‘Hacks' review: In Season 4, even dream jobs can be a (very funny) nightmare

Chicago Tribune

10-04-2025

Push-pull. Love-hate. That tension is the backbone of 'Hacks,' which has only grown more potent over time as the central duo — a veteran standup in the mold of Joan Rivers and the much younger writer who has helped reinvigorate her career — self-sabotage their way to success. In Season 4 of the Max comedy, Deborah Vance and Ava Daniels have manipulated their way into their respective dream jobs as host and head writer of a late-night talk show on network TV. Every nasty word between them over the years, along with every heartfelt exchange, has led to this moment. And they can't enjoy any of it because they're at each other's throats once again.
Starring Jean Smart and Hannah Einbinder, rarely has a pairing been this combustibly funny, but also able to get you in the gut each time they find common ground amid the smoking wreckage of their lives. But until they make their way back to one another, their underappreciated manager Jimmy proposes he act as intermediary, 'even though I said I'd never do that again after my parents' divorce because it almost destroyed me' — he gives a wonderfully hollow laugh at the memory — 'but I'm going to do it for you.'
Jimmy is played by Paul W. Downs, who is also one of the show's creators, along with Lucia Aniello and Jen Statsky. This is their strongest season yet. It's pointedly a Hollywood satire, as opposed to the broader showbiz satire it's been up until now. Leaving its Las Vegas setting for Los Angeles, it has far more to say about the industry than other recent attempts, and it is a sharp exploration of Hollywood as a place where colleagues who hate one another in private give an entirely different impression when in public.
I wish there was more poking and jabbing specifically aimed at the smiling phoniness inherent to the talk show format ('The Larry Sanders Show' was really the last to do it with gusto) but the season is sharply observed about newer headaches, including the perils of platforming an unvetted online star (played by an exuberantly go-for-broke Julianne Nicholson), or the current realities of the job, which include a TV network's social media manager forever coaxing Deborah into doing dumb gags for sponsored posts.
Meanwhile, Jimmy has launched his own company with his assistant-turned-partner (the wonderfully over-the-top Megan Stalter) and their first big move is to hire a straight-talking receptionist (Robby Hoffman) who may be a Hollywood novice, but she has a way of cutting through the crap that passes for normal. 'What I've learned about this business is everybody is soft,' she says in her matter-of-fact New York accent. 'Apparently everybody takes off mid-October, comes back end of January, and you want to know why the entire industry is in the toilet? Nobody wants to work!' She brings a amusingly unexpected energy to their team, and then is more or less forgotten for the rest of the season. That's a missed opportunity because Hoffman is very funny.
Helen Hunt returns as the network programming head and she gets one of the better jokes of the season as she breezes in and apologizes for being late: 'I was trying to bond with my kid,' adding in a half-whisper: 'Doctor's orders.'
But the show's core is the prickly neediness that fuels Deborah and Ava's every interaction. Betrayal is their lingua franca. It drives their ambitions but also their personal interactions with anyone in their orbit. Better to lash out first, or at least build up a protective armor. They only let their guard down with one another. Trust will be carefully built, and then inevitably shattered. They'll get over it. They always do. And then they'll stumble once again. Around and around they go, trapped in this dysfunctional cycle. But despite the 40-year age difference, this remains the most meaningful relationship either has ever had.
Season 4 reaches its climax when they are faced with a cascading series of ethical dilemmas. A career in Hollywood probably isn't viable if you stand on principle. That's the conventional wisdom, anyway. I like that 'Hacks' wants to challenge some of those assumptions, even as it mocks them. Taking a stand costs money and opportunities. It can also just make your life difficult going forward. Integrity is expensive.
But having no integrity at all is expensive, as well. And it's often everyone else who pays the price.
'Hacks' Season 4 — 3.5 stars (out of 4)
Where to watch: Max
Nina Metz is a Tribune critic.