“Part of our original pitch for the show was the very last scene,” Lucia Aniello—one of Hacks’s three showrunners, alongside Jen Statsky and Aniello’s husband, Downs (who co-stars as beleaguered talent agent Jimmy)—tells me via Zoom. “We knew how the season would end and how the show would end if we were so lucky as to get to imagine it how we wanted. It’s very full-circle, and there’s a lot of mirroring and callbacks and things. Hopefully people will find it as satisfying to watch as it was to write.”
Delightful as it is to catch up with the show’s myriad side characters, like Las Vegas Mayor Jo Pezzimenti (Lauren Weedman), Ava’s unhinged yet supportive mom Nina (Jane Adams), and Randi (Robby Hoffman), the weirdly confident talent assistant, the heartbeat of Hacks is still Deborah and Ava—and, per Aniello, Einbinder and Smart are in top form in Season 5.
“They’re better than they’ve ever been,” she says. “After five seasons of playing these characters, it’s such a lived-in performance, but they still find ways to be surprising and do things that we don’t expect from Deborah and Ava.”
Below, enjoy an exclusive peek at some of Season 5’s most exciting moments. We can’t wait to tune in.
