Jean Smart portrays Deborah Vance in “Hacks” on HBO MAX. HBO MAX photo
The first time I saw the tall Jean Smart was in something called “Senior Moment” with 90-year-old William Shatner and Christopher Lloyd, which, by the way, was very funny.
SERIES INFO
“HACKS”
Comedy, Drama
Explores a dark mentorship that forms between Deborah Vance, a legendary Las Vegas comedian, and an entitled, outcast 25-year-old.
Creators: Lucia Aniello, Paul W. Downs, Jen Statsky
Stars: Jean Smart, Hannah Einbinder, Carl Clemons-Hopkins
She was a tall, stunning blonde, and seemed out of place being in bed with Shatner. Even funnier.
Next time she popped up on my screen, it was as a rumpled grandma laying around drinking beer with Kate Winslet in “Mare of Easttown.” Boy, I thought, that tall beauty really let herself go. Wrong.
Jean is now back in mint condition as Deborah Vance, a wealthy, aging comic legend surviver in the style of Lucille Ball, Joan Rivers or Carol Burnett, but totally without the soft heart of those legends.
Deborah’s style is edgy, a kind of female Don Rickles who holds a permanent berth in Las Vegas, filling the house each night with her aging fans, who return to Vegas each year in their white shoes and Palm Beach hats, to hear her tell the same self-deprecating jokes that made her famous.
Off stage, Deborah occasionally appears on shopping shows, but otherwise locks herself off from any touch and tenderness.
She rules her big, desert mansion dealing only with Marcus, her trusted house manager, a cool, gay, dry-wit giant (Carl Clemons-Hopkins), who protects her castle, while having an affair with a Las Vegas “water cop.”
Each night, she still steps out on her big stage, at owner Marty’s (Chris McDonald) Palmetto Hotel, Deborah looking ageless and fabulous.
As we meet Deb in her out-of-town mansion, she has arrived at the moment when the jokes and her fans are the same age. For the first time in years, she’s looking for a writer to freshen her material.
Enter Ava, (Hannah Einbinder) a smart, hip bisexual comedy writer, who has just lost her place on the show business ladder by posting a tasteless joke about a prominent man’s gay son.
Her agent Jimmy (Paul W. Downs), who loves her and wants to rescue her, sends her to Deborah.
The premise opens up to two disparate personalities, as in Maxwell House meets Starbucks.
It all gets off to a bad start, and the ship begins to spring leaks before it leaves the harbor.
Predictably, it begins as a disaster, but is softened by a cluster of Las Vegas and Hollywood characters, who all stand to lose big if Deborah fades away, and Ava fails.
By episode three, both of our stars find a tenuous common ground and without surrendering their ground, they build an entertaining and fresh series.
Hannah Einbinder (“North Hollywood,” and “How To Be Broke”) is the daughter of SNL star Laraine Newman and actor Chad Einbinder. I praise Hannah for keeping her father’s clunky last name and her mother’s comic gifts.
“Hacks” has the usual cliche show-biz brickwork, but the writing team of Lucia Aniello, Paul W. Downs and Jen Statsky pull it up and give us heart tugs, romance and, in the last episodes, warm layers of tears and good writing. I’m happy to learn that the show has been picked up for another season.
“Hacks” floats on HBO Max.
J.P. Devine of Waterville is a former stage and screen actor.
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