[This story contains spoilers from the season four finale of Hacks.]
At the end of Hacks‘ fourth season, Deborah (Jean Smart) and Ava (Hannah Einbinder) find themselves in a new place on their long, often tumultuous, on-again off-again relationship journey. After an erroneously published obituary blames Deborah for Late Night‘s demise, they’re not just on-again, they’re united in a joint mission for the first time: to get back at the network establishment. “What Deborah does for Ava in episode nine [quitting the show] is the culmination of four seasons’ worth of their relationship evolving, so now they’re more aligned than ever,” says co-showrunner Jen Statsky. “That was always the plan: to have these women go through everything together and find themselves together, stronger than ever.”
Below, Statsky and her fellow creators and showrunners Paul W. Downs and Lucia Aniello speak to The Hollywood Reporter about how they mapped out their protagonists’ journey to their new crusade, the real-life writers room scenarios that inspired this season’s mishaps and how they cast Celebrity Strip Poker.
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You’ve been renewed for season five — did you write season four with the assumption that you’d get to continue the story?
PAUL W. DOWNS We’ve always known where we want the series to ultimately conclude, and obviously we haven’t gotten there yet, but we also try and deliver a season that feels satisfying in case we can’t do anymore episodes. We want people to feel like they’ve gotten some good emotion at the end of the season.
In terms of Deborah standing up for Ava to the network, what other options did you consider? Did you think about having her stay on the show and slowly sabotage it, like her version of quiet quitting while she’s still under her contract?
JEN STATSKY We think about this show from every possible angle, so we discussed things like the blackmail she has on Bob Lipka. But the truth is, her going this route was an emotional win for the character. It shows her growth and her morals. She doesn’t try to use her old maneuvers to do this, she doesn’t react the way season one Deborah would. She realizes she loves Ava more than she wants the show — it’s why she says, “I held onto the dream for so long that I didn’t realize the dream had changed.”
DOWNS Deborah also does it because, as a comedian, she has too much integrity to allow herself to be censored. She doesn’t want to make a show under those terms. In seasons two or three she might have been blind to those things, but now it’s not worth it to her to outmaneuver the network just to keep making a show under terms that are set by a corporate overlord.
LUCIA ANIELLO Ava shows her in maturity at the end of the season. She has to have that conversation with Deborah on the boat [in Singapore], and it’s hard but it doesn’t become irreparable. Ava is just taking in what she has to say. That’s why they could quickly get to that ending, being on the same page, with the same crusade in mind. We do feel like it ends with them on the same team, excited about their new goal.
When I interviewed the three of you on the day of your Emmy nomination last summer, I asked whether you thought we’d see a female president or a female late-night host first…
ANIELLO Now we’re further away from both of them.
DOWNS Well, Deborah will run for President. As a third-party candidate, but she does really well. But, no, isn’t that depressing?
Steering us back: The cocaine scene. Did you guys know that both you and Seth Rogen, with The Studio, would have storylines where the show’s main characters have to force cocaine on someone to perk them up for a gig?
DOWNS I haven’t watched the finale yet, I’ve only watched through my episode. (laughs) But they don’t boof it, right?
No, they just put it into Bryan Cranston’s nose.
ANIELLO Okay, so we can claim boofing. We plant our flag in the boof.
In episode six, when we saw Ava’s meltdown while she quit her job as head writer, was that based on anything you’ve seen in real life? Was it wish fulfillment for anyone?
STATSKY Well, we don’t want to scream at our writers. We love our writers, so that’s fictional.
ANIELLO We would never throw fish near our writers.
DOWNS I would be happy if someone ordered branzino for the table.
STATSKY I worked in late night, and the pace of it is truly exhausting. There were many times that I wanted to scream, and maybe I did into my pillow at night.
DOWNS Mrs. Table is ripped from the headlines, that’s something they did at Parks and Rec.
STATSKY Sorry, Universal Television. On Parks and Rec we used to have a “writer” named Mrs. Table who loves sweet potato fries. But I don’t think the showrunner was supplementing those orders. We were taking from the corporation.
DOWNS And we have heard stories of other shows losing a showrunner mid-show. We’ve never experienced it, knock on wood.
Jen, was it fun to revisit your late night past or did it give you PTSD to have to write a late night show within a show?
STATSKY It was definitely a bit traumatic. We wanted to pay homage to it but also realistically depict what a grind it is. I think we came up with some good moments. We really do think Celebrity Strip Poker is a good segment, and somebody should do it.
Did you write those segments with the specific celeb cameos in mind, or did you fill them in later?
DOWNS We wrote Jimmy Kimmel into the script, and Carol Burnett and Kristen Bell. Thank God they said yes. Seth Rogen and Kaia Gerber were the first people we asked for Celebrity Strip Poker; it wasn’t crafted for them, but we just thought they would both be great. We thought Melissa Etheridge would be a fun cameo because we reference her in the very first joke of the whole series.
Between Seth having you three play yourselves on The Studio, and you guys having Seth on, who asked who first?
ANIELLO We shot our scene in The Studio awhile ago.
DOWNS In writing that segment, we figured it would certainly be an easy ask because we did spend a day shooting with Seth. We also know him socially, and you never want to make someone feel obliged to do something. But luckily he’s always been so supportive of us.
ANIELLO He’s the nicest. He was on Broad City season two as a cameo, when the show had barely been out. He’s really been there for us.
DOWNS We love him. I was in a movie with him, Like Father, that his wife directed. So we asked him, and thought about who would be funny to do it with him. We’d recently seen Bottoms, and we’d heard that Kaia was a fan of the show, so we asked her. Asking someone to play themselves — it’s not something people always want to do, especially if they’re actors. But they were both so game.
Do you think Gavin Newsom has seen the show and taken the plea for tax credits to aid production in L.A. to heart?
STATSKY I think Gavin Newsom is a Hacksinista.
DOWNS I kind of do, too. I weirdly think he sees himself in the show. He sees himself as a Deborah. That’s how we try to get to him, is through the show.
ANIELLO I think he also likes Jimmy. I think he’s like, you know what, I’ve got to sign that bill, we’ve got to stay in L.A. It’s something we really are very passionate about. We’ve shot every season of the show here, primarily. We’re so happy to hire local crew and actors and so it’s played as a joke but it’s very real to us.
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The full fourth season of Hacks is now streaming on Max.
www.hollywoodreporter.com
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