Hacks Pilot Script Analysis: How Character Conflict Builds a Brilliant Comedy Premise
Hacks just did what we all pray for a show to do: ended with a perfect finale.
The show is a buddy comedy that pairs two comics from different generations together: Jean Smart as Deborah Vance, a nearly 70 year-old legendary stand-up comedian with a residency in Las Vegas, and Hannah Einbinder’s Ava Daniels, a twenty-something comedy writer who can’t get hired because she posted an insensitive joke online. They get paired up by their manager Jimmy, played by co-creator Paul W. Downs, when both of their careers are on the line.
What a gift for us.
This show has such bold, honest, and effing funny one-liners every other line. It’s zippy. It’s smart. It’s current. It’s an instant classic.
If you’ve never seen it, now is the time, because it will undoubtedly bow out with even more awards than it already has.
And if you’re already a Little Debbie, then welcome. The pilot came out five years ago- and it’s so much fun to look back on, knowing where these two bold women end up.
Let’s get into it!
OPENING IMAGE
Hacks begins with “the infamous” Deborah Vance performing stand-up to a cheering crowd in Vegas. If my math is correct, Jean Smart was around sixty-nine years old when the series began, so we can assume Deborah is around that age too, and she is funny. She tells body jokes, sex jokes, gay jokes, this is no old maid. She’s a woman who loves her craft and, we’ll learn, fought tooth and manicured nail to get to where she is today.
Backstage, she’s in her element. We meet more of her team, her COO Marcus and personal assistant Damien, and see their shorthand. Other performers know her and she brightly acknowledges them. She loves her fans (“thanks, baby!” “I love you too, honey!”) but she’s got places to be, like the set of the QVC, which she flies to on her private jet.
She sells out a bedazzled iPad holder alongside her co-host KATIE (30s, bubbly, bleached-as-f*** teeth), takes a photoshoot on STRIPPER SANTA’S lap for the QVC Christmas episode, and then she finally flies home to her Vegas mansion and her corgis, where she removes the makeup and wig and goes to bed alone, a tiny figure in a huge bedroom with blackout curtains.
INCITING INCIDENT
Deb meets with MARTY, the owner of the casino where she holds her residency. They’ve got good rapport, an alluded-to-history aboard his 70-foot yacht, and a shared love of their extravagant wealth.
They toast Deb’s record-breaking 2500 shows and the new street named after her (note how detailed the writers were with giving us insight into Deborah’s life, accomplishments, and relationships) before Marty drops the ball: he wants to reduce Deborah’s dates to free up Fridays and Saturdays for shiny new acts.
Slyly included in this amazing public scene Deborah creates is a line that will get to the heart of Deborah’s journey as a comedian: she has had to play defense against men her entire life. Even now, with record breaking shows and solid ticket sales, she’s being cast aside by a man.
So. What will she do?
FUN AND GAMES
Hacks could have left this as the premise: an elder female comedian needs to find a way to stay relevant and own her power in a male-dominated industry. But the creators brilliantly decided to make this show a two-header.
Enter Ava Daniels.
When we meet Ava, she’s dramatically receiving the news from her manager Jimmy that no one wants to hire her because of an insensitive joke she tweeted (RIP Twitter). Jimmy suggests that Ava just lay low and wait for this to blow over, but she sends money to help her parents and she’s got a mortgage now, Jimmy! He also suggests that she maybe not say everything that’s on her mind. We quickly learn that this is something Ava simply cannot do.
If the fact that this is an HBO show didn’t already give it away, Ava’s Catholic guilt joke should clue you in: this is a comedy for adults. There will be explicit language, sexual scenarios, and nudity. Also alcohol and drug use. And boundary-testing jokes. Stick around, it’s great.
Anyway!
Their conversation is interrupted by none other than…a call from Deborah Vance, Jimmy’s most VIP client. And that gives Jimmy an idea.
Deborah needs to appeal to younger crowds. Ava needs a job. What if Deborah hires Ava as a writer? What could possibly go wrong?
MIDPOINT
To be clear, neither diva is interested in this deal. They both flat out reject it, in fact, Deb with a dead dad joke and Ava by grabbing a handful of M&Ms and marching out. Ava declares that she has plenty of friends in the industry who will help her out and look! There’s one now!
She pulls over on an LA street and runs up to TAYLOR, dining with her mother, and, we will learn, a showrunner with a season two pick-up. Ava asks to be hired for the writers room, but it turns out that in addition to her notorious tweet, Ava’s been self-centered, which is evidenced live in this scene as she barges in on a brunch while leaving her car blocking traffic and trying to lie about it.
Things aren’t going much better for Deborah. She learns that her ex-husband has died, news that arrives from her estranged sister. Here we get a second hint about this relationship. Ava briefly referred to Deborah as a lady who burned down her husband’s house. Now the news reports of Frank’s death and his working relationship with Deborah, they co-created a 70s sitcom together, until their marriage ended when Deborah…
Well, we don’t get to find out yet. She turns off the TV.
Marcus asks if she wants to take the night off. She refuses.
And then…bombs. Ouch.
BAD TO WORSE
Meanwhile, Ava orders food delivery alone…and then bangs the delivery guy. The next morning, Jimmy catches her in what seems to be what Ava might call her rock bottom.
But good news for us, as it’s the impetus she needs to finally agree to go meet Deborah. There’s a great LA joke in there and then it’s off to Vegas. Jimmy sets up the scene for us perfectly by asking Marcus if Deborah is in one of her bad moods or very bad moods before we get a smash cut to this interview:
Two strong-willed women with ferocious comedic instincts backed up against a wall, let’s toss them in the ring together.
ALL IS LOST
It does not go well, but the scene is sublime. Deborah is viciously astute in her appraisal at this naive young thing who showed up completely unprepared to meet with an icon. Ava is perhaps the first person to speak truthfully to Deborah in a long time, and she does so with a clever roast. By the end of the scene, the two are livid and throwing zingers like bolts of lightning. For Ava, it feels like burning her last chance to the ground, but for Deborah, it kindles something in her. Somehow, someway, she’s met her match.
Deborah asks Ava what the joke was that got her cancelled and then informs her that the problem wasn’t that Ava crossed a line (note, the title of the pilot: “There is no line” - also could serve as a motto for the series), it’s that the joke was bad.
This is the last straw and Ava declares that she finally gets why Deborah’s husband left her for her sister. It’s a deep cut.
Ava storms out and peels off in her rental car.
FINALE
Deborah chases her down in her Rolls Royce Wraith, driving Ava off the road before punching up Ava’s joke. Once Ava realizes what Deb is doing, she joins in. Together, they rewrite the problematic joke and both realize it’s pretty good.
Ava asks if she can go.
Instead of releasing her, Deb hires her.
End of pilot.
