‘Hacks’ Season 2 Review: The Breakout HBO Max Hit Lives Up to the Hype

Thank god Hacks Season 2 is good.

It’s been a middling spring for television, full of hugely hyped shows that have flopped on their face right out of the gate and returning series that have failed to live up to their spectacular first seasons. Hacks Season 2 however lives up to the hype. The HBO Max show’s second season is just as hilarious, heart-breaking, and unsparing as the first season was. Deborah Vance (Jean Smart) is still a raucously funny bully with a heart of gold and Ava (Hannah Einbinder) is still a self-sabotaging disaster. Most importantly, though, Hacks Season 2 manages to deepen these two comedians’ complex relationship with one another and with the vicious art form they’re both addicted to.

Created by Lucia Aniello, Jen Statsky, and Paul W. Downs, Hacks looks at the volatile relationship that develops between Deborah Vance, an aging comedy legend, and Ava Daniels, a twenty-something comedy writer forced to work for Deborah. In Season 1, the two women were thrust together by the well-meaning manager Jimmy (Paul W. Downs). Deborah needed to liven up her old school Vegas routine to appeal to younger audiences while Ava needed to rehabilitate her entire fledgling career.

Over the course of the first season, Deborah and Ava developed a strange bond through being cruel, caring, and belligerent with each other. Hacks Season 1 ends with the duo in what appears to be a great place. Deborah shows up for Ava during her emotional hour of need and Ava, in turn, successfully convinces Deborah to go on the road to hone an entirely new, far more candid act. The problem is Ava — drunk, high, and enraged after one of their hellacious fights — has secretly sent an email detailing Deborah’s worst behavior to a pair of mercenary showrunners looking to write a show about a horrible older female boss.

Hacks Season 2 picks up right where Season 1 left off, with Deborah prepping her tour and Ava spiraling over the knowledge that she’s stabbed her mentor in the back. Hacks Season 2 also attempts to let its periphery characters confront the fallout of what happened to them last season. Marcus (Carl Clemons-Hopkins) is grappling with a crisis of self after breaking up with hot water cop Wilson (Johnny Sibilly) and Jimmy is attempting to distance himself from his disastrous assistant Kayla (Meg Stalter) after she sexually harassed him last season. (Euphoria Season 2 stand out Martha Kelly shines as a hilariously doddering HR manager struggling to help Jimmy.)

However the focus of Hacks Season 2, as always, is on the push and pull of Deborah and Ava’s relationship. The duo still prefers to communicate via scathing punchlines, but now there is less an air of competition between them than a measure of respect. Deborah has to confront her demons on the road, while Ava is grappling with grief and shame. Hacks cleverly lets the women flit between cruelty and kindness is a way that continues to ring true. The show’s second season is also refreshingly more interested in how much Ava and Deborah are alike, as opposed to different (which is where Season 1 started).

If there’s one glaring weak spot in Hacks Season 2, though, it’s sadly Marcus’s storyline. In Hacks Season 1, Marcus felt like the third part of a toxic triumvirate with Ava and Deborah. He was Deborah’s long-suffering right hand man. He reacted to Ava with skepticism and jealousy. Hacks Season 2 separates Marcus from Deborah and Ava for a huge part of the season, letting Mark Indelicato’s Damien and Laurie Metcalf’s “Weed” have fun on the road with the show’s leading ladies. Marcus’s LA-based storyline isn’t meaty or funny enough to stand up to the shenanigans on the tour bus, which is a shame.

What continues to work in Hacks Season 2, though, is the show’s tightrope walk between comedy and tragedy, dark humor and devastating heart. There are jokes this season that will have you howling and plot developments that will get you screaming. Hacks Season 2 Episode 6 specifically features a guest star in a storyline that will likely break fans’ minds. Through it all, Jean Smart continues to reign supreme. She once again delivers an iconic performance as Deborah Vance and Emmy voters should be prepared to hand her yet another trophy this fall.

Hacks Season 2 isn’t just good. It’s freaking great.

The first two episodes of Hacks Season 2 premiere on HBO Max on May 12. Two episodes will premiere weekly on Thursdays after that.