Predicting the End of 'Hacks' Using Reversals in the TV Comedy-Drama

In Queer Cinema Catchup’s latest video essay, I examined how the use of reversals throughout a television series can, when considered alongside tone and character development, help us predict where a show might ultimately end. Specifically, this video essay, applies this lens of reversals to the acclaimed comedy-drama Hacks, returning for its fourth season on April 10th. Warning – both the video and this blog contain spoilers for Hacks, Succession, The Good Place, Mad Men, Lost, and Barry.

Crucially, Hacks is a comedy-drama. Most comedies, especially the sitcom, strive to bring its characters and their external circumstances back to the status quo of the series at the end of each and every episode. For example, even if Jim Halpert organizes an Olympics while his boss Michael and arch-nemesis Dwight Schrute are out buying a condo, the audience knows Jim won’t lose his job; the employees of the Office will return next episode for more awkward and mundane hilarity at Dunder Mifflin.

But that’s not Hacks, a comedy-drama, even in it has won numerous comedy awards at the Emmys and Golden Globes over the course of its run. Hacks will make you laugh, but it also regularly steals from the playbook of great TV drama by relying on the reversal, or the unexpected turn of events that flip a narrative situation on its head, often leading to a major shift in a protagonist’s fortunes or audience expectations. It would be like if Michael came back from his condo tour, and, instead of him getting emotional as he’s awarded a gold medal for closing on some property, he fires everyone, leaving us to find out what each respective employee gets up to in the face of unemployment for the rest of the season. That’s not to say comedies don’t use reversals – think of the occasions when Dwight was able to get the best of Jim - but it doesn’t fundamentally alter the world in the same way as it can in the best dramas.

Comedy-dramas do a little of both. Shake up and affirm the Status Quo. For Hacks, it’s best to turn to the wise words of @wombpatrol who once tweeted: hacks is succession for gay people who also watched succession.

This tweet is hilarious because it’s exceptionally accurate. Let’s look at Succession and specifically the relationship between the aging, but powerful; nasty, yet magnetic media mogul Logan Roy and his ambitious, yet feckless; outwardly confident, but inwardly insecure and, if we’re honest, a little cringe addict son Kendall who hopes to succeed him as the head of their conglomerate Waystar Royco.

In the first season finale, Kendall attempts a hostile takeover of Waystar but then consumes drugs at his sister’s wedding and accidentally kills a man in a car accident; his father helps cover it up and Kendall must abandon his takeover and accept the embrace of a man who knows his “number one boy” doesn’t have what it takes. This ultimately reveals the underlying dynamic driving the show: in spite of his children’s search for validation and approval and success in their dad’s own image, Logan’s always going to come out on top. That’s the status quo of Succession.

Unlike a comedy (though it’s worth noting Succession does have (satirical and biting) jokes), Succession will nevertheless seriously explore the possibility that that status quo might not last forever. When a scandal with Waystar’s cruise line threatens to destroy the company at the end of season 2, Logan tells Kendall he must serve as a “blood sacrifice’ and take the fall for the company’s gross negligence. Instead, Kendall steps into the role of Whistleblower, claiming his father knew about the abuse on the cruise line and company’s subsequent cover-up during a live TV interview.

Is that not strikingly similar to the season 3 finale of Hacks where Debroah Vance – a powerful bully like Logan Roy - decides not to offer the top writer job of the late-night show she and Ava have worked so tirelessly to secure for Debroah to Ava – an ambitious, ineffective, albeit more talented striver like Kendall Roy. Debroah assumes Ava will just take the insult of the lesser job, as she’s taken much of her employer-slash-creative soulmate-slash abuser’s shit over the course of a few seasons.

In the past, we’ve seen Ava lash out in covert ways that she’s immediately attempted to undo – voicemails rife with personal attacks; emails to other creatives seeking to make TV shows about mean boss ladies – but this time she takes a more calculated, Debroah-like approach, showing up on Debroah’s first day on the job, making Debroah think she’s accepted her place as a meager staff writer, that their dynamic will remain the same forever. Instead, Ava threatens Debroah; tells her she will reveal Debroah has recently slept with the owner of the network unless Debroah gives Ava the top writer job after all.

You wouldn’t, Debroah says

I would. Wouldn’t you? Ava replies

In other words, she’s learned from the machinations of her boss, much as Kendall had learned from the father who didn’t think his son had that killer instinct. In both instances, you can see the betrayal and anger on Logan and Debroah’s respective faces, but you can also see something else – a hint of pride perhaps?

But that’s beside the point. Reversals shift the dynamics at play, and that’s surprising, interesting, and, well, dramatic. This move always makes the show a hot watercooler topic of discussion, but it shouldn’t really shock us as much as it does. The people stranded on a deserted island will eventually get off and scream ‘we have to go back,’ upending the flashback format of the show Lost by introducing flashforwards and telling us that our gang will get off that island but shockingly want to return. Don Draper will convince other characters to embrace his starting-over playbook to form their own agency to avoid being sold to the big, bad ad agency McCann Erikson, even if they’ll all end up working there eventually, anyway.

When it comes to the great TV drama, you should assume that what’s up will eventually become what’s down over and over again until the series finale airs, where the show’s allegiance to one or the other eventually becomes clear. Kendall may have temporarily bested his father, but that is never going to be his ultimate fate, even if his father dies before the end of the series – Kendall is ambitious but feckless through and through. Don’s going to hate and try to run away from himself, even as he flirts with self-forgiveness and self-actualization, until he finds out how to reconcile the two by recognizing that everyone seeks a balm for their emptiness and self-hatred and a great ad  Our stranded Losties will see that growth and connection can help them all move on in literal and metaphysical ways. In short, the reversal upends expectations but eventually we find a resolution that makes sense given the world, tone, characters, and themes of any given TV drama.

How do we read reversals and make predictions when we’re looking at a comedy-drama like Hacks?

I think the answer is it depends on where the show falls on the comedy-drama spectrum. In fact, Succession is technically also characterized as a comedy-drama, though darkness and a less kind humor define the show, explaining why it ends without any humor at all. Those shows that are lighter, closer to an Office-like sitcom are more likely to give us a more basic happily ever after.  Look at the Good Place (featuring perhaps the most genius reversal of all in its first season finale where are characters realize they’re not in the heaven-like ‘good place’ but in the hell-like bad place). The show is philosophical and does ponder the meaning of life, but it also has about a zillion jokes a minute.  It utilizes a zany, cheery tone. There’s no cynical Don ending, or tragic Kendal ending because the show wants the best for Eleanor, Chidi, Tahani, and Jason. A little like Lost, which perhaps has a controversial series ending because said ending doesn’t match its tone, our characters who have gotten out of the Bad Place and into the Good Place over the course of the series now find peace and can move – when their respective characters are ready - through “the Final Door”.

What might help is placing Hacks on the spectrum of comedy-dramas about the entertainment industry. There can’t be that many of those, you say? Think again. On the one end of the spectrum, we have GLOW, the short-lived Netflix series about two hard-on-their luck actresses and a myriad of other misfit women finding creative and persona fulfillment in the women’s wrestling world. On the other hand, we have Barry, the HBO series about a hitman who wants to become an actor. Though GLOW was cut short, the show humanized every character over the course of its run and returned to the concept of chosen family over ambition and Hollywood dreams most, if not all of the time. Even though the final scene of the very last episode featured an argument between the more successful, confident Debbie and her more hapless, insecure best friend Ruth over whether they should be seizing the day and going into the Hollywood business for themselves, it’s pretty clear from the character moments and episode endings we got over the course of the series, that these two would have reconciled.  It’s just that kind of show.

In contrast, Barry was darker from the start, highlighting Barry’s isolation, denial, and delusion in thinking he could use acting to find connection and catharsis without atoning for (or even admitting to) the sins of his past. It makes sense that he’d ultimately end up paying for at least one of those sins by dying at the hands of his acting teacher whose girlfriend he murdered in the season one finale.  

Hacks isn’t as sunny as GLOW or as dark as BARRY. It lies somewhere in the middle. That said, it seems unlikely that either Debroah or Ava will put their ambition to bed no matter how many reversals in fortune they might experience from now until the series finale. The question might very well come down to whether or not Debroah is willing to sacrifice her own career for Ava’s….letting the new guard step into place….but can she really do that? I think that is what our eventual series finale will ask of her. I want to believe she would do so out of love for Ava, but this is a woman who has done everything she can to be on top, while the world was telling her all along the top wasn’t a place for women. We’ve seen moments where Debroah has thought of Ava over herself – firing Ava so Ava could pursue her own opportunities; standing up to the old guard of men in comedy when she had finally gotten back into their good graces when they joked about bisexuality not being a real thing– but now Ava’s gone and pulled a Debroah on Deborah. Can her affection for Ava and her very rare flashes of selflessness survive that?

Ava, however, might very well realize that success is too lonely. Maybe she’ll sacrifice her career for Debroah’s at the same time Debroah is considering sacrificing hers for Ava…temporarily torpedoing both of their chances to stay on top…until they sell the story of their relationship to…HBO MAX?

No matter what, ambition won’t leave these ladies. Who’s up and who’s down might change, but in the end there’s no business-like show business and that’s what Ava and Debroah, together or apart, are all about.

But they’ll probably, to some extent, even if it’s begrudgingly, be together.

Do you agree? Send your thoughts to queercinemacatchup@gmail.com and tune in for our weekly recap of Hacks Season Four!