‘Hacks’ boss on Deborah and Ava’s relationship, Blackmail Twist

SPOILER ALERT: This interview contains spoilers from “Bulletproof,” the season 3 finale of “Hacks,” now streaming on Max.

‘Hacks’ spent its third season bringing its two main characters back together, weaving them more thoroughly into each other’s careers and lives. And in the season finale, it tied them together for the foreseeable future — while ensuring that their next steps together would be colored by blackmail, betrayal, and all the other elements of interpersonal comedy.

The previous season had ended with Deborah (Jean Smart) firing Ava (Hannah Einbinder) so that Hannah could grow into her voice independently; it was a situation that could not last long. Ava is reintegrated into the fold and embraces an unlikely new mission for her comedy legend boss: landing her the coveted position of hosting a late-night talk show. Ava helped secure that job for Deborah and assumes she will be appointed head writer. That’s not the case: Deborah is concerned that the fact of her own casting will be risky enough for the network, and plans to retain the previous show’s head writer, a man with more experience.

What follows is a thrilling battle – the ‘Sopranos’ episode ‘Whitecaps’ transferred to the world of comedy, and to this very specific mentor-mentee relationship. Series co-creator Lucia Aniello says: “I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a scene on this show as powerful as the fight between Deborah and Ava in the finale. Hannah’s performance in that scene is insane.”

But Ava isn’t done yet. She then blackmails Deborah and promises to expose the fact that she slept with the head of the network before getting her new job. And Deborah, thus forced to work with a colleague who she now knows would happily threaten her humiliation to get what she wants, ends the season with everything she wanted: except stability with Ava.

Aniello spoke alongside fellow co-creators Paul W. Downs and Jen Statsky Variety in March for a magazine article about the season as a whole. In our conversation, they discussed the May 30 finale and other events throughout the season, the evolution of the Deborah-Ava dynamic, and why — if only subliminally — Deborah finds Ava’s heel “exciting.”

I was struck by the way the fights over Ava’s role in Deborah’s life resembled the way these characters expressed a complicated love for each other.

Paul W Downs: We always talk about their relationship: one step forward, two steps back. As they evolve, they will regress. People can make gradual changes, but they don’t completely change who they are. They both think they are doing a good job for the other. Deborah thinks, “We’ve got to get this show working, so sit down and let’s figure it out.” Ava says, “It will work better because I do it.” They’re both a bit selfish. They both learned moves from the other.

But ultimately it is their love language. They are forced to be together; their fates are intertwined. Because they strive for the same thing: dignity.

Lucia Aniello: Especially the idea that Ava has studied Deborah over the seasons and understands how Deborah operates and that she doesn’t ask for respect – she accepts respect. And in that fight scene, it’s almost as if Deborah is subconsciously and subliminally saying to her, “If you want this, you gotta go get it.”

It was reminiscent of the Season 2 finale of “Succession,” where Kendall blows up his dad on live TV and his dad watches with a smile. It’s as if he has a newfound respect for his son – and the same was true for Deborah.

Negatives: We will definitely take ‘Succession’. But we try to incorporate that. They are mirror images of each other. They found the other half of the coin inside each other. Although it is annoying and really scary because what will this do to the foundation of the relationship? — It turns Deborah on.

Jen Statsky: She didn’t know Ava had it in her until that moment. It’s a shock, and for lack of a better term, a thrill for Deborah.

Aniello: I wanted to say, it’s exciting!

Statsky: It’s exciting that she has a worthy opponent. I don’t think Deborah ever feels like she has a worthy opponent.

Was there ever a world where Deborah wouldn’t get the nighttime seat?

Negatives: She would always get it.

Aniello: The most important thing was how to justify it. If that happened tomorrow, we’d be surprised if a 70-year-old woman suddenly became the nighttime host. But we felt like we had set up Deborah at the height of her career. And if there was ever a moment, this is it. That’s the situation: how do we make it feel real? She would get it, but how do we make it feel like something that could actually happen in the realm of existence in our society?

Negatives: If there was a Deborah Vance in the world, I could see her getting it. Because it’s something new, especially in this day and age of “Oh, we got her wrong.” Now executives would say, “Let’s do that because it’s loud.” I think when Ellen DeGeneres’ [sitcom] was canceled, no one said, “Oh, an openly gay woman becomes a daytime talk show host and wins all these Emmys.” Not in this world! And yet she was able to achieve that. So I think it’s closer to reality than not.

Aniello: But it was important for us to have a formidable foil in Jack Danby. Because that’s who would get it, right? The handsome man of 1.80 meters tall. We have to take him down, we have to go to the branches. We need to go to ‘Talk Stoop’ and do all the things – because she’s shameless. So if she’s shameless and willing to sell herself, let’s see her do it.

Statsky: We always like that – even though Deborah is a larger-than-life character – we always want the show to feel grounded. So we wanted to make sure that it felt like a grounded, real way that this could happen in our entertainment industry. We wanted to make sure it felt earned and real, because we never want the show to feel like a fantasy.

It’s funny that we ended up here, since the second season finale, when Deborah fired Ava, felt like a potential ending to the series for many viewers. Getting them back together was a definite challenge.

Negatives: We talked about the show for many years before we pitched it, and we had an idea of ​​what we wanted the series to be like. That said, we don’t always know exactly how to get them back together. That was something we had to challenge ourselves to figure out – we had painted ourselves into a corner and had to figure out exactly how we did the details. But for us it was never going to be a series finale.

Aniello: We didn’t want to get them back together and then forget about it and it’s over. Deborah said, “I want you to come back,” and Ava says, “Okay, I need to know that this will do something for our relationship.” But in the end, Ava says, “I gave all that up…”

The way they got back together is now reflected in the finale. For us, it felt like we had to make sure that splitting them up wasn’t just a MacGuffin. I wanted to be sure [splitting up] meant something to the relationship that grew as the season progressed.

Addressing other events late in the season, I was interested in that the penultimate episode took place on a college campus and involved conversations about “cancel culture.” I wondered if that particular perspective on comedy would ever appear on the show.

Negatives: It was quite a job and a lot of thought went into it. We had the idea for the episode since season 1.

Aniello: It was at the original pitch.

Negatives: Because we don’t want to push one side too hard, and because it is a very nuanced and complicated conversation, we wanted to wait for the right moment. The quest she is on this season gave us the perfect opportunity to do this story. It’s something we felt we needed to address: as context changes over time, so does comedy. It’s really a trigger for people because it’s not that you get older because you’re not funny anymore, but sometimes your material becomes no longer relevant or appropriate. Struggling with this is a sign of Deborah’s evolution.

An interesting element of the season was the introduction of Deborah’s sister Kathy, played by J. Smith-Cameron. I kind of assumed she would be like Maris Crane in “Frasier” and never be seen.

Negatives: It was so nice to open the door and see her.

Statsky: We always try to make sure we encourage all of our characters to evolve. If Deborah wanted to continue growing and evolving, she had to face this. If you’re an artist, especially a comedian, you have to be honest with yourself first. And one thing Ava has pushed Deborah to do over three seasons is be a more honest version of herself. And to do that, she would eventually have to confront Kathy and this relationship. It’s clearly something that has stuck with her for 50 years. We would always have her.

Negatives: The how and when was a high-wire act. There is something mystical in her: it is the Maris thing. When do we do it? There’s so much happening this season. But the stories dictated that we had to do this, with DJ and her pregnancy. The rekindling and loss of her sister would be one of the things that drove her to what she does in the finale.

Statsky: When we finally had this conversation with Kathy, it took us three seasons to earn these moments. Deborah had to earn it with her evolution, and as a show we had to earn it with our audience.

Negatives: We also needed the actor to be available.

Statsky: We needed one more successful HBO show to end.

This interview has been edited and condensed.