‘Hacks’ Season 5 Review: Jean Smart, Hannah Einbinder Comedy Series Delivers A Hilarious, Emotional, Sharp Final Set

In its five-season run, “Hacks”, headlined by Emmy Award winners Jean Smart and Hannah Einbinder, has found a way to blend satire with heartwarming sincerity. “Hacks” season 5 doubles down on all of it and offers more. The season critiques, with razor-sharp teeth, the industry it is set in, the celebrity culture its protagonist enjoys being ensconced in and the gender politics that underscore both these settings. And yet it is never too uptight to miss out on the goofy fun of a silly gag, poking fun at real people, events, and pop culture trends, or the emotional tug of a heartwarming full-circle moment.

“Hacks” season 1 began with Deborah finding out about her ex-husband’s death while simultaneously commencing her descent into rock bottom. Season 5 begins with Deborah already at rock bottom and presumed dead by suicide after killing late-night TV. This time, though, she has Ava by her side, who is once again out of a real writing gig and needs Deborah just as much as Deborah needs her. Only this time, their failure to communicate comes not from ego clashes but from genuine love and concern for the other’s feelings.

The final season acts like a bucket-list of themes this series wants to address, and one that an artist like Deborah could wield to rebuild her image: An EGOT win, a show at the mecca of all performing venues, Madison Square Garden and a reboot of the TV show that made her famous. She also goes up against the final boss of artist oppression—corporate head honcho (and a man) Bob Lipka, who runs the network airing her late-night show and has enough power to impede her every attempt to work.

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Despite all the ground that it must cover, “Hacks” keeps a steady pace and gets in some surprises, like the episode with Christopher Briney’s ultra-sensitive singer Nico Hayes, who has sizzling chemistry with Smart. The same episode finds a way to let girls be girls, with both Deborah and Ava getting giggly over first dates, and calls out Ava’s performative wokeness. Another episode takes a corny dig at generative AI learning from an artist’s own work to replace them eventually. For fans who’ve written slash fiction about Deborah and Ava, the show almost toes the line in a cheeky nod to what could’ve been, with fun cameos from Cherry Jones and Leslie Bibb.

Because this is the closing act, the season leans heavily into bringing the emotional arcs around, too. Jean Smart’s Deborah Vance and Hannah Einbinder’s Ava Daniels started the series as unmeshable as oil and water, but ended the fifth season as the best parts of each other blended with their own. The show beautifully bookends every character’s journey—from Jimmy and Kayla to Marcus, DJ and Marty—underlining just how far they’ve come and how their relationships with both Deborah and Ava have evolved. 

Even if too saccharine and neat in some places, the callbacks and emotional beats hit every time, like when Deborah and DJ dance together at the end of the Amazing Race or Ava gets to go on another mission involving Deborah’s precious antique salt and pepper shakers. Or when Deborah and Marty finally get together, but this time, she offers him a gig to run the casino she opens in partnership with Marcus, after Marty is laid off from the Palmetto.

The final episode will make the hardest hearts weep. The series finds its closure in a running theme in the series: Deborah’s fear of mortality, both as a human and as an artist. Will she always be this funny? Will she be forgotten? As the series finale begins, Ava mirrors Deborah’s season 1 episode 1 scene of walking through the set of her show, which is a reboot of ‘Who’s Making Dinner”, reclaiming it for both of them. Deborah gets a comedy club named after her. And in the final scene, when even in the most macabre setting, she finds her humor intact, the show gets an incredibly final punchline.

The second most satisfying arcs come for Paul W. Downs (also creator, showrunner and EP) as Jimmy LuSaque Jr. and the indomitable Megan Stalter as Kayla Schaefer, the two managers who believed in and fought for their talents, tread the ethical path in a corrupt industry and despite a bittersweet journey, came out as winners. After Deborah and Ava, it is Jimmy and Kayla’s platonic friendship that deserves an award for the absolute ride it has been.

Amidst all of this, “Hacks”’ commitment to centering the woman in the workplace remains one of its most commendable traits. Whether it is the female comedian (a nod to the iconic Carol Burnett), celebrity (Trisha Paytas, actor (Renée O’Connor from “Xena: Warrior Princess”), journalist, publicist, mayor, talent booker for Madison Square Garden or even an eccentric tour manager (a fantastic returning cameo by Laurie Metcalf as Weed), it’s never about hyping them up, but more about highlighting their contributions in an otherwise male-centric world.

There was a glorious moment in time, when “Hacks” Season 1 and “The Marvelous Mrs Maisel” Season 4 were running in the same year (2022). The female comedian on screen has never been better represented than by these two Emmy-award-winning series, whose leads, Jean Smart and Rachel Brosnahan, have won multiple awards for them. In fact, Smart has four consecutive Emmys, one for each season of “Hacks”. And Season 5, the final one, might just win her a fifth and costar Hannah Einbiner her second consecutive Emmy.

All in all, “Hacks” offers a farewell worthy of the likes of Deborah Vance; it won’t be a stretch to say, there might not be another. And that’s our time.