‘Hacks’: Hannah Einbinder on Why Ava Had ‘No Choice’ But to Blackmail Deborah

[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for Hacks Season 3 finale, “Bulletproof.”]

Hacks may be three seasons in, but by the finale episode of the Max comedy series’s latest chapter, it feels like Deborah Vance (Jean Smart) and Ava Daniels’ (Hannah Einbinder) story is just beginning with earlier episodes serving as the setup of the main story to come.

As fans of the show know by now, Deborah’s always wanted to live out her late-night TV dreams that were dashed earlier in her career. Once she got the call that she had the job after a laborious campaign, Deborah planned to make Ava her head writer, but fears that doing so would cost her the dream, the comedian backed out, fibbing to her young protege that the network didn’t want to shake things up that much.

When Ava learns that it was Deborah’s decision to rescind the head writer position, she uses blackmail to get it back, threatening to expose the fact that Deborah had a fling with Bob Lipka (Tony Goldwyn), the CEO of the conglomerate that owns the network Deborah’s new late-night show will air on. The cutthroat move suggests that Ava and Deborah will head into the next chapter at odds, and to say we cannot wait is a bit of an understatement.

“Ava definitely is taking a page out of Deborah’s book with that one,” Einbinder tells TV Insider about the betrayal. “And in terms of her having to kind of wield this blackmail over her head, she has to, Deborah has given her no choice and she’s actively instructed her to do this,” Einbinder points out. “So I don’t know that it’s necessarily inherent to Ava. I don’t think Ava’s changing herself. I think she’s just having to fill this role as a survival mechanism. She’s having to be selfish and look out for herself.”

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And as fans learned this season, Ava and Deborah are far less functional in their work when they aren’t together. So, as Einbinder puts it, “[Deborah] decided for Ava and also for herself, and she’s frankly wrong. I’m so on Ava’s side with this. [Deborah’s] just scared.”

“I think it would’ve been a conversation, but she just forwent that as a possibility,” Einbinder says of Deborah’s hesitance to move forward with Ava working as head writer. Since Deborah made the choice for both of them behind the scenes, Ava had to make a drastic one of a similar nature without consulting her cohort.

As for what Einbinder can share about where Deborah and Ava are when the show picks back up for Season 4, she teases, “We have discussed, so I don’t want to spoil, but I think what happens next will be as exciting as where we left off.”

For the showrunners, Jen Statsky, Lucia Aniello, and Paul W. Downs, the trio had a plan from the beginning to steer Deborah and Ava toward late night, and in turn, they’d planned this finale from the very beginning. “We always knew that this season would end with Ava needing to take the head writer position from Deborah,” Statsky says. “Ava understands that the reward is in making meaningful work and prioritizing the person you do it with, but it doesn’t matter that she knows that.”

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“And so we always knew Ava would need to start speaking Deborah’s language, and Deborah’s language is blackmail,” Statsky continues. “Ava is forced to do this thing in the finale because she both realizes it is the only way Deborah will understand her, and she’s doing it because she loves Deborah, and she wants to keep working with her and she wants to protect her.”

In other words, Ava learned from the best and is now steering things because Deborah is unable to see the success they could have if they continued to work together. “Ava wants the show to be good, and she knows that the show will be the best version of itself [by] working together. So she knows she has to do this thing. She has learned from Deborah how to do it. And now going into Season 4, they have a very new dynamic to their relationship because there is obviously going to be a lot of hurt feelings and a lot of animosity about what happened, and yet they have to make the show work because this is the biggest stage Deborah’s ever been on,” Statsky says.

“The table is set,” Aniello adds. “And the stakes are high,” Downs chimes in.

“Deborah is someone who always wants a partner,” Downs notes. “I think when we learned this season that she grew up in a house that was a little bit chaotic, and her dad was a drinker, she and her sister were a duo, they were a unit. She was her protector in many ways. And then with her husband, Frank, he was her first creative collaborator and they made comedy together, and then there was obviously that betrayal [with Kathy (J. Smith Cameron)], and she went off and did standup. Ava is the person she’s found again to be her other half.”

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But sticking with that other half is tough for Deborah. As Downs adds, “It’s really hard, whether you’re a standup or a writer. It can be so isolating and there is something so enriching to be seen by somebody when you have a shared sense of humor and you can make the other person laugh. And I think for Deborah, she wants to be understood. She wants to feel a sense of dignity after suffering so many indignities.”

Ultimately, Ava’s betrayal was forced upon the young writer who is fighting to keep them together. And as Down points out, Deborah “told her to do it. She said, ‘You’ve got to be selfish, you’ve got to be a shark.’ She always knew this was someone she could spar with. But it’s interesting. I think that turns her on too,” Downs says of Deborah.

Beyond the Ava betrayal, Deborah is also about to face another blow as Marcus (Carl Clemons-Hopkins) prepares to venture out on his own, leaving Deborah’s business dealings to Damien (Mark Indelicato). “She’s always used money and objects and all this stuff as a crutch, and Marcus is a big part of that crutch,” Aniello says. “So what happens when that crutch is kind of taken away? I think that that is something that will affect her and make her feel that much more alone.”

While Deborah may have had the metaphorical rug pulled out from under her, Aniello concludes, “If we know anything about Deborah, is when she’s pushed into a corner, she punches back.”

Hacks, Streaming now, Max