I spent so long waiting for the first season of Hacks (Amazon Prime Video) to come to British screens that it is a pleasant surprise to see the second arrive so soon. I assumed we would be in the middle of a monkeypox lockdown and on Boris Johnson’s seventh no-confidence vote by the time it showed up, but here we are. Hacks managed to take the fairly unappealing prospect – on paper, at least – of a comedy about comedy writing and turn it into one of the best debuts of recent times. Any concerns that it may be insular and self-referential were quickly dispelled. It was a complete delight, and balanced its sweet and sour notes with absolute precision.
Hacks took the famous Deborah Vance (Jean Smart), a veteran standup and master of selling leggings on shopping channels, holed up in her gold-plated mansion in Las Vegas but worried she is becoming irrelevant, and paired her with Ava Daniels (Hannah Einbinder), a young comedy writer from Los Angeles, recently cancelled, who brings up composting and colonial legacies at every opportunity. It was a culture-clash comedy that mocked the generation gap, but it was much more than that, too. It was about women, work, money, sacrifice and friendship – all of it doused in vinegar. The first season ended with operatic flair, with Ava betraying Deborah by airing her well-guarded secrets to the producers of a TV show about a British politician that we soon find out is called Bitch PM. The star they say is attached to it makes me wish it was a real series.
