Hacks is back! On April 10, the smash hit Max series returns, and this time the gloves are off. Season 4 will kick off with vitriol, bad feeling and blackmail — and that’s just for starters. Deadline met with the showrunners and cast to talk about imminent “divorce” and even a possible spinoff.
A slew of new guest stars have already been announced, including Julianne Nicholson and Michaela Watkins, and the new season will pick up right where the last one left off. In the Season 3 finale, Deborah (Jean Smart) had finally won her lifelong dream of hosting a late-night show, but fearful of failure at the last hurdle, she reneged on her promise to hire Ava (Hannah Einbinder) as head writer and instead chose a guy (Dan Bucatinsky) with a studio track record. But Ava has learned from the best and won’t take this lying down. She ups the ante, threatening to reveal Deborah’s dalliance with CEO Bob Lipka (Tony Goldwyn), which could cost Deborah the hosting gig and her reputation. So, right away in Season 4, relations are extremely tense.
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Deborah and Ava have had their spats before, but, as Smart tells Deadline, “This takes it to a whole new level.” She compares the relationship to a marriage. “You know there’s just that bond there, and sometimes it gets real rough.”
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“The audience is our third in our toxic relationship. It’s a three-way” Einbinder deadpans.
“We’ve always known since the beginning that it’s the thing that turns Deborah on in the [first] interview, when Ava snaps back,” says co-creator-showrunner-director Paul W. Downs, who also stars as Deborah and Ava’s manager Jimmy. “It’s kind of their love language.”
However, the trio of creator-showrunners, Downs, Jen Statsky and Lucia Aniello (who also directs) hadn’t settled on that blackmail plot point until relatively recently.
“It wasn’t until we were writing Season 3 that we knew Ava was going to blackmail her for the job and take it,” Downs says. “We always knew we wanted to get the white whale [of late-night] and we always knew there would be grist in the making of the show. But obviously this gave us some intense conflict to start with, which is fun, because it’s juicy. And as fun as it is to watch them lob barbs at each other, we got to see Ava do it in an even more intense way.”
Like Smart, Aniello compares Deborah and Ava’s relationship to a marriage. “It just felt natural that the reality of the fallout of that would be that they would be on the brink of divorce this whole time. The only thing that’s keeping them together is ‘the kids’, the show. It’s like they know they have another thing to take care of, so they have to deal with each other. So, this magical thing that binds them yet again is comedy. Even if they want to kill each other, they can’t.”
And adding to the intensity was important for keeping it real and keeping things moving. “It does set up this different dynamic for the season that is, in some ways fun, and in some ways painful,” Aniello continues. “But I think that because it’s evolving and moving as the season goes on, it doesn’t hopefully feel like it’s ever treading water, which is always the fear. It was something we were very, very cognizant of the whole time.”
“I was a little surprised that it got so contentious and so dark” Smart says of the Deborah-Ava tension, “but I didn’t have any doubt that it would work, because what they do always works.”
So, what comes next? Historically, the showrunners have named five seasons as an ideal plan. Says Statsky: “I think keeping the relationship fresh and making sure there are new places for Deborah and Ava to go, that is the beating heart of the show. If we found a way [to do more] that made sense, then maybe, yeah. But right now, that is still the plan.”
Aniello admits to feeling some anxiety about possibly letting go of Hacks. “I think as we get closer to it, we’re like, ‘Yeah, maybe not, but I’m scared and sad.’ But I do think five has always been the plan and as of this moment it doesn’t exactly feel like it’s changing. But we’re also scared and sad. So, you never know.”
As for what that fifth season could bring, Smart chooses not to speculate. “I have no idea what they have in mind, and they’ve had it in mind for years. I just haven’t asked,” she says.
But Einbinder has mulled this over and says, “I do think when I look at Ava’s life, it does feel like her whole life has been about Deborah. And I would love to see them maintain a relationship, a real relationship, whilst filling out the rest of their lives. Deborah has a grandchild. Ava should probably connect to people her age and in her community. I would love to see her nurture relationships.”
How about a Kayla and Jimmy spinoff?
“Demand it,” laughs Statsky. “We’re building up the world, you know?”
“We’re ready, we’re ready,” chimes in Aniello. “We have Randi the new assistant,” she says, referring to a new character played by Robby Hoffman, assistant to Kayla and Jimmy.
Downs points out that they even have a set for Jimmy and Kayla’s office that would work for that spinoff: “We shot in this cement building here in L.A. and then we reconstructed it on a stage, so we do have a standing set.”
Megan Stalter, who plays Kayla, already has an idea for what could happen to her. “I think it would be funny if she got pregnant and Jimmy has to help her take care of the baby,” she says. “Throw something really challenging at her and see her totally embrace it. I think something completely out of nowhere and see if she handles it well. But also seeing Jimmy get dragged into it would be really funny and bizarre. I don’t think they should be a couple, but that’s another thing, if he was to help her with her baby. It’s another element of them being like, ‘We’re not a couple, but it seems like we’re a couple.’ I want to see them raise a baby together, I want to see the baby in the office.”
But for now, back in reality, the devastating L.A. fires have made L.A. productions all the more important and poignant, and Season 4 is both set and shot in L.A. with Deborah and Ava working at Television City in West Hollywood and on the Universal Studios Lot. “The whole show is a little bit like our love letter to showbusiness, and to comedy, and the entertainment industry at large,” Downs said. “So, we are an L.A. show, even though it’s been set in Las Vegas, this is the season where we’re actually set in L.A. and we got to show L.A.” It felt important to highlight the L.A.-based crew too. “We’re going to show our crew [in Season 4],” Downs added. “Our crew is onscreen when they’re putting together Deborah’s set and Deborah’s wigs. That’s our crew making it all.”
Sadly, the Eaton fire destroyed the Altadena house that served as Deborah’s L.A. home in Seasons 2 and 3. Only the façade of the 1915 Spanish Colonial Revival mansion remained. “It was just a beautiful house. Charlie Chaplin shot something in that house. It’s been there since 1930. It’s been shot in many things,” Downs says.
Working among the Altadena community had become intrinsic to the show too. “Everybody in Altadena – where we’ve shot three seasons now, in bars, and restaurants, and on streets, and in houses – was so welcoming. As hard as that was for everybody that was affected by the fires, it’s also a moment where you’re like, ‘Wow, L.A., and what a community of people.’ People here, many of whom come out here to make it, they have a dream, and it’s so hard.”
“Altadena is the place where we shoot the show the most,” Aniello says. “The climate crisis is something that we’ve talked about in the show since the beginning. It’s becoming more and more something that not only is affecting our psyches, honestly, and everybody’s psyches, but it’s now affecting literally our work. So, it’s becoming a serious emergency that it’s affecting us all.”
In some ways life imitates art in Hacks world. As Jean and Ava have historically focused on making jokes for each other’s tastes, the showrunners do the same, bouncing ideas off each other. “The show is very autobiographical that way,” Statsky says. “We talk about that all the time. As we’ve been lucky enough to have the show get even bigger and seen by more people, I think we really come from a place of just trying to make each other laugh first, and just trying to come up with things that each other thinks are good. Because I’ve always said that Paul and Lucia are my favorite writers in the world. So, if I can do something, or write something, that they think is good, then that is my North Star.”
Hacks has already won nine Emmys, including Best Comedy Series, Writing, and Lead Actress for Smart three times – that’s every season so far. Plus an enormous list of nominations, including three in Supporting Actress for Einbinder.
Season 4 of Hacks will debut on Max with the first two episodes Thursday, April 10 at 6 p.m. PT/9 p.m. ET.
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