Joking Aside, the ‘Hacks’ Showrunners Explain That Final Twist

This interview includes spoilers for the season finale of “Hacks.”

“Hacks,” the Max comedy about a famous (and somewhat infamous) Boomer comedian and her nervy Gen Z writer, has always stayed on the sunny side of realism. But in the penultimate episode of Season 3, the show moved into pure fantasy: A major network gave its late-night show to a woman, Jean Smart’s Deborah Vance.

If that was the culminating event of the season, the finale, titled “Bulletproof,” landed a few more punchlines. After offering Hannah Einbinder’s Ava the head writer slot, Deborah, acting out of fear, walked that offer back. “I cannot give them any excuse,” she said of her network bosses. “This show has to be bulletproof. It has to work. I’ve lost way too much for it not to.”

“And you’re OK with losing me, too?” Ava asks.

Ava doesn’t stay lost for long. She wriggles back into the writers’ room by blackmailing Deborah over her brief liaison with Tony Goldwyn’s head of network. Which should make for great comedy in the show’s fourth season, announced earlier this week. Because in the world of “Hacks,” hurt people hurt people, and then they write a killer routine about it. “Hacks” insists you can only crack jokes if the world has cracked you first.

So can a person with decent values and good boundaries still be funny?

“We do our best,” Lucia Aniello, one of the showrunners said during a recent video call.

Aniello was joined in the Zoom window by Paul W. Downs, her husband and a fellow showrunner. (They announced their marriage while collecting an Emmy in 2021 for best directing in a comedy series.) Downs also stars as Jimmy, Ava and Deborah’s put-upon manager. In another window was Jen Statsky, the third showrunner. Aniello and Statsky met in a sketch comedy group in 2009; Downs and Aniello met at an improv class that same year. Which is to say that their passion for comedy, with or without trauma, runs long and deep.

In an hourlong conversation, they discussed ambition, addiction and whether the anything-for-a-laugh ethos is worth it. (Short answer: Yes.) These are edited excerpts from the conversation.