HACKS (TWO SEASONS). Starring Jean Smart and Hannah Einbinder. Showmax.
MEGAN CHORITZ reviews
I can tell I am going to be watching a lot of series this holiday season. In fact, I’ve already started.
I loved season one of Hacks, so I snorted season two in three sittings, and it is as good, if not better than the first.
Deborah Vance (Jean Smart) is a legendary but aging comedian who gets thrown together with a 25-year-old up and coming writer, Ava (Hannah Einbinder), to help her write her new material. In season one their incompatibility (Vance is a bitter, vindictive diva and Ava is an entitled, whinging millennial) gets the better of them. Season two is all about working it out.
Take to the road
In season two they take to the road in a tour bus, and travel the country, working small shows, to build the new material for Vance’s . Visually, the series is a treat, with quirky small-town locations contrasting with the flash of LA and Vegas. It’s great TV.
With a series like this, relying on the genre of comedy and stand-up, dialogue and script are everything. And they are both so good. There are almost as many writers on the show than there are performers.
Jean Smart is magnificent. Her performance is huge, outrageous, subtle, funny, fast, real and all-round amazing. Hannah Einbinder has her work cut out for her matching this tornado, but she manages to hold her own, and she is hilarious and irritating and quick and chirpy in just the right mix to be delightful.
Hope there’ll be a season three …
Then there is the supporting cast, some of whom are Carl Clemons-Hopkins as Marcus, Paul W. Downs as Jimmy, Rose Abdoo as Josefina, Megan Stalter as Kayla, and my favourite, Jane Adams as Nina, Ava’s mom. This supporting cast is so good. But the characters make it easy for them, from the crazy agency assistant Kayla to the creepy Vegas hotel tycoon Marty (Christopher McDonald).
For those in the entertainment industry you will love the in-house familiarity of what goes on. For those not, it is an eye opener. It’s a ruthless, savage, unfair and fickle world, and the price to be in it is very high.
I love this series and I hope there’ll be a season three, although it was wrapped up pretty tightly at the end.
What: Hacks
Where: Showmax
WS
