Spoilers ahead!
Art is an indomitable creature. It contains multitudes, it’s complex, and it can’t please everyone everywhere at the same time. However, as Deborah Vance and Ava discover in tonight's episode of Hacks, when you’re hosting/writing for a late-night TV show it's essential to find a balance between transforming your artistic urges into an authentically good work of art and giving the masses the content they want. Basically, art vs content, the well-thought, sagacious humor vs the fast-generated, simple but widely appealing TikTok-esque content. Or, in other words: Deb, who wants to be sure her program is as relatable to all audiences and as marketable as possible versus Ava, who wants it to keep being artistic and authentic as it is. Will they be able to find a balance?
Clickable Face starts with a focus group for Deb’s program, which is how the network discovers that while the show appeals to the male audience in general, women — especially the older ones — are not that interested. And as this age group is a very profitable one, as they buy lots of stuff, the network is interested in finding a way to draw their attention to Deb’s show. How this will be done is the point of the episode.
| "Clickable Face” - HACKS. Pictured: Julianne Nicholson as The Dancing Mom. Photo: Jake Giles Netter/Max ©2025 HBO Max, Inc. All Rights Reserved |
Kayla and Jimmy start searching for people who can guest and bring their followers with them, and that’s when they find the Dancing Mom, brilliantly played by Julianne Nicholson. Deborah searches for big Hollywood stars, and as she discovers many of them are unavailable, she decides to take matters into her own hands and stalks Kristen Bell (who plays herself in a quick, funny cameo) to convince her to guest in the program (the cameos don’t end here; Jimmy Kimmel also appears later to fight with Deborah, as Kristen Bell is already committed to his show, thus being unavailable to make any appearances in Deb’s). Finally, Ava is dissatisfied with the direction the show is taking, slowly realizing that much of its complexity and appeal, not only to her friends and acquaintances but also to herself, is going away.
You can't please everyone!
If last week’s I Love LA left me teary and happy because of how much Deborah and Ava have evolved, tonight’s episode had me laughing multiple times while also making me think about this interesting conflict. The ones dealing with the entertainment business make art sometimes, while frequently having to entertain. But they are always dealing with a business. That makes the episode intriguing because both sides are right — and even if I side with Ava here for most of the time, I don’t think Deb is entirely in the wrong for her decisions. Maybe changing the hair and showing the ankles was too much (the show is hitting the nail on the head when it comes to showcasing how sexism and misogyny can hide in the details), but the Dancing Mom bit? That was something so silly, and yet so entertaining, I can see why it worked that much on the audience. I think Deb and Ava will struggle to find a middle ground in the upcoming episodes, and that’s very exciting!
Anyway, apart from the iconic cameos that surely will have people talking about, this episode also has two scenes of Deborah and Ava fighting that are so important, well-acted, well-directed, and honestly mesmerizing that I just cannot leave them out of this review. The first one happens at a restaurant; Deb is having dinner with a recent guest from her show and she meets Ava having a date with Emily and Dev, the couple she met in the previous episode. Deborah seems to feel torn and jealous, and she starts acting weird quickly, creating this tense scenario (but hilarious in a “laughing from anxiety” way) in which she starts to ruin Ava’s date — until Deb mentions her show and Ava reveals that she’s not recommending people to watch it anymore — not until it gets good again.
You wanna be an ice queen in your personal relationships? Go ahead! But if you want the audience to like you, you need to let them get to know you!
| "Clickable Face” - HACKS. Pictured: Hannah Einbinder as Ava, Michaela Watkins as Stacey, Jean Smart as Deborah Vance. Photo: Max ©2025 HBO Max, Inc. All Rights Reserved |
This scene serves as a build-up to the episode’s climax, when Ava and Deb fight in front of the show’s audience, unintentionally causing Stacey, the HR lady, to suffer an accident. After this, Stacey snaps at them, screaming at both of Ava and Deb’s faces some words she’s been keeping inside herself for a long time. Michaela Watkins has been such a great addition this season, and in this episode, specifically in this scene, she has the opportunity to shine remarkably.
Of course, Jean Smart and Hannah Einbinder are outstanding, gracious, and funny as always — I think they might be getting even better at this if that’s possible. It’s hard to find a TV show nowadays as consistent as Hacks, in terms of writing, acting, and production; they are constantly upping their game and delivering banger after banger. Smart and Einbinder are an enormous part of why that’s true, and that episode proves it, as their late-night show creates another (generational? creative? are we ever talking only about work when it comes to these two?) challenge for them.
This episode doesn’t provide easy answers or definite solutions, as it ends with the Dancing Mom performance with Deborah (their dance was so fun!!!) and with Ava looking defeated and hopeless, so it’s reasonable to think that this conflict will last at least for a while. And I can’t wait for all the crazy, playful, deeply emotional things that will happen this season. As the credit song says, love is a fire, everyone, love is a fire… And Hacks is still burning as bright as always.
Hacks is available on MAX. Feel free to leave a comment with your thoughts about it, and thanks for reading!
