In “Hacks,” a new series from HBO Max, Jean Smart plays a Las Vegas-based comedian at the dawn of the twilight of her career, who — by the will of series creators Paul W.
She lives in a home that is big enough to contain half a dozen others, owns a private plane, is prepared to spend $10,000 for a salt shaker, has set a Vegas performance record and is about to have a street named after her .
Jimmy manages more or less to trick them into a meeting, mostly to get them out of his hair, and Ava flies to Las Vegas where she pays Deborah some vague, insincere compliments without knowing her work at all.
What are we learning here, other than that it’s a drag getting old or that young people can be arrogant both about what they know and what they don’t think is worth knowing? I was disgruntled for a while, I must admit, and kept measuring plot points for plausibility.
Deborah has employees, who make a kind of family, most notably her gyroscopically even-keeled COO and factotum Marcus, played by Carl Clemons-Hopkins.
Of the two of them, Deborah seems the wiser, if only by seniority, though we are treated to enough shots of Smart out of makeup and looking tired to sense that she has something to learn.
Comedy itself is only occasionally the subject and when it is discussed, it’s as a philosophical reflection of their generational difference.
If Smart isn’t entirely convincing as a stand-up comic — I go back and forth as to whether this is a feature or a bug, or both, given that we’re to understand her as both immensely talented and need of a jolt — the scenes with her onstage are brief and infrequent.
Even when she is playing someone hard-edged, on edge or energetic, there is a languorous quality to Smart’s work; she leaves a viewer feeling good, even when her character might be bad.
Apart from the emotional connection that is the actual and important goal, the stakes are relatively low, a question of whether Ava will get Deborah to switch to confessional comedy, Deborah will get to play Fridays and Saturday or DJ will get her jewelry line onto QVC.
The funniest TV show of the year, about a ‘90s girl group fashioning a comeback, also has some real bops.