Hacks Recap: A Long Day at the Office

Deborah is making the victory-lap rounds, tearing up for Katie Couric as she talks about getting her dream, the wisdom she has for young girls (“If the salad dressing is white, it’s not healthy”), and her sister’s “struggles with illiteracy,” which of course we know is a lie. (Deborah wishes she were still getting voice notes from the sister who decided it was best to go, as DJ would say, NC.) Meanwhile, everyone is wondering what’s going on with Winnie — she could be in charge of the newly formed “Plubo,” which is basically this tweet. They all walk into the office ready to work, and who is at the head of the conference table but BOB.

Deborah is about to find out something I’m frankly surprised she didn’t realize already — and in fact, a LOT of her behavior in this episode feels a little like that of someone much younger/less experienced than she is — which is this: Winnie had been running interference for her behind the scenes to protect her from the meddling hands of suits like Bob, and Deborah’s job is going to be a lot tougher without her than it ever was with her.

“Pretend I’m not here,” says the person capable of firing every single person in this room, before telling Deborah that — surprise! He’s the one who has been asking them to book Ethan from Shadow Soldiers, a.k.a. the domestic abuser and sexual predator they already rejected. Ava is appalled at how swiftly Deborah consents. Bob is only interested in synergy and either does not know or (more likely) does not care about Ethan’s horrific misconduct. On the bright side, Sally Field is a yes to Celebrity Strip Poker, “as long as we can guarantee that she can be topless,” Jimmy reports. “She is looking good and feeling great.” (Cher is still a no.)

Back at Jimmy and Kayla’s office, Kayla is “working from home,” which is disconcerting, and the Fatty Arbuckle movie is having issues with its Norwegian shoot, so we can make a plug for bringing production back to Los Angeles. (Brazen as the shouting-through-the-screen is here, I support this!) And Lassie bit someone, again. Oh, and Dance Mom is MIA. She’s on the lot, but no one can find her, and no, she’s not on the Harry Potter ride where she likes to take her top off before they take her picture. Together, Jimmy and Kayla give us a tour of the Paramount lot. Wow, Hacks really loves the Paramount lot tour! Is this our fourth lot-tour joke of the season? Not mad, just pointing it out. Finally, thanks to Randi’s sleuthing (she hacked into Dance Mom’s iCloud; the password was “deesnutz69”), Jimmy and Kayla find Dance Mom barely conscious on Wisteria Lane.

I’m not a medical expert — I haven’t even started The Pitt yet — but it’s pretty clear that Dance Mom needs medical attention. Jimmy agrees, but Rob doesn’t want to hear it: A sexual predator learned her idiotic dance, and therefore the show must go on. Ethan’s already being interviewed by Deborah, who is very generous and charming and only makes one liiiiiittle crack about his “secret Snapchat,” which he was 1,000 percent using to sext literal children. No business like show business!!

Backstage, we are treated to an incredible advertisement for cocaine in the workplace. Love Kayla screaming at Jimmy for not knowing what a “gator tail” is (“Go to ONE PARTY, Jimmy!”) and Dance Mom’s petulant wail that Jimmy “BOOF IT” as she sticks her ass in the air. They manage to get the good stuff in her (nose), and she makes it onstage. Jimmy is horrified. Kayla is thrilled. “That’s the job, princess!” Jimmy cannot be here, and so he drives his golf cart off the lot and into the wild.

After taping wraps, Ethan and his team “ask” (they are insisting) that the Snapchat joke be removed for air. Deborah acquiesces immediately; Ava is livid. Unfortunately, Ava takes her anger to the dumbest place possible this side of the internet: the host of On the Contrary, whom she sees at a bar and to whom she spills the entire story. I canNOT believe she would be so careless and trusting! Yet another point in this episode hanging on these professionals behaving in ways that just didn’t track with their actual experience. I know that we need them to make mistakes and take big swings to move the plot forward, but it felt far more likely that Ava would have, let’s say, vented to some safe party about this (Kiki? Her mom?) on the phone and been overheard by Lewis, rather than tell Lewis directly.

The next day, Jimmy is still MIA. Kayla gets back to their office to find that the official sign came in, and Jimmy put her name first. Randi tells Kayla that Jimmy is “a sweet man.” I’ve really enjoyed Randi! Wish we saw more of her this season. Over at the Late Night offices, Cece tells Deborah and Ava that the network has been contacted for comment for, what else? An On the Contrary segment about censoring the Ethan interview. Ava fesses up to Deborah that she told Lewis and says she’ll do her best to convince him not to run it. They summon Kayla and ask for Jimmy, but Kayla — realizing now how good Jimmy has been to her and how everyone, including Kayla, has taken him for granted — reams out her biggest client (unless you count Lassie) for never acknowledging Jimmy’s work. Loved the moment where Kayla just called Deborah “Earrings.”

Ava tries to get Lewis to kill the segment, saying it will cost her her job, but he refuses, reminding her that her favorite thing about his show was its integrity. She replies that was only “before it personally inconvenienced me,” which, you know what? I respect the honesty! Also really appreciate her punting their ball away, yelling about how annoying it is that they have enough time to play basketball. Ahh, the leisurely lifestyle of the one-show-a-week model! While Ava destroys an afternoon pick-up game, Bob calls Deborah into his office. He knows Ava’s the leak, and he needs her “gone.” Deborah tries to fight for Ava’s job, but Bob is unmoved: “Fire her, or the show is done.”

Deborah finds Jimmy at home, expresses her genuine appreciation for him, and then loops him in on her big plan. We do not see what the plan is, and this is our first sign that the plan is not “doing what Bob told her to do” (which would be a bit of a retread anyway, betrayal-wise). When Ava tells Deborah she couldn’t get Lewis to pull the piece, Deborah is disconcertingly calm about it — sign No. 2! — and tells Ava to get down to the red carpet for a silly Oscars bit. Ava is too relieved to realize something is amiss. On the red carpet, she bumps into Winnie, who reveals that (1) Deborah is the one who got her axed and (2) she, Winnie, was Deborah’s biggest ally. Did Deborah really think Winnie was asking about the spinoff because she loooooves derivative nonsense? Winnie is a friend of cinema! She started her career PA’ing for Terrence Malick! Even though I am rooting for Deborah, I am fully Team Winnie here. Ava barely has time to process this new information before finding out that she was not added to the Oscars credentials list after all. And when she gets back to the lot, she discovers that her pass no longer works.

As Ava scrambles to get inside the building, Deborah takes the stage. She graciously thanks everyone who has made her show happen, including her “brilliant, brilliant plastic surgeon” and “my head writer, Ava Daniels.” She announces — to all the world, on live television — that she’s been asked to fire Ava “by the head of this company. But I won’t do that.” She explains what really happened, says that she “loves” Ava (!!!), and announces that this will be her last show. In the control room, Jimmy’s arc of learning to stand up for himself really delivers here, as Bob demands they cut the feed and Jimmy refuses to do it, instead knocking Bob’s phone out of his hand so they can tussle for it on the ground. Proud of you, Jimmy! For these efforts, he is violently thrown out on the concrete. But Kayla is there to tend to his wounds, apologize for calling him a little bitch (“I didn’t know you called me that”), and take him to urgent care. What a couple of business guys.

“This was my dream,” Deborah tells her audience, getting emotional just before the feed is cut. “But the dream changed, and so did I.”

Deborah and Ava find each other in the parking lot and share a big, cathartic hug. Deborah says there’s no show without Ava and she had to keep the kid off the lot to stop her from saving the show. It’s all very sweet until they almost get run over by Bob, in disbelief that Deborah would blow up her whole career for Ava. He reminds her of the terms of their contract, which, as you might expect, all but forbids her from even singing in the shower without empowering the network to sue her to pieces. “We own you.”

Hmmm … I don’t know about this! Deborah’s been on the air for like, 20 minutes, so just from a story perspective, it feels like we could’ve gotten a lot more out of her trying to make it in the late-night game. And I get that she cares more about comedy than shareholders, but I just don’t know if I buy that she would blow it all up like this — and I definitely don’t buy that Deborah, who is famously petty and litigious, would go through with this without consulting a lawyer first. This is what I mean about everyone behaving in ways that just do not align with how savvy they are, in the world of the show. There is no way that Deborah — industry veteran who has been in many a contract dispute — wouldn’t have considered her ironclad noncompete. Her interaction with Bob makes it look like she either didn’t know about it (impossible) or forgot about it (extremely unlikely). If anything, it feels like her more likely, strategic move would’ve been to keep doing the show, but in such a wild and unfriendly-to-the-studio way as to bait Bob into firing her, which (presumably) would free her from those restrictions. It also would’ve been fun to watch! Instead she is as down-and-out as ever, and it’s as much her fault as Bob’s, no?