Jean Smart & Hannah Einbinder Talk Love and Revenge in ‘Hacks’ Season 2 (VIDEO)

Season 2 of the HBO Max comedy Hacks, which follows the unlikely working relationship between legendary comedian Deborah Vance (played with gusto by the legendary Jean Smart) and impulsive comedy writer Ava Daniels (future legend Hannah Einbinder), kicks off just after the events of the first season.

To recap, Deborah bombed her new stage material and Ava, frustrated with her boss and also heavily inebriated, sent a scathing email to TV show writers sharing much-too-much about Deborah. In the new episodes, Deborah is surprisingly energized by tanking her show and decides to hit the road to try new material. Ava, on the other hand, is trying desperately to squash her email and its contents before Deborah finds out and sends her to the unemployment line.

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“In a way, because they feel a little bit more comfortable around each other, in a way it gives Deborah at least more freedom to even be worse to [Ava] sometimes because she knows that she’s going to be forgiven even if she’s just really awful to her,” says Smart, adding they’re like two married people in terms of how they sometimes treat each other. Einbinder adds that Ava is trying to “clean up her act” by living a sober life including getting rid of her smart phone.

And is romance in the cards for either Deborah or Ava? “Ava is certainly having a blast romantically…it’s chaotic for sure,” says Einbinder, teasing we do get to see her former girlfriend Ruby in the new season.

As for Deborah, Smart says former casino boss Marty (Christopher McDonald) is always “in the wings” but adds Deborah is knocked for a loop with yet another public humiliation in the first episode but it actually ends up having a positive impact on her decision about her next steps in her fractured career.

Hacks premieres two episodes on May 12 with two new episodes every week through June 2, HBO Max