Review: Hacks, "The Deborah Vance Christmas Spectacular" & "Yes, And"| Season 3, Episodes 7 & 8
There's an important lesson in here about having a snowball fight with fake snow
Even comedies need stakes. Without some sense that characters are taking risks that may not pay off, a story loses all sense of tension—why get invested in something with a foregone conclusion?
Hacks is a show predicated on stakes. Deborah and Ava are both hanging onto the comedy world by a thread when the show begins, with Deborah’s grip on her hacky old material all that saves her from complete irrelevance, and Ava desperate to be let back in thanks to her own mistakes. The entirety of their connection is a risk: a gamble that they’re good for each other, and that letting the other person in is going to benefit them professionally and personally.
This reality is what makes it all the more disappointing that the late night show failure is dealt with in the span of one episode. What were the stakes here? It’s the most crushing possible thing that could happen to Deborah at this point in her life! That has real meaning in the context of this show, where Ava has spent three sea…