Hacks Recap: Woman on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown

We are so back! After last week’s wheel-spinning, we get an episode packed with what Hacks does best: emotional devastation laced with jokes and a big, earned, vulnerable scene with Deborah and Ava. But let’s take it from the top. Deborah is “winning” (it’s a publicity stunt sponsored by the network) the “Courage in Comedy Award” (not a real thing) in the hopes of giving the show a much-needed boost (Cher dropped out as tomorrow’s guest: “She, quote, ‘doesn’t want to do it.’”). And Ava is losing her mind.

Per my previous email, Ava is in over her head at a job for which she was underqualified, and, inevitably, she is starting to crack. She has tried so hard to get everyone to like her that she has failed to do what good managers do: manage people. Ava thinks she needs to keep morale up with group birthday celebrations and subsidized lunches — I loved watching Ava wrestle all those balloons into submission only to see Deborah stab every single one — while Deborah’s take, as you might expect, is very “that’s what the money is for.” Also, great moment when Deborah says Ava can’t be friends with her staff, not because she’s their boss but “because you’re annoying.” To top it all off, Ava’s ex Ruby is going to be the guest tomorrow. She’s promoting Wolfgirl. Remember Wolfgirl?

Deborah’s new Marcus, Damien, is off on a long, convoluted voyage to get a proprietary blend of bear urine in Wyoming to finally deal with the coyote problem. Meanwhile, DJ is ten days overdue and desperate to induce labor; she calls her mom to say she wants “someone I can trust” to be with her for the delivery, and before Deborah can demur that she’s too busy to make it, DJ interjects: “I meant Josefina.” So Deborah is alone on the ranch. Just Deborah and the dogs and the coyotes. Probably everything will be fine!

Ava rises at dawn to get a makeover at the mall to prepare to see her gorgeous, successful ex-girlfriend. This is going to be the high point of her day. It also means she will be having a meltdown with Marnie-at-the-wedding makeup on. Incredible gag. Ruby is very cool about the whole thing, and Ava really does her best to keep it together, so she is pretty much a disaster. Ruby has a girlfriend? Whatever, Ava has a girlfriend and a boyfriend!

But Deborah only likes three of the 20 jokes Ava brought her for the desk bit, “Apologies,” that Ava was literally just bragging about. Ava sprints through the halls as heightened violins play; she and her team have 30 minutes to come up with better alts. When Ava returns, Deborah complains that now there are too many jokes, and actually, never mind, she’s just going to cut it. This means Ruby will be on for another act, insult upon humiliation. And it only gets worse from there: To fill this newly empty time, Deborah springs an unrehearsed anecdote (poor form! You know the rivalry is a problem when it makes Deborah sloppy at her job!) on her guest: the story about how Ava thought Ruby’s Wolfgirl ring was a real engagement ring, and how Ava tried to propose with it. Deborah’s kicker is funny — “And with a bezel marquise cut, too! No wonder she’s an ex.” I’d like to note that while Deborah has returned to her signature hairstyle, she’s kept the open desk for maximum leg visibility. (Also, the tag at the end of that segment: “Up next: Dance Mom!” Hmmm.)

Backstage, Ruby is genuinely apologetic and Ava is a very good sport. Deborah returns home to her beautiful corgis and a message from Josefina reminding her to lock the doggy door because of the coyotes. By this point, I am extremely stressed out!!!

Ava tries to turn her night around by swinging by Emily and Dev’s unannounced to terrify them and then jump straight into having sex. Alas, Dev and Emily aren’t really feeling it anymore; they’re looking for an emotional connection, and Ava isn’t down to be vulnerable. The exceptionally astute Emily points out that Ava doesn’t seem like she’s over her last relationship. Ava, of course, lashes out. “You guys wanna be monogamous now?” Emily: “No, we’re dumping you, and you’re making it really hard.” At least Ava caught her key on the return toss single-handedly. Dropping it and having to fumble around on the floor would have killed her for sure.

The next day at the office, Deborah is in her version of hell, shooting content for social with Jake Shane of TikTok fame. (“You’re going to pretend to catch a bag of Fritos from Mariska Hargitay!”) She is too caught up in her own thing to see that Ava is in the midst of a crisis. Her breezy refusal to apologize about the Ruby interview is met with a very steely “fuck you” from Ava, who returns to the writers’ room to discover that a member of her slacker staff skipped half a day of work to get a tooth gem at the orthodontist. (It was for her mental health, okay? “Smiling without a tooth gem was really affecting my self-esteem.”) Obviously they have a group chat without Ava — Ava’s the boss, they should have a chat without her — but the brazen disrespect culminates in the reveal of a $72 branzino they added to the lunch order for “Mrs. Table,” their code name for the extra food they order (“for the table”), which Ava has been paying for herself. I was thrilled to see Ava finally lay down the law with these dweebs, but I was hoping it would end in her firing somebody, maybe tooth-gem girl. Alas, after a meltdown about how she gets in at 5:30 in the morning — so early she once walked in on the janitor jerking off, “and I didn’t even report it because he probably doesn’t make a living wage!!” — Ava hurls the branzino at the wall, announces that she’s quitting, and scream-drives through the security gate.

Rob pops in on Deborah’s endless social-media efforts — she’s nominating Barry Keoghan to do the chicken-dance challenge to support arthritis research, NOT arthritis — to let her know that Ava, apparently, had a psychotic break, so they’ll have to do the show without her. The show apparently goes smoothly, but Ava’s absence unsettles Deborah. She dons her fabulous coat to look through her (former??) head writer’s deserted office. In Ava’s desk, she finds that framed picture of young Deborah.

At these sham awards, Deborah meets Rosie O’Donnell, who reminds her to celebrate even these little, fake wins, like for instance the Crystal Pepsi Award for Clarity in Comedy. “Focus on the days you spend laughing your ass off with your favorite people in the world,” Rosie says before asking Deborah for the secret: How did she get better? Was it ayahuasca? Deborah is thinking of Ava but can’t bring herself to say it.

When she gets home, the house is quiet. Too quiet. There is only one corgi. Deborah saves her precious Barry from a would-be dog-killing coyote by throwing her (evidently not useless!) comedy award at it to scare that attacker off. She is in pieces. Having now been emotionally primed to imagine life without a small redhead upon whom she has come to rely, Deborah springs into action to find Ava, who is still missing and who, according to Kayla, is likely dead. (“Statistically, at this point, we’re looking for a body.”)

Fortunately, a lovely young woman at “girl twirl” in Silver Lake — a night of gay line dancing! — shows Deborah how to check her FindMy, which Deborah has enabled for Ava. It’s so beautiful to see the surveillance state bringing people together <3. Deborah finds Ava at the beach — this is pretty far from Silver Lake, right? Perhaps Deborah’s willingness to schlep across town is an even truer sign of devotion than what comes next. Deborah sees an Ava-like woman in the water, and she DIVES IN AFTER HER, in her fur coat, because Ava, as you may recall, cannot swim! I need you all to promise me you will never do this. Swimming alone?! At NIGHT. As a former lifeguard, I cannot condemn this enough.

The water is frigid and the woman is not Ava. Deborah returns to shore, where Ava is just walking along the beach. Ava explains her situation: “I’m not suicidal. I just wanna die!” Anyway, if Ava were going to kill herself, she wouldn’t walk into the ocean. Deborah knows exactly what Ava would do, and so they finish this thought in unison: She’d wear a suicide vest on Watch What Happens Live. 

It’s nice for balance that, after an episode in which Ava looked like a clownish version of herself, Deborah is giving drowned-rat-chic. They debrief at the Slippery Oyster, where Ava thanks Deborah for “ruining your second-favorite fur” in an attempt to save Ava’s life. Then they get into the real stuff: Deborah says Ava will regret quitting; she apologizes for setting Ava up to fail and begs for another chance she knows she doesn’t deserve. Ava confesses that she thinks Deborah was right to pass her over for the gig in the first place and, to Deborah’s promises, she pleads with her to stop. “When you say that, I want to believe you. But you always let me down.”

Not only does Ava not trust Deborah, she says, she doesn’t even know Deborah’s voice. Deborah says, “You are my voice.” Is this the nicest thing Deborah has ever said … to anyone? Ava admits that she “kinda hates” Deborah now, and Deborah assures her this makes her part of a “vibrant community” of haters. And Ava’s been so lonely! So that’s probably really nice to hear.

They agree to a new vision wherein they will make this show for each other. They are letting go of their data-obsessed decision-making. (So no more Dance Mom? A recapper can hope!) What if they just tried to have fun? What if they bonded over the things they can share, like how much they hate Stacy and her refusal to wear deodorant? They are laughing together for the first time since blackmail!

Ava retrieves the Champagne from her trunk, which has been in there for months. It’s awful. And they drink it straight from the bottle.