Final Season Is Hilarious and Exquisite

“Hacks” is a true sitcom in the sense that it could, in theory, go on forever. Deborah Vance (Jean Smart) and Ava Daniels (Hannah Einbinder) are a bonafide workaholics, which means they enjoy doing the same thing over and over, which provides a strong foundation for a situational comedy. As a comedian and a comedy writer, respectively, they can’t stop writing jokes, rewriting jokes, telling jokes, rewriting each joke again, sharing the final version of each joke with an audience, and then starting the whole process over the second another opportunity for laughs presents itself.

It’s an ideal story engine for a sitcom because the characters are the engine; they keep finding and setting new challenges for themselves, whether it’s reimagining a star’s approach to stand-up (Season 1), honing that style into an hourlong special (Season 2), leveraging her success to land one of the last remaining late-night gigs (Seasons 3 and 4), and doing it all while forging an intimate working relationship amid generational, political, and personal differences. Deborah and Ava get to develop while their process, for the most part, remains the same — and remains funny.

But one issue facing sitcoms without an obvious endpoint is finding an ending that works. When “Hacks” dropped its Season 2 finale, some thought the series wouldn’t be able to find a better goodbye — but that was never the creators’ intention, nor would it have held up with fans given how much was left unresolved. (A big part of Season 2 saw Deborah learning to balance professional and personal fulfillment. Pushing Ava away may have helped the young writer find her own voice, but Deborah was also falling back into bad patterns: alienating another loved one while using work as an excuse.)

Since then, “Hacks” has seen a lot of success — and not just at the Emmys. (Season 3 won Best Comedy Series, among the show’s 11 additional trophies.) Between the character growth among its sterling ensemble and the shrieks of laughter they’ve elicited, the final season could easily coast on sentiment, conjuring as many tears as titters in what would amount to little more than a 10-episode victory lap.

But that’s not the “Hacks” way. In a sense, co-creators Lucia Aniello, Paul W. Downs, and Jen Statsky take the pressure off themselves by making their goodbye as funny as possible, as often as possible. The first three episodes rank among the series’ most hilarious entries, the rest keep the spirit up well beyond an expected pivot into sentiment, and there’s a sequence with Kaitlin Olson that’s so astounding I feel more compelled than ever to violate my embargo. (I’m not allowed to mention anything about her guest spot — the episode, the premise, maybe even that it exists, but I guess I’ll find out when this review runs.)

Entering the season, Deborah returns to Las Vegas where her fans are still under the illusion she’s dead. While mourning her terminated late-night show by performing the only way her NDA allowed — via a translator at a resort casino in Singapore — TMZ ran a false report that she’d passed away. News of her continued survival hasn’t spread yet, but reading her own obituaries sends Deborah into action: She can’t be remembered for losing her dream gig and then limping off into the sunset. She has to do something else! Something bigger! Something that will ensure her legacy is as fabulous as her life.

Spending its final season desperately searching for a way to one-up its last season, while ensuring the series goes out on its own terms, is just the right level of meta for “Hacks.” How Deborah sets the record straight, once and for all, may not be as convincing as some may hope, but the spirit of her choice matters more than the specifics. Deborah decides to keep working, keep growing, and “Hacks” does, too, right alongside her.

There are hiccups, of course. A few episodes get a little too preachy about cultural erasure, especially when centering AI as a plagiarism machine, and there are a few clunky moments when the provided narrative doesn’t fully line up with the reality of the situation. The penultimate episode rushes through its climax, but even that brief disappointment, in hindsight, feels like a choice meant to foreground what really matters.

“Hacks” Season 5 is funny — giddily so. But arguing the final season takes the easy way out by prioritizing jokes over deeper drama a) wouldn’t be wholly accurate, given the two times I cried, and b) would also be antithetical to a series that’s always valued sublime comedy above all else (not to mention a genre that’s too often treated like a second-fiddle to serious art). “Hacks” lives alongside its lead characters, inviting us into their worldview so that we never want to leave. That’s another hallmark of a great sitcom, and Season 5 leaves no doubt that “Hacks” belongs among the greats.

Grade: A-

“Hacks” Season 5 premieres Thursday, April 9 at 9 p.m. ET on HBO Max. New episodes will be released weekly — with two episodes on April 30 and May 7 — through the series finale on May 28.