Good things come to those who wait. And when it comes to Hacks, British audiences really have had to wait: season two aired on Prime Video in 2022 but it’s only this year that we’ve been able to (legally) enjoy further instalments. However, there is a silver lining to this lengthy delay. After the famine comes the feast. It’s time to overdo it; to wallow in not one but two seasons of the sharpest comedy on television. The third season finally showed up (along with, helpfully for latecomers, seasons one and two) on Sky Max earlier this year. And now, season four is here, as savagely hilarious as ever.
It’s surely beyond debate that misanthropic Vegas stand-up Deborah Vance (Jean Smart) and her jaded younger joke-writer Ava Daniels (Hannah Einbinder) are the most entertaining toxic, co-dependent double act on television. What’s also notable, though, is that in their love, their hatred, their fury and their mutual redemption, they’re performing a valuable societal service. As Western democracies continue to flail hopelessly through various depressing iterations of culture war, Deborah and Ava are that rarest of things: a boomer and a Gen-Zer teaching each other some valuable life lessons.
