across her decades-long career, Deborah Vance is struggling to perform. Coming into season five, a non-compete clause has prevented the seasoned comic from making jokes in public. The first episode even ends with the words “Free Deborah!” written across the sky as fans begin to rally behind her. But for Jean Smart, who’s won four Emmys playing Deborah in four consecutive seasons, she’s as effortless in the role as ever.

Following an odd finale which took some big swings it couldn’t quite land, the fifth and final season of Hacks resets the status quo, as it does every season. This time around, Vance and her long-suffering bestie Ava Daniels (Hannah Einbinder) are fighting for the comeback of all comebacks, which might just nab Jean her fifth Emmy and Hannah’s second for their comic swan song together. (That is, unless Lisa Kudrow’s The Comeback beats them at their own game).

That Hacks continues to excel, five years in, is practically unheard of in today’s tumultuous TV landscape. Just surviving for five seasons deserves some kind of award, let alone thriving in the way Hacks has. That’s not to say it hasn’t stumbled occasionally, and the same is sometimes true of season five. But even so, very few shows are this damn strong across the board. 

Zingers about dating Saddam Hussein or comparing an ex’s wedding to a colonoscopy – “It’s a pain in the ass every five years but I’m passed out for most of it” – feel just as effortless as they should from a seasoned pro like Deborah. Ongoing jokes about Ava’s “inhuman strength” – she high-fives “like the Hulk” – also speak to the more subtle threads of humour woven throughout that shine best on a rewatch.

It’s not all funny though. Hacks understands better than most how close comedy veers to pain, how intertwined laughs and tears can be. As always, you’ll howl at the banter but you might just howl with sadness sometimes too, especially given what comes with this being the final season. 

Although it’s obvious to point out just how well Smart and Einbinder ground the show with TV’s most volatile two-hander, what is worth mentioning is how much this relationship has evolved in ways you might not even notice from week to week. Sure, they’ve gone from friends to enemies and back again more times than Deborah’s worn animal print, and occasionally these resets might have verged on repetitive, but season five smartly pulls back on that.

There’s still some conflict. Ava and Deborah are just too different for that to be off the table completely. But in season five, you really feel how much they’ve learned from each other, how even their disagreements have become a source of mutual respect. There’s more warmth now too, a softer approach that feels lived-in, like the kind of couple that fans have long shipped them to be.

Such growth isn’t just limited to the pair as a combined package either. Early on in this season, Deborah tells Ava: “You can’t write my memoir, you’re too obsessed with me.” While that’s true to a degree, Ava has become more confident than ever in her own abilities, prioritising herself at last by striking out with her own success. Deborah might like to pretend she’s still the same old Deborah, but she too is very different to the way she was before Ava entered her life. It really is a testament to the writing and acting alike that this feels as natural as it does. 

Wrapping things up, the writers have done as much as they can to cater to fans without losing sight of all that. And by fans, I especially mean the queer fans who have been supporting Hacks since day one. It’s there in Deborah deciding to EGOT, it’s there in the return of Carl Clemons-Hopkins as Marcus Vaughan, and it’s there in the episode when Jimmy (Paul W. Downs) remains naked for a substantial and (un)necessary chunk of time.

Without spoiling anything for the Avorah shippers out there, just know that there is one episode in particular which addresses these conversations head on without bowing to pressure from any one side. You’ll know it when you see it. And one of the reasons why it works so well is the guest stars involved, who I won’t spoil here. 

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As always, Hacks continues to use guest stars like no other show could, straddling camp and star spectacle with an absurdity that always feels right at home. The one exception to that is this season’s only dud episode, a celeb-driven mother-daughter adventure that feels like it was written for another show entirely. 

Paul W. Downs, who just so happens to be a writer and co-creator on Hacks too, recently revealed some cut ideas (via Deadline) that would likely have been far better: “We wanted to do one where due to inclement weather, Deborah couldn’t take off for a trip to LA, and so she had to take an Uber all the way. And it was just her in an Uber in the desert, with a really fun guest star.”

It speaks volumes that what’s left on the cutting room floor sounds just as enticing as what made it to screen. But crucially, this also points to how much Hacks has always prioritised its ongoing narrative, foregoing potentially hilarious scenarios if they don’t fit in the moment. 

Saying that, some elements of this final season do feel a tad rushed or shoehorned in, despite the writers having already planned out a version of this endgame all along. The climax, especially, might feel like it’s come out of left-field for some. Still, I was moved regardless, as I have been throughout this season and the series as a whole. 

Deborah might have started this final run constrained by a non-compete clause. But who could ever really compete with Deborah, or Jean Smart for that matter? Both are at the top of their game by the time Hacks comes to an end. Yet what marks a swan song for Deborah as a character gets us more excited than ever for what Jean’s got going on next.

Should you watch Hacks season five?

If you’ve loved Hacks up until this point, there’s a lot to love about this final curtain call. And if you don’t love Hacks, get going before I heckle you out into the street. That’s what Deborah would do and I intend to honour her legacy, much as season five does.

Season 5 of Hacks is out in the US on April 9 and the UK on April 17th.