Jean Smart Made Sure We Got Hacked

The beautiful thing about Hacks is that over five seasons, it knew what it was and stayed what it was. It began as a two-hander starring two very unsentimental broads and stayed a two-hander betwe– okay, well, hang on. (tap to view stories)

Yes, Hacks is, and was always meant to be a cross-generational platonic love story of two unlikely best-friends. But it also became a cross- …temperament(?) love story of two unlikely business partners who are also best friends, in situations when and if they manage to stay alive.  We’ll always have Schaefer and LuSaque, and we’ll always have Meg Stalter and Paul W. Downs on the red carpet, at least in our memories. Because this has to be an all-time best, the one they know they’re going out on… right?

I don’t know what will happen if one of them is nominated for a future project alone, you know?  I want the best for all of them, sure, but at this point a red carpet appearance from either without the other is going to feel like, you know, a salt shaker without pepper.

But even though Meg Stalter’s look is clearly an all-timer, designed to leave us wanting more, and even though Hacks has been universally beloved and is leaving at a peak, doesn’t mean Jean Smart, 5-time winner for 5 seasons, in what is, realistically, the role of lifetime, is going to let us get sentimental.

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Only she gets to be sentimental.

(I could quibble about her use of ‘girls’ vs. ‘men’, but in the words of Jean herself, “...she’s old!”)

I do think that, while we’ve given exactly appropriate amounts of love to Smart and Hannah Einbinder, the praise for Aniello, Downs, and Statsky is underplayed – maybe because three showrunners makes it look that much easier, or because they always manage to play off each other in the press and in their social media (@luciaaniellosetfits is an inspiration to anyone who’s ever wondered if they should try not to wear jeans to set, again) so nobody really knows just how incredible an achievement this show has been – and how revolutionary the three-showrunner structure is.  Maybe that’s why the show got to be so happy, so generous with money and airtime, and so relevant without being schmaltzy.

We’ve been rewatching Broad City at our house, the show these three did before Hacks, and it’s got the same DNA – tons of heart but no whiff of sentiment, and always squarely to and from the POV of women.  Everyone’s career is of course well-gilded from here on in, but on a purely emotional level, I’m most worried about Hannah Einbinder, who’s seemed on the verge of tears for at least a year.

For the rest of us, I can’t wait to see what this troika brings us next. It won’t be a big deal, I’m sure – just a show with characters I’ve already loved but didn’t know I needed, that will make me feel stuff but get me to laugh so I don’t get embarrassed that I had an outward emotion about fictional characters. No big deal, and sure, I can wait a year or five… I probably won’t even miss any of the members of this comedy family, like, even almost at all.